Cosmopolitan and endemic are biological species that are opposite to each other in their habitat. The name speaks for itself: ἔνδημος translated from 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 the same desert or on an oceanic island. We can say that endemic places are rich in places that have not had biological contacts with representatives of the flora and fauna of other lands. This, for example, Madagascar, Hawaiian Islands, St. Helena.
An unusual plant Welwitschia mirabilis grows in the rocky desert of Namib in Africa - Velvichiya is amazing, it, like a low geyser that has pulled out from under hot sultry sand, amazes the traveler with unexpected beauty.
Old and new
The territories in which endemic can be found are not strictly limited in size, they can be quite large. Science also calls endemic species of plants and animals that are common on any one continent or part thereof. 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 with a species of coniferous species - metasequoia (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), which can grow up to thirty meters in height. She was believed to have disappeared from Earth, but in the middle of the last century, scientists discovered these trees in the mountain forests of the Chinese province of Sichuan. Then metasequoia was found in some limited territories of the Northern Hemisphere. Experts say that such an endemic is a representative of ancient species, which is more precisely called paleoendemic. In contrast, there are so-called neoendemic - new species that arise in isolated territories.
Who lives in the clear water of Baikal
The deepest freshwater reservoir that arose over 25 million years ago 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 shirokolobki, golomyanki, omul), crustaceans (amphipod), 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 seals in burrows under snow or ice over the winter, raking itself special products - openings for air. Researchers believe that the seal got into Baikal from the Arctic Ocean through the northern Yenisei and Angara rivers in the ice age.
Modern relics
Among the other most famous endemic animals are the orders Marsupials and Oviparous. The most ancient paleoendemics are also called living fossils. Among them, scientists distinguish a group of almost completely extinct brushfish. The fins of these representatives of the water kingdom are located on the muscle lobes. Today, the only specimens of cysteras are the endemic fish discovered in 1938, called coelacanths. One species of this fish lives off the southern and eastern coasts of Africa, and the other on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia.
Many endemic species are listed in the international Red Book. Among them is the Caspian seal, which is on the verge of extinction . In the tropics of southwestern India there lives a tree lion-tailed macaque, which is also called the vanderu, there are no more than two and a half thousand of them left on Earth. One of the most vulnerable animal species on the planet is the Madagascar beak-chested tortoise.
The word "endemic" also has a figurative meaning, it is sometimes used metaphorically, referring to cultural characteristics that occur in an ethnographic, religious or any other local group.