The mesas of the American Southwest — Monument Valley, the Colorado Plateau — are also flat-topped erosional remnants with vertical cliff walls.

They share the basic geometry of the tepuis, and they represent the same process of differential erosion preserving resistant rock while surrounding softer material is worn away.

But the American mesas are dry, their ecosystems are desert or semi-arid, and they have been extensively connected to surrounding landscapes throughout their history in ways that have prevented the kind of isolation-driven endemism that characterizes the tepuis.

The Karakoram and Himalayan plateaus are at comparable or greater altitudes, but they are formed from young, tectonically active mountain ranges and lack the ancient, stable geological history of the Guiana Shield.