Hunting for Fossils in the Panama Canal
Image Credit: http://www.realscience.us/2012/03/19/fossil-hunters-find-camels-in-panama/
GABI, or the Great American Biotic Interchange denotes an important event when many organisms were able to migrate acorss the Isthnmus of Panama - that formed approximately 3 million years ago.
This geologic formation allowed, on the one hand, fauna to move in both directions between the newly joined continents of North and South America.
However, the new land bridge also separated the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This division isolated marine species that were formerly connected, creating ideal circumstances to study allopatric speciation - among other topics in evolution and biology.