Researchers discover hundreds of new species on Africa’s isolated sky islands
Scientists have discovered an “inland archipelago” in parts of Malawi and Mozambique that could be home to hundreds of plants and animals that are undocumented.
The inland archipelago also known as sky islands comprises of a chain of 30 isolated mountains which were formed millions of years ago when torrential rainfall washed away the soil in these areas, leaving patches of forest perched on top of granite mountain peaks.
Described as a unique ecoregion, scientists named it the South East Africa Montane Archipelago (SEAMA).
“The ecoregion is fragmented across small isolated pockets of rainforest, montane grasslands and shrublands, each with their own unique, but distantly related, plants and animals,” Study co-author, herpetologist Harith Farooq, who is a Lecturer in the Biology Department at Lúrio University in Mozambique was quoted by Forbes.
Although most of these sky islands including Mount Thyolo have lost 18% of primary humid forests, others like Mount Mabu are being protected and others like Mount Lico are inaccessible.
A total of 127 endemic plants have been found in this ecoregion and many species of animals including 39 species of butterflies exist here.
While efforts are being made to conserve the ecoregion, scientists say there’s more to learn and discover about them.
“Encouraging conservation of the South East Africa Montane Archipelago is paramount as it’s clear we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what we can learn about this diverse region as well as consider how these learnings can be applied to global biodiversity conservation efforts,” co-author, herpetologist Gabriela Bittencourt-Silva, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Natural History Museum was quoted by Forbes.
30 biological surveys were carried out by about 100 specialists from different disciplines to investigate and document this region over the past two decades.
