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By Jose Álvarez Alonso

According to Clements & Shany (“A Guide to the Birds of Peru”, 2001), Peru supports the highest number of birds of any country, with more than 1,800 species. This extraordinary diversity is largely due to the great diversity of habitats associated with the variability of soils of distinct origins, texture, age, drainage, state of oxidation, and nutrient content, derived from the erosion of the Andes.

The area around Iquitos, in the lowland tropics of north-east Peru is especially rich in plants and animals, including birds. According

Elaenia pelzelni - Brownish Elaenia

to Dr. Haven Wiley, Professor of the University of North Carolina, who has compiled a list of birds collected, seen or recorded in and around the city of Iquitos by numerous scientists who have visited the region during the last 150 years, the area is the Mecca of avian diversity: more than 800 species, more than 1 in every 12 species found on earth, can be seen in the area. It should be remembered that this refers to a single biogeographic realm, of lowland tropical forests, between 110 and 150 m above sea-level.

The existence of such different bird communities is a due to the diversity of habitats found in the area. There are groups of birds associated with distinct types of forest and other vegetative formations, which grow on different soils and under different drainage conditions. These include terre firme forest on poor soils, amongst which those of white sand are particularly noticeable, forest on non-flooding nutrient rich soils, flooded forests on white waters or varzea, flooded forests on black water or igapó, various successional habitats associated with river islands, palm swamps, marshes, shrub-dominated swamps, bambooo-dominated forest and various others.
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By Jose Alvarez Alonso (Researcher at the Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana – IIAP – Institude for Investigation of the Peruvian Amazon)

Allpahuayo – Mishana was created as an officially recognized Reserved Zone on the 4 of March 1999. It is located 23 km south of

Eurypyga helias - Heinz Plengue

Iquitos. In 2004 it was classified as a National Reserve (RNAM) with an area of 58,069 ha. The reserve protects, for the first time in Peru, an area of these rare white sand forests and black water flooded forests of the Rio Nanay. The lowland rain forests around Iquitos are famous for the heterogeneity of their habitat. A combination of historical and geological events has created a mosaic of diverse soil types, from nearly pure quartz sands to red clay, in the area. Each of these soil types supports a characteristic and unique flora and fauna, and as a result Allpahuayo-Mishana supports one of the highest biodiversities of the entire Amazon basin. Many of the species are specialists of white sand forests and as such are very rare, due to the scarcity of this forest type in Peru. For example, 21 species of bird in the area are associated with white sand forests, and for several of these species, the forests near Iquitos form the only area of their distribution in Peru. At least five new species have been found and described during the last five years from the white sand forests of Allpahuayo-Mishana. The reserve is also area where two primates, the Lucifer Titi Monkey Callicebus lucifer and Equatorial Saki Monkey Pithecia aequatorialis, are officially protected in Peru.
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