click images to expand them
reload pages to display different images
click here for the IUCN red book - a list of the world's threatened species
Biodiversity
The term biodiversity simply refers to the huge variety of different forms of life on planet Earth.
The variety of species on planet Earth are not spread evenly over the planet. In fact there are hotspots where an area of land or sea contains a huge variety of life, and other areas where there are very few lifeforms.
 Hoatzin Author: Linda De Volder GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 |
 Humboldt Squid NOAA Public domain |
 Eastern Blackneck Garter snake User: Dawson Creative Commons |
Tolypeutes tricinctus Brazilian three-banded Armadillo User: ChrisStubbs GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 |
Another term that is important in this context is endemic. An endemic species is one where all the members of the species are only found in one place in the world. This is often a relatively small area such as an island, a coral reef etc. This means that the species is at risk of becoming extinct if the area it inhabits is damaged or destroyed.
Agalychnis callidryas Red-eyed Tree Frog User: LiquidGhoul GNU Free Documentation License |
Orycteropus afer aardvark montage_man Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic |
Biodiversity hotspots
A biodiversity hotspot refers to an area of land or sea which contains a high proportion of endemic species, which by definition, are only found in that area and nowhere else in the world!
Biodiversity hotspots on planet Earth
The biodiversity hotspots on planet Earth contain a huge number of endemic species even though the total land area of these hotspots now only covers 2.3% of the Earth's surface having shrunk by 70% in recent times!
There are at least 150,000 endemic plant species in these hotspots which is 50% of the world's total.
The number of endemic vertebrate species in these hotspots is 11,980 which is 42% of all terrestrial vertebrate species.
The importance of these hotspots is incalculable! We do not know the value of many of these plant species! How many new medicines or chemicals are waiting to be discovered. Pehaps these plants could hold cures for aids, obesity, dementia, etc.
The above information is from the website of Conservation International, an organisation dedicated to protecting the most valuable places on Earth. click here for www.conservation.org
Sphyrna lewini hammerhead shark User: suneko Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic |
 Scotoplane Image courtesy of www.planetoddity.com |