Overview
The Choco Bioregion, a major hotspot, snakes its way down from Panama, through Colombia, and into Northern Ecuador. Cut off from the Amazon by the Andes mountains, a whole range of new species has emerged here, many of which are endemic to the region
Description
Named after the Colombian state Chocó, the name originally referred to the lowland rain forest on the Colombian coast. This region is characterized by extremely high precipitation and extraordinary species diversity. It is part of the Chocó-Darién ecoregion which reaches up to Panama in the north. In the south it borders with another ecoregion, called the Moist Forests of Ecuador. Due to their similarity these two ecoregions are combined to one biodiversity hotspot, the Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena Hotspot. This hotspot reaches from Panama down to Peru and from the Pacific coast up to an elevation of 1000m on the Andean flanks. At this elevation the worldwide most diverse ecoregion begins, the Tropical Andes. They cover the mountain range of the Andes, reaching from an elevation of 1000m in the west to an elevation of 500m in the east.
There is a fluent transition between the three mentioned ecoregions and various species live in more than one of the ecoregions. Although it doesn’t correspond with the scientific terms, nowadays all Ecuadorian forests reaching from the Pacific coast up to an elevation of 2200m are called Chocó.