Taita Hills
| Taita Hills | ||
|---|---|---|
 Mount Kasigau |
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| Highest peak | Vuria ( 2208 m ) | |
| location | South Kenya | |
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| Coordinates | 3 ° 25 ′ S , 38 ° 20 ′ E | |
The Kenyan Taita Hills are the northernmost foothills of the East African Eastern Arc Mountains . These represent a chain of old mountain massifs and consist of rain / cloud forests and grassland. The Eastern Arc Mountains and thus the Taita Hills were formed in the Precambrian . Its forests are believed to have existed for more than 30 million years and were originally connected to those in the Congo Basin and West Africa.
The Taita Hills reach a height of up to 2208 m . To the west of Voi are the Dabida massif (highest peak: Vuria 2208 m ) and the Mbololo ridge ( 1800 m ). To the south of Voi, the isolated massifs of Mount Kasigau ( 1641 m ) and Mount Sagala ( 1520 m ) rise from the surrounding Tsavo plain. The forests of the Taita Hills are now only small and highly fragmented. Around 300 hectares are still covered by forest or forest, this corresponds to 90% forest loss since 1950.
The Taita Hills are home to (like other Eastern Arc Mountains) an unusually high number of rare and / or endemic animal and plant species. The best known are the three endemic bird species: Taita thrush ( Turdus helleri , cloud forests of the Taita Hills), the Taita spectacled bird ( Zosterops silvanus , Taita Hills, Mount Kasigau) and the Taita warbler ( Apalis fuscigularis , Dabida). Examples of endemic representatives of other groups are the soft rat Praomys taitae , the Taita purple lung snake ( Amblyodipsas taitana ) and the candlestick Ceropegia verticillata .
Habitat of the Taita spectacled bird on Mount Kasigau
Shiny star in the Taita Hills
Sources and individual references
- ^ Eastern Arc Mountains Conservation Endowment Fund, Tanzania ( February 28, 2009 memento in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved January 11, 2011
- ^ Eastern Arc Mountains at WWF. Retrieved January 11, 2011
- ↑ Taita Hills. Eastern Arc Mountains Conservation Endowment Fund, Tanzania ( Memento of the original dated December 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 11, 2011
- ↑ a b Taita Hills biodiversity project report ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 820 kB) Accessed January 11, 2011
See also
Web links
- http://www.helsinki.fi/ University of Helsinki: Description of the Taita Mountains (English)