![]() ![]() Scientists used primarily animal fossil data to establish GABI's timing, according to a 2010 study in the Ecography journal. Traditional dating of GABI also supported that estimate, according to a 2013 study in the Bulletin of Marine Science journal. Over the following decades, subsequent studies reaffirmed this timeline, according to the Science Advances report. That includes a 1978 study in the journal Geology that examined fossils from deep-sea cores it found that marine species became isolated on either side of the isthmus about 3 million years ago. The standard model originated from research in the 1970s, according to the Science Advances study. Meanwhile, the isthmus isolated formerly commingled ocean populations that then evolved independently. Present-day North American creatures like the Virginia opossum ( Didelphis virginiana) and porcupines arose from South American migrants, while "ancestors of bears, cats, dogs, horses, llamas and raccoons" traveled the other way, according to the Earth Observatory. The resulting Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI) was "a massive experiment in biological invasion," according to a 2020 study in the journal PNAS by Jaramillo and colleagues. The isthmus also provided a hugely consequential passage for living creatures from one continent to the other. (Image credit: Peter Hermes Furian / Alamy Stock Photo) Biological highway The Panamanian land bridge formed when the Caribbean tectonic plate wedged between the North American and South American plates.
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