"There are many protected areas but still a large number of species remain unprotected," Conservation International scientist Tom Brooks told reporters at the fifth World Parks Congress in the eastern port city of Durban.

Critically endangered animals include one of the rarest fruit bats in the world, the Comoro black flying fox, the Wuchuan Frog found only in a cave in China, the yellow-eared parrot in the Colombian Andes, and an amphibian fly-catcher from an island in Indonesia.

The once-a-decade parks congress, hosted by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), started Monday and is being attended by 2,500 delegates from across the world who are debating how to safeguard the world's conserved areas in the next 10 years.

The previous congress set out to establish 10 percent of the earth's land surface as protected areas, and that target has been met with more than 100,000 protected sites covering 11.5 percent of the globe.

But now for the first time a study has been conducted to count how many endangered species live in these areas, and concluded that at least 223 birds, 140 mammals and 346 amphibians which are threatened by extinction did not enjoy any protection.

"The major result is that more than 1,300 birds, mammals and amphibians are completely unrepresented in protected areas," Brooks said.

"But even more dramatic, more than 700 of these are highly threatened."

The research, dubbed the Global Gap Analysis, was a joint project by the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas and Conservation International and processed available data of more than 10,000 birds, mammals and amphibians.

Brooks said: "That result is merely the tip of the iceberg because we are only looking at a fine slice of biodiversity. We don't know, for instance, what protection fish have in the current areas."

The vast majority of unprotected areas which are home to endangered species are in low-income countries in the tropics which can least afford the costs of establishing and enforcing protected areas, the Global Gap Analysis report said.

"Tropical forest habitats -- especially moist, but also dry -- appear as an exceptional priority," the document stated.

Isolated places such as islands are another cause for serious concern.

"If the world's nations are to conserve their living biodiversity heritage, a greatly increased and strategically placed investment in establishing new protected areas must be made as soon as possible," the report said.

Gustavo Fonseca, Conservation International's vice president of programs and science, said the research would influence recommendations made to the congress.

Delegates will adapt a "Durban Accord" at its closing ceremony Wednesday which will map out environmental goals for the next decade.

According to the study, if the world's protected areas are expanded by another 2.6 percent, more than two-thirds of the current unprotected areas with endangered species would be covered.

"The research clearly shows that we will have to expand the current network of protected areas. At least now we know where to look," Fonseca said.

"There will be several recommendations coming out of this resulting in targets that will be spelt out in the Durban Accord," he added.

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