Sitang - Irawaddy
ID
720
Author(s)
J. Hales
Countries
Burma
China
India
India, Claimed by China
Major Habitat Type
Tropical and subtropical floodplain rivers and wetland complexes
Description
Boundaries
This ecoregion includes the Sittang and Irrawaddy basins in Myanmar.
Description of endemic fishes
62 recorded endemic species
Justification for delineation
For Southeast Asia, delineations were determined using a bottom-up approach that employed both published and unpublished field data and expert assessment (Abell et al. 2008; Kottelat 1989).
Level of taxonomic exploration
Most of the published data date back to 1870-1940 and concern mainly the main river and a few isolated localities. Lack of detailed data does not allow a finer analysis of these basins, but it might be expected that in fact they include more than one ecoregion (M. Kottelat pers. comm. 2006).
References
- Abell, Robin,M.L. Thieme,C. Revenga,M. Bryer,M. Kottelat,N. Bogutskaya,B. Coad,N. Mandrak,S.C. Balderas,W. Bussing,M.L.J. Stiassny,P. Skelton,G.R. Allen,P. Unmack,A. Naseka,R. Ng,N. Sindorf,J. Robertson,E. Armijo,J.V. Higgins,T.J. Heibel,E. Wikramanayake, (2008). "Freshwater Ecoregions of the World: A New Map of Biogeographic Units for Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation" BioScience 58 (5) pp. 403-414.
- Kottelat, M. (1989). "Zoogeography of the fishes from Indochinese inland waters with an annotated check-list" Bulletin Zoologisch Museum Universiteit van Amsterdam 12 (1) pp. 1-54.