Kandy Wildlife: What You Will Actually See

Indian Flying Fox Common

Pteropus giganteus

A fruit bat with a metre and a half of wingspan, hanging in noisy thousands from a tree in the middle of town.

Where: Tall trees around the lake and in the Peradeniya botanic gardens. Best: Year round, dusk for the flight out. Thousands of animals, squabbling all day and streaming out at dusk.

Toque Macaque Common Endangered

Macaca sinica

A small endemic monkey with a swirl of hair on the crown arranged like a cap, and the most studied primate on the island.

Where: Temple grounds and Udawattakele forest. Best: Year round. Habituated and bold, and practised at taking food from bags.

Purple-faced Langur Occasional Endangered

Semnopithecus vetulus

A shaggy black leaf monkey with white side whiskers, and the highland form is so hairy it is known as the bear monkey.

Where: Udawattakele forest canopy. Best: Year round. The lowland wet zone form, at the edge of its remaining range.

Black-capped Bulbul Regular

Rubigula melanicterus

Olive and bright yellow with a neat black hood, and one of the first endemics a Sinharaja morning delivers.

Where: Udawattakele and larger gardens. Best: Year round. A good confidence builder on the way up from Colombo.

Crimson-fronted Barbet Regular

Psilopogon rubricapillus

Green with a crimson forehead and a blue face, and a call like a hammer on a distant fencepost.

Where: Garden and forest edge trees. Best: Year round. Where both barbets occur, the forehead colour is the only check needed.

Layard's Parakeet Regular

Psittacula calthrapae

A bluish-grey parakeet with a green collar and a coral bill, and the only parakeet on the island you cannot see anywhere else.

Where: Forest edge and larger gardens around the hill capital. Best: Year round. Common enough here to be a reliable tick.

Red-backed Flameback Regular

Dinopium psarodes

The smaller crimson woodpecker, and the one people misidentify because there are two of them on this island and nowhere else.

Where: Garden and plantation trees around the town. Best: Year round. Smaller, shorter-billed and black-throated compared with the crimson-backed.

Sri Lanka Grey Hornbill Regular

Ocyceros gingalensis

A slim, quiet hornbill with no casque, common enough to see from a hotel garden and endemic all the same.

Where: Udawattakele forest and the larger garden trees. Best: Year round. Easiest urban endemic in the country.

Yellow-fronted Barbet Regular

Psilopogon flavifrons

A green barbet with a yellow forehead and blue face that calls all day from somewhere you cannot find it.

Where: Garden and forest trees around Udawattakele and Peradeniya. Best: Year round. A good first endemic on the way up from Colombo.

Indian Paradise Flycatcher Occasional

Terpsiphone paradisi

The adult male grows tail streamers three times the length of his own body and trails them through the canopy like ribbon.

Where: Udawattakele and the wooded valleys. Best: Year round.

Indian Pitta Occasional

Pitta brachyura

Nine colours on a ground bird the size of a thrush, and it arrives every October to spend the winter hopping about in leaf litter.

Where: Udawattakele forest and shaded garden edges. Best: Nov-Mar. One of the easier places to connect, and walkable without a vehicle.

Spot-winged Thrush Occasional Near Threatened

Geokichla spiloptera

The best singer in Sri Lankan forest, and it does it at first light from the understorey.

Where: Udawattakele forest understorey. Best: Year round, dawn. A realistic endemic thrush within walking distance of a hotel.

Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot Occasional

Loriculus beryllinus

A sparrow-sized green parrot with a crimson crown that sleeps upside down like a bat.

Where: Coral trees and figs in gardens and the botanic gardens. Best: Year round. Listen for the thin whistle overhead.

Sri Lanka Scimitar Babbler Occasional

Pomatorhinus melanurus

A long curved yellow bill coming through the undergrowth, usually attached to a bird you only half see.

Where: Undergrowth at Udawattakele. Best: Year round. Easier here than the flock birds because there is less canopy to search.

Brown Fish Owl Rare

Ketupa zeylonensis

A big owl with bare unfeathered legs, because feathers are a liability when you fish with your feet.

Where: Wooded riverbanks and the lake margin. Best: Year round, dusk.

Common House Gecko Common

Hemidactylus frenatus

Sticks to glass using van der Waals forces across billions of microscopic hairs, not glue and not suction.

Where: Guesthouse walls and verandas. Best: Year round, night.

Green Forest Lizard Common

Calotes calotes

The biggest lizard in the trees here, and in the breeding season the male's head and throat turn crimson.

Where: Udawattakele, the Peradeniya botanic gardens and hotel grounds. Best: Year round.

Green Vine Snake Regular

Ahaetulla nasuta

A snake shaped like a hanging creeper, with a horizontal keyhole pupil that lets it judge distance like a bird of prey.

Where: Garden and forest edge shrubs, including the Peradeniya botanic gardens. Best: Year round, daytime.

Kandyan Day Gecko Regular Endangered

Cnemaspis kandiana

One of more than forty day geckos on this island, every single one of them found nowhere else, and they work rock faces in daylight instead of hunting at night.

Where: Shaded rock and old stonework around the town and Udawattakele. Best: Year round.

Kangaroo Lizard Regular

Otocryptis wiegmanni

An endemic lizard that runs away on its back legs like a tiny dinosaur, then freezes halfway up a sapling and dares you to find it again.

Where: Udawattakele forest and shaded gardens. Best: Year round.

Common Rough-sided Snake Occasional Endangered

Aspidura trachyprocta

A small earthworm hunter from an entire snake genus found nowhere but Sri Lanka, and it lives under the logs at Horton Plains.

Where: Compost heaps and garden humus in the hills above the town. Best: Year round.

Golden Tree Snake Occasional

Chrysopelea ornata

A fast, elegant climber that can also glide, and one of the most common snakes seen in Thai gardens and temples.

Where: Palm trunks and garden trees around the town and Peradeniya. Best: Year round, daytime. Watch coconut trunks. It climbs vertical bark in the open.

Hump-nosed Pit Viper Occasional

Hypnale hypnale

The commonest cause of snakebite in Sri Lanka, and small enough to sit unnoticed in leaf litter.

Where: Home garden and estate edges around the town. Best: Year round, night.

Sri Lankan Cat Snake Occasional

Boiga ceylonensis

An endemic night hunter with a broad flat head on a neck like a pencil, and it comes into guesthouses to hunt the geckos on your wall.

Where: Garden trees and guesthouse walls. Best: Year round, night.

Sri Lankan Green Pit Viper Occasional

Trimeresurus trigonocephalus

An endemic green viper that hangs at eye level in the rainforest at night, and the one snake most visiting naturalists actually come away with.

Where: Wet zone forest patches and estate margins. Best: Year round, night.

Sri Lankan Termite Hill Gecko Occasional

Hemidactylus depressus

An endemic gecko flattened almost to paper, with a serrated tail, living inside termite mounds and cave roofs.

Where: Trees, walls and cave sites around the town. Best: Year round, night.

Hump-nosed Lizard Rare Vulnerable

Lyriocephalus scutatus

The only member of its genus anywhere on earth, with a bulbous knob on its nose and a bony lyre across its skull, and it is slow enough to photograph properly.

Where: Wet zone forest patches and estate margins around the town. Best: Year round.

Large Shieldtail Rare Vulnerable

Rhinophis saffragamus

A burrowing snake that has turned its tail into a shield, and there are twenty species of them on this island and nowhere else.

Where: Home garden and tea estate soil in the hills. Best: After heavy rain.

Asian Common Toad Common

Duttaphrynus melanostictus

The ubiquitous warty toad of doorsteps and gardens, hoovering up insects under every night light.

Where: Garden paths, guesthouse surrounds and roadside verges. Best: Year round, night.

Common Hourglass Tree Frog Common

Polypedates cruciger

The endemic frog most visitors meet first, usually sitting on a bathroom wall rather than in a forest.

Where: Garden vegetation, guesthouse walls and water tanks. Best: Year round, night.

Common Shrub Frog Common Vulnerable

Pseudophilautus popularis

The thin high call you take for a cricket at dusk is usually this, and it is the first endemic frog most visitors meet without knowing it.

Where: Garden and forest edge shrubs around the town and Udawattakele. Best: Year round, after dark.

Sri Lanka Wood Frog Regular

Hydrophylax gracilis

The most catchable endemic frog in Sri Lankan farmland, and it will climb a stem over water then drop straight in when you get close.

Where: Paddy and marsh edges around the town. Best: Year round, night.

Sri Lanka Pug-snout Frog Occasional Near Threatened

Uperodon obscurus

A frog that eats almost nothing but ants and termites, which is what the absurdly narrow mouth is actually for.

Where: Garden and forest edge crevices. Best: Year round, night.

Sri Lanka Rock Frog Occasional Vulnerable

Nannophrys ceylonensis

Its tadpoles do not swim. They crawl about on wet rock beside the torrent, grazing in a film of water a few millimetres deep, and the male guards the eggs.

Where: Fast forest streams in the wetter hills. Best: Year round, night.

Ceylon Caecilian Very rare Vulnerable

Ichthyophis glutinosus

A limbless amphibian that looks like an earthworm, hunts by tentacle, and coils around its eggs underground until they hatch.

Where: Garden soil, compost and damp banks in the hills. Best: After heavy rain.

Indian Mottled Eel Rare Near Threatened

Anguilla bengalensis

Spends fifteen years in a Sri Lankan river, then swims to the open Indian Ocean to spawn once and die.

Where: Deep reaches of the Mahaweli around the city. Best: Year round, after dark.

No free photograph of a living Indian mottled eel exists. The image is a nineteenth century scientific plate from Francis Day's The Fishes of India, cropped to the head.

Sri Lanka Giant Snakehead Rare

Channa ara

Sri Lanka's largest native freshwater predator, and only recognised as its own species in 2020.

Where: Deep slow reaches of the Mahaweli around the city. Best: January to March.

Common Mormon Common

Papilio polytes

Females come in three different forms, two of which impersonate butterflies that are poisonous to eat.

Where: Gardens and forest edge around the city and the botanical gardens. Best: Year round.

Mango Longhorn Beetle Occasional

Batocera rufomaculata

Antennae twice the length of its body, and it squeaks audibly when picked up by grinding its thorax.

Where: Garden and plantation trees around the city. Best: April to July.

Sri Lanka Birdwing Occasional

Troides darsius

The largest butterfly on the island, the size of a small bird, and it lives nowhere else.

Where: Flowering trees in Udawattakele and the botanical garden edges. Best: Year round.

Ivory Ornamental Tarantula Rare

Poecilotheria subfusca

The high country ornamental, living in tree cavities in cool hill forest where no other tarantula of its size can.

Where: Old shade trees and forest remnants in the hills around the city. Best: Year round, night.

Sri Lankan Ornamental Tarantula Rare

Poecilotheria fasciata

The spider that gave the ornamental tarantulas their name, described in 1804 and found only here.

Where: Old shade trees and buildings on the forested edges of the city. Best: Year round, night.