Katana VentraIP

Great American Interchange

The Great American Biotic Interchange (commonly abbreviated as GABI), also known as the Great American Interchange and the Great American Faunal Interchange, was an important late Cenozoic paleozoogeographic biotic interchange event in which land and freshwater fauna migrated from North America to South America via Central America and vice versa, as the volcanic Isthmus of Panama rose up from the sea floor and bridged the formerly separated continents. Although earlier dispersals had occurred, probably over water, the migration accelerated dramatically about 2.7 million years (Ma) ago during the Piacenzian age.[1] It resulted in the joining of the Neotropic (roughly South American) and Nearctic (roughly North American) biogeographic realms definitively to form the Americas. The interchange is visible from observation of both biostratigraphy and nature (neontology). Its most dramatic effect is on the zoogeography of mammals, but it also gave an opportunity for reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, weak-flying or flightless birds, and even freshwater fish to migrate. Coastal and marine biota, however, were affected in the opposite manner; the formation of the Central American Isthmus caused what has been termed the Great American Schism, with significant diversification and extinction occurring as a result of the isolation of the Caribbean from the Pacific.[2]

The occurrence of the interchange was first discussed in 1876 by the "father of biogeography", Alfred Russel Wallace.[3][4] Wallace had spent five years exploring and collecting specimens in the Amazon basin. Others who made significant contributions to understanding the event in the century that followed include Florentino Ameghino, W. D. Matthew, W. B. Scott, Bryan Patterson, George Gaylord Simpson and S. David Webb.[5] The Pliocene timing of the formation of the connection between North and South America was discussed in 1910 by Henry Fairfield Osborn.[6]


Analogous interchanges occurred earlier in the Cenozoic, when the formerly isolated land masses of India and Africa made contact with Eurasia about 56 and 30 Ma ago, respectively.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]

List of North American species of South American origin[edit]

Distributions beyond Mexico[edit]

Extant or extinct (†) North American taxa whose ancestors migrated out of South America and reached the modern territory of the contiguous United States:[n 27]


Fish

caecilians (Dermophis glandulosus) – only present in northwestern Colombia[190]

Dermophiid

[n 32][179] (Bolitoglossa,[191][192] Oedipina) – only present in northern South America

Lungless salamanders

[169] – only present in northern South America

Ranid frogs

Caribbean Plate § First American land bridge

Central American Seaway

Columbian Exchange

List of mammals of the Caribbean

List of mammals of Central America

List of mammals of North America

List of mammals of South America

Lists of extinct animals by continent

Cione, A. L.; Gasparini, G. M.; Soibelzon, E.; Soibelzon, L. H.; Tonni, E. P. (24 April 2015). . Springer. ISBN 978-94-017-9792-4. OCLC 908103326.

The Great American Biotic Interchange: A South American Perspective

Croft, D. A. (29 August 2016). . Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-02094-9. OCLC 964782185.

Horned Armadillos and Rafting Monkeys: The Fascinating Fossil Mammals of South America

Defler, T. (19 December 2018). . Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-98449-0. OCLC 1125820897.

History of Terrestrial Mammals in South America: How South American Mammalian Fauna Changed from the Mesozoic to Recent Times

Fariña, R.A.; Vizcaíno, S.F.; De Iuliis, G. (2013). . Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-00719-3. JSTOR j.ctt16gzd2q. OCLC 779244424.

Megafauna: Giant Beasts of Pleistocene South America

(July 1950). "History of the Fauna of Latin America". American Scientist. 38 (3): 361–389. JSTOR 27826322. Retrieved 2013-02-14.

Simpson, George Gaylord

Stehli, F. G.; Webb, S. D., eds. (2013). . Topics in Geobiology, vol. 4. Vol. 4. Springer Science & Business Media. doi:10.1007/978-1-4684-9181-4. ISBN 978-1-4684-9181-4. OCLC 968646442.

The Great American Biotic Interchange

Woodburne, M. O. (2010-07-14). . Journal of Mammalian Evolution. 17 (4): 245–264. doi:10.1007/s10914-010-9144-8. PMC 2987556. PMID 21125025. The biotic & geologic dynamics of the Great American Biotic Interchange are reviewed and revised.

"The Great American Biotic Interchange: Dispersals, Tectonics, Climate, Sea Level and Holding Pens"