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How did the ants, the iguanas, and the
monkeys become so destructive? Terborgh suspects that as the flood
waters created islands, a key group of animals fled: the big predators.
In their absence, their prey began wreaking havoc.
[John Terborgh] Foremost among the
missing animals are the predators, and they haunt the place by not
eating their prey. And indeed the whole system suffers because
effectively the whole system breaks down, the vegetation goes through a
convulsion, and out of it will come a very different kind of world.
It’s a hypothesis that’s consistent with Guri’s strange pattern of
clues. But can so much damage really be traced back to an old flood?
Terborgh’s colleague, biologist Cesar Aponte, is seeking evidence in
tortoises.
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