The Palau archipelago is located in West Pacific Ocean, east of Philippines. The archipelago is composed of more than 250 islands. Those islands are for most of them inhabited and they are mainly covered with tropical forest and mangrove. This short presentation is by itself forewarning nice adventures. But adding to that a lake full of jellyfish makes Palau become an even more extraordinary region.
23 to 7 millions of years ago, during the Miocene era, Amazonia was partially covered by seawater. Cetaceans were living in this area. When seawater has been definitely out of Amazonia ground, a species would have adapted to continue living in rivers, drawing the Amazonian landscape. This species became the Boto, known also as the biggest pink dolphin of Amazonia.
Continue reading“Brazil: The Boto, pink dolphin of Amazonia”
Located in the Philippines, Sulu Sea, the Tubbataha Reef has became a protected marine park on August 11th, 1988.
This marine park, with an area of 968 km2 was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in December 1993.
In Sama language, Tubbataha means “a long reef emerged at low tide.” Indeed, this reef is composed of two parts, and each part has a small island on its center. However, the islands are very small and located far from the coast (the reef is located 181km from Puerto Princesa, the nearest city port), which make them difficult to reach for fishermen and population. If you want to imagine the Tubbataha Reef, try to picture yourself two tiny islands of maximum 2 meters, in the middle of Sulu Sea
This isolation has allowed the Tubbataha reef to maintain a high level of biodiversity along an abundance of incredible life.
Underwater, it is possible to encounter more than one thousand different species of fish, from the tiny anthias to the gigantic whale shark. All of them floating beyond the incredible coral which is composing the seabed.
Continue reading“Philippines: The Marine Park of Tubbataha”