Could these animals survive if we moved them to another environment.?

Question

1)If we transported hippos to a beach, would they go into the sea?Would they be able to survive?
2) If we took 10 (5male,5 female) leopards and 10 (5M,5F) jaguars and transported the jaguars to Africa and the leopards to South America..which,if any would adapt best?

Answer 1

hippos can and do swim in the sea (on occassion) and in brackish lagoons -- they just live primarily in freshwater habitats. They graze on land at night, so the key to their survival is large grassed areas near the water.

There would be nothing surprising in leopards and jaguars surviving in other continents if released there. Big cats are more adaptable than people seem to think (especially leopards). Florida pumas are contaminated by South American puma genes (from escaped or illegally-released exotic pets); jaguarundis live wild in Florida also. Small cats are even more adaptable. They turn up regularly as escaped pets surviving well in the wild in the UK, Europe, etc.

Answer 2

1) I imagine that the hippo would charge off in search of food and eventually find an estuary which would give him access to fresh water. Of course, if the beach were part of an island without rivers or fresh water lakes, his plight would be greater and he would probably not survive. The hippo needs to wallow in mud in order to cool down and this would be in short supply in such an environment.

2) You have chosen two vast continents, each with a huge variation in climatic and ecological conditions. I think either species would survive admirably, given conditions which reproduced those of its home territory. However, it would be in competition with other species and might pose a real threat to their survival (cf. squirrels in the UK, where the red squirrel has been all but eliminated by its bolder American relative). I would be concerned less about the ability of those species to adapt than about the damage they might inflict on their new surroundings. http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/simberloff.html

Answer 3

1) The happy Hippo!

Answer 4

1) Hippos graze on land, so that would probably be the key factor.

2) Both tend to be ambush predators, living in wooded areas. So again, depends on the environment.

Answer 5

No. Think about it - they only survive in zoos because of human intervention. Left to their own devices, in a foreign habitat, they would quickly die as these animals are slow to adapt.

Rodents, insects and herptiles (reptiles and amphibians) adapt quickly to new environments - which is why Australia very quickly became overrun with rabbits when they were introduced in the 1950s (rabbits are not indigenous to Australia).

Answer 6

NO, have'nt you ever heard of the ecosystem....each animal has it's place or niche. That is why there are so many endangered species...as their habitat or niche is destroyed they cannot adapt to hostile environments and they die out. Each animal is specifically adapted to it's environment.

Answer 7

No for the hippos and maybe for the cats... Hippos live in fresh water the salt alone would kill them.