There is an “inland archipelago” of mountains stretching across southern Malawi and northern Mozambique — a chain of hard granite inselbergs lifted high above the surrounding landscape as it weathered down over millions of years. These “sky islands”, as they’re also known, are topped with high-altitude grasslands and evergreen forests and watered by cool moist winds from the Indian Ocean to the east. A group of researchers is now making the case to declare a new “ecoregion” that will strengthen protection for these inselbergs, whose forest patches, thought once to have been linked to those in Central Africa, still host unique communities of animals and plants. Researcher Julian Bayliss discovered one new species of snake by stepping on it. Both the snake, a 45-centimeter-long (1.5 foot-long) bush viper, and Bayliss, a biodiversity and protected area management specialist, were unharmed, and the snake was collected and later described as new to science and given the name Mabu bush viper (Atheris mabuensis) in honor of the mountain where he found it. The incident was one of Bayliss’ many highlights over 20 years spent documenting the rich diversity of plants and animals of this region. He and 25 colleagues he has worked alongside are now proposing Mabu and the other 30 or so mountains in this transboundary biological treasure be declared a brand new ecoregion: —the South East Africa Mountain Archipelago (SEAMA) — to support landscape-wide conservation initiatives. “Instead of single-site [conservation] initiatives you can now have ecoregion-wide conservation initiatives targeting many of…This article was originally published on Mongabay
This post was originally published on this site
