Titikaka - Ecology

Ecology

Lake Titicaca holds large populations of water birds and was designated as a Ramsar Site on August 26, 1998. Several threatened species such as the huge Titicaca Water Frog and the flightless Titicaca Grebe are largely or entirely restricted to the lake, and the Titicaca orestias has gone extinct due to competition and predation by various introduced species of trouts and silversides. In addition to the Titicaca orestias, native fish species in the lake's basin are other species of Orestias, and catfish from the genera Astroblepus and Trichomycterus (the last genus not in the lake itself, but in associated ecosystems). Approximately 90% of the fish species in the basin are endemic.