Neotropical realm

The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone.

Definition

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In

The realm also includes temperate southern South America. In contrast, the Neotropical Floristic Kingdom excludes southernmost South America, which instead is placed in the Antarctic kingdom.

The Neotropic is delimited by similarities in fauna or flora. Its fauna and flora are distinct from the Nearctic realm (which includes most of North America) because of the long separation of the two continents. The formation of the Isthmus of Panama joined the two continents two to three million years ago, precipitating the Great American Interchange, an important biogeographical event.

The Neotropic includes more

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) subdivides the realm into bioregions, defined as "geographic clusters of ecoregions that may span several habitat types, but have strong biogeographic affinities, particularly at taxonomic levels higher than the species level (genus, family)."

Laurel forest and other cloud forest are subtropical and mild temperate forest, found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable and mild temperatures. Tropical rainforest, tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests are highlight^{[clarification needed]} in Southern North America, Amazonia, Caribbean, Central America, Northern Andes and Central Andes.^{[citation needed]}

Amazonia

The

Central America

Central Andes

The Central Andes lie between the Gulfs of Guayaquil and Penas and thus encompass southern Ecuador, Chile, Peru, western Bolivia, and northwest and western Argentina.^[1]

Eastern South America

Eastern South America includes the

Northern Andes

North of the Gulf of Guayaquil in Ecuador and Colombia, a series of accreted oceanic terranes (discrete allochthonous fragments) have developed that constitute the Baudo, or Coastal, Mountains and the Cordillera Occidental.^[2]

Orinoco

The Orinoco is a region of humid forested broadleaf forest and wetland primarily comprising the drainage basin for the Orinoco River and other adjacent lowland forested areas. This region includes most of Venezuela and parts of Colombia, as well as Trinidad and Tobago.

Southern South America

The temperate forest ecoregions of southwestern South America, including the

South America was originally part of the supercontinent of Gondwana, which included Africa, Australia, India, New Zealand, and Antarctica, and the Neotropic shares many plant and animal lineages with these other continents, including marsupial mammals and the Antarctic flora.

After the final breakup of the Gondwana about 110 million years ago, South America was separated from Africa and drifted north and west. 66 million years ago, the

The Neotropical realm has 31 endemic bird families, which is over twice the number of any other realm. They include tanagers, rheas, tinamous, curassows, antbirds, ovenbirds, toucans, and seriemas. Bird families originally unique to the Neotropics include hummingbirds (family Trochilidae) and wrens (family Troglodytidae).

Mammal groups originally unique to the Neotropics include:

• Order Xenarthra: anteaters, sloths, and armadillos
• New World monkeys
• Solenodontidae, the solenodons
• Caviomorpha rodents, including capybaras, guinea pigs, hutias, and chinchillas
• American opossums (order
  Didelphimorphia) and shrew opossums (order Paucituberculata
  )

The Neotropical realm has 63 endemic fish families and subfamilies, which is more than any other realm.^[5] Neotropical fishes include more than 5,700 species, and represent at least 66 distinct lineages in continental freshwaters (Albert and Reis, 2011). The well-known red-bellied piranha is endemic to the Neotropic realm, occupying a larger geographic area than any other piranha species. Some fish groups originally unique to the Neotropics include:

• Order Gymnotiformes: Neotropical electric fishes
• Family Characidae: tetras and allies
• Family Loricariidae: armoured catfishes
• Subfamily Cichlinae: Neotropical cichlids
• Subfamily Poeciliinae: guppies and relatives

Examples of other animal groups that are entirely or mainly restricted to the Neotropical region include:

• Caimans
• New World coral snakes
• Poison dart frogs
• Dactyloidae ("anoles")
• Rock iguanas
  (Cyclura)
• Preponini and Anaeini butterflies (including Agrias
  )
• Caligo and Morpho
  )
• Callicorini
  butterflies
• Heliconiini butterflies
• Ithomiini butterflies
• Riodininae butterflies
• Eumaeini butterflies
• Firetips or firetail skipper butterflies
• Euglossini bees
• Augochlorini bees
• Pseudostigmatidae ("giant damselflies")
• Mantoididae (short-bodied mantises)
• Canopidae, Megarididae, and Phloeidae
  (pentatomoid bugs)
• Aetalionidae and Melizoderidae (treehoppers^[6])
• Gonyleptidae (harvestmen)

Plants

Plant families endemic and partly subendemic to the realm are, according to Takhtajan (1978),

Plant species with economic importance originally unique to the Neotropic include:^[citation needed]

• Potato (Solanum tuberosum)
• Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum)
• Cacao tree (Theobroma cacao), source of cocoa and chocolate
• Maize (Zea mays)
• Passion fruit
  (Passiflora edulis)
• Guava (Psidium guajava)
• Lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus)
• Cotton (Gossypium barbadense)
• Cassava (Manihot esculenta)
• Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas)
• Amaranth (Amaranthus caudatus)
• Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa)

Neotropical terrestrial ecoregions

Citations

General and cited bibliography

• Albert, J. S., and R. E. Reis (2011). Historical Biogeography of Neotropical Freshwater Fishes. University of California Press, Berkeley. 424 pp.
  ISBN 978-0-520-26868-5
  .
• Bequaert, Joseph C. "An Introductory Study of Polistes in the United States and Canada with Descriptions of Some New North and South American Forms (Hymenoptera; Vespidæ)". Journal of the New York Entomological Society 48.1 (1940): 1-31.
• Cox, C. B.; P. D. Moore (1985). Biogeography: An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach (Fourth Edition). Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford.
• Dinerstein, E., Olson, D. Graham, D. J. et al. (1995). A Conservation Assessment of the Terrestrial Ecoregions of Latin America and the Caribbean. World Bank, Washington, D.C.
• Olson, D. M., B. Chernoff, G. Burgess, I. Davidson, P. Canevari, E. Dinerstein, G. Castro, V. Morisset, R. Abell, and E. Toledo. 1997. Freshwater biodiversity of Latin America and the Caribbean: a conservation assessment. Draft report. World Wildlife Fund-U.S., Wetlands International, Biodiversity Support Program, and United States Agency for International Development, Washington, D.C.
• Reis, R. E., S. O. Kullander, and C. J. Ferraris Jr. 2003. Check List of the Freshwater Fishes of South and Central America. Edipucrs, Porto Alegre. 729 pp.
• Udvardy, M. D. F. (1975). A classification of the biogeographical provinces of the world. IUCN Occasional Paper no. 18. Morges, Switzerland: IUCN.
• van der Sleen, Peter, and James S. Albert, eds. Field Guide to the Fishes of the Amazon, Orinoco, and Guianas. Princeton University Press, 2017.

External links

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Central and South American wildlife.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Neotropic.

• List of terrestrial ecoregions
• Eco-Index, a bilingual searchable reference of conservation and research projects in the Neotropics; a service of the Rainforest Alliance
• NeoTropic
• Acosta, Guillermo et al., 2018. "Climate change and peopling of the Neotropics during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition". Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana.
  doi:10.18268/BSGM2018v70n1a1
  .