China is one of the countries with the greatest
diversity of wildlife in the world. There are more than
4,400 species of vertebrates, more than 10 percent of the
world’s total. There are nearly 500 animal species,
1,189 species of birds, more than 320 species of reptiles
and 210 species of amphibians. Wildlife peculiar to China
includes such well-known animals as the giant panda,
golden-haired monkey, South China tiger,
brown-eared pheasant, white-flag dolphin, Chinese alligator
and red-crowned crane, totaling more than 100 species. The
giant panda is an especially attractive sight. Heavily
built, it has a docile disposition, and is delightfully
adorable. The 1.2-m-tall red-crowned crane is a snow-white
migratory bird. A distinctive patch of red skin tops its
grey-brown head, hence its name. The white-flag dolphin is
one of only two species of freshwater whale in the world. In
1980, a male white-flag dolphin was caught for the first
time in the Yangtze River, which aroused great interest
among dolphin researchers worldwide.
China has
some of the most abundant plant life in the world. There are
more than 32,000 species of higher plants, and almost all
the major plants that grow in the northern
hemisphere’s frigid, temperate and tropical zones are
represented in China. In addition, there are more than 7,000
species of woody plants, including 2,800 tree species. The
metasequoia, Chinese cypress, cathaya tree, China fir,
golden larch, Taiwan fir, Fujian cypress, dove-tree,
eucommia and camplotheca acuminata are found only in China.
The metasequoia, a tall species of arbor, is considered as
one of the oldest and rarest plants in the world. The golden
larch, one of only five species of rare garden trees in the
world, grow in the mountain areas in the Yangtze River
valley. Its coin-shaped leaves on short branches are green
in spring and summer, turning yellow in autumn. China is
home to more than 2,000 species of edible plants and 3,000
species of medicinal plants. Ginseng from the Changbai
Mountains, safflowers from Tibet, Chinese wolfberry from
Ningxia and notoginseng from Yunnan and Guizhou are
particularly well-known Chinese herbal medicines. There is a
wide variety of flowering plants. A flower indigenous to
China, the elegant and graceful peony is treasured as the
“color of the nation and the scent of heaven.”
Three famous species of flowers--the azalea, fairy primrose
and rough gentian--grow in southwest China. During the
flowering period, mountain slopes covered with flowers in a
riot of colors form a delightful contrast with undulating
ridges and peaks.
In a
concerted effort to protect the nation’s zoological
and botanical resources, and save species close to
extinction, China has established 1.146 nature reserves to
protect forests and wildlife, with a total area of 88.13
million ha. The 15 nature reserves in China, namely,
Sichuan’s Wolong and Jiuzhaigou, Jilin’s
Changbai Mountains, Guangdong’s Dinghu Mountains,
Guizhou’s Fanjing Mountains, Fujian’s Wuyi
Mountains, Hubei’s Shennongjia, Inner Mongolia’s
Xilingol, Xinjiang’s Mt. Bogda, Yunnan’s
Xishuangbanna, Jiangsu’s Yancheng, Zhejiang’s
Tianmu Mountains Nanji and Islands Guizhou’s Maolan
and Heilongjiang’s Fenglin, have joined the
“International People and Bio-sphere Protection
Network.” Heilongjiang’s Zhalong, Jilin’s
Xianghai, Hunan’s Dongting Lake, Jiangxi’s
Poyang Lake, Qinghai’s Bird Island, Hainan’s
Dongzhai Harbor and Hong Kong’s Mai Po have been
included in the listing of the world’s important
wetlands.
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