Côte d’Ivoire

Côte d'Ivoire is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. The capital is Yamoussoukro, in the middle of the country, while the port city of Abidjan is its largest city and economic center. With a long Atlantic coastline in the Gulf of Guinea, the country has a wide range of habitat types. Much of the area once covered with tropical rainforest has been cleared, with the remaining area consisting of gallery forests and savannahs with scattered tree clumps, leading to a loss of biodiversity. There were 252 species of mammals, 666 species of birds, 153 species of reptiles, 80 species of amphibians, 671 species of fish and 3,660 species of vascular plants recorded in Côte d'Ivoire in 2016. The shallow parts of the Ebrié Lagoon are home to a wide variety of invertebrates, including polychaetes, nemertean worms, oligochaetes, isopods, amphipods and prawns. More than 100 species of fish have been found here, and the lagoon and surrounding marshes are habitat to the Pygmy Hippopotamus, the Nile Crocodile, the West African Slender-Snouted Crocodile, the Dwarf Crocodile and the African Manatee. Increases in population and civil wars, as well as deforestation, plantation expansion, bushmeat hunting and other factors, have led to a decline in the diversity of Ivory Coast animals, many of which now live only in protected areas. Of the 135 mammal species recorded in the Comoé National Park, 11 are primates, and a total of 17 predator species have been observed. In addition, 21 species of artiodactyls are found, including hippopotamus, bushpig, warthog, buffalo, bushbuck, waterbuck.