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Charlie's posts with tag: fauna
|  | In spite of its situation in the centre of the archipelago, Celebes possesses a fauna of a very distinctive kind. The number of species is small, but in many cases they are peculiar to the island. Of land birds, for example, about 160 species are known, and of these not less than about 90 are peculiar, the majority of the remainder being Asiatic in distinction from Australian. Mammals are few in species, but remarkable, especially Macacus niger, an ape found nowhere else but in Bachian; Anoa depressicornis, a small ox-like quadruped which inhabits the mountainous districts; and the babirusa or pig-deer of the Malays. Some of the animals are probably descendants of specimens introduced by man; others are allied in species, but not identical, with mammals of Java and Borneo; others again, including the three just mentioned, are wholly or practically confined to Celebes. There are no large beasts of prey, and neither the elephant, the rhinoceros nor the tapir is represented. Wild-buffaloes, swine and goats are pretty common; and most of the usual domestic animals are kept. The horses are in high repute in the archipelago; formerly about 700 were yearly exported to Java, but the supply has considerably diminished.
The same peculiarity of species holds in regard to the insects of the Celebes (so far as they are known) as to the mammals and birds. Out of 118 species of butterflies, belonging to four important classes, no fewer than 86 are peculiar; while among the rose-chafers or Cetoniinae the same is the case in 19 out of 30. Equally remarkable with this presence of peculiar species is the absence of many kinds that are common in the rest of the archipelago; and these facts have been considered to indicate connexion with a larger land-mass at a very distant geological epoch, and the subsequent continuous isolation of Celebes. This view, however, has been controverted. It is held that in the Miocene and Pliocene periods there were land connexions with the Philippines, Java and the Moluccas, and through the last with Australasian lands to the east and south-east. Migration of species took place along these lines in both directions. Those immigrants which remained in what is now Celebes may have developed new species. Moreover, while Celebes has species which are peculiar to itself and one other of the islands just mentioned, it has none which it shares exclusively with Borneo, and thus the importance of the Macassar Strait as a biological division is indicated.
article source
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Celebes
other link
http://gried.multiply.com/photos/album/106/Private_Zoo_Bitung_Minahasa_-_Feb_2008_40_photos |
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