Comoros Islands Photograph by William Trewhella   Southern Africa: Island group between Madagascar and mainland Africa. Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests   800 square miles (2,100 square kilometers) -- about the size of Rhode Island Critical/Endangered

· Madagascar’s Neighbors
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Madagascar’s Neighbors

The Comoros Forests ecoregion is located on four small islands that lie between Madagascar and the East African mainland at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel. The ecoregion is bustling with a unique mix of wildlife, including several endemic species. Mount Karthala, a volcano on Grand Comoro Island that erupts every 10 to 20 years, is the only home for four threatened, endemic bird species.

Special Features

Four islands make up the ecoregion: Grand Comoro (the largest island), Anjouan, Moheli, and Mayotte. The highest point on the islands is Mount Karthala, which dominates Grand Comoro at an elevation of 7,746 feet (2,361 m). At one time, most of the habitat in this ecoregion was lowland evergreen forest, but nearly all of that is now gone. Today, the remaining evergreen forest gives way to giant heath vegetation above 5,900 feet (1,800 m), and there are a few mangrove habitats along the coasts. Patches of sparse leafy vegetation grow on the cinder fields and lava flows at the base of volcanoes. The plants and animals that live here are more closely related to those living on Madagascar than to those on the mainland.

	People often say that the Comoro Islands have the only populations of lemurs that occur outside of Madagascar, but some scientists now think that all lemur species here originally came from Madagascar and were introduced to the islands by people.

Wild Side

The Comoro Islands do not have the diversity of species that either Madagascar or mainland Africa has, but many of the species that do live here are endemic. There are seven endemic and restricted range mammal species in the Comoros, including the mongoose lemur, Comoro black flying-fox, and Comoro fruit bat. Seventeen species of birds are endemic to these islands, including the Anjouan sunbird, Anjouan brush-warbler, Comoro olive-pigeon, Comoro blue-pigeon, Mount Karthala white-eye, and three species of small scops owls. One of these, the Moheli scops owl, was discovered as recently as 1998! Another, the Anjouan scops owl, is confined to a habitat of only about 4 square miles (10 sq. km), due to the destruction of all the other forests on Anjouan Island. Other endemics found in this ecoregion are species of day geckos, shinning-skinks, chameleons, and even swallowtail butterflies.

Cause for Concern

The human population of the Comoros has been increasing, and most of the lowland forests have already been converted to agriculture. The largest remaining forest is on Mount Karthala on Grand Comoro, but this area is not protected. Introduced species are another threat to the biodiversity of the Comoro Islands. Feral mongooses, for example, have nearly wiped out all of the islands’ snakes. With more than 80 percent of the natural habitats in this ecoregion gone, the loss of endemic species is a major cause for concern, and conservation of the remaining forest should be a top priority.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.