Great American Interchange
Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-28
CORE DEFINITION
The Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI), also known as the Great American Interchange and the Great American Faunal Interchange, was an important late Cenozoic paleozoogeographic biotic interchange event in which land and freshwater fauna migrated from North America to South America via Central America and vice versa, as the volcanic Isthmus of Panama rose up from the sea floor, forming a land bridge.
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The Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI), also known as the Great American Interchange and the Great American Faunal Interchange, was an important late Cenozoic paleozoogeographic biotic interchange event in which land and freshwater fauna migrated from North America to South America via Central America and vice versa, as the volcanic Isthmus of Panama rose up from the sea floor, forming a land bridge.
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The closure of the Isthmus of Panama connected the faunas of North and South America. Advanced placental mammals from North America expanded southward, while ancient marsupials of South America went extinct due to competition and predation. When systems are connected, the impact is often asymmetric: the efficient side overwhelms the inefficient side, rather than mutual benefit.
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- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Interchangeverified
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