Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Fun Facts - Philippine Fun Facts

Here's a list of things I recently discovered. Shame on me for not knowing these things sooner..

Philippine Fun Facts

1.   has the oldest  in the world, established in 1594    

2. The Philippines is the center of the global center for marine biodiversity

What the heck does that mean?

Image source: http://www.coraltriangleinitiative.org

CORAL TRIANGLE
The Coral Triangle area was not frozen during the Ice Age. 

- has the highest coral diversity in the globe with 600 corals (76% of the world’s known coral species)
- contains the highest reef fish diversity on the planet with 2,500 or 37% of the world’s reef fish species concentrated in the area.

What does it have to do with the Philippines

- Only a portion of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea is in the Coral Reef Triangle while the ENTIRE Philippines is inside the triangle.

The further a country is from the Coral Triangle, the less biodiversity it has, both underwater and above water.

- We have the world’s richest ecosystems.  

- the Philippines (particularly Verde Island) is “the center of the center of marine biodiversity in the world”.

- Coral reef with the greatest biodiversity are found in the Philippines with 400 species of coral. In Australia’s Great Barrier reef, there are 350 species of Corals. Fiji has 250 and Hawaii have fewer than 50 species.

- Fish species diversity: In the Philippines, more than 2,000 species of fish live on or near coral reefs.  The Great Barrier Reef has 1,500 species, Bahamas in the Caribbean Sea has about 510 and Hawaii has 450 species of fish.


A more detailed info is discussed here.
http://www.haribon.org.ph/index.php/news-and-media/238-philippine-marine-biodiversity-a-brief-profile




**** To be continued*****