Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be endemic to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can also be referred to as an endemism or in scientific literature as an endemite. For example Cytisus aeolicus is an endemite of the Italian flora. Adzharia renschi was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a non-indigenous species from South America belonging to a different genus. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to species (and other taxonomic levels) that are restricted to a defined geographical area. Other terms that sometimes are used interchangeably, but less often, include autochthonal, autochthonic, and indigenous, however, these terms do not reflect the status of a species that specifically belongs only to a determined place. Etymology History of the concept The word endemic is from New Latin endēmicus, from Greek ἔνδημος, éndēmos, "native". Endēmos is formed of en meaning "in", and dēmos meaning "the people". The word entered the English language as a loan word from French endémique, and originally seems to have been used in the sense of diseases that occur at a constant amount in a country, as opposed to epidemic diseases, which are exploding in cases. The word was used in biology in 1872 to mean a species restricted to a specific location by Charles Darwin. The more uncommon term 'precinctive' has been used by some entomologists as the equivalent of 'endemic'. Precinctive was coined in 1900 by David Sharp when describing the Hawaiian insects, as he was uncomfortable with the fact that the word 'endemic' is often associated with diseases. 'Precinctive' was first used in botany by Vaughan MacCaughey in Hawaii in 1917. Overview Endemism in general excludes examples kept by humans in botanical gardens or zoological parks, as well as populations introduced outside of their native ranges. Juan J. Morrone states that a species may be endemic to any particular