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A tepui , or tepuy (), is a table-top mountain or mesa found in South America, especially in Venezuela and western Guyana. The word tepui means "house of the gods" in the native tongue of the
Pemon The Pemon or Pemón (Pemong) are indigenous people living in areas of Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana.See pp.112,113 and 178 of ''Venezuela: the Pemon'', in ''Condé Nast Traveler'', December 2008. They are also known as Arecuna, Aricuna Jaricuna, ...
, the
indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
who inhabit the
Gran Sabana La Gran Sabana (, en, The Great Savanna) is a region in southeastern Venezuela, part of the Guianan savanna ecoregion. The savanna spreads into the regions of the Guiana Highlands and south-east into Bolívar State, extending further to the b ...
. Tepuis tend to be found as isolated entities rather than in connected ranges, which makes them the host of a unique array of endemic plant and animal species. Some of the most outstanding tepuis are Auyantepui, Autana, Neblina, and
Mount Roraima Mount Roraima ( es, Monte Roraima; Tepuy Roraima; Cerro Roraima pt, Monte Roraima ) is the highest of the Pakaraima chain of tepuis (table-top mountain) or plateaux in South America. It is located at the junction of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyan ...
. They are typically composed of sheer blocks of Precambrian
quartz arenite A quartz arenite or quartzarenite is a sandstone composed of greater than 90% detrital quartz. Quartz arenites are the most mature sedimentary rocks possible, and are often referred to as ultra- or super-mature, and are usually cemented by s ...
sandstone that rise abruptly from the jungle, giving rise to spectacular natural scenery. Auyantepui is the source of
Angel Falls Angel Falls ( es, Salto Ángel; Pemon language: ''Kerepakupai Merú'' meaning "waterfall of the deepest place", or ''Parakupá Vená'', meaning "the fall from the highest point") is a waterfall in Venezuela. It is the world's tallest uninterr ...
, the world's tallest waterfall.


Morphology

These table-top mountains are the remains of a large sandstone plateau that once covered the granite basement complex between the north border of the
Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Boliv ...
and the
Orinoco The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wo ...
, between the Atlantic coast and the Rio Negro. This area is part of the remnants of the supercontinent Gondwana. Throughout the course of the history of Earth, the plateau was eroded, and the tepuis were formed from the remaining
monadnock An inselberg or monadnock () is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, a ...
s. There are 115 such mesas in the
Gran Sabana La Gran Sabana (, en, The Great Savanna) is a region in southeastern Venezuela, part of the Guianan savanna ecoregion. The savanna spreads into the regions of the Guiana Highlands and south-east into Bolívar State, extending further to the b ...
in the south-east of Venezuela on the border with Guyana and Brazil, where the highest concentration of tepuis is found. The precipitous mountains tower over the surrounding area by up to . Tepuis range in elevation from . The total surface area of all 115 tepuis is approximately . Because of their great age, some tepuis exhibit surface features and caves typical of
karst Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ...
topography, formed in more water-soluble rocks such as limestone. Caves here include the Abismo Guy Collet, the deepest quartzite cave in the world. Some of the
mesas A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by ...
are pocked with giant sinkholes up to in diameter and with sheer walls up to deep. These sinkholes are formed when the roofs of tunnels carved by underground rivers collapse.


Flora and fauna

The plateaus of the tepuis are completely isolated from the ground forest, making them
ecological island An ecological island is a term used in New Zealand, and increasingly in Australia, to refer to an area of land (not necessarily an actual island) isolated by natural or artificial means from the surrounding land, where a natural micro-habitat exist ...
s.Zimmer, Carl
It’s Not So Lonely at the Top: Ecosystems Thrive High in the Sky
The New York Times website, May 7, 2012, and published in the New York edition, p. D3 on May 8, 2012.
The altitude causes them to have a different climate from the ground forest. The top presents cool temperatures with frequent rainfall, while the bases of the mountains have a tropical, warm and humid climate. The isolation has led to the presence of endemic flora and fauna through evolution over millennia of a different world of animals and plants, cut off from the rest of the world by the imposing rock walls. Some tepui sinkholes contain species that have evolved in these "islands within islands" that are unique to that sinkhole. The tepuis are often referred to as the
Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands ( Spanish: , , ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands. They are distributed on each side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, and are part of the Republic of Ecuador ...
of the mainland, having a large number of unique plants and animals not found anywhere else in the world. The floors of the mesas are poor in nutrients, which has led to a rich variety of
carnivorous plants Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their Plant nutrition, nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants still generate some of their energy from ph ...
, such as '' Drosera'' and most species of '' Heliamphora'', as well as a wide variety of orchids and
bromeliads The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a family of monocot flowering plants of about 80 genera and 3700 known species, native mainly to the tropical Americas, with several species found in the American subtropics and one in tropical west Africa, ...
. The weathered, craggy nature of the rocky ground means no layers of
humus In classical soil science, humus is the dark organic matter in soil that is formed by the decomposition of plant and animal matter. It is a kind of soil organic matter. It is rich in nutrients and retains moisture in the soil. Humus is the Latin ...
are formed. It has been hypothesized that endemics on tepuis represent relict fauna and flora that underwent vicariant speciation when the plateau became fragmented over geological time. However, recent studies suggest that tepuis are not as isolated as originally believed. For example, an endemic group of treefrogs, ''
Tepuihyla ''Tepuihyla'', commonly known as Amazon tree frogs or Tepui tree frogs, is a genus of frogs in the family Hylidae found in mountains of eastern and south-eastern Venezuela and Guyana, and likely in adjacent Brazil. A tepui is a table-top mountai ...
'', have diverged after the tepuis were formed; that is, speciation followed colonization from the lowlands. The tepuis, also known as 'islands above the rainforest', are a challenge for researchers, as they are home to a high number of new species that have yet to be described. A few of these mountains are cloaked by thick clouds for nearly the entire year. Their surfaces could previously only be photographed by helicopter radar equipment. Many tepuis are in the
Canaima National Park Canaima National Park ( es, Parque Nacional Canaima) is a park in south-eastern Venezuela that roughly occupies the same area as the Gran Sabana region. It is located in Bolívar State, reaching the borders with Brazil and Guyana. History Ca ...
in Venezuela, which has been classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.


Selected tepuis

A few of the most notable of the 60 tepuis: * Auyantepui is the largest of the tepuis with a surface area of .
Angel Falls Angel Falls ( es, Salto Ángel; Pemon language: ''Kerepakupai Merú'' meaning "waterfall of the deepest place", or ''Parakupá Vená'', meaning "the fall from the highest point") is a waterfall in Venezuela. It is the world's tallest uninterr ...
, the highest waterfall in the world, drops from a cleft in the summit. *
Mount Roraima Mount Roraima ( es, Monte Roraima; Tepuy Roraima; Cerro Roraima pt, Monte Roraima ) is the highest of the Pakaraima chain of tepuis (table-top mountain) or plateaux in South America. It is located at the junction of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyan ...
, also known as Roraima Tepui. A report by the noted South American researcher
Robert Schomburgk Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk (5 June 1804 – 11 March 1865) was a German-born explorer for Great Britain who carried out geographical, ethnological and botanical studies in South America and the West Indies, and also fulfilled diplomatic missio ...
inspired the Scottish author
Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...
to write his novel ''
The Lost World The lost world is a subgenre of the fantasy or science fiction genres that involves the discovery of an unknown Earth civilization. It began as a subgenre of the late- Victorian adventure romance and remains popular into the 21st century. The ...
'' about the discovery of a living prehistoric world full of dinosaurs and other primordial creatures. The borders of Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana meet on the top. * Matawi Tepui, also known as Kukenán, because it is the source of the Kukenán River, is considered the "place of the dead" by the local
Pemon The Pemon or Pemón (Pemong) are indigenous people living in areas of Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana.See pp.112,113 and 178 of ''Venezuela: the Pemon'', in ''Condé Nast Traveler'', December 2008. They are also known as Arecuna, Aricuna Jaricuna, ...
Peoples. Located next to Mount Roraima in Venezuela. * Autana Tepui stands above the forest floor. A unique cave runs from one side of the mountain to the other. * Sarisariñama Tepui, famous for its almost perfectly circular sinkholes that go straight down from the mountain top – the largest such sinkhole is in diameter and depth (purportedly created by groundwater erosion). They harbour an ecosystem composed of unique plant and animal species at the bottom. * Ilú-Tramen Massif is the most northerly mountain in the chain that stretches along the Venezuelan-Guyana border from Roraima in the south.


Popular culture

The hypothesis that endemic fauna and flora of tepuis represent remnants of ancient species was an inspiration to
Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...
's novel ''
The Lost World The lost world is a subgenre of the fantasy or science fiction genres that involves the discovery of an unknown Earth civilization. It began as a subgenre of the late- Victorian adventure romance and remains popular into the 21st century. The ...
'' (1912), which was set on a tepui. In the 1990 film ''
Arachnophobia Arachnophobia is a specific phobia brought about by the irrational fear of spiders and other arachnids such as scorpions. Signs and symptoms People with arachnophobia tend to feel uneasy in any area they believe could harbour spiders or that h ...
'', a new species of spider with a highly potent, deadly venom that lives in social colonies and is the implied
apex predator An apex predator, also known as a top predator, is a predator at the top of a food chain, without natural predators of its own. Apex predators are usually defined in terms of trophic dynamics, meaning that they occupy the highest trophic lev ...
of its environment is discovered in a sinkhole enclosed by a tepui in the Venezuelan rainforest, also alluding to the unique ecological conditions of tepuis. Much of the story of 2009 PixarDisney film '' Up'' takes place among the tepuis. The film also includes depictions of the numerous rock formations and an Angel Falls-like waterfall called "Paradise Falls". In a scene near the beginning of Disney's " Dinosaur", a pteranodon flies over tepuis.
Steve Backshall Stephen James Backshall (born 21 April 1973) is an English naturalist, explorer, presenter and writer, best known for BBC TV's '' Deadly 60''. His other BBC work includes being part of the expedition teams in '' Lost Land of the Tiger'', '' ...
was part of the first expedition to successfully climb Mount Upuigma."Conquering a virgin"
''The Times'', 11 November 2007
The expedition was part of the program '' Lost Land of the Jaguar'' on BBC One in 2008. On the summit they discovered an endemic species of frog and mouse, and also footprints of an unidentified mammal. In the novel ''The 6th Extinction'' (2014) by
James Rollins James Paul Czajkowski (born August 20, 1961), better known by his pen name of James Rollins, is an American veterinarian and writer of action-adventure/ thriller, mystery, and techno-thriller novels who gave up his veterinary practice in Sacrame ...
, a tepui in the north of Brazil was featured as a secret lair for the villain Dr. Cutter Elwes.


See also

* * *


References

;Citations ;Bibliography * Much of the text of this article comes from the corresponding German-language Wikipedia article, retrieved on 16 February 2006, which uses the following sources: ** Uwe George: ''Inseln in der Zeit''. GEO - Gruner + Jahr AG & Co., Hamburg, . ** Roland Stuckardt: ''Sitze der Götter''. terra - Heft 3/2004, Tecklenborg Verlag, Steinfurt. * National Geographic Magazine, May 1989, "Venezuela's Islands in Time," pp. 526–561


External links


The Making of the Tepuis Film : "The Living Edens : The Lost World"

Mongabay.com
– pictures from Tepuis in Venezuela. {{Tepuis, state=expanded . . . . Erosion landforms Mesas Tables (landform) Oronyms Natural history of South America Flora of northern South America Ecoregions of South America Ecoregions of Brazil Ecoregions of Guyana Ecoregions of Suriname Ecoregions of Venezuela Neotropical tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Montane forests