Flora and Fauna
The park is home to diversity of flora and fauna. Over 4,000 plant species have been identified to date in the park area, including the world's largest flower, Rafflesia arnoldi, and the plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence, the titan arum.
The fauna include Sumatran Tigers and the park is recognised under the Global Tiger Initiative as one of the 12 most important protected areas in the world for tiger conservation. In 2012, Sumatran Tiger Preservation Programme official stated the Park has about 166 Sumatran Tigers and spreads mainly at Merangin-Bungo in Jambi, Tapan-Solok Selatan in West Sumatra, Muko-muko in Bengkulu and Curup Bengkulu-Lingau in South Sumatra. The tigers conditions are predicted well, because of the vast park is enough space for tiger population, although the tigers' number might have slightly changed due to poaching activities.
Other highly endangered species include Sumatran Rhinoceros, Sumatran elephants, Sunda Clouded Leopard, Malayan Tapir, Malay Sun Bear. In 2008 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) added a second species of muntjak deer to the Sumatran list of fauna with the rediscovery of the Sumatran Muntjac, a deer not recorded since the late 1920s and now concluded as a new species and not sub species. The park also protects more than 370 bird species, including the Sumatran Ground-cuckoo rediscovered in the park in 2002.
The Kerinci area is home to more than 300 bird species, including 17 of Sumatra's 20 endemic birds, making it of particular importance to ornithologists and bird-watching enthusiasts.
The population of Sumatran Rhinoceros in the park was estimated to number around 500 in the 1980s, but due to poaching the Kerinci Seblat population is now considered extinct.
Read more about this topic: Kerinci Seblat National Park
Famous quotes containing the words flora and/or fauna:
“A man’s interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The whole fauna of human fantasies, their marine vegetation, drifts and luxuriates in the dimly lit zones of human activity, as though plaiting thick tresses of darkness. Here, too, appear the lighthouses of the mind, with their outward resemblance to less pure symbols. The gateway to mystery swings open at the touch of human weakness and we have entered the realms of darkness. One false step, one slurred syllable together reveal a man’s thoughts.”
—Louis Aragon (1897–1982)