Animals of Asia [antikvár]

INTRODUCTIONAsia is the largest continent. Its name comes from the Assyrian word 'asu', which means 'region of the East'. Together with Europe, it forms a huge natural land mass; Europe is separated from Asia by the Ural Mountains. Asia also includes many islands: there are three groups of islands in the Arctic Ocean in the north, in the east stretch the large islands of Sakhalin, Taiwan, the Japanese Islands, the Philippines, the Indonesian Islands, Sri Lanka and countless other smaller islands and islets.The north of Asia has a very cold, arctic climate and large glaciers, while the south has hot tropical weather. A temperature of 78° C below zero has been measured in Siberia and a temperature of 50° C has been recorded in Baghdad. Nowhere in the world exists such an extreme difference between the highest and lowest points: Lake Baikal, with its depth of 1 742 m, is the deepest lake in the world, and Mount Everest in the Himalayas, reaching a height of over 8 840 m, is the highest peak.Asia has examples of all the vegetation zones in the world. Tundra, a cold, treeless plain, covers a belt as much as 600 km wide in the north, ranging from the Kola Peninsula to Chukot-ka. In some areas, the tundra passes from lowlands to mountains. Despite a brief growing period, the countryside is teeming with life. The lakes and rivers are crystal clear. The tundra is an important source of oxygen for the inland regions of Asia. Arctic winds, reaching the remote interior of the continent, bring fresh cooled air rich in oxygen. In the south, the tundra gradually changes into an extensive zone of coniferous forest the taiga. Steppes (enormous grasslands) and deserts are found farther in the south, and these then give way to the subtropical and tropical zones. Most of the regions of southern, south-eastern and eastern Asia are situated in the monsoon zone with regular seasons of rain and drought. Each zone has its characteristic flora and fauna.Although Asia has immense uninhabited areas of desert, tundra, mountains and forests, it is home for more than half of the world's population. People are concentrated in favourable locations such as river deltas, fertile valleys and coastal regions. Japan, eastern China, Bengal and Java are the most densely populated areas in Asia.Asia is the home of many wild animals and some species are found only in this continent. Such animals include the legendary Giant Panda, the Orang-utan and the Tiger. Some endemic, that is locally occurring, species were ancestors of our most important domestic animals. An