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RE: Living Fossils: The Coelacanth
One species of coelacanth is found in Cormoros and Madagascar, the other in Indonesia. There are rumors of a third species, but they're only unconfirmed rumors at present.
Interesting.
I find it remarkable that so many unique species live on Madagascar. Add to that when you play Pandemic, Madagascar survives 9 out of 10 times...
Coincidence? lol
It's a topic studied heavily by this obscure science known as biogeography- essentially, the study of how location effects evolution. Island biogeography is the most important subfield- the study of how isolated populations evolve, which tends to happen at much faster rates than larger, non-isolated populations do. Madagascar, as the third largest island on the planet, has so many diverse species due to a combination of this evolutionary principle plus a lot of species surviving on Madagascar that have gone extinct on mainland Africa.
This is amazing info- thank you! I did not know this
You should check out the book The Song of the Dodo, by David Quammen. It's all about island biogeography. One of my favorite nonfiction books of all time.
Sweet, I am definitely going to - thank you again!
Of course! I love giving book recommendations, so it's my pleasure.