Southeastern Russia—Amur Sakhalin
Rare Amur tigers, Far Eastern leopards, light-footed, high-climbing ghorals and almost half this vast country’s avifauna—some 500 species—are in the Russian Far East. Plant life is equally rich— in the Ussuri taiga alone, seven species of maple trees, five of birch, four of elm, three each of lime, alder, and wild cherry, two of oak and ash—with more than 600 species of medicinal plants. It is Russia’s most diverse flora and fauna, in habitat ranging from northern taiga—moist subarctic coniferous forest that starts where the tundra ends—to southern subtropics and seashores.
