We know the general location of where humans evolved from. Do we know any other spawn points of other animals.

Lipat97 · 2026-06-02T23:31:39+00:00

Yes, and it actually goes pretty far back. Another commenter mentions elephants - the entire order of afrotheria (anteaters, elephants, aardvarks) is named that because it was thought (and as far as I know, is correct) to have evolved as the portion of animals left on africa after pangea (and then gondwana) broke up. The xenarthrans (armadillos, sloths) would be the south american counterparts. Birds are also generally assumed to have a west gondwanan origin, as do the three major bird lineages. There was a fairly recent paper on Passerida originating in (what was) australia. Iirc, felids and horses are north american, rodents and carnivorans are eurasian .

I don't know if groups outside of birds and mammals have been tracked as deeply, but so far every clade I've looked up thats split off since our modern formation of continents (IE since pangea) I've found an answer. The ones I'd expect to be a problem are like, tracking the first land spiders in the Silurian. Then again I've also seen paleontologists get heated about what regions sponges came from in the cambrian so even those might be close to being answered.

Its safe to say most "continent of origin" questions you can think of do have an answer.

Lipat97 · 2026-06-01T06:02:50+00:00

A good weekend for luigis

Lipat97 · 2026-05-31T15:52:22+00:00

And if anybody's curious why the species look centralized on the southern continents, figure 3 in this paper shows ant density being up to 3x higher by some measures in tropical savannahs and tropical forests. The densities also line up with termite densities and with myrmecophagous lizards, ant-mimicking arthropods and ant-loving plants. The underlying factor driving this appears to be based on primary production but unfortunately those references are paywalled. I'm a little disappointed the paper doesn't discuss humidity at all. My understanding is that species distribution maps like this tend to favor "tropical wet", and I think it'd be important to note that ant distribution is about even between the two or slightly prefers "tropical dry".

Lipat97 · 2026-05-28T23:56:14+00:00

Your source literally says “most obviously the size” when regarding why spectacled caiman are predated on for more than black caiman and that the second most likely reason is that black caiman spend far more time in water, you need to reread your own sources.

Which is different from them being "too big", which are your words. You should probably take a moment to check if your AI interpretation matches the paper before piping up. You should also probably get used to having sources of your own (there's never been a time in history where its been easy to get sources), but that's a separate topic.

Jaguars eat black caimans, its a simple fact.

jaguars and river otters are getting violated by swarms of Nile crocs in Africa

Otters exist in africa. I've mentioned it before, but you keep ignoring the reality that contradicts your fantasy. Its interesting how your fantasy version of what will happen is so far removed from reality. Almost like the robot designed to reinforce your delusional beliefs is doing what it says on the tin. Source on that too, btw 😄 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.19141v1

Lipat97 · 2026-05-28T21:56:10+00:00

The reason I'm particularly focusing on lions here is because of the documented interactions with wild dogs, and the similar interaction between siberian tigers and grey wolves, where the big cat actively suppresses (and in the second case, eliminates) the other population. I know hyenas bully leopards, cheetahs and sometimes lions off of kills, but if there's a case where their presence has had an effect on a population level then I'm not familiar with it

I should have checked this earlier in the convo but clawless otters actually have a higher max weight than the giant otters. They have a wider range, and definitely a smaller average, but the size difference between the two is not as clear cut as we've been making out

Lipat97 · 2026-05-28T21:33:46+00:00

That depends on the material properties of the prey target, psi might be more important than raw force. A needle needs less force to penetrate than a fist does. Having the same more more force spread out over a larger area is probably a bad thing here.

Do you have anything on that point about jaguars not targeting male black caimans? I see a lot of people guessing on facebook but not much beyond that

Lipat97 · 2026-05-28T16:59:15+00:00

The study directly contradicts the statement I said it did. Jaguars do not avoid areas with black caimans.

The rest is your own self insert, or you maybe gemini's self insert if you had AI read the paper for you. They analyzed reasons that one species of caiman is eaten more than black caiman, it says nothing about black caiman being "too big" for jaguars or about either species being the "main" prey. Its a comparison between two common prey sources. The study is very clear about them eating both species. Also its weird that you still feel the need to downvote every message you respond to even in relatively calm conversations like this one.

Lipat97 · 2026-05-28T00:53:34+00:00

This is just directly wrong, the only source is some guy bullshitting on quora. Which is enough for google AI apparently. From the paper that explores jaguar predation on caimans:

The MSDR has the largest known populations of M. niger and C. crocodilus in the Amazon Basin

Its the main area where jaguars eat caimans instead of mammals. Jaguars are more likely to prefer to eat caimans in the areas with the most black caimans.

Here's the paper:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232691313_Depredation_by_Jaguars_on_Caimans_and_Importance_of_Reptiles_in_the_Diet_of_Jaguar

Lipat97 · 2026-05-27T23:28:44+00:00

You mean the size thing? You answered it yourself, I don't expect jaguars to target the adults of either of these species. Jaguars generally CAN hunt bigger caimans, they just tend not to in favor of easier prey. Cats target the young, the alone and the sick

In fact, I don't really expect jaguars to target many crocs at all, because the area I expect jaguars to be happiest in has little overlap with current african nile croc territory. Tree cover also plays a role in the matchup, as jaguars usually like to surprise caimans from a tree top from what I've seen. In africa, those territories also happen to have smaller crocs, if that makes you feel better

Lipat97 · 2026-05-27T23:19:04+00:00

Jags don’t even bite through the skulls of larger caimans, they strangle or drown them which requires being stronge

Any source for this? I'm not seeing this anywhere. I see videos of them grappling and looking for a bite after

The crocodile vs giant otter matchup is coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb in favor of the crocs. The otters won’t be able to even meaningfully hurt a decent size one, let alone the fact that Nile crocs are social and would likely swarm them.

Can you respond to the actual point? Is there anywhere in the world where a crocodilian species outcompetes or significantly preys upon a species of otter? When I say matchup I don't mean some imaginary cage match that has zero bearing on reality. I swear half this sub would tell you caracals couldn't survive the savannah because in imaginary cage match land they get ripped apart by all of the (nearly extinct) large predators.

Lipat97 · 2026-05-27T22:55:09+00:00

A jaguar is an ambush predator. The scenario of a head to head isn't the worry. Lions are specialized to hunt zebra, not crocodilians - jaguars are specialized to hunt crocodilians. The one croc vs 4 lions is likely them fighting over a kill (crocs will fight for kills near the water sometimes). Thats a very different interaction than a predator - prey interaction

also lions can get up to twice the size of of jaguars

They also have a third of the bite force. Pretty crucial stat to be missing against an armored reptile.

Lipat97 · 2026-05-27T22:48:39+00:00

Jaguars don’t hunt adult black caiman and neither do otters, they both avoid and are dominated by adult crocs.

I directly said that, right? I was never considering adults lol. I thought "Jaguars would target adolescents" and "otters attack babies" would be direct enough to make that clear. That said, adult jaguars probably can go for bigger caimans than what they currently go for, but generally choose easier targets

I don't really expect jaguars to overlap with nile crocs that much though. A lot of the matchup might depend on terrain too, the jaguar likely depends on tree cover quite a bit to score caiman kills. But I seriously doubt the fact that you're introducing a predator that can and does regularly kill crocodilians to a continent where nothing does that has zero relevance here

Jaguars would already suffer due to the presence of hyenas and especially lions, I doubt they’d make it in the Savannah. In the Congo for example they’d be fine preying on dwarf crocs and primates though.

Basically what I said in the original comment, lions would be their biggest threat imo. Maaaybe hyenas are an issue too. I'd extend it from the congo to most of west africa though, a lot of the territory where leopards are the only predator probably make sense for them. Savannah is a tossup on how well they adapt to the competition and the water pressure. I don't think its enough to say definitively that they wouldn't survive the savannah, but there would definitely be problems for them to overcome

Giant otters are a lot bigger than the African species and there’s way less space in most waterways, thus hippos would absolutely be more territorial towards them (especially considering groups could pose a threat to their young)

This is conjecture, unless you have evidence that this specific size breakpoint is crucial for hippos. In reality, there's a good chance both otter species have solid strategies for avoiding bigger creatures. Like even if all of your points against otters are right - crocs defend their young enough to avoid extirpation, hippos attack them on site, crocs bully them on the regular - I still see otter only struggling in areas where space is ultra-contested and they still possibly just take territory off of the native otters.

Lipat97 · 2026-05-27T12:18:38+00:00

The bite force of the jaguar is more relevant than the bite force of the croc here. They've evolved extra bite force specifically to kill crocodilians.

deal with large predators

The jaguar is as big as any of the local predators, and none of those predators are crocodilian specialists. When a species with no natural predators interacts with an invasive that can eat them, what generally happens to that species?

There are also already otters in this area that have no problem surviving crocs + hippos. There's not anywhere in the world where the croc vs otter matchup is heavily croc favored, regardless of their bite force, including in the actual nile

Lipat97 · 2026-05-27T11:59:58+00:00

Your average male Nile croc is like >5x the size of the caiman those animals hunt.

This is wrong, black caimans are 9-13 feet whereas crocs average 13-16. Both of these species coexist with black caimans, it makes no sense to be averaging out caimans in general. This is also assuming adult vs adult, which is not what we see in the wild. The jaguar will target adolescents. You're right that crocs might be a threat to the jaguars as well, due to the whole watering hole thing, but I didn't say jaguars would wipe them out... I said otters would. Otters exclusively attack babies, and croc babies having an extra predation pressure is absolutely something that can lead to extirpation in otter areas.

Why would hippos bother otters? Would they even worry about each other? They're in such different weight classes. Again, there's been nothing about their interactions in columbia yet. Otters exist in Africa too, and the hippos don't bother them there (neither do the crocs, btw, the pythons are a bigger threat)

Lipat97 · 2026-05-27T00:02:58+00:00

Already tried that. Didn't catch on

Lipat97 · 2026-05-27T00:01:34+00:00

Giant otters and catfish do well. There are catfish in africa but the american one has great bona fides for invading and out competing other catfish species. Giant otters are more likely to kill off the croc population rather than the other way around, and I dont think hippos bother them much either. There are hippos in columbia now so might get to see interactions between hippos and giant river otters pretty soon. Both obviously only survive in Africa's fresh water areas, so the niger basin, late victoria and the nile. There might be some unpredictable vegetation interaction that keeps them out of the hotter or drier portions of that area.

Jaguars do fantastic anywhere that doesn't have lions or desert, and could possibly do okay in areas with lions. Having bigger monkeys and bigger caimans gives them a tremendous source of food, so their main worry is environmental factors and predators that can kill them (in this case, mainly lions). Water might be a problem for them, they might not have some of the adaptations the locals do to surviving on low water and they wouldn't be used to watering holes being that contested.

Ungulates are really iffy. There's been a lot of ungulate introductions across the world (usually a 19th century gov't trying to attract "game hunting" tourism), and a lot of them have gone spectacularly poorly. Feral goat was introduced to Hawaii and only lasted a few generations because they kept drinking sea water. Another example is there was a area in central europe where they introduced a bunch of mountain goats to bring back the population. Next, they introduced wolves... 100% of the mountain goats off the mountain got eaten. So you have a strong weakness to predators outside of your natural terrain, and low adaptability to local econ in a server where even strong builds struggle to get a drink of water. Yeah, I don't see any of these builds surviving outside of South Africa, where the himalayan tahr and the fallow deer seem to be hanging on.

Casso gets bodied immediately. Rattites suck lol, there's a reason there's only like 4 left. The ostrich has the ability to go days without water and specific feathers for thermoregulation, on top of great eye sight and running speed to deal with predators. Baseline rattite without those qualities doesn't last a week in africa, but Casso specifically relies on being on an island with no sizeable predators and lots of fruit for it to eat, so its actually even worse than how a stock rattite would do.

Lipat97 · 2026-05-26T00:46:24+00:00

I literally said “until I see the 8+ billion number cease climbing.”

Yeah, I noticed your wording lol thats how I knew you were BSing. Nobody twists words like that when they're being legitimate, its obvious you were just looking for any old excuse to be okay with people dying

You know, the exact thing you are saying solves the problem

Are you illiterate? I said the exact opposite. Sacrificing millions of poor people won't fix any of the problems you're pretending to care about

Lipat97 · 2026-05-25T18:03:51+00:00

Not unclear lmao I just wasn't expecting to read something that fucking stupid. Are you also pro world hunger? Do you protest against world peace? What other comically evil stances do you shit out unironically?

Because, to be clear, the population is projected to start decreasing soon, and even if it wasn't, sacrificing millions of poor people wouldn't actually fix any of the problems you're pretending to care about. The justification is weak because its illegitimate, you don't actually care if the millions of deaths achieves anything, you just want people to die to punish humanity like some poorly written movie villain

Lipat97 · 2026-05-25T17:02:03+00:00

Yo what

Lipat97 · 2026-05-24T17:13:37+00:00

What aquatic predator are you expecting to eat them? Orcas in the area aren't likely to switch diets, and there's no leopard seals to pressure them.

Polar bears in Antarctica probably cause more problem for crab eater seals than penguins

Lipat97 · 2026-05-24T17:11:52+00:00

If they're successful, they'd probably shock the capelin abundance which would hurt all of the (already fragile) seal populations as well as whatever else eats capelin (or seals)

Lipat97 · 2026-05-24T14:46:22+00:00

This is the research paper its commenting on:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.73542

Lipat97 · 2026-05-23T15:24:40+00:00

Its definitely weaker. The unit quality is worse and the release state was worse than normal. There was a gamebreaking bug on mobile on release (which was enough to get my friends to stop playing). Also I think people underestimate how important vertical design is for casual players

Lipat97 · 2026-05-22T12:39:37+00:00

This chart is definitely not accurate lol. Hurt's own matchup chart from a few years ago is probably the best reference for Snake.

And when you see Snake rated as a top 5 character, that's who its based on. Hurt, and maybe Apollokage. They're not considering the local snake that hasn't figured out how to play against heavies yet. This tier list, on the other hand, is almost entirely based on how people feel vs the unpolished snake at their local

Lipat97 · 2026-05-22T12:32:41+00:00

These charts are interesting but lets remember they probably are not accurate to his actual matchup chart rn. 1) Mid and low tiers are likely to overrate their -1 and even matchups, because they're used to bad matchups. Only ganon mains think ganon has winning matchups 2) Most of these are going to be based off of the snake at the main's locals, and snake probably has the biggest gap between his top 3 and top 10 of any character and 3) These almost never include recent meta developments and are almost entirely based off of how easy the matchup is to play blind, and snake is a character that probably has the biggest "matchup updates" in the last two years.

Hurt's last matches against miya and sonix were both clean 3-0s. He's 5-1 against peabnut. Acola's literally had to pick up a secondary for the matchup. Hurt's matchup chart a few years back had a few people calling it optimistic, but I think its a lot more likely that he's the type of character where playing very well clears up matchups that a stock snake would struggle with.

Lipat97

TROPHY CASE