Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The highlands are home to roving packs of camelids: llamas and alpacas are the most
easily spotted since they are domesticated, and used as pack animals or for their wool;
vicuñas and guanacos live exclusively in the wild. On highland talus slopes, watch out for
the viscacha, which looks like the world's most cuddly rabbit. Foxes, deer and domestic-
ated
cuy
(guinea pigs) are also highland dwellers, as is the puma (cougar or mountain li-
on).
On the coast, huge numbers of sea lions and seals are easily seen on the Islas Ballestas.
Dolphins are commonly seen offshore, but whales very rarely.
Reptiles, Amphibians, Fish & Insects
In the Amazon basin you'll find amphibians like toads, tree frogs and thumbnail-sized
poison dart frogs. Rivers teem with schools of piranhas,
paiche
and
doncella
, while the
air buzzes with thousands of insects: armies of ants, squadrons of beetles, as well as katy-
dids, stick insects, caterpillars, spiders, praying mantises, transparent moths, and butter-
flies of all shapes and sizes. A blue morpho butterfly in flight is a remarkable sight: with
wingspans of up to 10cm, their iridescent-blue coloring can seem downright hallucinogen-
ic.
Reptile species include tortoises, river turtles, lizards, caimans and, of course, that
jungle-movie favorite: the anaconda. An aquatic boa snake that can measure more than
10m in length, it will often ambush its prey by the water's edge, constrict its body around
it and then drown it in the river. Caimans, tapirs, deer, turtles and peccaries are all tasty
meals for this killer snake; human victims are almost unheard of.
Plants
Plant life in Peru is similarly diverse - from the cacti of the desert coast to the rugged,
misty cloud forests of the Andean slopes; from alpine wildflowers to the dense, lush
Amazon rainforest. Grasslands, mangrove forests and peat bogs are also in the mix.
National Parks
Peru's vast wealth of wildlife is protected by a system of national parks and reserves with
60 areas covering almost 15% of the country. The newest is the Sierra del Divisor Reserve
Zone, created in 2006 to protect 1.5 million hectares of rainforest on the Brazilian border.
All of these protected areas are administered by the Instituto Nacional de Recursos Na-
cionales (Inrena;
www.inrena.gob.pe
)
, a division of the Ministry of Agriculture.
