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See Tropical Africa
Tropical Africa

Although tropical Africa is most familiar in the Western world as depicted by its rain forests, this region of Africa is far more diverse. While the tropics are thought of as regions with warm to hot moist climates caused by latitude and the tropical rain belt, the geology of areas, particularly mountain chains, and geographical relation to contin...
, Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is a geographical term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara....
 for other aspects.
The Afrotropic is one of the earth's eight ecozone
Ecozone

An ecozone or biogeographic realm is the largest scale biogeography division of the earth's surface based on the historic and evolutionary distribution patterns of plants and animals....
s. It includes Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
 south of the Sahara Desert, the southern and eastern fringes of the Arabian Peninsula
Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula , Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia. The area is an important part of the Middle East and plays a critically important geopolitics role because of its vast reserves of petroleum and natural gas....
, the island of Madagascar
Madagascar

Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the List of islands by area, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are Endemism to Madagascar....
, southern Iran and extreme southwestern Pakistan, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering about 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by Asia ; on the west by Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean ....
. It was formerly known as the Ethiopian Zone or Ethiopian Region.
of the Afrotropic, with the exception of Africa's southern tip, has a tropical climate.






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See Tropical Africa
Tropical Africa

Although tropical Africa is most familiar in the Western world as depicted by its rain forests, this region of Africa is far more diverse. While the tropics are thought of as regions with warm to hot moist climates caused by latitude and the tropical rain belt, the geology of areas, particularly mountain chains, and geographical relation to contin...
, Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is a geographical term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara....
 for other aspects.
The Afrotropic is one of the earth's eight ecozone
Ecozone

An ecozone or biogeographic realm is the largest scale biogeography division of the earth's surface based on the historic and evolutionary distribution patterns of plants and animals....
s. It includes Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
 south of the Sahara Desert, the southern and eastern fringes of the Arabian Peninsula
Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula , Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia. The area is an important part of the Middle East and plays a critically important geopolitics role because of its vast reserves of petroleum and natural gas....
, the island of Madagascar
Madagascar

Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the List of islands by area, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are Endemism to Madagascar....
, southern Iran and extreme southwestern Pakistan, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering about 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by Asia ; on the west by Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean ....
. It was formerly known as the Ethiopian Zone or Ethiopian Region.

Major ecological regions

Most of the Afrotropic, with the exception of Africa's southern tip, has a tropical climate. A broad belt of deserts, including the Atlantic and Sahara deserts of northern Africa and the Arabian Desert
Arabian Desert

The Arabian Desert is a vast desert wilderness stretching from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq. It occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula with an area of 2,330,000 square kilometers ....
 of the Arabian Peninsula, separate the Afrotropic from the Palearctic
Palearctic

The Palearctic or Palaearctic is one of the eight ecozones dividing the Earth surface.Physically, the Palearctic is the largest ecozone....
 ecozone, which includes northern Africa and temperate Eurasia
Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
.

Sahel and Sudan

South of the Sahara, two belts of tropical grassland and savanna
Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands

Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands are a grassland biome located in semi-arid to semi-humid climate regions of subtropical and tropical latitudes....
 run east and west across the continent, from the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres . It covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface....
 to the Ethiopian Highlands
Ethiopian Highlands

The Ethiopian Highlands are a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia, Eritrea , and northern Somalia in the Horn of Africa. The Ethiopian Highlands form the largest continuous area of its altitude in the whole continent, with little of its surface falling below 1500 m , while the summits reach heights of up to 4550 m ....
. Immediately south of the Sahara lies the Sahel
Sahel

File:Sahel Map-Africa rough.pngFile:AT0713 map.pngThe Sahel or Sahel Belt is a semi-arid tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion in Africa, which forms the transition between the Sahara to the north and the slightly less arid savanna belt to the south, known as the Sudan ....
 belt, a transitional zone of semi-arid short grassland and Acacia
Acacia

Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Sweden botanist Carolus Linnaeus in 1773....
 savanna. Rainfall increases further south in the Sudanian Savanna
Sudanian Savanna

The Sudanian Savanna is a broad belt of tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands that runs east and west across the African continent, from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Ethiopian Highlands in the east....
, also known simply as the Sudan
Sudan (region)

The Sudan, from the Arabic language bil?d as-s?d?n or "land of the Black people" , is a geographic region stretching from West to Eastern Africa....
, a belt of taller grasslands and savannas. The Sudanian Savanna is home to two great flooded grasslands
Flooded grasslands and savannas

Flooded grasslands and savannas are a biome, generally located at subtropical and tropical latitudes, where which are flooded seasonally or year-round....
, the Sudd
Sudd

The Sudd also called the Bahr el Jebel in Southern Sudan Sudan, is a vast swamp formed by the White Nile. The Sudd area is one of the largest wetland areas in the world and the largest freshwater wetland in the Nile basin....
 wetland in the Sudan
Sudan

Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest in the African continent and the Arab World, and List of countries and outlying territories by total area by area....
, and the Niger Inland Delta
Niger Inland Delta

The Niger Inland Delta, also known as the Macina or Inner Niger Delta, is a large area of lakes and floodplains in Mali. It is located in the middle course of the Niger River, between the bifurcated River Niger and its tributary, the Bani River....
 in Mali
Mali

Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked nation in West Africa. Mali is the seventh largest country in Africa, bordering Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the C?te d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west....
. The forest-savanna mosaic
Forest-savanna mosaic

Forest-savanna mosaic is a transition zone between the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests of equatorial Africa and the drier savannas and open woodlands to the north and south of the forest belt....
 is a transitional zone between the grasslands and the belt of tropical moist broadleaf forests
Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests

Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests , also known as tropical moist forests, are a tropical and subtropical forest biome.Tropical and subtropical forest regions with lower rainfall are home to tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests and tropical and subtropical coniferous forests....
 near the equator.

Southern Arabian woodlands


Forest zone

The forest zone
Forest zone

In West Africa, the forest zone refers to the southern part of the region once largely covered by Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests....
, a belt of lowland tropical moist broadleaf forests, runs across most of equatorial Africa's intertropical convergence zone
Intertropical Convergence Zone

The 'Intertropical Convergence Zone' , also known as the 'Intertropical Front', 'Monsoon trough', or the 'Equatorial Convergence Zone', is a belt of low pressure area girdling Earth at the equator....
. The Upper Guinean forests
Upper Guinean forests

The Upper Guinean forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests region of West Africa. The Upper Guinean forests extend from Guinea and Sierra Leone in the west through Liberia, C?te d'Ivoire and Ghana to Togo in the east, and a few hundred kilometers inland from the Atlantic Ocean coast....
 of West Africa extend along the coast from Guinea
Guinea

Guinea, officially Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa formerly known as French Guinea. The country's current population is estimated at 10,211,437 ....
 to Togo
Togo

Togo is a narrow country in West Africa bordering Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lom? is located....
. The Dahomey Gap
Dahomey Gap

In West Africa, the Dahomey Gap refers to the portion of the Guinean forest-savanna mosaic that extends all the way to the coast in Benin, Togo and Ghana, thus separating the forest zone that covers much of the south of the region into two separate parts....
, a zone of forest-savanna mosaic that reaches to the coast, separates the Upper Guinean forests from the Lower Guinean forests
Lower Guinean forests

The Lower Guinean forests is region of coastal tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests extending along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea from eastern Benin through Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Cabinda, and Democratic Republic of the Congo....
, which extend along the Gulf of Guinea
Gulf of Guinea

The Gulf of Guinea is the part of the Atlantic Ocean southwest of Africa. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian is in the gulf. According to the International Hydrographic Organization, the Gulf's oceanic border is the rhumb line that runs from Cape Palmas in Liberia to Cape Lopez in Gabon ....
 from eastern Benin
Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north; its short coastline to the south leads to the Bight of Benin....
 through Cameroon
Cameroon

The Republic of Cameroon is a unitary state of central and western Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south....
 and Gabon
Gabon

Gabon is a country in west central Africa sharing borders with the Gulf of Guinea to the west, Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, and Cameroon to the north, with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south....
 to the western Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo , is a country in central Africa with a small length of Atlantic coastline. It is the third largest list of African countries in order of geographical area....
. The largest tropical forest zone in Africa are the Congolian forests
Congolian forests

The Congolian forests are a broad belt of lowland tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests which extends across the basin of the Congo River and its tributaries in Central Africa....
 of the Congo Basin in Central Africa. A belt of tropical moist broadleaf forest also runs along the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering about 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by Asia ; on the west by Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean ....
 coast, from southern Somalia
Somalia

Somalia , officially the Republic of Somalia and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic, is a country located in the Horn of Africa....
 to South Africa
South Africa

The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....
.

East African grasslands and savannas

  • Acacia-Commiphora grasslands
  • Serengeti
    Serengeti

    This article is about a geographical region; for the National Park see Serengeti National ParkThe Serengeti ecosystem is a geographical region located in north-western Tanzania and extends to south-western Kenya between latitudes 1 and 3 S and longitudes 34 and 36 E....


Eastern Africa's highlands

Afromontane
Afromontane

Afromontane is a term used to describe the plant and animal species common to the mountains of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. The afromontane regions of Africa are discontinuous, separated from each other by lowlands, and are sometimes referred to as the Afromontane archipelago, as their distribution is analogous to a series...
 region, from the Ethiopian Highlands
Ethiopian Highlands

The Ethiopian Highlands are a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia, Eritrea , and northern Somalia in the Horn of Africa. The Ethiopian Highlands form the largest continuous area of its altitude in the whole continent, with little of its surface falling below 1500 m , while the summits reach heights of up to 4550 m ....
 to the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa, including the Great Rift Valley
Great Rift Valley

The Great Rift Valley is a name given in the late 19th century by British explorer John Walter Gregory to the continuous geographic trough, approximately in length, that runs from northern Syria in Southwest Asia to central Mozambique in East Africa....
. Distinctive flora, including Podocarpus
Podocarpus

Podocarpus is a genus of conifers, the most numerous and widely distributed of the podocarp family Podocarpaceae. The 105 species of Podocarpus are evergreen shrubs or trees from 1-25 m in height....
 and Afrocarpus
Afrocarpus

Afrocarpus is a genus of conifers belonging to the podocarp family Podocarpaceae. Afrocarpus was designated a genus in 1989, when several species formerly classified in Podocarpus and Nageia were reclassified....
, as well as giant Lobelia
Lobelia

Lobelia is a genus of flowering plant comprising 360?400 species, with a cosmopolitan distribution distribution primarily in tropical to warm temperate regions of the world, a few species extending into cooler temperate regions....
s and Senecio
Dendrosenecio

image = Senecio kilimanjari.jpg|image_caption = Dendrosenecio kilimanjari|regnum = Plantae|unranked_divisio = Angiosperms|unranked_classis = Eudicots...
s.
  • Ethiopian Highlands
    Ethiopian Highlands

    The Ethiopian Highlands are a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia, Eritrea , and northern Somalia in the Horn of Africa. The Ethiopian Highlands form the largest continuous area of its altitude in the whole continent, with little of its surface falling below 1500 m , while the summits reach heights of up to 4550 m ....
  • Albertine rift montane forests
    Albertine Rift montane forests

    The Albertine Rift montane forests are a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion of central Africa. The montane forests cover portions of Rwanda, Burundi, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and western Uganda and Tanzania, occupy the parallel mountain ranges that enclose the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the...
  • East African montane forests and Eastern Arc forests


Southern African woodlands, savannas, and grasslands

  • Miombo woodlands
  • Zambezian Mopane and Baikiaea woodlands
  • Bushveld
    Bushveld

    The Bushveld is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion of Southern Africa that encompasses most of Limpopo Province and part of the North West Province of South Africa and extends into western Botswana and southern Zimbabwe....


Deserts of southern Africa

  • Namib Desert
    Namib Desert

    The Namib Desert is a desert in Namibia and southwest Angola which forms part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park. The name "Namib" is of Nama language origin....
  • Kalahari Desert
    Kalahari Desert

    The Kalahari Desert is a large, arid desert area in southwestern Sub-Saharan Africa extending 900,000 km? , covering much of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa....


Cape floristic region

The Cape floristic region
Cape floristic region

The Cape floristic region is a floristic region located in South Africa. It is the only floristic region of the Cape Floristic Kingdom, and includes only one floristic province, known as the Cape floristic province....
, at Africa's southern tip, is a Mediterranean climate
Mediterranean climate

A Mediterranean climate is one that resembles the climate of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin, which includes over half of the area with this climate type world-wide....
 region that is home to a significant number of endemic taxa, as well as to plant families like the protea
Protea

Protea is both the botanical name and the English common name of a genus of flowering plants, sometimes also called sugarbushes.The genus Protea was named in 1735 by Carolus Linnaeus after the Greek god Proteus who could change his form at will, because proteas have such different forms....
s (Proteaceae) that are also found in the Australasia ecozone
Australasia ecozone

The Australasian zone is an ecozone that is coincident, but not synonymous , with the geography region of Australasia. The ecozone includes Australia, the island of New Guinea , and the eastern part of the Indonesian archipelago, including the island of Sulawesi, the Moluccan islands and islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, and Timo...
.

Madagascar and the Indian Ocean islands

Madagascar
Madagascar

Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the List of islands by area, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are Endemism to Madagascar....
 and neighboring islands form a distinctive sub-region of the ecozone, with numerous endemic
Endemic (ecology)

Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a particular geographic location, such as a specific island, Habitat type, nation, or other defined zone....
 taxa
Taxon

A taxon or taxonomic unit is a name designating an organism or a group of organisms. In biological nomenclature according to Carl Linnaeus, a taxon is assigned a taxonomic rank and can be placed at a particular level in a systematic hierarchy reflecting evolutionary relationships....
 like the lemur
Lemur

Lemurs make up the infraorder Lemuriformes and are members of a group of primates known as prosimians. The term "lemur" is derived from the Latin word lemures, meaning "spirits of the night" or "ghosts"....
s. Madagascar and the Seychelles
Seychelles

Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an archipelago Country of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....
 are old pieces of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana
Gondwana

Gondwana , originally Gondwanaland is the name given to a southern precursor-supercontinent and then as a remnant separated from Laurasia 180- during the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent that existed about 500 to 200 Annum ago into two large segments., and broke away from Africa millions of years ago. Other Indian ocean islands, like the Comoros
Comoros

The Comoros , officially the Union of the Comoros is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, located off the eastern coast of Africa on the northern end of the Mozambique Channel between northern Madagascar and northeastern Mozambique....
 and Mascarene Islands
Mascarene Islands

The Mascarene Islands is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar comprising Mauritius, R?union, Rodrigues , Cargados Carajos shoals, plus the former islands of the Saya de Malha Bank, Nazareth Bank and Soudan Banks banks....
, are volcanic islands that formed more recently. Madagascar contains several important biospheres, as its Biodiversity
Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or for the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems....
 and ratio of endemicism is extremely high.
  • Madagascar dry deciduous forests
    Madagascar dry deciduous forests

    The Madagascar dry deciduous forests represent a tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests ecoregion generally situated in the western part of Madagascar....
  • Madagascar spiny thickets
    Madagascar spiny thickets

    The Madagascar spiny thickets is an ecoregion in Madagascar. The vegetation type is found on poor substrates with low, erratic winter rainfall....
  • Eastern Madagascar lowland rainforests


Endemic plants and animals


Plants

The Afrotropic ecozone is home to a number of endemic plant families. Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands
Ecoregions of Madagascar

Madagascar island, located in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa, is the fourth largest island in the world. Its long isolation from neighbouring continents allowed the evolution of distinct communities of plants and animals....
 are home to ten endemic families of flowering plants; eight are endemic to Madagascar (Asteropeiaceae
Asteropeiaceae

Asteropeiaceae is the botanical name for a family of flowering plants. Such a family has been recognized by very few taxonomists.The APG II system, of 2003 does recognize such a family and assigns it to the order Caryophyllales in the clade core eudicots....
, Didymelaceae
Didymelaceae

Didymelaceae is a family of flowering plants. The family has been recognised by a fair number of taxonomists, at least over the past few decades....
, Didiereaceae
Didiereaceae

Didiereaceae is a small family of just four genera and 11 species of flowering plants endemic to south and southwest Madagascar, where they form an important component of the Ecoregions of Madagascar....
, Kaliphoraceae, Melanophyllaceae, Physenaceae
Physenaceae

Physenaceae is the botanical name for a family of flowering plants. This family has been only recently recognized by taxonomists.The APG II system, of 2003 , does recognize this family and assigns it to the order Caryophyllales in the clade core eudicots....
, Sarcolaenaceae
Sarcolaenaceae

The Sarcolaenaceae are a family of flowering plants endemic to Madagascar. The family includes 40 species of mostly evergreen trees and shrubs in ten genus....
, and Sphaerosepalaceae
Sphaerosepalaceae

Sphaerosepalaceae is a family of flowering plants. It contains 14 species of trees and shrubs in two genera, Dialyceras and Rhopalocarpus, all of which are endemic to Madagascar....
), one to Seychelles
Seychelles

Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an archipelago Country of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....
 (Mesdusagynaceae) and one to the Mascarene Islands
Mascarene Islands

The Mascarene Islands is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar comprising Mauritius, R?union, Rodrigues , Cargados Carajos shoals, plus the former islands of the Saya de Malha Bank, Nazareth Bank and Soudan Banks banks....
 (Psiloxylaceae). Twelve plant families are endemic or nearly endemic to South Africa (including Curtisiaceae, Heteropyxidaceae, Penaeaceae
Penaeaceae

Penaeaceae is a family of evergreen, leathery-leaved shrubs and small trees, native to South Africa. The family has 25 species in seven Genus....
, Psiloxylaceae and Rhynchocalycaceae) of which five are endemic to the Cape floristic province
Cape floristic region

The Cape floristic region is a floristic region located in South Africa. It is the only floristic region of the Cape Floristic Kingdom, and includes only one floristic province, known as the Cape floristic province....
 (including Grubbiaceae
Grubbiaceae

Grubbiaceae is a family of flowering plants endemic to the Cape floristic region of South Africa. The family includes five species of leathery-leaved shrubs in two genus, Grubbia and Strobilocarpus....
). Other endemic Afrotropic families include Barbeyaceae, Montiniaceae
Montiniaceae

Montiniaceae is a family of flowering plants. It includes two or three genus of shrubs and small trees, native to southwest Africa and tropical East Africa as well as Madagascar....
, Myrothamnaceae
Myrothamnaceae

Myrothamnaceae is the botanical name for a family of flowering plants. Such a family has been recognized by most taxonomists.The APG II system includes Myrothamnaceae in Gunneraceae but allows for the optional segregation of this family from Gunneraceae....
 and Oliniaceae.

Animals

The East African Great Lakes (Victoria
Lake Victoria

Lake Victoria or Victoria Nyanza is one of the Great Lakes of Africa.Lake Victoria is 68,800 square kilometres in size, making it the continent's largest lake, the largest tropical lake in the world, and the second widest fresh water lake in the world in terms of surface area ....
, Malawi
Malawi

The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast and Mozambique, which surrounds it on the east, south and west....
, and Tanganyika
Tanganyika

Tanganyika is an East African territory lying between the largest of the African great lakes: Lake Victoria, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika....
) are the center of biodiversity of many freshwater fishes, especially cichlid
Cichlid

Cichlids are fish from the family Cichlidae in the order Perciformes. The family Cichlidae, a major family of perciform fish, is both large and diverse....
s (they harbor more than two-thirds of the estimated 2,000 species in the family). The West African coastal rivers region covers only a fraction of West Africa, but harbours 322 of West African’s fish species, with 247 restricted to this area and 129 restricted even to smaller ranges. The central rivers fauna comprises 194 fish species, with 119 endemics and only 33 restricted to small areas.

The Afrotropic has various endemic bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
 families, including ostrich
Ostrich

The ostrich Struthio camelus is a large flightless bird native to Africa . It is the only living species of its family , Struthionidae, and its genus, Struthio....
es (Struthionidae), sunbird
Sunbird

The sunbirds and spiderhunters are a family , Nectariniidae, of very small passerine birds. There are 132 species in 15 genus. The family is distributed throughout Africa, southern Asia and just reaches northern Australia....
s, Secretary bird
Secretary Bird

The Secretary Bird, Sagittarius serpentarius, is a large, mostly terrestrial bird of prey. Endemic to Africa, it is usually found in the open grasslands and savannah of the sub-Sahara....
 (Sagittariidae), guineafowl
Guineafowl

The guineafowl are a family of Avess in the same order as the pheasants, Turkey s and other game birds and is native to Africa....
 (Numididae), and mousebird
Mousebird

The mousebirds are a small group of birds which have no real close affinities to other groups, though they and the parrots and cockatoos may be closer to each other than to other birds....
s (Coliidae). Also, several families of passerines are limited to the Afrotropics; These include rock-jumper
Rock-jumper

The Rock-jumpers are medium-sized insectivorous or omnivorous birds in the genus Chaetops, which constitutes the entire family Chaetopidae....
s (Chaetopidae) and rockfowl (Picathartidae).

Africa has three endemic orders of mammals, the Tubulidentata (aardvark
Aardvark

The Aardvark is a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa. It is sometimes called "antbear", "anteater", "Cape anteater" , "earth hog" or "earth pig"....
s), Afrosoricida
Afrosoricida

The order Afrosoricida contains the golden moles of southern Africa and the tenrecs of Madagascar and Africa, two families of small mammals that have traditionally been considered to be a part of the order Insectivora....
 (tenrecs and golden mole
Golden mole

Golden moles are small, insectivorous burrowing mammals native to southern Africa. They form the family Chrysochloridae, and so are taxonomy distinct from the mole ....
s), and Macroscelidea (elephant shrew
Elephant shrew

Elephant shrews or jumping shrews are small insectivore mammals native to Africa, belonging to the Macroscelididae family, in the order Macroscelidea....
s). The East-African plains
Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands

Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands are a grassland biome located in semi-arid to semi-humid climate regions of subtropical and tropical latitudes....
 are well known for their diversity of large mammals.

Four species of Great Apes (Hominidae
Hominidae

The Hominidae form a taxonomic biological family, including four extant genus: Homo s, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.A number of known extinct genera are grouped with humans in the Hominina subtribe, others with orangutans in the Ponginae subtribe....
) are endemic to Africa: both species of Gorilla
Gorilla

Gorillas are the largest of the living primates. They are ground-dwelling herbivores that inhabit the forests of Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and either four or five subspecies....
 (Western Gorilla, Gorilla gorilla, and Eastern Gorilla, Gorilla beringei) and both species of Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially known as a chimp, is the common name for the two Extant taxon species of ape in the genus Pan where the Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
 (Common Chimpanzee
Common Chimpanzee

The Common Chimpanzee , also known as the Robust Chimpanzee, is a Hominidae. The name troglodytes, Greek for 'cave-dweller', was coined by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in his Handbuch der Naturgeschichte published in 1779....
, Pan troglodytes, and Bonobo
Bonobo

The Bonobo , which, until recently, usually was called the Pygmy Chimpanzee and less often, the Dwarf or Gracile Chimpanzee, is a great ape and one of the two species making up the genus, chimpanzee....
, Pan paniscus). Human
Human

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....
s and their ancestors originated in Africa.

Afrotropic Terrestrial Ecoregions



See also

  • Global 200
    Global 200

    The Global 200 is the list of ecoregions identified by the WWF as priorities for conservation. According to the WWF, an ecoregion is defined as a "relatively large unit of land or water containing a characteristic set of natural communities that share a large majority of their species, dynamics, and environmental conditions ."...


External links