Peru Park Holds Record Reptile and Amphibian Diversity, Study Finds

A new study crowns Peru’s Manu National Park as the place with the world’s most diverse collection of reptiles and amphibians — 287 species in all. The park’s 155 amphibian and 132 reptile species outnumber those in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park, which, with 271 reptile
Manu glass frog
Alessandro Catenazzi
A glass frog from Manu’s cloud forests
and amphibian species, was previously believed to contain the world’s most diverse collection of reptiles and amphibians. Although Manu National Park represents only 0.01 percent of the world’s land area, it houses 2.2 percent of all amphibian species and 1.5 percent of all reptile species, the researchers note. They attribute the rich diversity to the park’s elevation gradient, which spans the Western Amazon’s tropical rainforest up through high Andean cloud forests, providing a wide range of habitats. Manu also has record bird diversity — with 1,000 species, or 10 percent of the world’s total species — and tremendous butterfly diversity, with 1,200 species. Scientists say the inventory of the national park’s richness is far from complete. DNA analyses, frog call studies, and other techniques will likely reveal even more diversity, the authors note in the journal Biota Neotropica.