Lake Ohrid, at 2 million years old, may be the most biodiverse lake of its size in the world, teeming with fish, snails, crustaceans, and more.
Lake Ohrid, at 2 million years old, may be the most biodiverse lake of its size in the world, teeming with fish, snails, crustaceans, and more. But tourism development along the edges of the lake and nutrient pollution are clouding its famously clear waters and altering its ecology.
On a spring morning, the oldest freshwater lake in Europe lies flat and calm, its wide surface shining. Distant mountains rise in gauzy shades of rose and purple, while water as clear as glass laps against the stony beach. Not far away, a town whose history dates to Greek and Roman antiquity spreads itself along the shore, its white-walled houses gleaming.
Lake Ohrid is almost 2 million years old. Cupped in mountains at the border between North Macedonia and Albania, it is one of fewer than three dozen ancient lakes around the world. These lakes are scattered geological rarities, deep reservoirs of biodiversity, and centers of evolution.
As ancient lakes go, Ohrid is not big — just 19 miles long, nine miles wide and 945 feet deep. But scientists say that, acre for acre, it may be the most diverse lake in the world, teeming with fish, snails, leeches, flatworms, phytoplankton, crustaceans, and more. Of the lake’s roughly 1,200 known native species, 212 of them are endemic, occurring nowhere else.
Read more at Yale Environment 360
Photo Credit: emirjetaprela via Pixabay
