Near ThreatenedNeotropical Otter
Lontra longicaudis
North America
Nicaragua is the largest country in Central America and is split by a great tectonic depression occupied by two enormous lakes, the Xolotlán and the Cocibolca, and by a chain of active volcanoes aligned beside the Pacific. In the Cocibolca, the largest freshwater lake in the region, rises the island of Ometepe, formed by two volcanoes joined by an isthmus. To the east, towards the Caribbean, stretch the humid plains and the reserves of Bosawás and Indio Maíz, which together form the second largest block of tropical rainforest in the Americas after Amazonia. The Caribbean coast, rainy and thinly populated, contributes mangroves, lagoons and coral cays, and the Pacific one, arribada beaches of olive ridley turtle.
National animal: The turquoise-browed motmot, the country's national bird
In the crater of the Masaya volcano, where the air is loaded with sulphur dioxide and other corrosive gases, a colony of small green parakeets known locally as chocoyos nests. The birds come and go daily along the inner walls of the crater, among columns of acid smoke that would be irritating to almost any vertebrate, and breed there without it being fully understood how they tolerate such conditions.
Lake Cocibolca holds bull sharks able to tolerate fresh water, which come up the San Juan River from the Caribbean, one of the few cases in the world of sharks in an inland lake. The advance of the agricultural frontier is the greatest threat to Bosawás and Indio Maíz.
La Flor between July and December for the arribadas of olive ridley turtle. Masaya at dusk for the parakeets going into the crater. Indio Maíz in the dry season for primates and birds.
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Same region: Central America and the Caribbean
Same region: Central America and the Caribbean
Same region: Central America and the Caribbean
Same region: Central America and the Caribbean
260 species found
Based on what we already know about Nicaragua.
