News Animals Tropical diversity came with time By Susan Milius October 17, 2006 at 1:59 pm - More than 2 years ago Share this:Share Share via email (Opens in new window) Email Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Click to print (Opens in new window) Print Species in the richly diverse tropics don’t evolve any faster than do species in temperate zones, researchers report. Rather, the tropics accumulated its astounding abundance of species largely because life has thrived there so long. Why the low latitudes teem, flutter, buzz, and slither with so much more diversity than the temperate zones do is a long-standing question.