To put Australia's 10 billion rabbits into the Jurassic, we have to go back to the 20s of the 20th century, because the number of rabbits in Australia during this period has only reached 10 billion, and now there are only about 600 million left. However, these rabbits are really powerful, because at the beginning there were only 24 of them, and in just a few decades and decades, they increased to 10 billion, which shows their strong reproductive ability.
So, if these 10 billion rabbits are put into the Jurassic, will it affect the ecological balance at that time? I don't think so, because these rabbits will soon be overwhelmed, so why do you say that? Let's explore this interesting question.
The "magical" Australian rabbit
Australia's rabbits have always been talked about, because in most people's impressions, rabbits are a kind of "game", in the mainland hare was once eaten as a protected animal (three animals), and in Australia the number can exceed 10 billion, and today, after a hundred years of "human-rabbit war", rabbits in Australia is still a flood species, what is going on?
This also starts from the middle of the 19th century, when Australia was still a "pure land", as a continent separated from other continents for more than ten million years, Australia has its own biological uniqueness, that is, mammals are basically marsupials, for rabbits such animals, here was not even a shadow can be seen.
However, later, Europeans came here and became the owner of the place, and Europeans at that time loved to hunt, especially rabbits, so in 1859, a British colonist Thomas Austen commissioned his nephew in England to send 17 rabbits, after sending them, Austin first put these rabbits in a cage, soon these rabbits became 24, and then he put the rabbits on his farm for hunting.
However, what Austen did not expect was that after just 6 years, the number of rabbits on the farm was flooded, reaching tens of thousands, and many rabbits had escaped outside the farm through holes, gradually rewilding. It needs to be noted here that Australian rabbits are burrowing rabbits, that is, the ancestors of our rabbits, not hares.
Because Australia is flat and lush with vegetation, plus they are alien species, native carnivores do not pay attention to them (in fact, there are very few, only thylacines and dingoos can hunt rabbits), which makes rabbits more unscrupulous in the wild. According to incomplete statistics, by the end of the 19th century, there were at least 30 million rabbits in Australia, and after the 2020s, the number of rabbits swelled sharply to 10 billion.
Although Australia has been actively responding and killing rabbits since the beginning of the epidemic, the huge base makes the killing far less than their reproduction, and after using various methods without success, Australia has sacrificed a large "killer" - myxoma virus, which is a virus with almost 100% mortality rate to burrowing rabbits and is highly contagious (only circulating in rabbits).
After this killer was taken out, it destroyed 10 billion rabbits to about 600 million in just a few years in the 50s of the 20th century, but that's all, because the remaining rabbits have produced antibodies, they are no longer afraid of their biggest natural enemies, so Australia will invest a lot of manpower and material resources every year to control the number of rabbits, but their number has always stayed at about 600 million.
What happens if 10 billion rabbits are put in the Jurassic?
In terms of the reproductive capacity of rabbits, 10 billion entering the Jurassic should quickly become the most abundant animal at that time, but in fact, they will soon disappear, why say so? Let's talk about the reasons from the following four aspects:
All existing rabbits belong to the order Rabbits, and although rabbits are an ancient group under the mammalida, because they appeared on Earth in the late Paleocene (about 65 million years ago), they nevertheless missed the dinosaur era and did not experience the dinosaur period environment.
When they appeared, it was actually a period when the Earth's atmosphere was not much different from today, but the Jurassic was far from the current atmosphere.
In the Jurassic period, due to the fact that a major extinction event had just been experienced, coupled with volcanic eruptions, more geological movements, and relatively little vegetation, the oxygen content in the atmosphere at that time was only 68% of today's (accounting for about 14% of the atmosphere), which was a low-oxygen environment for animals today.
This is fatal to today's animals, which is more severe than the altitude sickness we go to the plateau area, because the oxygen content in the plateau area has not changed, only the thinness of the air, and in the Jurassic directly the oxygen content is greatly reduced, so most rabbits go to the Jurassic will not survive because the oxygen content is too low, after all, the impact of the low-oxygen environment on the nerves, blood vessels and other systems of mammals is very serious, and for a long time in this environment, animals are extremely difficult to survive.
The Australian rabbit is a burrowing rabbit, which is a rabbit native to Europe, and Europe belongs to the northern temperate zone and has cold winters, so the burrowing rabbit's hair is very thick.
However, the Jurassic is different, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the Jurassic period is 7 times that of the pre-industrial era, which makes every part of the Jurassic very warm, even a little hot, and the average temperature throughout the year is about 3 ° C higher than in the tropics today. This is also fatal for rabbits, and the excessive temperature makes it difficult for this animal with thick hair to survive, which is why most animals in the Jurassic period have no hair.
In the Jurassic, vegetation was mainly large forests, except for forests, other land vegetation was relatively small, and the burrowing rabbit is a typical grassland animal, they like to inhabit the open grassland.
However, the geomorphological features of the Jurassic at this time are not very suitable for rabbits to survive, because compared with the grassland, the underground of the forest is more humid, and in the humid environment, the burrowing rabbit is very susceptible to illness, which may have a lot to do with the relatively more humid underground fungi and bacteria.
After the elimination of oxygen and temperature, in fact, the rabbits are almost wiped out, let's assume that a small number of rabbits adapt, then they need to enter the forest with food to survive, and then assume that they can fully adapt to forest life, then they can not avoid the threat of animals.
Because at that time, the forest was the base camp of dinosaurs, and there were many predatory dinosaurs living here, such as ceratopsians, Pianizgisaurids, spotted dragons, mesosaurs, allosaurids, etc., and most dinosaurs at that time were relatively small and could eat some small animals, so once these animals saw groups of rabbits, soon rabbits became prey.
summary
The reason why rabbits can "show off" in Australia is mainly because the environment is compatible, there are fewer natural enemies, and the reproductive ability is strong, but in the Jurassic it was different, just the oxygen content, temperature and the distribution of vegetation at that time could take these 10 billion rabbits away, and there were many predatory dinosaurs waiting to be fed.
Therefore, these rabbits going to the Jurassic will not cause any ecological disaster.