In 1884, Sir Everard im Thurn and his expedition team discovered a forested ramp up to the plateau. Scaling the natural staircase, at the summit they found no pterodactyls or apemen. Instead, they discovered a rocky landscape covered with scrubby vegetation interspersed by small patches of sandy marshland — as well as many plants and animals unique to the plateau.
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| Mount Roraima |
In fact, around 35 per cent of the species on Mt Roraima are endemic, such as the Roraima bush toad. And 70 per cent of those found on South America’s tepuis exists only on these plateaus. Other species are like living fossils, almost identical to plants and animals that are now extinct in the rest of the world. For millions of years, life has been existing completely independently on these mist-shrouded mountaintops, away from the prying eyes of civilisation.
