Dia (island)

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slide
Aerial view of slide
Aerial view of slide
Waters Mediterranean Sea
Geographical location 35 ° 27 '  N , 25 ° 13'  E Coordinates: 35 ° 27 '  N , 25 ° 13'  E
Dia (island) (Crete)
Dia (island)
length 6 km
width 4.5 km
surface 11.909 km²dep1
Highest elevation 268  m
Residents uninhabited

Dia ( Greek Δία also Ντία ( f. Sg. )) Is an uninhabited Greek island north of Crete . It belongs to the municipality of Gouves in the municipality of Chersonisos .

location

The island of Dia is located in the Cretan Sea (Κρητικό Πέλαγος), north of the Gulf of Heraklion (Κόλπος του Ηρακλείου), about 12 km from Heraklion , the largest city in Crete . The average length in east-west direction is around 5 km and in north-south direction around 3 km. With an area of ​​about 11.9 km², Dia is after Gavdos the second largest of the 90 islands and smallest islets around Crete. The highest point Mavromouri (Μαυρομούρι) of the moderately mountainous island reaches a height of 268 m. There are cliffs on the north and east coast . The line of the south coast is intersected by four bays: Agios Georgios in the west, then Kapari , Panagia and finally Agrilia in the east. The small rocky island Glaronisi (also Petalida ) is about 1.5 km west and Paximadi 3.1 km east of the main island.

history

Because archaeological research has not yet been carried out, no statements can be made about the first settlement. However, since ancient times, slide has played an important role as a point of reference for navigation in the Cretan Sea , especially from the Minoan period to the Middle Ages. The four bays on the south side offered early seafarers good anchorage opportunities and protection from the prevailing winds from the north. The island is mentioned several times in ancient literature.

In the mid-1970s, the French marine explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau discovered a Minoan port and settlement in the Agios Georgios Bay in the southwest .

A naval port and a wreck from Byzantine times have been identified under the direction of the underwater archaeologist Elpida Hadjidaki-Marder . The port presumably served the Byzantine emperor Nikephorus II. Phocas in 960 AD as the base for the reconquest of Candias from the Saracens , who had conquered Crete from 826 onwards.

During the Venetian period the island was known under the name Standia , the sheltered bays in the east were used as a trading port until the 19th century, instead of the too small and shallow port of Candia (now Heraklion) for large merchant ships. In order to avert the conquest of Heraklion by the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century, it served as a base for the Republic of Venice under the leadership of Francesco Morosini and her allies.

The island has been under the administration of the Greek Forestry Authority since 1938. In the western part of the island she has built an administrative building that is constantly being used and several bungalows. A slope leads from Agios Georgios Bay in the west to the north of the island and ends at Agrilia Bay in the east.

Today, in the main season, Heraklion offers swimming trips to Agios Georgios Bay, where there is also a tavern, and diving trips to Agrilia Bay.

nature

The island consists of limestone from the Tripolitza series. The image of the island's vegetation is shaped by the proximity of the city of Heraklion, the centuries of intensive use of the island and the abandonment of wild rabbits for hunting and wild goats for nature conservation reasons. The landscape of the island is shaped by the small island location and rabbit grazing in the species composition of certain species-poor Phrygana , the dominant species of which is the thorny Bibernelle ( Sarcopoterium spinosum ). In the western parts of the island there are loosely standing, low mastic bushes ( Pistacia lentiscus ) and form a somewhat more advanced stage of succession. The small gorges opening into the bays of the south coast are more diverse, on whose valley floor a species-rich Phrygana with Thymbra mountain mint ( Satureja thymbra ) and Greek dost settles. The surrounding steep slopes and rock faces bear endemic rock vegetation. Some of the fields bounded by stone walls are still cultivated.

flora

So far, 166 species of ferns and seeds have been found on Dia and the neighboring small islands. According to current knowledge, there is an endemic species on the island , the much larger and polyploid Prospero talosii , which is related to the autumn squill . Carlina diae was described by Dia, but was later found on the Dionysades and the Cretan mainland. Atriplex recurva , Lavatera arborea (only on Glaronisi), Muscari dionysicum and Trigonella rechingeri are found on Dia, which are more widespread on the Aegean islands but are missing on the Cretan mainland . A large number of Cretan endemics have reached the island, among them the rock dwellers Asperula tournefortii , Petromarula pinnata , Staehelina petiolata and Verbascum arcturus as well as the annual Phrygana inhabitant Campanula creutzburgii , which is also rare on the mainland . Other notable species are Bellium minutum , which is rare in Crete and the surrounding islands , the seawater plant Halophila stipulacea , which immigrated from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean after the Suez Canal opened and was found off the coast of the island, and Ononis mitissima, which has its regional focus on Dia .

fauna

In 1958, animals were released on the island to ensure the survival of the critically endangered Cretan wild goats on mainland Crete . The animals caused massive damage to the island's flora, especially to Carlina diae , which is why early on, the goats should be removed from the island. The forest administration drew a fence across the island, which locks the animals out of the western third of the island and can only be passed through a gate on the island's road. In the meantime it has been found that these animals are crossbreeds with domestic goats. That is why the forest authorities decided to remove all goats from the island. Despite the unresolved conflicts of protection goals, the intention is to reintroduce pure-bred Cretan wild goats after a regeneration phase for the vegetation.

Already Sieber , who visited the island of Dia from 7 to 9 January 1817 reported by the wild rabbits on the island, which they inhabit in large numbers. It can be assumed that the animals were released on Dia as hunting game in the 18th century or earlier. The rabbit of the island of Dia was described in 1905 as a separate, endemic subspecies ( Oryctolagus cuniculus cnossius ). However, the taxonomic status of this subspecies is questioned.

In addition, there is a population of the Cretan wall lizard ( Podarcis cretensis ) on Dia . The species is classified as endangered on the national Red List (VU - Vulnerable) and on the International as Endangered (EN - Endangered).

The Greek Bird Conservation Organization (Ελληνική νρνιθολογική Εταιρεία), partner of BirdLife International , ranks Dia among the ten most important bird sanctuaries in Greece, as Eleonora's falcons visit the island every year as a breeding area. The extinction (CR - Critically Endangered ) Threatened Mediterranean monk seal has its habitat in the waters around the island.

natural reserve

Dia was in the Natura 2000 network of the European Union as 4,310,003 Dia Iceland GR integrated (Νήσος Δία) and also its parts as IBA ( "Important Bird Area") -region GR 189 Slide Iceland classified (Νήσος Δία).

map

Crete / Κρήτη, Eastern Part 2, Touring Map, 1: 100,000 (map) . Harms ic Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-927468-17-7 .

Web links

Commons : Dia  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Charles Arnold (ed.): The islands of the Mediterranean . A unique and complete overview. 2nd Edition. marebuchverlag, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 3-86648-096-2 .
  2. ↑ Strabo 10.5.1; Stadiasmus maris magni 348 (Karl Müller: Geographi Graeci Minores Paris 1855ff 1.514); Claudius Ptolemaeus 3.15.8; Pliny the Elder naturalis historia 4.61; Apollonios of Rhodes Argonautica 4.424
  3. ↑ Οι άγνωστοι δορυφόροι της Κρήτης, Το Βήμα online, April 4, 2004 tovima.gr (Greek).
  4. ↑ Ναύσταθμος του Νικηφόρου Φωκά, Ελευθεροτυπία - April 2, 2007 enet.gr ( Memento of May 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (Greek)
  5. ↑ Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt : Travels and Researches in Crete . tape II . John van Voorst, London 1865, p. 35 (English, books.google.de ).
  6. ^ Kenneth Meyer Setton: Venice, Austria, and the Turks in the seventeenth century . DIANE Publishing, Philadelphia 1991 (English, books.google.de ).
  7. ↑ a b Werner Greuter: Carlina diae . In: Dimitrios Phitos, Arne Strid, Sven Snogerup, Werner Greuter (eds.): The Red Data Book of rare and threatened plants of Greece . World Wide Fund for Nature, Athens 1995, ISBN 960-7506-04-9 , pp. 136-137 .
  8. ↑ Google Earth, aerial photo from November 24, 2002, 35 ° 26'47.81 "N 25 ° 11'58.81" E
  9. ↑ Creutzburg et al .: General Geological Map of Greece: Crete Island, 1: 200000. Institute of Geological and Mining Research, Athens 1977.
  10. ^ Karl Heinz Rechinger, Frieda Rechinger-Moser: Phytogeographia Aegaea. - memoranda. Academy of Sciences in Vienna Mathematical and natural science class. 105 (2.2), 1951: 208 pp.
  11. ↑ Google Earth, aerial photo from November 24, 2002, e.g. B. at 35 ° 26'43 "N 25 ° 13'44" E
  12. ↑ Ralf Jahn: The phytodiversity of the flora of Kriti (Greece) - a survey of the current state of knowledge. In: Bocconea. Volume 16, No. 2, 2003, pp. 845-851, ( herbmedit.org PDF).
  13. ↑ Dimitris Tzanoudakis, Zacharias Kypriotakis: A new polyploid Scilla (Liliaceae) from the Cretan area (Greece). In: Folia Geobotanica. Volume 33, No. 1, March 1998, pp. 103-108, doi: 10.1007 / BF02914932
  14. ^ Karl Heinz Rechinger: New contributions to the flora of Crete. (Results of a biological research trip to the Peloponnese and Crete in 1942, on behalf of the High Command of the Wehrmacht and the Reich Research Council, 6). In: Memoranda. Academy of Sciences in Vienna Mathematical and natural science class. Volume 105, No. 2.1, 1943: 184 pp.
  15. ^ Werner Greuter: Additions to the flora of Crete, 1938-1972. In: Annales Musei Goulandris. Volume 1, 1973, pp. 15-83.
  16. ^ Nicholas J. Turland, Lance Chilton, J. Robert Press: Flora of the Cretan Area. Annotated Checklist and Atlas . The Natural History Museum and HMSO, London 1993, ISBN 0-11-310043-4 (English).
  17. ↑ Zacharias Kypriotakis: Συμβολη Στη Μελετη Τησ Χασμοφυτικησ Χλωριδασ Τησ Κρητησ Και Τησ Δια- Χειρησησ Τησ Ωσ Φυσικου Πορου , Προσ Την Κατευθυνση Του Φυσιολατρικου Τουρισμου, Τησ Ανθοκομιασ, Τησ Εθνοβοτανικησ Και Τησ Προστασιασ Των Απειλουμενων Φυτικων Ειδων Και Βιοτοπων (Contribution to the Study of the Chasmophytic Flora of Crete and to its Management, as a Natural Resource, to the Direction of Ecotourism, Floriculture, Ethnobotany and the Protection of the Threatened Plant Species and Their Biotopes). Diss. Univ. Patras, 1998 ( thesis.ekt.gr ).
  18. ↑ Werner Greuter: The endemic flora of Crete and the significance of its protection. In: B. Antipas (Ed.): Internships sinedrio prostasias panidas-chloridas-viotopon. Athens, 1980, pp. 91-97.
  19. ↑ Google Earth, aerial photo from November 24, 2002, visible as a line running approximately from north to south z. B. at 35 ° 26'49.04 "N 25 ° 12'23.38" E.
  20. ^ Franz Wilhelm Sieber: Journey to the island of Crete in the Greek archipelagus in 1817 , Friedrich Fleischer, Leipzig & Sorau 1823, xxii + 548 p .; For information on Dia, see pages 54–58, “Preview” in Google Book Search
  21. ↑ Otto von Wettstein: The mammal world of the Aegean, along with a revision of the race group of Erinaceus europaeus. In: Annals of the Natural History Museum Vienna. Volume 52, 1941, pp. 245-278. PDF file.
  22. ^ Dorothea MA Bate: On the mammals of Crete. In: Proceedings of the Zoological Society London. Volume 2, 1905, pp. 315-323, Archive.org .
  23. ^ Joseph A. Chapman, John EC Flux: Rabbits, hares and pikas: status survey and conservation action plan. IUCN 1991, ISBN 2-8317-0019-1 , 168 S, limited preview in Google Book Search
  24. ↑ Α. Λεγάκις, Π. Μαραγκού: Το Κόκκινο Βιβλίο των Απειλούμενων Ζώων της Ελλάδας [Red List of Endangered Animals in Greece] . Ed .: Ελληνική Ζωολογική Εταιρεία [Greek Zoological Society], Υπουργείο Περιβάλλοντος, Ενέργ.ειας κ.λι Κλ.Αandel. Athens 2009, ISBN 978-960-85298-8-5 , Ερπετά [reptiles], p. 528 .
  25. ↑ Podarcis cretensis in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2010. Retrieved on November 6 of 2010.
  26. ↑ Program for the Conservation of Eleanor's Falcons in Greece, English ornithologiki.gr
  27. ↑ Monachus monachus in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species .
  28. ↑ Natura 2000 area GR 4310003 ( page no longer available , search in web archives: minenv.gr ) (Greek).@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.minenv.gr
  29. ↑ IBA GR 189 ornithologiki.gr (Greek).