BIOVARIETY
A recent research of the Romanian Academy has described the existence of approximately 5000 different species of plants, animals and insects that live within the Danube Delta. The flora consists of genuine elements, Mediterranean, Asian Balkan species and is represented by the most compact reed area in the world as surface area, as well as the oak tree and Mediterranean liana forest from Letea and Caraorman sand banks.
1. The Danube Delta - Flora
Extremely rich, it displays on three levels:
a) Plants with floating leaves - the white water lily (Castalia alba), the yellow water lily (Nuphar luteum), the grass of frogs (Hydrocharis morsisrane), the water thistles (Trapa natans), the water tongue (Potamogeton natans), (Stratiotes aloides)
b) River plants and - the reed (Phragmites type( approx. 80%) and the bulrush (Typha type) 20%, the water fern (Nephrodium thelypteris), the sorrel (Rumex hydrolapatum), the forget-me-not (Myositis palustris), the mint of the frog, the water hemlock (Cicuta virosa)
c) Land plants - the white willow (Salix alba), the poplar (Populus), the alder (Alnus), the ash tree (Fraxinus), the combined forests on the sand banks.
2. The Danube Delta - Fauna
The Danube Delta hosts more than 3400 species of vertebrate and no vertebrate animals, with numerous world, European and national unique.
Birds
The ornithology-fauna of the Delta has more than 300 species, of which 70 are extra European. Five main types are registered: Mediterranean (the herons, the pigmy cormorant, the bald eagle, the stilts, the wrench, the pelicans), European (singing birds: the moustached wrobler, the terns, the pigeon, the osprey, the white tailed eagle), Siberian (the mute swan, the commune snipe, the crane), Mongolic (the bald eagle, the saker), Chinese (the egret, the big cormorant, the mandarin duck).
Fish
There are known approx. 150 species, of which over 30 in the proper Delta. On the Danube branches usual presences are the starlet, the big oblate, the sturgeon, the herring, the carp, the sheat fish, the pike perch, and the barbel. The perch and the bream prefer the calmer waters, and the saltpetre medium is populated from the perch and the pike to the according to the salinity of waters, the marine sector sheltering the acipenserides (the sturgeon) and the clupeids (the Danube herrings).
Mammals
The number and the variety of the mammals are ensured by the higher areas, which are avoided by waters in general. We can say that through the impressive diversity of the habitats and of the life forms it houses in a relatively limited space, the Danube Delta constitutes a real museum of biodiversity of an inestimable value for the universal natural patrimony. We can meet here the otter, the mink, the bison (precious furs), the rabbit, the wild boar, the fox, the wolf, the fitch, the wild cat. The sands shelter tortoises, vipers, colonies of snakes.
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