Dingo

Dingos are essentially wolves that colonized Australia 4,000 years ago and demonstrate how pack predator strategy adapts to a continent without other large predators. Without competition from lions, tigers, or bears, dingos became Australia's apex predator—but in a system that had never experienced pack hunting pressure. The result shows what happens when a strategy enters a naive market.

Dingo predation pressure drove the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) to extinction on mainland Australia and likely contributed to the decline of several other marsupial predators. But because Australian ecosystems hadn't co-evolved with pack hunters, dingos didn't create the same trophic cascade effects wolves create in Yellowstone. There was no behavioral adaptation in prey species to avoid certain areas, no vegetation recovery from reduced grazing pressure. The prey just died.

The business parallel is disruptive entrants in markets without established competitive responses. When Uber entered taxi markets, incumbents had no evolved defenses—no app capability, no dynamic pricing, no driver rating systems. Dingo-style disruption works when the market lacks co-evolved competitors who can respond. But it's different from wolf-style competition in established markets where prey species have adapted. Dingos dominated because Australia was strategically naive; wolves succeed because they're better at the competition game.