Approximately 20% of the planet's vertebrate and plant species are found only in the Asean region and nowhere else in the world. Home to four biodiversity hotspots and three of the 17 megadiverse countries in the world, Asean has extraordinarily high levels of richness of species and endemism.
And these numbers could keep growing. According to experts, the region is in an "age of discovery", with more than 2,200 new species described between 1997 and 2014 alone.
