Endemic species are restricted to a particular geographic area. CNHP has documented occurrences for 166 Colorado endemics, that is, species or communities known only from the state of Colorado. This means that CNHP is the only natural heritage program collecting and maintaining data about its distribution and condition.
Of course, in real life, plants and animals don’t pay any attention to the rectangular state boundary. Many of our rare species overlap into neighboring states, and are perhaps better described as “narrowly restricted to a small geographic area.” In these instances, while all relevant state natural heritage programs maintain data on the species, only one program will have “rank responsibility,” assigning the global as well as state rank for this species.
