it lies at the centre of the central asian biodiversity hot spot with a high density of endemic species representing himalayan flora and fauna biotypes despite the country s small size of the world s landmass it has a good representation of all terrestrial taxonomic groups hosting nearly per cent of all known species on earth table this indicator is higher than expected for a country of this size in this subregion with aboveaverage species richness for central asia species richness of higher vascular plants and vertebrates is better known