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This island region supports an extraordinary number of endemic plants, birds, mammals, and other organisms. Many of the different islands here have endemic species that are restricted to small areas. This Global 200 ecoregion is made up of these terrestrial ecoregions: Mindoro rain forests; Mindanao-Eastern Visayas rain forests; Mindanao montane rain forests; Luzon rain forests; Greater Negros-Panay rain forests; Luzon tropical pine forests; Luzon montane rain forests If you were to sail a ship from Taiwan south to the islands of Indonesia, you would pass by an archipelago of large and small islands known collectively as the Philippines. The wet forests that grow on many of these islands -- including Luzon, the Central Islands, and Mindanao -- together make up the Philippines Moist Forests ecoregion. If you docked your ship and wandered ashore, you'd find a rich and diverse flora and fauna.
Steady rainfall and warm temperatures combine to nourish more than 12,000 species of plants and fungi in the Philippines Moist Forests. Of these, about 3,500 are endemic. This highly diverse region also supports many endemic species of birds, reptiles, and amphibians. What's more, 111 of the 172 species of land mammals found on these islands are also endemic.
Largest of the land animals native to the Philippines are the tamaraws, or Mindoro dwarf buffalo, a relatively small water buffalo weighing about 450 pounds (or 200 kg) found only on the island of Mindoro. Visayan spotted deer feed on grasses, young leaves, and buds on the islands of Negros and Panay (though they used to be on neighboring islands). The most famous animal in the Philippines is the Philippine eagle, which is the world's second largest eagle, and preys on flying lemurs, civets, giant cloud rats and sometimes even monkeys. Also filling the sky, scarlet-collared flowerpeckers dart from flower to flower eating nectar and snapping up insects and small spiders. At night, little golden-mantled fruit bats flutter overhead while Mindanao moonrats scurry across the ground.
The natural forests here are almost gone. Farming, logging, and associated soil erosion are causing severe habitat degradation in most of these forests, and hunting threatens many of the local wildlife species. Regular burning in some areas is preventing forest regeneration.
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