Since Australia doesn't have any superpredators, which animal can occupy the niche to become the next top carnivore? Let's say humans went extinct. Since feral cats are already a problem there, could they eventually evolve into bigger versions??
Since Australia doesn't have any superpredators, which animal can occupy the niche to become the next top carnivore?
no one mentioned Drop Bears yet?
fricking savages they are
Any calculations about what would change need to account for all domestic livestock that would likely continue to flourish.
Camels, cows(probably wouldn't thrive), goats and sheep(both absolutely thrive when they escape). People's pet dogs would start to become an issue too.
The cats wouldn't be taken out, they would just exist in their niche in life, and the marsupials would quickly meet their unfortunate end after a couple centuries or so. I think the entire ecosystem would become so ravaged over time that little would remain in the end.
Easy, the dropbear.
a mad scientist could turn a kangaroo into an ambush predator, but spiders are better equipped just need to get bigger
It doesn't have super predators but it also doesn't have super prey. You couldn't introduce tigers or leopards to Australia because there would be nothing for them to eat.
>but it also doesn't have super prey.
>13 million pigs
>5 millions donkeys
>2 million goats
>500.000 horses
>300.000 camels
>150.000 buffalos
>2 million deers of six different species
It's pretty much the same things that leopards already eat in their native range
Probably not, but they would likely diversify into a few different small animal hunting niches, maybe even some arboreal forms. I just don't at all see them becoming apex, too much competition from dingos and crocs like the others said.
Perentie and lace monitors.
>Since Australia doesn't have any superpredators
Wrong. Never killed irwin. The real super predator is sting rays
Bear-sized dingos
Landcrocs
nope, because dingos and wedge tails
Saltwater crocodiles and
??? Fricking moron.
Oh yeah, real scary.
>if a niche hasn't been taken yet then it won't be taken. The passage of time is foreign to me. My melanation levels are off the charts.
I still doubt saltwater crocs would become dominant. In the time it would take for them to circumnavigate the coast then evolve to be able to push into the interior dingos would have already expanded and changed themselves.
Personally I'm rooting for the cassowaries.
Dingos eat their eggs. Forever oppressed. Avian theropods have two strategies: stay a landcucked serf to mammalchads or fly away like a cowardly incel and attack children from behind. Truly they are the bullied weirdo of nature high.
The birds that are hyperspecialized frugivores..? Even emus have a better shot.
Anything could happen but I would sooner bet on cats just getting bigger since it's already happening right now.