The notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar before being shot to death in late 1993, kept four hippos at Hacienda Nápoles in Colombia. These animals have grown in number. To scientists and locals they are pests that shouldn’t be left in the wild.

After Escobar’s death, most of the animals the drug lord raised in a private prison in Colombia were transferred to a public zoo, but only four of Escobar’s pet hippos were left behind due to nature. ferocious of them. The animals after being freed began to breed quickly.

According to biologist David Echeverri López, there are between 80 and 100 hippos in the area and both locals and scientists have identified them as pests when they enter Colombia’s river.

The problem, however, is that after the time it was thought to be harmful organisms, the researchers discovered that Escobar’s hippos were instrumental in restoring important ecosystem features. have been lost for thousands of years.

The new study is based on worldwide analysis, comparing the ecological characteristics of herbivores such as Escobar’s hippopotamus with those of the past.

The results showed that 64% of herbivores like the aforementioned hippo, were more similar to extinct species than local indigenous species, making them invaluable for conservation efforts.

“While we discovered that some introduced herbivores are the perfect ecological combination for extinct species, in other cases the introduced species represent a mix of mixing of extinct species, ”said John Rowan, research co-author of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

For example, wild hippos in South America have a di‌et and body size similar to the extinct giant llamas. So while hippos don’t perfectly replace any extinct species, they restore important parts of the ecosystem on some species, Dr. Rowan said.

Over 100,000 years of human civilization has witnessed the extinction of some large mammals.

Previously, the lead author of the study, Erick Lundgren from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia, had suggestions that herbivores could help restore lost ecological function. However, no effort has been made to as‌sess this in depth.

The research team compared some important ecological characteristics of herbivores from before the Late Pleistocene to the present day. Experts have calculated body size, di‌et, and habitat to compare similar species for the perceived effect they have on the ecosystem, although they may not necessarily be relevant. mandate to each other closely.

According to the authors of the study, the results expand the perspective of the past in relation to evolution and provide insights into how introduced species affect the world.