Editing Mongolia (section)

=== Wildlife ===
{{Main|Wildlife of Mongolia}}
[[File:KhongorynElsCamels.jpg|thumb|[[Bactrian camels]] by sand dunes in Gobi Desert]]

The name "Gobi" is a Mongol term for a desert steppe, which usually refers to a category of arid rangeland with insufficient vegetation to support [[marmot]]s but with enough to support camels.<ref name=":0" /> Mongols distinguish Gobi from desert proper, although the distinction is not always apparent to outsiders unfamiliar with the Mongolian landscape.<ref name=":0" />

Gobi rangelands are fragile and easily destroyed by overgrazing, which results in expansion of the true desert, a stony waste where not even [[Bactrian camel]]s can survive.<ref name=":0" /> The arid conditions in the Gobi are attributed to the [[rain shadow effect]] caused by the Himalayas. Before the Himalayas were formed by the collision of the Indo-Australian plate with the Eurasian plate 10 million years ago, Mongolia was a flourishing habitat for major fauna but still somewhat arid and cold due to distance from sources of evaporation. Sea turtle and mollusk fossils have been found in the Gobi, apart from well-known dinosaur fossils. [[Tadpole shrimps]] are still found in the Gobi today. The eastern part of Mongolia including the [[Onon River|Onon]] and [[Kherlen River|Kherlen]] rivers and [[Lake Buir]] form part of the [[Amur river]] basin draining to the Pacific Ocean. It hosts some unique species like the Eastern brook lamprey, Daurian crayfish (''cambaroides dauricus'') and Daurian pearl oyster (''dahurinaia dahurica'') in the Onon/Kherlen rivers as well as Siberian prawn (''exopalaemon modestus'') in Lake Buir.