Flora and Fauna
Comorian waters are the habitat of the coelacanth, a rare fish with limblike fins and a cartilaginous skeleton, the fossil remains of which date as far back as 400 million years and which was once thought to have become extinct about 70 million years ago. A live specimen was caught in 1938 off southern Africa; other coelacanths have since been found in the vicinity of the Comoro Islands.
Several mammals are unique to the islands themselves. Livingstone's fruit bat, although plentiful when discovered by explorer David Livingstone in 1863, has been reduced to a population of about 120, entirely on Anjouan. The world's largest bat, the jet-black Livingstone fruit bat has a wingspan of nearly two meters. A British preservation group sent an expedition to Comoros in 1992 to bring some of the bats to Britain to establish a breeding population.
A hybrid of the common brown lemur (Eulemur fulvus) originally from Madagascar, was introduced prior by humans prior to European colonization and is found on Mayotte. The mongoose lemur (Eulemur mongoz), also introduced from Madagascar by humans, can be found on the islands of Mohéli and Anjouan.
22 species of bird are unique to the archipelago and 17 of these are restricted to the Union of the Comoros. These include the Karthala Scops-owl, Anjouan Scops-owl and Humblot's Flycatcher.
Partly in response to international pressures, Comorians in the 1990s have become more concerned about the environment. Steps are being taken not only to preserve the rare fauna, but also to counteract degradation of the environment, especially on densely populated Anjouan. Specifically, to minimize the cutting down of trees for fuel, kerosene is being subsidized, and efforts are being made to replace the loss of the forest cover caused by ylang-ylang distillation for perfume. The Community Development Support Fund, sponsored by the International Development Association (IDA, a World Bank affiliate) and the Comorian government, is working to improve water supply on the islands as well.
Read more about this topic: Geography Of Comoros
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