Month: August 2016

There are thought to be over 80,000 species of fauna within Turkey whilst the number of species in Europe numbers approximately 60,000. As in the case of flora Turkey is the original homeland of many well-known species. The pheasant, fallow deer and domestic sheep to name a few. Today many of the national parks and countryside are still rich with wildlife such as brown bears, wild boar, lynx, wolves and leopards as well as over 4,000 types of bird. The diversity of fauna in Turkey is even greater than that of wild plants. While the number of species throughout Europe as a whole is around 60,000, in Turkey they number over 80,000. If subspecies are also counted, then this number rises to over a hundred thousand. The fallow deer, now common in Europe was introduced from Turkey in the 17th century. Fallow deer originate from the Taurus Mountains between Antalya and Adana. The pheasant, a staple of the British countryside, comes an area on the Black Sea coast. The Latin name is Phasianus colchicus. "colchicus" derives from Colchis, an ancient kingdom which stretched along the Black Sea coast, now in modern day Georgia.  The domestic sheep is a descendant of the wild sheep, Ovis musimon anatolica, as the Latin name indicates, a native of Anatolia. The Anatolian leopard is now critically endangered in Turkey, once spread throughout the Aegean and Western areas of Turkey, it is now thought to be found only in pockets of the Pontic Mountain range. To the East their territory merges with that of the Caucasian leopard. In 2013, in Diyarbakir, a shepherd shot and killed an Anatolian leopard that was attacking his brother. This was the last known sighting for over 30 years. The tiger is another creature whose original homeland was Anatolia, a little known fact reflected in the name tiger itself , which comes from the Latin name Felis Tigris,

Turkey has some of the oldest varieties of cultivated plants in the world. The wild species of which are still found growing in Turkey. The original wild forms of plants retain many qualities that cultivated plants do not, frost hardiness, resistance to pests and diseases and ability to cope with fluctuating water levels are a few of the benefits. They also retain fragrance, taste and colour which are often lost in the breeding and hybridization needed to increase crop yields.  According to the principal international organizations active in wildlife research and conservation-the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (I-UCN), the International Plant Genetic Resource Institute (IPGRI) and the World Wildlife Found, there are four gene centers in the world for cultivated plants used in agriculture. Two of these are in the American continent and two in Asia. In America, Mexico is the gene centre for maize and tomatoes, and Peru for potatoes and beans,while in Asia China is the gene centre for rice and millet, and the region of southwest Asia covering most of Turkey and parts of Iran, Iraq. Syria and Azerbaijan for wheat and barley. The most important of these strategic agricultural plants is undoubtedly wheat, of which over thirty wild species still grow in Turkey. The transmission of a disease-resistant gene from a wild wheat form in Turkey to the American cultivar has meant a saving of 50 million dollars a year for the US economy alone. Turkey is also the home of many other cultivated plants, such as chickpeas, lentils, apricots, almonds, figs, hazelnuts, cherries and sour cherries. Their origin is evident in the Latin names for some of these species, such as Ficus carica. Caria was a civilization of Anatolia in the southern Aegean region. Kaunos was a city of ancient Caria. The Calbys River (now known as the Dalyan River) was the border between Caria and Lycia. Initially Kaunos was a separate