Cosmopolitan and endemic are biological species that are opposite to each other in terms of habitat. The name speaks for itself: ἔνδηΜος in Greek means "local". The vital activity of representatives of flora or fauna in any limited space is called endemism.
Where do they live
Endemic plants, like endemic animals, birds, insects, are usually found in one valley, on a mountain range, in one desert or on an ocean island. We can say that endemics are rich in those places that have not had biological contacts with representatives of the flora and fauna of other lands for a longer time. These are, for example, Madagascar, Hawaiian Islands, Saint Helena.
In the rocky Namib desert in Africa, an unusual plant grows Welwitschia mirabilis - Welwitschia is amazing, it, like a low geyser escaping from under dry hot sand, amazes the traveler with unexpected beauty.
Old and new
Territories where endemic can be found are not strictlylimited in size spaces, they can be quite large. Science also calls endemic species of plants and animals that are common on any one continent or part of it. For example, most of the eucalyptus trees grow in Australia and New Zealand, one of the species of this plant is found only in the Philippines. The same thing happened to a special species of conifers - metasequoia (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), which can grow up to thirty meters in height. It was considered to have disappeared from the Earth, but in the middle of the last century, scientists discovered these trees in the mountain forests of the Chinese province of Sichuan. Then the 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 a paleoendemic. In contrast, there are so-called neo-endemics - new species that arise in isolated areas.
Who lives in the clean water of Lake Baikal
Emerged more than 25 million years ago, the deepest freshwater reservoir is famous for its large number of endemic species. Experts have found that every third inhabitant of Lake Baikal is endemic. These are fish (Baikal sculpins, golomyanka, omul), crustaceans (amphibian), invertebrates (Baikal sponges).
Lake Baikal boasts a magnificent freshwater 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 special air for itself.- air holes. Researchers believe that the seal came to Baikal from the Arctic Ocean through the northern rivers Yenisei and Angara during the Ice Age.
Modern relics
Among other most famous endemic animals are the Marsupials and Oviparous orders. The oldest paleoendemics are also called living fossils. Among them, scientists distinguish a group of almost completely extinct lobe-finned fish. The fins of these representatives of the water kingdom are located on the muscle lobes. Today, the only specimens of the crossopterygians are endemic fish discovered in 1938, called coelacanths. One species of this fish lives off the southern and eastern coasts of Africa, and the other lives near the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia.
Many endemics are listed in the international Red Book. Among them is the critically endangered Caspian seal. In the tropics of South-Western India, there lives an arboreal lion-tailed macaque, which is also called vander, there are no more than two and a half thousand of them left on Earth. The Madagascar beak-chested turtle has been named one of the most endangered animal species on the planet.
The word "endemic" also has a figurative meaning, it is sometimes used metaphorically, speaking of cultural characteristics that take place in an ethnographic, religious or any other local group.
