What are the hippos of the Americas?

In a world where man entered North and South America without causing a mass extinction, all of the paleofauna which became extinct ~10,000 BC in the Americas are still around. There are several families of giant ground sloths, mammoth and mastodons, horses, many llamas, glyptodonts, sabretooths, scimitar cats, short-faced bears and more.

South America is a wet continent and has many freshwater aquatic environments. Two of the biggest river systems in the world, the Orinoco and Parana, run through savanna, along with many smaller rivers.

In Africa, there is a niche occupied by the hippo, a large, aquatic grazer of both water plants and grass (usually by night). It thrives in rivers that run through the savanna. What animal in the Americas, particularly in South America, is most likely to have filled this niche?

posted almost 8 years ago

kingledion‭

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