Sangha Trinational () is a forest divided between the nations of

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to Central African Republic–Chad border, the north, Sudan to Central African Republic–Sudan border, the northeast, South Sudan to Central ...

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

and

Congo-Brazzaville The Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo), is a country located on the western coast of Central ...

. It was added as a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

in 2012 because of its outstanding biodiversity and unique biological communities. The site includes 3 contiguous national parks within the humid tropical forests of Central Africa: Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in Congo,

Lobéké National Park Lobéké National Park (alternate: Lake Lobake National Park) is a national park of southeastern Cameroon within the Moloundou Arrondissement of East Province. Located in the Congo Basin, it is bounded on the east by the Sangha River which serv ...

in Cameroon, and Dzanga-Ndoki National Park in Central African Republic. The large size of the site and the relatively limited amount of deforestation within the three parks has allowed populations of vulnerable species such as African forest elephants,

gorillas Gorillas are primarily herbivorous, terrestrial great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or five su ...

sitatunga The sitatunga (''Tragelaphus spekii'') or marshbuck is a swamp-dwelling medium-sized antelope found throughout central Africa, centering on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, parts of South Sudan, Southern ...

, and

chimpanzees The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close relative the ...

to thrive. In addition, populations of critically endangered plant species such as Mukulungu are protected within the site's borders. Sangha Tri National Landscape

Animal diversity

The Dzanga-Sangha reserve website lists 103 species of mammals visible in the Sangha landscape, including 16 species of

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...

, 13 species of

carnivore A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they ar ...

, the most represented group being

rodents Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia ( ), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...

with 33 species, while chiropterans have not been counted. Emblematic species include

forest elephants The African forest elephant (''Loxodonta cyclotis'') is one of the two living species of African elephant, along with the African bush elephant. It is native to humid tropical forests in West Africa and the Congo Basin. It is the smallest of the ...

, lowland gorillas,

, Colobus monkeys (locally known as “Magistrats”),

bongos Bongos (Spanish language, Spanish: ''bongó'') are an Afro-Cubans, Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. The pair consists of the larger ''hembra'' () and the smaller ''macho'' ...

, large

antelopes The term antelope refers to numerous extant or recently extinct species of the ruminant artiodactyl family Bovidae that are indigenous to most of Africa, India, the Middle East, Central Asia, and a small area of Eastern Europe. Antelopes do no ...

and forest buffaloes,

Potamochoerus ''Potamochoerus'' (from - ''potamo-choîros'', meaning "river pig") is a genus in the pig family (Suidae). The two species are restricted to sub-Saharan Africa, although the bushpig, possibly due to introduction by humans, also occurs in Madag ...

and

Giant forest hog The giant forest hog (''Hylochoerus meinertzhageni''), the only member of its genus (''Hylochoerus''), is native to wooded habitats in Africa and is one of the largest wild members of the pig family, Suidae, along with a few subspecies of the wi ...

(two genera of African wild boar), small antelopes of the

Cephalophus ''Cephalophus'' is a mammal genus which contains at least fifteen species of duiker, a type of small antelope. Species Following Groves (2005), the species within ''Cephalophus'' include: * Aders's duiker ''Cephalophus adersi'' * Brooke's duik ...

genus (six species),

Aardvark Aardvarks ( ; ''Orycteropus afer'') are medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammals native to Africa. Aardvarks are the only living species of the family Orycteropodidae and the order Tubulidentata. They have a long proboscis, similar to a pi ...

, two species of

Pangolins Pangolins, sometimes known as scaly anteaters, are mammals of the order Pholidota (). The one extant family, the Manidae, has three genera: ''Manis'', '' Phataginus'', and '' Smutsia''. ''Manis'' comprises four species found in Asia, while ''P ...

and, last but not least, carnivores,

african clawless otter The African clawless otter (''Aonyx capensis''), also known as the Cape clawless otter or groot otter, is the second-largest freshwater otter species. It inhabits permanent water bodies in savannah and lowland forest areas through most of sub-Sa ...

and

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant cat species in the genus ''Panthera''. It has a pale yellowish to dark golden fur with dark spots grouped in rosettes. Its body is slender and muscular reaching a length of with a ...

. An initial census of

bats Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...

in the Dzanga-Ndoki park identified some thirty species belonging to six families.

Birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

are represented by 379 species in 66 families, including 109 species found exclusively in the forest, such as the Sangha robin ( Stiphrornis sanghensis). Also present is the

Grey-necked rockfowl The grey-necked rockfowl (''Picathartes oreas'') is a medium-sized bird in the family Picathartidae with a long neck and tail. Also known as the grey-necked picathartes, this passerine is mainly found in rocky areas of close-canopied rainforest f ...

, typical of the region. The Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus), like other bird species, has been illegally captured in abundance in the region for live sale. A

herpetological Herpetology (from Ancient Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is a branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (Gymnophiona)) and reptiles (incl ...

study carried out in and around the Nouabalé-Ndoki protected area identified 20 species of

amphibian Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excl ...

and 14 species of

reptile Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocepha ...

. Insects are represented by 316

butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

species in at least ten families, including the region's two largest butterflies: Druryaan timachus and D. zalmoxis. There are also 101 species of

coprophagous Coprophagia ( ) or coprophagy ( ) is the consumption of feces. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek "feces" and "to eat". Coprophagy refers to many kinds of feces-eating, including eating feces of other species (heterospecifics), of o ...

beetles Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...

, 61 species of odonates, 31 species of

locusts Locusts (derived from the Latin ''locusta'', locust or lobster) are various species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a Swarm behaviour, swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circu ...

, numerous hymenopterans such as ants (including the Magnan),

Melipona ''Melipona'' is a genus of stingless bees, widespread in warm areas of the Neotropics, from Sinaloa and Tamaulipas (México) to Tucumán Province, Tucumán and Misiones Province, Misiones (Argentina). About 70 species are known.Grüter, C. 2020. ...

bees and

wasps A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

termites Termites are a group of detritophagous eusocial cockroaches which consume a variety of decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, leaf litter, and soil humus. They are distinguished by their moniliform antennae and the sof ...

and many other families. 71 species of

Mantis Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate a ...

(Mantodea) were catalogued on the basis of 1,232 specimens collected between 1984 and 2012. (The authors of the publication indicate that

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

and species classification require revision).N. Moulin, T. Decaen et P. Annoyer, « Diversity of mantids (Dictyoptera: Mantodea) of Sangha-Mbaere Region, Central African Republic, with some ecological data and DNA barcoding », ''Journal of Orthoptera research'', n^o 26(2), novembre 2017, p. 117-141 A genetic analysis of 153

earthworm An earthworm is a soil-dwelling terrestrial invertebrate that belongs to the phylum Annelida. The term is the common name for the largest members of the class (or subclass, depending on the author) Oligochaeta. In classical systems, they we ...

specimens collected in 2012 identified 22 molecular species, all of which are probably new to science, as no studies had been carried out before. Gorrila tool use-Efi2

References

{{reflist World Heritage Sites in the Central African Republic World Heritage Sites in the Republic of the Congo World Heritage Sites in Cameroon Forests of Cameroon Geography of the Republic of the Congo Sangha-Mbaéré Sangha River