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Why Anatolia can be Characterized as a Continent?
This piece of land of 779 000 square kilometers, located
between Europe and Asia, serves as a bridge between three
continents, and is surrounded on therr sides by seas with
substantially different characteristics. A large variety
of climatic zones co-exist due to its topography. It might
even be argued that Anatolia is unique in the world for
the great number and variety of climatic zones in proportion
to its area.
During the geological era, around 300 million years ago,
in the time of the Pangea continent, Anatolia's climate
was much like that of the tropics today. Seventy million
years ago, or towards the end of the second period (Mesozoic),
it acquired a sub-tropical climate. The current climatic
conditions came to exist in the middle of the third period,
or around thirty million years before our time, and were
consolidated in the last few hundred thousand years.
In today's Anatolia there exists a rainy, humid and mild
climate in the North, especially north of the Black Sea
mountain range; a type of Siberian climate with cold and
dry winters in the East; a hot and dry, desert-like climate
in the Southeast; a climate with hot and dry summers and
cold and snowy winters in the interior regions; and a Mediterranean
climate with hot and dry summers and rainy winters in the
West and Southwest.
There are also several micro-climatic zones within these
regions, depending on altitude and protectedness. Such differences
may be manifested over very short distances. For instance
in the Igdir plain in the East the climate is close to the
Mediterranean, while the climate of the adjoining Agri Dagi
and its plateau is a variant of the Siberian.
 Turkey
is, and has been for a long time, located in the Palearctic
zone. For this reason, its current bio-geographic composition
and structure may be seen as representative of Palearctic
flora and fauna. However, especially in the Southeast and
the East, the Influence of oriental and Ethiopic (African)
elements are observable although this influence diminishes
as one goes north.
 The
Igdir-Aralik triangle and the Hakkari-Van plateau exhibit
the influence of Syrian desert flora and fauna; the Hatay-Amanos
bridge exhibits elements of Africa. Elements of the Mediterranean
sone have arrived through southwestern Anatolia, and European
elements through Thrace and partly over the Caucasian range.
This flow still continues.
Examples of such fauna are more commonly observed in countries
to the east of Turkey (Iran and parts of Iraq) and those
to the south (for example, Syria and Palestine).
In the Northeast, there are examples of cold steppe and
even Siberian species. Mountains transversing Anatolia and
the impact of this geography on the evolution of living
things:
 There
are a number of mountain ranges in Anatolia which constitute
effective barriers against the geographical diffusion of
living things, which therefore become significant in geo-zoological
analyses.
These obstacles are responsible for the important differences
that have arisen between continenets from the point of view
of biological composition. They also are the reason for
the great diversity of species of flora and fauna found
in Anatolia.
 The
evolutionary variation of many groups of living things was
due to the effects of such obstacles. Especially during
the ice ages and subsequent periods, these barriers prevented
passage to a great extent, and thereby limited the diffusion
and consequent variation of populations. The most important
of such barriers are the eastern Taurus mountains, which
separate the southeastern Anatolian region from eastern
Anatolia, with its cold and dry steppe characteristics;
the western Taurus Mountains which separate the Mediterranean
littoral with its Mediterranean climate from the interior
region of Anatolia with its dry, steppe climate; the Black
Sea range which separates the mild and rainy Black Sea coastline
from the dry region of the interior and from the cold and
dry eastern Anatolian steppes; a series of mountains which
cut across Anatolia laterally (Binboga, Munzur, Kargasekmez
Mountains, etc.) that constitute the Anatolian diagonal
and separate eastern Anatolia from western and Central Anatolia,
and in fact, divide the European continent at its southern
limit from all of Asia and Africa.
The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles also constitute effective
obstacles to the diffusion of land and fresh water animals.
Of secondary importance are the partial barriers constituted
by Dinar, Baba Dag, etc. which divide the Aegean region
with its Mediterranean climate and Central Anatolia characterized
by its dry steppe climate; the mountain ranges of Munzur,
Kargasekmez and Palandoken which constitute a second barrier
between eastern Central Anatolia and northeastern Anatolia
by defining the southern limets of the Firat Valley; and
kelkit Mountains, which join in a narrow corridor Central
Anatolia and tha Kars-Erzurum plateau.
Other significant geographical features are mountains which
either serve as refugia or represent extreme climatic character
and therefore constitute isolated habitats for a variety
of groups of living things. From the west to the east, these
are Uludag, Kaz Dagi, Baba Dagi, Sultan Dagi, Akdag, Erciyes
Dagi, Ilgaz Dagi, Cilo Dagi, Süphan Dagi, Nemrut Dagi,
Great and Small Agri mountains.
Anatolia is dotted throughout by conical mountains and
plateaus. This geographical feature implies an increaser
reception of high energy radiation which accelerates the
process of mutation and, therefore, would exceptionally
increase the degree of differentiation.
The legendary Agri mountain, both due to its appearance
and to its biological compositions, occupies an almost island-like,
privileged position in eastern Anatolia. Hasan Dagi which
is shown here in June, is one of the most biologically diverse
mountains in Central Anatolia.
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