Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Ancient Cities
Numerous national parks are filled with big ticket mammals and offer great dry country
birding. Even the region's ruined cities provide ideal habitat for many creatures.
Wildlife
For its size, Sri Lanka boasts an incredible diversity of animalia
:
92 mammal species, 242
butterflies, 435 birds, 107 fish, 98 snakes and more. Given the fragility of the environment
in which they live, it should come as no surprise that quite a few are vulnerable.
Mammals
Sri Lanka's mammals include some of the most easily observable of the country's animal
species, as well as some of the most invisible. Hard to spot are the solitary and mostly noc-
turnal leopard, Sri Lanka's top predator; the scavenging golden jackal; the shaggy sloth
bear; the civet (a catlike hunter related to the weasel); the mongoose; and the shy, armour-
plated Indian pangolin, with overlapping scales made from modified hair.
Very audible but not always visible are troops of tree-bound cackling primates, like
common langurs, also known as Hanuman or grey langurs; endemic purple-faced langurs;
hairy bear monkeys; and toque macaques, notable for their distinctive thatch of middle-
parted hair. The slow movements of the slender loris belie its ability to snatch its prey with
a lightning-quick lunge.
More often crossed, albeit at different times of the day, are the majestic Asian elephant;
the omnivorous and tusked wild boar of Sri Lanka; and cervine creatures like the big,
maned sambar and smaller white-spotted Axis deer. The bushy-tailed, five-striped palm
squirrel is commonly seen scurrying around gardens and town parks. These are often also
the locations of the large trees in which Indian flying foxes (large fruit-eating bats) camp
by the hundreds.
Mammals don't just hide out in the forests and savannahs. The biggest of all mammals
are to be found in the waters off Sri Lanka. Blue whales and slightly smaller sperm whales
swim along migration corridors off the coast here. The area around Dondra Head, at the
