Our Endemic Wildlife...

[zan]

I think that most animal speciation is allopatric ... Sympatric speciation is more difficult to visualise and there are fewer examples amongst animals.

To expand on this a little further, sympatric evolution occurs amongst individuals in the same place, and may occur where there is 'room' for a species to diversify and exploit a range of ecological niches. This is, to my knowledge, what happened with Darwin's finches in the Galapagos, which evolved into a range of species, each of which specialised in feeding on a particular seed\fruit and eventually formed genetically distinct groups.

As for endemic species, Fishbase lists four freshwater species: Powan, Gwyniad, Schelly and Vendace (Coregonus clupeoides, C. pennantii, C. stigmaticus and C. vandesius) as endemic to Loch Lomond, Wales, Haweswater, Cumberland and Ullswater & Scotland\England respectively.

Zan