Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WILDLIFE
One of Panama's major attractions is its varied and abundant wildlife. For its dimin-
utive size - slightly larger than the Republic of Ireland, smaller than the US state of
South Carolina - Panama's biodiversity and level of endemism is astounding. Located
at the barely touching fingertips of two continents, the country hosts fauna from both
land masses: deer and coyotes more readily associated with temperate North America
as well as jaguars and capybaras from the tropical South, and a cornucopia of astound-
ing marine life. The flora is equally diverse: an estimated ten thousand vascular plant
species grow on the isthmus, predominantly in the country's luxuriant tropical rain-
forests, which cover an estimated 45 percent of the land.
Flora
Panama's
tropical wet forests
, or
rainforests
, which by definition receive an annual rainfall
of more than 2m and can receive up to three times that amount on some of the Caribbean
slopes, are what most excite nature-lovers.
Primary
rainforests - original, undisturbed
growth - are highly prized for their greater biodiversity, comprising seventy percent of the
country's forested area. In these complex ecosystems most animal and plant activity occurs in
the forest “roof” or
canopy
and the
sub-canopy
, where dangling vines and lianas provide vi-
tal transport links. Poking out of the canopy, which filters out over ninety percent of the sun-
light, are a sprinkling of robust
emergent trees
, generally around 60-70m tall, able to with-
stand being buffeted by storms and scorched by sunlight. Most easily recognized, and visible
from a great distance, is the ringed silvery grey trunk of the
cuipo
(
cavanillesia platanifo-
lia
), which exhibits a bare umbrella-like crown during the dry season; particularly abundant
in the Darién, it is a favourite nesting site of the harpy eagle. Equally distinctive from above
is the lofty
guayacán
(
tabebuia guayacan
), whose brilliant golden crown stands out against
the dense green canopy carpet, blooming a month in advance of the first rains. Not atypically,
both species drop their leaves in the dry season to reduce water loss through evaporation.
From the forest floor, the vast buttress roots of the
ceiba
(silk-cotton or kapok tree;
ceiba
petandra
), or thinner versions on the
Panama tree
(
sterculia apetela
), are more striking; so,
too, the vicious protective spines on the
spiny cedar
(
pachira quinata
), or the swollen mid-
section of the aptly named
barrigón
(
pseudobombax septenatum
) - “
barriga
” meaning “pot
belly” in Spanish - which can double its waist size to store water and whose pretty pompom
flowers open for evening pollination.
Dominated by vines, ferns, saplings and shrubs typically 10-25m tall, the forest
under-
storey
and
forest floor
below are relatively sparsely populated in the cathedral-like primary
forest, in contrast to the dense and tangled vegetation of
secondary
forest. It's in these lower
layers that you'll come across the pinkish hues of
heliconias
, such as the vividly named “
lob-
