Kitulgala Wildlife: What You Will Actually See

Chestnut-backed Owlet Occasional

Glaucidium castanotum

A tiny chestnut owl that hunts in daylight, which makes it the one owl on the island you can reasonably expect to see.

Where: Canopy edge and clearings, calling at dawn. Best: Year round.

Green-billed Coucal Rare Vulnerable

Centropus chlororhynchos

A heavy, skulking coucal with an apple-green bill, and one of the hardest endemics on the island to actually see.

Where: Dense bamboo and thicket in the wet zone forest. Best: Year round.

Sri Lanka Frogmouth Rare

Batrachostomus moniliger

A bird that looks like a broken branch, sits still all day within arm's reach, and is invisible until someone points at it.

Where: Dense understorey in the Makandawa forest, on a guided night walk. Best: Year round, night. A guide who knows the roost will find it. Nobody else will.

Sri Lanka Spurfowl Rare

Galloperdix bicalcarata

Heard on every Sinharaja morning and seen on almost none: a skulking forest gamebird that calls loudly and shows itself never.

Where: Dense forest floor, heard far more often than seen. Best: Year round, early morning.

Common Lanka Skink Common

Lankascincus fallax

The little bronze skink that shoots out from under every leaf you turn at Sinharaja belongs to a genus found nowhere but this island.

Where: Leaf litter along every forest trail. Best: Year round.

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: Trunks and low branches throughout. Best: Year round.

Kangaroo Lizard Common

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: Shaded leaf litter along the forest trails and stream banks. 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: Hanging in low bushes at eye level along the trails. Best: Year round, daytime.

Hump-nosed Lizard Regular 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: Understorey twigs in the Makandawa forest, sleeping animals on night walks. Best: January to March and July to September.

Hump-nosed Pit Viper Regular

Hypnale hypnale

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

Where: Leaf litter on the forest floor and the plantation edges. Best: Year round, night. The commonest cause of snakebite in Sri Lanka. Wear closed shoes.

Sri Lankan Green Pit Viper Regular

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: Low branches at head height along the Makandawa forest trails, on a night walk. Best: Year round, night. The most reliable place in the country for the endemic pit viper, and it sits still enough to photograph properly.

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: Branches and guesthouse walls after dark. Best: Year round, night.

Whistling Lizard Rare

Calotes liolepis

The only lizard in Sri Lanka that whistles at you, which is just as well, because otherwise you would never find it.

Where: High on trunks in the forest. Best: January to March.

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: Guesthouse walls, bathrooms and forest edge vegetation. 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: Low vegetation along the trails and around the rafting camps. Best: Year round, dusk onward.

Sri Lanka Wood Frog Common

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, ditches and stream margins around the town. Best: Year round, night.

Kelaart's Dwarf Toad Regular Vulnerable

Adenomus kelaartii

An endemic toad in an endemic genus that is active by day, which makes it the one you can find on an afternoon walk rather than a night one.

Where: Stream margins and midstream boulders in the Makandawa forest. Best: Year round, and active by day.

Sri Lanka Rock Frog Regular 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: Wet rock beside the Kelani river rapids and the forest streams. Best: Year round, night. Work the wet stone beside the water, not the water itself.

Corrugated Water Frog Occasional Near Threatened

Lankanectes corrugatus

An ancient relict in a lineage found nowhere else on earth, and it was the only member of its genus until a second one turned up in 2018.

Where: Slow marshy water and river backwaters. Best: Year round, night.

Hollow-snouted Shrub Frog Occasional Vulnerable

Pseudophilautus cavirostris

Look at it side on and the snout is visibly scooped out, as though someone had pressed a thumb into it.

Where: Understorey foliage on guided night walks. Best: Year round, night.

Stone Sucker Common

Garra ceylonensis

A fish built to hold station in white water, using a disc on its underside to grip bare rock.

Where: Fast stony runs on the Kelani tributaries. Best: December to March.

Black Ruby Barb Occasional

Pethia nigrofasciata

A grey fish for eleven months of the year that turns crimson and jet black to breed.

Where: Sandy margins and slack water along the Kelani and its feeder streams. Best: May to September.

Ceylon Combtail Occasional

Belontia signata

A gourami that breathes air, guards a nest of bubbles and will see off a fish twice its size.

Where: Slack water and side pools off the Kelani. Best: December to March.

Ceylon Snakehead Occasional Vulnerable

Channa orientalis

A snakehead with no pelvic fins at all, found only in Sri Lanka's wet zone streams.

Where: Slack shaded water off the Kelani tributaries. Best: December to March.

Cherry Barb Occasional Vulnerable

Rohanella titteya

One of the most widely kept aquarium fish on earth, and it lives wild in about a dozen shaded streams on one island.

Where: Quiet side pools off the Kelani, in the shade of the rubber and forest edge. Best: December to March, when the water clears.

Fire Rasbora Rare Endangered

Rasboroides vaterifloris

A shoal of these in a shaft of forest light is the reason the Victorians called it the pearly rasbora.

Where: Small feeder streams in shaded forest near the Kelani. Best: December to March.

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: Undercut banks and boulder crevices on the Kelani. Best: December to March, 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 pools on the Kelani between the rapids. Best: December to March, in low clear water.

Shining Gossamerwing Regular

Euphaea splendens

Black wings that flash metallic blue-green as the male turns in a shaft of light over a forest stream.

Where: Rocky runs on the Kelani tributaries in the Makandawa forest. Best: December to March.

Ceylon Tree Nymph Occasional

Idea iasonia

Drifts through the forest like a sheet of paper caught in a current, and barely seems to fly at all.

Where: Clearings in the Makandawa forest. Best: December to March.

Rhinoceros Beetle Occasional

Xylotrupes gideon

A glossy tank of a beetle, the male armed with a forked horn for wrestling rivals.

Where: At lit buildings near the forest after dark. Best: October to December, night.

Sri Lanka Birdwing Occasional

Troides darsius

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

Where: Gardens and forest edge around the Makandawa forest. Best: December to March.

Atlas Moth Rare

Attacus atlas

One of the largest moths on Earth, its wingtips shaped and coloured like a cobra's head.

Where: Lit walls and forest edge near the Makandawa forest. Best: October to December, night.

Green's Gem Rare

Libellago greeni

A damselfly the length of a fingernail, endemic to a handful of rainforest streams.

Where: Fast rocky runs on the Kelani tributaries. Best: December to March.

Sri Lanka Blue Oakleaf Rare

Kallima philarchus

Electric blue and orange in flight, and a dead leaf complete with midrib and fungal blotches the moment it lands.

Where: Forest floor and fruiting trees in the Makandawa forest. Best: December to March.

No free photograph of the Sri Lanka blue oakleaf exists. The image shows the scarce blue oakleaf, Kallima knyvettii, a close relative photographed in southern India.

Golden Orb-weaver Common

Nephila pilipes

A giant black-and-yellow spider spinning webs of golden silk strong enough to snare small birds.

Where: Forest tracks and river-edge clearings in the Makandawa forest. Best: August to December.

Fringed Ornamental Tarantula Rare

Poecilotheria ornata

A tarantula the size of a dinner plate that lives in tree holes and sometimes shares them with a frog.

Where: Mature trees in the Makandawa forest, at night. Best: December to March, night.

Sri Lanka Tree Snail Occasional

Acavus phoenix

A snail the size of a plum, banded like a boiled sweet, that lives its whole life in the canopy.

Where: Trunks in the Makandawa forest after heavy rain. Best: May to September.

Giant Freshwater Prawn Occasional

Macrobrachium rosenbergii

Claws longer than its body, and it has to reach the sea to breed.

Where: Shallow slack margins of the Kelani after dark. Best: December to March, night.