Question

Which one of the following shows discontinuous distribution?
a. Bats
b. Green Mussels
c. Lung Fishes
d. Pacific Salmons

Answer 1

Hint: This animal is not fairly distributed on land and in freshwater, or are found in widely scattered regions of the world. Several other factors like climate, food, shelter, flora, and fauna, etc. limit them to certain areas.

Complete answer:
> Option A is incorrect. Eurytopic or free-ranging organisms are adapted to a wide range of environmental environments and are not restricted to any particular form of food or may have a special capacity to cross barriers through flight, rafting or swimming and adapt to a new climate. Cats, bats, hawks, cuckoos, cockroaches, flies, mosquitoes, lizards, snakes, and humans are wide-ranging species.

> Option B is incorrect. Green mussels show a bipolar distribution that has been widely spread in the Indo-Pacific, extending from the Persian Gulf west and east to New Guinea and Japan and New Guinea for northern and southern ranges.

> Option C is correct. Distribution in an uninhabited area that is often very large stretches of oceans interrupt the continuity of distribution of a species is commonly known as discontinuous distribution. Earlier, the species was increasingly dispersed but the landmasses in the intermediate areas were submerged, splitting the species into widely separated populations such as lungfish.

> Option D is incorrect. Bipolar species adapted to the cold Arctic climate are unable to migrate to warmer areas and are confined to the Polar Regions. Salmons migrate between fish to the temperate and polar river basins for breeding.

So, the correct answer is Option C.

Note: There are remaining three genera of lungfish exhibiting discontinuous distribution, as occurring on three continents: Protopterus in Africa, Lepidosiren in South America, and Neoceratodus in Australia.