What is island gigantism?
Island Gigantism is a biological phenomenon where animals that live on isolated islands tend to increase due to lack of predators and competition that would otherwise be present on the mainland. Rather than being caused by a new selection pressure, as is assumed that this is in the case of a complementary phenomenon of an island dwarf, island gigantism is caused by removal. The result is organisms that swell in overlooking the size. Iceland Gigantism is an obvious opposite of Bergmann's government, a generality that states that animals that live near the equator tend to be smaller. Some islands with species that show the island's gigantism are located near the equator, but still have unusually large animals.
There are many interesting examples of island gigantism, mostly in animals that are relatively small at the beginning. On the islands of Seychelles and Galápagos are found famous giant turtles. These icons of unusual islandafauna are members of one of notTarish surviving reptile commands. One individual, Harriet The Turtle, who was once a pet Charles Darwin, is the longest known vertebrate who was born in 1830 and was only dying in 2005, 175 years later. Scientists have analyzed the internal organs of these turtles and found that they look the same, whether the animal is old or young, causing speculation about whether these turtles show aging (increasing mortality with age) in the way most other animals.
Another, less friendly gigantic island reptile is 2-3 m (6.5-10 ft) Dragon Dragon of Indonesia, found only on Komodo, Rinca, Flores, Gili Motang and Gili Dasami. The dragon chest of drawers is an assaulted predator and a gadget that can kill numerous small animals in its extent, making it a dominant predator on the islands where he lives. Instead of replacing Plazůapex Predator is an ecological peculiarity because mammalize predators startedRegularly held this position long ago, after the extinction of dinosaurs. The Dragon Komodo is a reminder of the past evolutionary era. A rare example of island gigantism in carnivore, the dragon Komodo is by far the largest living type of lizard.
The island's gigantism is rare among mammals, but one example is the giant Rat Flores found on Flores Island in Indonesia, measuring 41-45 cm (1.3-1.5 ft) with a tail length is 33-70 cm, at least double the size of more known brown rats. There were many other gigantic mammals, mostly rodents, but now they are extinct. These include the giant hutia, a rodent from West India, who was the size of the American black bear, the major and the smaller giant dormous, the giant lemurs of Madagascar and the giant rabbits and shorten from various isolated Mediterranean islands.
Other examples of island giantism can be found among the insects. Madagascar The Mikiri Shvab, located on Madagascar on the southeast coast of Africa, is the largest living cockroach and JEdin -known insects capable of hissing by forcing air through its spirals (respiratory openings) rather than to together. It is remarkable that Madagascar Hissing cockroaches are maintained as loved pets around the world and can live for up to five years. The giant Weta New Zealand, whose name of the family, deinacrida , is one of the most difficult insects on the ground and weighs more than a sparrow. Although Weta is a well -known place for the locals of New Zealand, his mere appearance is enough for the visitor to shock.
Lord Howe Island is another interesting example of island gigantism. This insect on half a long leg, called "walking" due to its appearance, was considered extinct at the age of 30, only to rediscover the Pyramid, the highest and most isolated in the world between New Zealand and Australia. The population of 20-30 individuals was found in a single Melaleuca bush. Some populations were taken into captivity and bred, now numbered 50 individualsand thousands of eggs. Scientists hope that after the campaign to eliminate invasive rats on the island, insects will re -introduce insects to the nearby island of Howe.
Many recipients of island gigantism are birds, the vast majority of which are extinct because of the people and the species we have introduced, especially black rats. The most famous is probably Dodo, who lived on the island of the Indian Ocean Mauritius until it disappeared sometime between 1650 and 1700. Dodo is sometimes considered a giant pigeon or dove, because it is closely related to both species. He had no chance to survive people and new predators who were introduced by Mauritius. Over the past few hundred years, many thousands of island birds have disappeared in Similar Fashion, often when rats attack nests and eat eggs faster than they can hatch.
Some of the largest birds of recent times were island giants, especially Moa and Haast's eagle of New Zealand and elephant bird Madagascar. Moa and an elephant bird that exceeded three meters (10 ft) while Haast's eagle had a range of 2.6 to3 m (8 to 10 ft). It is assumed that the weight of the bird elephant approached half a ton (£ 1,000). Both of these fantastic creatures disappeared around the 16th century, and perhaps a few hundred years ago, probably destroyed the western colonists and the species they introduced. The Moa and the Elephant Bird were like a ratio, without flight without flight, including surviving species such as Cassowar, ostrich, Rhea, Emu and Kiwi, except that the last ones were quite large according to bird standards. Haast's Eagle is probably the biggest eagle ever lived and would be able to kill people with a single attack. Although it was probably a boat mostly on Moa, Haast's eagle has recently extinct so much that he could meet people, and maybe he was truly exterminated by us, because we would probably consider it a threat. Haast Eagle's depiction of island gigantism is another rare example of the giantism of the island predator.