Fauna

During the period called Pleistocene, which existed 22,000 to 13,000 years ago, the Amazon jungle reduced in size and became fragmented due to climatic

reptiles (among them 62 species of snakes), 567 bird species and 173 species of mammals (the group of the bats being the largest, with 81 species distributed among 7 different families).

The data collected from the intense biodiversity in this region speaks for itself. There are more than 100,000 species of insects per ha (with some 6 trillion specimens per ha), hundreds of fish species, 105 species of amphibians (including 43 species of tree frogs), 83 species of

changes. Only certain forests with very particular conditions remained. These areas where separated from one another. As a result, the fauna and flora evolved differently in each forest. When the conditions on earth were favorable for a greater jungle ecosystem, the jungle grew bigger and these areas became part of one single jungle again. However, a great number of species remained in their original habitats, called endemic or local species. This made the areas very diverse. One of these select areas has been inhabited by the Waorani people until the first contact with western culture was made and their territory became divided.

Nowadays the ancestral Waorani territory, between the rivers Napo and Curaray, has been divided into two separate areas. On one side lies the Yasuní National Park (982,000 hectares) and on the other side lies the territory legally recognized as Waorani territory (700,000 ha). The biodiversity of this area is remarkable in its flora and fauna, as it belongs to the Amazon Rainforest, the most bio-diverse ecosystem in the world. Even more impressionable, this particular area is considered to be one of the “Pleistocene Refuges”.