Critically EndangeredGiant Clam
Tridacna gigas
Asia
Jordan is a country of transition between the Mediterranean, the Irano-Turanian steppe, the Arabian desert and the tropical strip of the Red Sea, and that confluence is nowhere better appreciated than in the Dana reserve, where a single descent of one thousand five hundred metres takes you from juniper and oak woodland into a desert canyon. The Rift valley runs the length of the country from north to south and funnels the migration of storks and raptors between Eurasia and Africa. The eastern desert, of black basalt and hamada, holds oases such as Azraq, while Wadi Rum spreads sandstone massifs across red sand, with Nubian ibex and Arabian wolves. In the Gulf of Aqaba, the coral reefs of the Red Sea reach right up to the shore and sit alongside seagrass meadows where green turtles feed.
National animal: The Arabian oryx is the national animal; the Sinai rosefinch is the national bird
The Azraq oasis was an enormous wetland in the middle of the desert, a vital stopover for migratory birds, until massive pumping of its aquifer to supply Amman left it dry in 1993. The most singular fish of the place, a small cyprinodont that exists nowhere else in the world, survived only because animals had been kept in captivity, and it was returned to the pools when water began to be pumped back into the oasis.
Shaumari was one of the first reserves in the world to receive Arabian oryx from the international breeding herd when the species was extinct in the wild. The overexploitation of aquifers remains the country's great environmental problem.
Dana between March and May for birds and flowering plants. Azraq in spring and autumn for waterbird migration. Wadi Rum at dawn for ibex and desert birds.
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Same region: Middle East and Western Asia
Same region: Middle East and Western Asia
Same region: Middle East and Western Asia
133 species found
Based on what we already know about Jordan.
