In 2011, more than 300 new species were discovered in the 42-day Philippine Biodiversity Expedition done in Luzon alone by the California Academy of Science together with many of our own Filipino scientists.
Dr. Terrence Gosliner, leader of the expedition said that they found new species “during nearly every dive and hike” as they “surveyed the country's reefs, rainforests, and the ocean floor.”
The Philippines, though collectively small in land area and marine territory, is a biological mega-diversity hotspot, sharing the limelight with the huge chucks of land that are Brazil, Australia, and the United States.
Our islands are tenfold more diverse than the Galapagos archipelago where Charles Darwin himself made discoveries now written in The Origin of Species, according to a study by Lawrence Heaney and Jacinto Regalado, Jr. in 1998.
The Philippines was cited to have, hectare per hectare, one of the highest degrees of biological diversity in the world in a book called Megadiversity: Earth’s Biologically Wealthiest Nations by Russel Mittermeier, Patricio Robles Gil, and Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier.
One of our unique species is the Inflatable Shark that puffs up to scare predators. But no one really knows exactly how diverse the Philippines is because many areas still remain unexplored by scientists.
A new expedition is now underway. It's mission: to map the whole of the country's flora and fauna.
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story...lora-and-fauna
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Originally Posted by Terpe
