Origin of Early Plants and Animals During the series of Ice Ages throughout the last two million years, the sea level dropped as the world’s volume of water was frozen or trapped in huge glaciers in valleys and mountain slopes. Land bridges emerged, allowing the migration of flora and fauna to other locales. One such land bridge connected northern Luzon, particularly the Ilocos region, Cagayan and Cordillera, to what are now Taiwan, South China, Korea and Southern Japan. There are species of trees in Ilocos similar to those found in North Asia. Particular examples are the dipterocarps found along the Ilocos coast and the varieties of pine trees located in the uplands of Abra. Similarly, varieties of plant and animal life in the northern coast of Luzon were also discovered in the Himalayan region, Indonesia, Australia, Borneo and Malaysia. Biologist E.H. Taylor made a list of lizards, snakes and amphibians like frogs found in northern Luzon that are close relatives of species thriving around north and south Asia, including Australia. Initially an enigma to scientists and researchers was the similarity of orchid varieties found in Luzon and in Australia, a continent below the equator that can be reached by plane in a little over seven hours. How were similar varieties of these exotic aerial flowers able to bloom in two different places miles apart? The answer is provided by the notion of a “raft.” A raft may be man-made or natural. A natural raft may come in the form of logs felled during storms, floating along the sea current called Kuroshiwa. The Kuroshiwa floats from the Australia-Indonesia region to the Pacific coast of the Philippine Archipelago. Another form of raft could be large chunks of land held together by roots of trees or vines that could be washed down a mountain slope, or drifting down a river and out into the sea via the same Kuroshiwa current. It is assumed that rats, gekkos, cevits, tarsiers and monkeys boarded this kind of raft and thus were able to reach the northern Luzon coast. Man eventually brought to the Philippine archipelago bigger mammals such as horses, cattle, carabaos, sheep and goats. Data used for this chapter provided by anthropologist Arnold Azurin
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Northern Luzon’s pine trees are similar to those found in North Asia.