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The Yunnan Plateau is also an Endemic Bird Area with two restricted range bird species: Yunnan nuthatch and white-speckled laughing thrush. The estimated global population of the Central Yunnan black-crested gibbon is about 250 individuals.Īsiatic black bear. It is known from historical records that gibbons in China have declined drastically in recent centuries and continue to do so. The Central Yunnan subspecies is restricted to a few remote localities within this ecoregion, but distribution data is as sparse as the population itself. Four subspecies of black-crested gibbon are recognized, all critically endangered. Today, Asiatic black bear, clouded leopard, common leopard, and large bamboo rat persist in some areas where steep terrain and persistent summer cloud cover discourage human settlement.įorested ridges of the Ailao and Wuliang mountain ranges support populations of the black-crested gibbon, a critically endangered ‘lesser ape’ species whose calls resonate on clear mornings. They include giant panda, Asian elephant, Javan rhinoceros, Bengal tiger, and other large cats, as well as their prey base of deer and other hoofed mammals. The Yunnan Plateau once supported large mammal species that have now been extirpated by millennia of human activity. Image credit: Frank Wouters, Creative Commons Although Yunnan pine has been established as a sub-climax forest type for more than a century, relict stands of subtropical evergreen broadleaved forest still occur in the West Hills near Kunming, on the slopes of Jizu Mountain near Dali, and in small temple forests throughout the region.Ĭlouded leopard.
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Rhododendron grows in open forests on hill slopes throughout the ecoregion. Here the understory includes small-statured bamboo and shade-tolerant plants like the root parasite Balanophora. Higher mountain ridges support temperate cloud forests in which the trees are cloaked with mosses and hung with foliose lichens, epiphytic ferns, and orchids. Although the potential biodiversity is high, much of the Yunnan Plateau forest cover is converted into agriculture or secondary forest stands of Yunnan pine and broadleaved species like Michelia and chestnut. Image credit: Courtesy of Josh Moore, Flickr.īecause of this climate, the potential natural vegetation of the Yunnan Plateau consists of seasonally wet, evergreen broadleaf forest adapted to monsoonal summers and an extended dry season that lasts from November until April. The flagship species of the Yunnan Plateau Subtropical Evergreen Forests ecoregion is the black-crested gibbon. Local residents exploit this climatic feature, growing citrus at 2,400 m and some of the world’s highest rice cultivation in northwestern inter-montane valleys. Lacking the persistent winter fog of river basins to the north, but high enough (1,800–2,400 m) to escape intense pre-monsoon heat, the Yunnan Plateau has a mild climate that supports high biodiversity and has attracted human settlement for more than a million years.Įlevations on the Yunnan Plateau are high, but the elevated area is so large it has a warming effect, making the habitat subtropical with temperate cloud-forest communities on the crests of the taller ranges. Limestone hills, with Yunnan pine and rhododendron, separate broad valleys covered in red, iron-rich soils. The Yunnan Plateau, literally “South of the Clouds,” is a transition from the monsoon tropics of Indochina to the eastern Himalayan region.