Indomalaya ecozone
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The Indomalaya Ecozone was previously called the Oriental region.
It extends from the Makran region of southern Pakistan through the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to lowland southern China, and through Indonesia as far as Java, Bali, and Borneo, east of which lies the Wallace line, the ecozone boundary named after Alfred Russel Wallace which separates Indomalaya from Australasia. Indomalaya also includes the Philippines, lowland Taiwan and Japan's Ryūkyū Islands.
Most of Indomalaya was originally covered by forest, mostly tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, with tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests predominant in much of India and parts of Southeast Asia. The tropical moist forests of Indomalaya are dominated by trees of the dipterocarp family (Dipterocarpaceae).
Malesia is a botanical province which straddles the boundary between Indomalaya and Australasia. It includes the Malay Peninsula and the western Indonesian islands (known as Sundaland), the Philippines, the eastern Indonesian islands, and New Guinea. While the region has much in common botanically, they differ greatly in land animal species; Sundaland shares its fauna with mainland Asia, while the islands east of the Wallace line either lack land mammals, or are home to a land fauna derived from Australia, which includes marsupial mammals and ratite birds.
Two orders of mammals, the colugos (Dermoptera) and treeshrews (Scandentia), are endemic to the ecozone, as are families Craseonycteridae (Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat), Diatomyidae, Platacanthomyidae, Tarsiidae (tarsiers) and Hylobatidae (gibbons). Large mammals characteristic of Indomalaya include the leopard, tigers, water buffalos, Asian Elephant, Indian Rhinoceros, Javan Rhinoceros, Malayan Tapir, orangutans, and gibbons.
Indomalaya has three endemic bird families, the Irenidae (leafbirds and fairy bluebirds), Megalaimidae and Rhabdornithidae (Philippine creepers). Also characteristic are pheasants, pittas, Old World babblers, and flowerpeckers.
The flora of Indomalaya blends elements from the ancient supercontinents of Laurasia and Gondwana. Gondwanian elements were first introduced by India, which detached from Gondwana approximately 90 MYA, carrying its Gondwana-derived flora and fauna northward, which included cichlid fish and the flowering plant families Crypteroniaceae and possibly Dipterocarpaceae. India collided with Asia 30-45 MYA, and exchanged species. Later, as Australia-New Guinea drifted north, the collision of the Australian and Asian plates pushed up the islands of Wallacea, which were separated from one another by narrow straits, allowing a botanic exchange between Indomalaya and Australasia. Asian rainforest flora, including the dipterocarps, island-hopped across Wallacea to New Guinea, and several Gondwanian plant families, including podocarps and araucarias, moved westward from Australia-New Guinea into western Malesia and Southeast Asia.
See also:
[edit] Indomalaya Terrestrial Ecoregions
| Indomalaya Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests edit | |
|---|---|
| Central Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests | India |
| Central Indochina dry forests | Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam |
| Chota-Nagpur dry deciduous forests | India |
| East Deccan dry evergreen forests | India |
| Irrawaddy dry forests | Myanmar |
| Kathiarbar-Gir dry deciduous forests | India |
| Narmada Valley dry deciduous forests | India |
| Northern dry deciduous forests | India |
| South Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests | India |
| Southeastern Indochina dry evergreen forests | Cambodia, Laos, Thailand |
| Southern Vietnam lowland dry forests | Vietnam |
| Sri Lanka dry-zone dry evergreen forests | Sri Lanka |
| Indomalaya Temperate coniferous forests edit | |
|---|---|
| Eastern Himalayan subalpine conifer forests | Bhutan, India, Nepal |
| Western Himalayan subalpine conifer forests | India, Nepal, Pakistan |
| Indomalaya Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands edit | |
|---|---|
| Terai-Duar savanna and grasslands | Bhutan, India, Nepal |
| Indomalaya Flooded grasslands and savannas edit | |
|---|---|
| Rann of Kutch seasonal salt marsh | India, Pakistan |
| Indomalaya Montane grasslands and shrublands edit | |
|---|---|
| Kinabalu montane alpine meadows | Malaysia |
| Indomalaya Deserts and xeric shrublands edit | |
|---|---|
| Deccan thorn scrub forests | India |
| Indus Valley desert | India, Pakistan |
| Northwestern thorn scrub forests | India, Pakistan |
| Thar desert | India, Pakistan |
| Ecozones |
| Afrotropic · Antarctic · Australasia · Indomalaya · Nearctic · Neotropic · Oceania · Palearctic |
[edit] External link
nl:Oriëntaals gebied ja:東洋区 pl:Kraina orientalna vi:Indomalaya zh:东洋界
