Q COSTARICA
The paramo is bleak, stark, and intimidatingly desolate. It is also hauntingly beautiful and eerily seductive.
The English word paramo comes from the Spanish for wasteland (páramo in Spanish; stress on the first syllable in both languages). It may derive from a pre-Roman language of the Iberian Peninsula. It is sometimes translated into English as alpine tundra or moor.
It refers to a variety of high altitude tropical ecosystems found exclusively in Latin America. It is a biome, or biological community, found in the contiguous countries of Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru. Paramos are also found in the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes of Guatemala—a fact often left out of writings on the subject.
Paramos exist at higher altitudes—from 3,000 meters (roughly 9,800 feet) above sea
... continue reading article at QCOSTARICA.com Click here to go to the source article.
