Oceanian realm

Map of Oceanian realm. It extends further east to include Rapa Nui and Sala y Gomez.

The Oceanian realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms and is unique in not including any continental land mass. It has the smallest land area of any of the WWF realms.

This realm includes the islands of the Pacific Ocean in Micronesia, the Fijian Islands, the Hawaiian Islands, and Polynesia (with the exception of New Zealand).[1] New Zealand, Australia, and most of Melanesia including New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia are included within the Australasian realm.

Conversely, New Guinea, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands and New Zealand are included in the Oceanian realm in the classification scheme developed by Miklos Udvardy in 1975.[2][3]

The Juan Fernández Islands have been included in both the Oceanian and Temperate South American realms.[4] Despite only being a few hundred miles removed from the South American coast, the islands have strong Hawaiian and southeast Polynesian biogeographic influences, and the presence of an endemic insect and plant family.[4] The uninhabited French territory of Clipperton Island, 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Mexico, has also been associated with the realm.[5][4]

  1. ^ Olson, D. M., Dinerstein, E., Wikramanayake, E. D., Burgess, N. D., Powell, G. V. N., Underwood, E. C., D'Amico, J. A., Itoua, I., Strand, H. E., Morrison, J. C., Loucks, C. J., Allnutt, T. F., Ricketts, T. H., Kura, Y., Lamoreux, J. F., Wettengel, W. W., Hedao, P., Kassem, K. R. (2001). Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: a new map of life on Earth. Bioscience 51(11):933-938.
  2. ^ Udvardy, M. D. F. (1975). A classification of the biogeographical provinces of the world. IUCN Occasional Paper no. 18. Morges, Switzerland: IUCN.
  3. ^ Udvardy, Miklos D. F. (1975) World Biogeographical Provinces (Map). The CoEvolution Quarterly, Sausalito, California. link.
  4. ^ a b c Udvardy, Miklos D.F. "A Classification of the Biogeographical Provinces of the World" (PDF). UNESCO. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  5. ^ Robertson, D. Ross; Allen, Gerald R. (1996). "Zoogeography of the shorefish fauna of Clipperton Atoll". Repository.si.edu. hdl:10088/19435. Retrieved 2022-01-17.