Animals
There are more endemic animals than plants in the Maltese Islands. Many a time, the animal in question has been confused with a different species from a close country e.g. the Sicilian shrew in Gozo which has been defined as a subspecies of its own.
Below is a list of some endemic animals (together with their classification):
- Maltese Field Beetle Pimelia rugulosa ssp. melitana
- Schembri's Spider Fly Ogcodes schembrii
- Maltese Ruby Tiger Moth Phragmatobia fuliginosa ssp. melitensis
- Swallowtail (Maltese subspecies) Papilio machaon ssp. melitensis
- Maltese freshwater crab Potamon fluviatile ssp. lanfrancoi
- Maltese Palpigrade Eukoenia christiani
- Maltese Wall Lizard (this species has many subspecies, four of which are endemic to the Maltese Islands) Podarcis filfolensis
- Sicilian Shrew Crocidura sicula ssp. calypso
Read more about this topic: Endemic Maltese Wildlife
Famous quotes containing the word animals:
“The animals that depend on instinct have an inherent knowledge of the laws of economics and of how to apply them; Man, with his powers of reason, has reduced economics to the level of a farce which is at once funnier and more tragic than Tobacco Road.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are layed waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)