12 Facts About Endemic species

Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are found elsewhere.

An endemic species can be be referred to as an endemism or in scientific literature as an endemite.

Extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range.

Rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to species that are restricted to a defined geographical area.

The word was used in biology in 1872 to mean a Endemic species restricted to a specific location by Charles Darwin.

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Endemic species are especially likely to develop on geographically and biologically isolated areas such as islands and remote island groups, including Hawaii, the Galapagos Islands and Socotra, because of the potential for isolation and therefore evolution through allopatric speciation.

Paleoendemism refers to Endemic species that were formerly widespread but are now restricted to a smaller area.

Neoendemism refers to Endemic species that have recently arisen, such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through hybridization and polyploidy in plants, and have not dispersed beyond a limited range.

Mikio Ono coined the term 'aneuendemics' in 1991 for species which have more or less chromosomes than their relatives due to aneuploidy.

Some scientists claim that the presence of endemic species in an area is a good method to find geographical regions which can be considered priorities for conservation.

Concept of finding endemic species which occur in the same region to designate 'endemism hotspots' was first proposed by Paul Muller in a 1973 book.

Especially using mammals as flagship Endemic species proved to be a poor system of identifying and protecting areas of high invertebrate biodiversity.