Sierra de Grazalema

Fauna and flora

Oak forests dominate, together with a cohort of mastic, hawthorns and gorse, leaving place in the shade for gall oaks. At sandstone soils, the oak is replaced by cork oak and an undergrowth comprising various species of heather and rockrose, as well as myrtle and ferns. But the botanical protagonist in these mountains is the fir, a Mediterranean firm rooted in past eras and present only on the highest peaks of the mountains of Cadiz, Malaga and the Moroccan Rif. Several groves are found in the Sierra del Pinar, the mountains of Zafalgar, Endrinal and Margarita. Also outstanding is its flora, no coincidence that we count over 1,300 species, of which almost fifty are Iberian endemisms and seven of which are exclusive to this nature area, as the poppy of Grazalema and the "relojillo of recoder" geranium. As to fauna, there are many mammals, as the mountain goat, otter, stag, marten, genets and badger. But the representative species is conditioned by the large number of existing caves, home to colonies of bat: horseshoe and cave. The abundance of rocky crags favours numerous communities of rupicolous birds, as the griffon vulture, Egyptian vultures and Bonelli's eagle.