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Wildlife of Nicaragua |
The Wildlife of Nicaragua includes its flora and fauna. Nicaragua has a wide variety of wildlife, most of which live in wildlife reserves and live in rainforests, lakes, mountains, and volcanoes throughout the country. Bosawás covers 1.8 million acres (7,300 km²) making it the 2nd largest rainforest in the Americas after the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil and is extremely rich in Biodiversity.
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Nicaragua has 78 protected areas that include wildlife refuges and nature reserves that shelter a wide range of ecosystems. Flora and fauna species are in the thousands. There are about 12,000 vegetable classified species, another 5,000 not classified yet and there are more than 1,400 classified animal species.1 There are also over 250,000 insect species.
Perhaps the creature that Nicaragua is best known for is the sea turtle. Each year thousands of sea turtles make the journey from the sea to the beach where they spend the entire night digging and nest and laying their eggs before returning to the waters. Unfortunately the sea turtle has become an endangered animal and so extensive efforts are being made to preserve them as much as possible.2
Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan River is home to the Nicaragua shark which is the world's only freshwater shark.3 Nicaragua has recently banned freshwater fishing of the Nicaragua shark and sawfish because of population declines.4
The avifauna of Nicaragua includes a total of 699 species, of which, 1 is endemic, 2 have been introduced by humans, and 14 are rare or accidental. 8 species are globally threatened.
Felines in Nicaragua include the jaguar, which is the largest feline found in the country. Other big cat species include:
There are a number of unusual animals found in Nicaragua, some include:5
There are many endangered animal species in Nicaragua.
Ometepe harbors large populations of the endangered white-faced capuchin monkey. Efforts have been put in to protect these animals. Nicaragua has banned fishing of the Nicaragua shark and sawfish because of population declines. 6, and the Wildlife Conservation Society and FFI has been involved in conservating the sea turtles. 7
Nicaragua has 78 protected areas which cover about 20% of its landmass,8 a number of which boast endangered species and are rich in biodiversity.9 The National System of Protected Areas categorizes each protected area by:
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