Yunnan is a place of rich and unique biodiversity. The ancient extinct life in Yunnan also presents diverse characteristics. Chengjiang animal fossils coenosis are known as "the holy land of geopaleontology". Maotianshan Mountain has been 300 million years old in the Cambrian period and is a treasure house for studying the origin of life on earth; Lufeng dinosaur fauna has been 150 to 200 million years old, it is the one of the most complete and abundant animal groups of ancient vertebrates on the earth, and is known as the "Museum of Reptiles" on the earth. Yunnan has very abundant species of wild animals and plants. The territory of Yunnan accounts only for 4.1% of China, but the number of species in the major biological groups is close to or more than half of China; the vertebrates in Yunnan account for 51.4% of China, and more than 1/3 of the species are endemic to Yunnan or only sen in Yunnan within China. There are thousands of crops and their wild relatives in Yunnan, which is the origin and differentiation center of cultivated rice, buckwheat, tea, sugarcane and other crops in Asia.

Yunnan also ranks first in the number and species of animals in China. Among them, birds account for 63.7%, beasts account for 51.1%, fish account for 45.7%, reptiles account for 37.6% and amphibians account for 46.4%.There are more than 10,000 species of insects in Yunnan out of the 25,000 species listed at the national level. In China, many rare animals are only distributed in Yunnan, such as the national I protected animals loris, the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey, the Asian elephant, the Javan bison, the gibbons, the Indochinese tiger, the green peafowl, the Sclater's Monal Pheasant, the python and other 46 species. There are 154 species of National II protected animals, such as the Assamese macaque, the macaques, the Trachypithecus phayrei, the pangolins and red pandas.

Yunnan is the "Mother of Gardens in the World". Almost all horticultural flowers in Europe came from Yunnan. Yunnan has very rich and unique flower germplasm resources. For example, Wenshan Prefecture in southeastern Yunnan is an area where Magnoliaceae plants are concentrated in China and even the world. There are 237 species in 15 genera of Magnoliaceae plants in the world, and there are 112 species in 11 genera in China, and here in Wenshan Prefecture, you can find 56 species in 8 genera. The number of genera accounts for 53% of the world and 73% of China. Another example is: there are eight famous flowers in Yunnan, you can find 7 species out of the 8 concentrated here in the biodiversity conservation area in northwestern Yunnan, includes Camellia, Rhododendron, Meconopsis, Pedicularis, Primrose, Lily and Gentian, among which are rich resources of the big tree Rhododendron in the genus Rhododendron, Rhododendron protuberans, Rhododendron vulgaris, Rhododendron flamingo, etc. It is extremely rich as a famous flower, and the species accounts for nearly half of the total number of rhododendrons in the world, so it is called "the kingdom of rhododendrons"and "the world of flowers".

Reference: Yunnan: Colorful Garden of the World

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