Endemism in birds

From Freepedia

This article is a parent page for a series of articles providing information about endemism among birds in the World's various zoogeographic zones.

The term endemic in the context of bird endemism, refers to any species found only in a specific area. There is no upper size limit for the geographical area this term - it would not be incorrect to refer to all bird species as endemic to Earth - in practice, however, the largest areas for which the term is in common use are countries (e.g. New Zealand endemics) or zoogeographical subregions (West Indies endemics).

Birdlife International has defined the term restricted-range endemic as any species whose historical range is less than 50,000km².

Patterns of endemism

This section of the article will be expanded to include detailed information about patterns of endemism worldwide.

Endemism is particularly notable when not just a particular species is confined to given areas, but a whole higher-level taxon (e.g. genus, family or even order).

Almost all orders are represented on at least two continents. The orders with the most-restricted range are the mousebirds (Coliiformes), found only in sub-Saharan Africa and the tinamous, found only in South and Central America.

At the level of family, endemism is exhibited widely. Examples include:

• The Kagu, a monotypic family found only on New Caledonia in the south Pacific Ocean
• The Palmchat, another monotypic family, found only on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean
• The kiwis, a family of five species found only in New Zealand
• The todies, a family of five species found only on the Greater Antilles
• The Hawaiian honeycreepers, a family found only on the Hawaian islands - see Endemism in the Hawaiian Islands
• Australia has many endemic families - see Endemic birds of Australia
• Madagascar has a number of endemic families (plus others found only on Madagascar and nearby island groups) - see Endemic birds of Madagascar and western Indian Ocean islands

Endemic Bird Areas

This section of the article will be expanded to cover the Endemic Bird Area and Secondary Area concepts.

See also:

List of Endemic Bird Areas of the World

List of Secondary Areas

List of articles on endemic birds of individual regions

Note: further pages need to be added, beyond those listed below

The Palaearctic

• Endemic birds of the Western Palearctic
• Endemic birds of Central Asia
• Endemic birds of Japan

The Afrotropics and Malagasy regions

• Endemic birds of eastern Africa
• Endemic birds of Madagascar and western Indian Ocean islands

The Oriental region

• Endemic birds of the Indian Subcontinent
• Endemic birds of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
• Endemic birds of Borneo
• Endemic birds of Sulawesi and associated islands
• Endemic birds of The Philippines
• Endemic birds of Taiwan

Australasia & the Pacific

• Endemic birds of Australia
• Endemic birds of New Guinea and neighbouring islands
• Endemic birds of New Zealand
• Endemic birds of New Caledonia
• Endemic birds of Hawaii

North America

• Endemic birds of eastern North America
• Endemic birds of western North America
• Endemic birds of the West Indies
• Endemic birds of Mexico and northern Central America

South America

• Endemic birds of the Galápagos Islands

Other

• Endemic birds of southern Atlantic islands

External links

• The Endemic Birds of Hispaniola