Sandhausener Dünen, Sandhausen

The Sandhausener Dünen are two nature reserves with a total area of about 37 hectares in the area of the municipality of Sandhausen in the Rhine-Neckar district: the NSG Sandhausener Dünen Pferdstrieb and the NSG Sandhausener Düne, Pflege Schönau-Galgenbuckel. These are inland dunes, as they are widely found in the northern Upper Rhine Plain. They are characterized by a flora and fauna rarely found in Germany: plants and animals specially adapted to heat, water shortage and nutrient deficiency, which are usually found in the steppes of Eastern Europe or in the Mediterranean region. These include the mountain stonewort, the sand silverside, which is rare throughout Europe and therefore protected, and insects such as the gyroscopic wasp or the spurge hawk moth.