Космополит и эндемик – это биологические виды, opposite to each other in habitat. The name says it all: ἔνδημος in Greek means “local”. The vital activity of representatives of the flora or fauna in any limited space is called endemism.
Where do they live
Растения-эндемики, как и эндемичные животные, birds, insects, are usually found in a single valley, on a ridge, in a desert, or on an oceanic island. We can say that those places that have no longer had biological contacts with representatives of the flora and fauna of other lands are rich in endemics. This, for example, Madagascar, Hawaiian Islands, St. Helena.
В каменистой пустыне Намиб в Африке произрастает The extraordinary plant Welwitschia mirabilis - Welvichia is amazing, it is like a low geyser, out of the dry, hot sand, amazing the traveler with its unexpected beauty.
Old and new
Territories where you can find an endemic -these are not strictly limited in size, they can be quite large. Science names such species of plants and animals that are widespread on any one continent or its part as endemic. For example, most eucalyptus trees grow in Australia and New Zealand, one type of this plant is found only in the Philippines. The same thing happened with the conifer species especially - Metasequoia (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), which can grow up to thirty meters in height. It was considered extinct from the Earth, but in the middle of the last century, scientists found these trees in the mountain forests of the Chinese province of Sichuan. Then, a metasequoia was found in some limited areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Experts say that such an endemic is a representative of ancient species, which is more accurately called paleoendemic. In contrast, there are so-called neoendemics - new species arising in isolated territories.
Who lives in the clear water of Baikal
More than 25 million years agoThe deepest freshwater reservoir is famous for its large number of endemic species. Experts found out that every third inhabitant of Baikal is endemic. These are fish (Baikal shirokolobki, golomyanka, omul), crustaceans (bokoplav), invertebrates (Baikal sponges).
Lake Baikal boasts magnificentfreshwater seal, which is also called the Baikal seal. This endemic is found in the northern and middle parts of the lake. The Baikal seal hibernates in burrows under snow or ice, raking up special airways for itself - air holes. Researchers believe that the seal came to Lake Baikal from the Arctic Ocean through the northern Yenisei and Angara rivers in the Ice Age.
Modern relics
Among other most famous endemic animalscan be called detachments Marsupia and Oviparous. The most ancient paleoendemics are also called living fossils. Among them, scientists distinguish a group of almost completely extinct fish-fin fish. The fins of these representatives of the water kingdom are located on the muscle lobes. Today, the only specimens of the wild-finned fin are the endemic fish found in 1938, called the latimeria. One species of this fish lives near the southern and eastern coasts of Africa, and the other near the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia.
Many endemics are listed in the international Reda book. Among them is the endangered Caspian Sea seal. In the tropics of southwestern India, the woody lion-tailed macaque, also known as the Vanderu, lives; no more than two and a half thousand individuals are left on Earth. One of the most vulnerable animal species on the planet is the Madagascar beak-breasted turtle.
Слово «эндемик» имеет и переносное значение, его sometimes metaphorically used, referring to the cultural characteristics that take place in the ethnographic, religious or some other local group.
