Adam’s Peak Wildlife: What You Will Actually See

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: Montane forest canopy on the approach trails. Best: Year round. The highland subspecies is shaggier than the lowland one, which is a real field difference.

Golden Palm Civet Rare Vulnerable

Paradoxurus zeylonensis

An endemic civet the colour of wet honey, moving through the canopy at night and almost unknown to visitors.

Where: Fruiting canopy in the Peak Wilderness forest, on a spotlight walk from the lower approaches. Best: Year round. Endemic and nocturnal. The pilgrim path at night is the wrong place to look; the forest either side of the lower approaches is the right one.

Yellow-eared Bulbul Regular

Kelaartia penicillata

The bird of the highland garden, olive and yellow with an absurd yellow ear tuft sticking out sideways.

Where: Scrub and forest edge along the lower stretches of the pilgrim path. Best: Year round.

Dull-blue Flycatcher Occasional Near Threatened

Eumyias sordidus

Ash-blue and quietly beautiful, sitting motionless on a mossy branch in the highland cloud forest.

Where: Low mossy branches inside the cloud forest beside the path. Best: Year round.

Sri Lanka Bush Warbler Occasional Near Threatened

Elaphrornis palliseri

A dull brown skulker of the highland thickets that most birders hear a dozen times and see once.

Where: Thicket edges where the forest breaks along the path. Best: Year round.

Sri Lanka Scaly Thrush Rare Near Threatened

Zoothera imbricata

A big scaly-patterned thrush that works the forest floor in deep shade and vanishes the moment it knows you are there.

Where: Shaded forest floor away from the pilgrim path. Best: Year round.

Sri Lanka Whistling Thrush Rare Endangered

Myophonus blighi

A dark highland thrush that sings from wet rock at first light and is gone by the time the mist lifts.

Where: Shaded streams and gullies in the sanctuary at dawn. Best: Year round, first light. One of the hardest endemic birds in the country and this is one of the places to try.

Sri Lanka Wood Pigeon Rare Vulnerable

Columba torringtoniae

A big grey highland pigeon with a chequerboard collar, scarce and shrinking with the forest it needs.

Where: Fast flight between canopy patches over the forest below the summit ridge. Best: Year round.

Common Lanka Skink Regular

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 and path margins in the montane forest. Best: Year round.

Green Forest Lizard Regular

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 along the forest sections of the path. 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: Path edges and stream banks in the lower forest. Best: Year round.

Black-lipped Lizard Occasional Endangered

Calotes nigrilabris

An Endangered endemic that you will see without trying, because it basks on the hedges at Horton Plains.

Where: Basking on scrub and low vegetation at the forest edge above the tea. Best: Year round, warm mornings.

Hump-nosed Lizard Occasional 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: Thin twigs and understorey saplings beside the forest path. Best: Year round.

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: Litter and path edges in the lower forest, at night. Best: Year round.

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: Branches over the path in the lower forest, at night. Best: Year round.

Rhino-horned Lizard Rare Endangered

Ceratophora stoddartii

A cloud forest lizard with a curved horn on its nose, and when it is cornered it opens a bright orange mouth at you.

Where: Mossy trunks and saplings in the montane forest. Best: January to March.

Pygmy Lizard Very rare Endangered

Cophotis ceylanica

A moss mimic with a prehensile tail that grips like a chameleon's, and it gives birth to live young, which agamids are not supposed to do.

Where: Moss covered trunks in the cloud forest. Best: January to March.

Sri Lankan Krait Very rare Near Threatened

Bungarus ceylonicus

An endemic krait of the wet zone hills that has bitten perhaps six people in recorded history.

Where: Shaded plantation and forest edge on the lower slopes. Best: Year round, night. Endemic, and about six confirmed bites exist in over a century of medical literature.

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 on the lower approaches. Best: Year round.

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 waterfalls and fast stream sections on the approach. Best: Year round.

Montane Hourglass Tree Frog Occasional Endangered

Taruga eques

The female kicks her own foam nest into shape with her hind legs while hanging over a highland pond, and she is nearly twice the length of the male clinging to her.

Where: Pond and marsh margins in the tea country below the forest, after dark. Best: Year round, best in the wetter months.

Schmarda's Shrub Frog Occasional Endangered

Pseudophilautus schmarda

Horned brows and lichen-mottled skin, so perfectly matched to a mossy branch that guides find it by call and only then by eye.

Where: Montane forest and scrub along the approach. Best: Year round, night.

Kandyan Dwarf Toad Ultra rare Endangered

Adenomus kandianus

Described in 1872, unseen for a hundred and thirty three years, declared extinct, and then found again in 2009. It is the reason the extinction count fell from twenty one to eighteen.

Where: Montane cloud forest streams in the sanctuary. Best: Year round. Declared Extinct in 2004 and rediscovered here in October 2009. Reaching it means a serious permitted trek.

Starry Shrub Frog Ultra rare Critically Endangered

Pseudophilautus stellatus

Described in 1853, declared extinct, then found alive after a hundred and fifty six years, in the canopy where nobody had thought to look.

Where: Cloud forest canopy in the sanctuary between 1,540 m and 1,679 m. Best: Year round, and effectively unfindable. Lost for 156 years and rediscovered here in 2009, ten metres up in the canopy. Its entire world range is about two square kilometres.

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 rock-bedded streams in the Peak Wilderness. Best: December to April.

Banded Mountain Loach Regular

Schistura notostigma

A hill stream loach that spends its life under stones in current fast enough to sound like rain.

Where: Cold stony streams draining the massif. Best: Year round.

Common Emigrant Common

Catopsilia pomona

The butterfly behind the name Samanala Kanda, Butterfly Mountain, and the mass movement that heads for it every year.

Where: The pilgrim trails and the surrounding hills, sometimes in large numbers. Best: February to April. The mass movement towards the peak is the origin of the mountain's name and it is still visible in a good year.

Giant Honey Bee Regular

Apis dorsata

A big, fierce wild bee that hangs single-comb nests the size of a door from high branches and cliffs.

Where: Combs on cliff faces and overhangs along the pilgrim routes. Best: Year round.

Ceylon Tiger Occasional

Parantica taprobana

A high country butterfly found only on this island, and only above about a thousand metres.

Where: Forest edge and clearings on the lower path. Best: Year round.

No free photograph of the Ceylon tiger exists. The image shows the glassy tiger, Parantica aglea, a close relative photographed in southern India.