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The Philippines is home to some of the world's rarest
animal and marine forms some of which are endangered species. These
includes the world's largest eagle, the Philippine Eagle, which can
have a wing span of ten feet and the two smallest freshwater fish,
the nine milimetter pandaka pygmaea, found in Malabon River of Manila
Bay and the 11-millimeter tabios or sinarapan, found in Lake Buhi,
Camarines Sur Province. The nine orders of Philippine fauna include
shrews; the flying lemurs, at least seven bat families; the skunks,
clawless otters, civet cats, pam civets, and wild cats, squirrels,
flying squirrels, rats, mice, and porcupines; the scaly anteater,
lemurs, tarsiers, and monkeys; several species of pigs, tamaraw and
carabao; and the dugong ( or sea cow).
The water bufallo or carabao, the pig, the cat, and the dog are genrally
believed to have entered the Philippines in prehistoric times, while
the cow, the sheep, the goat, and the horse were introduce by early
Spaniards. The tamaraw (anoan mindorensis), a type of small, wild
water bufallo found only in Mindoro Island appears to be a unique
Philippine animal. Its ancestor was related to the carabao, its diminutive
size is owed to its insular isolation. The rarest Philippine animal
is the seldom-seen bushy-tailed "cloud rat" that inhabits
the mountains of Northern Luzon, Mindoro and Marinduque.
Bird types reflect the pattern of animal distribution. In terms of
ornitological geography, the Philippines is classified as a subregion
of the Oriental region. Only in the Palawan area is bird life characteristically
Malaysia with strong Bornean elements. Some 39,000 bird specimen representing
some 910 forms have been collected from the Philippines.
Philippine plant life is similar to that of Malaysia, Indonesia and
parts of Australia. Of floral species in the country, some 60 percent
are indigenous. The most beautiful flowers to be found in the Pihilippines
are rarely glimpsed, for they are blooms of deep forest trees rising
to great heights. These wild environs are Philippine orchid country.
There are more than 940 species of Philippine Orhids distributed throughout
the archipelago with about 790 of these endemic. The queen of these
orchids, the waling-waling, was discovered in Mindanao in 1882. |
