Mannar Marine Life: What You Will Actually See

Golden Jackal Regular

Canis aureus

The dry zone's opportunist, trotting along a track at dawn and howling in chorus at dusk so the whole park knows where it is.

Where: Scrub and open ground on the island, often on the road at dusk. Best: Year round.

Indian Flying Fox Occasional

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: Roost trees near the causeway and the town, streaming out at dusk. Best: Year round.

Indo-Pacific Finless Porpoise Rare Vulnerable

Neophocaena phocaenoides

A shy, finless little porpoise with a smiling face that surfaces without a splash.

Where: Shallow inshore water. Best: November to April. Small, shy and finless, so it is missed far more often than it is absent.

Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphin Rare Vulnerable

Sousa chinensis

Born dark grey and turning pink with age, the colour coming from blood vessels under unpigmented skin.

Where: Shallow coastal water and the channel. Best: November to April. Sri Lanka's animal is Sousa plumbea, the Indian Ocean humpback dolphin.

Dugong Ultra rare Vulnerable

Dugong dugon

The gentle sea cow said to have inspired mermaid legends, grazing seagrass meadows in warm shallow seas.

Where: Seagrass beds in the shallow Gulf of Mannar. Best: December to April. The last Sri Lankan stronghold, and the population is now very small. Netting and boat strike have done the damage.

Greater Flamingo Common

Phoenicopterus roseus

Several thousand birds on the Bundala salt pans in a good winter, filtering brine shrimp upside down.

Where: The lagoons, salt pans and shallows around Mannar island and Vankalai. Best: November to March. Thousands winter here, and this is the reliable place in Sri Lanka to see them in numbers.

Black-headed Ibis Regular Near Threatened

Threskiornis melanocephalus

White body, bare black head and neck, and a bill built for finding what it cannot see.

Where: Salt pan margins, paddy and the lagoon shallows. Best: November to March.

Crab-plover Regular

Dromas ardeola

The only bird in its family anywhere on earth, and the only wader that nests underground.

Where: Tidal flats and sandbars around the island and Adam's Bridge. Best: November to March. A strange, striking wader that breeds in burrows, and Mannar is the best place in the country for it.

Eurasian Spoonbill Regular

Platalea leucorodia

Feeds by sweeping that absurd bill side to side through the shallows, snapping shut the instant it touches something alive.

Where: Shallow lagoon margins. Best: November to March.

Little Tern Regular

Sternula albifrons

Hovers on fast flickering wings like an oversized hummingbird before dropping onto a fish.

Where: Fishing the shallow flats and the causeway channels. Best: November to March.

Spot-billed Pelican Regular Near Threatened

Pelecanus philippensis

A pelican that fishes the ancient irrigation tanks, and one of the few large waterbirds doing better now than it was.

Where: Lagoons and tanks around the causeway. Best: Year round.

Great Thick-knee Occasional Near Threatened

Esacus recurvirostris

A heavy, huge-eyed shorebird that stands motionless on open shingle all day and only comes alive at dusk.

Where: Sandbars, dry lagoon margins and open shell beaches. Best: Year round.

Indian Peafowl Occasional

Pavo cristatus

Wild, and behaving like a wild bird: displaying on a termite mound at dawn with leopards in the same scrub.

Where: Palmyra and thorn scrub on the mainland side. Best: Year round.

Pacific Reef Heron Occasional

Egretta sacra

Comes in two entirely different colours, charcoal grey and pure white, and both can hatch in the same nest.

Where: Rock and coral rubble along the island shore and the Adam's Bridge sandbanks. Best: Year round.

Pied Kingfisher Occasional

Ceryle rudis

The largest bird in the world that can hover in still air with no wind to help it, which is how it fishes open water no perch reaches.

Where: The causeway channels and the tank margins. Best: Year round.

Sirkeer Malkoha Occasional

Taccocua leschenaultii

A cuckoo that gave up on being a cuckoo: it builds its own nest, raises its own young and runs along the ground rather than flying.

Where: Low thorn scrub on the mainland approaches. Best: Year round.

Great Knot Rare Endangered

Calidris tenuirostris

Flies from Siberia to Australia with a single refuelling stop, and losing that one mudflat has nearly finished the species.

Where: Tidal mudflats and salt pans. Best: October to April. Endangered, and a scarce visitor even here.

Asian Water Monitor Common

Varanus salvator

A dragon sized lizard that swims canals and city parks, second only to the Komodo dragon in length.

Where: Lagoon margins, salt pan drains and the causeway edges. Best: Year round.

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: Building walls throughout. Best: Year round.

Oriental Garden Lizard Common

Calotes versicolor

The everyday garden lizard whose breeding males flush blood red about the head, earning the name bloodsucker.

Where: Scrub and roadside vegetation. Best: Year round.

Sri Lankan Common Skink Common

Eutropis lankae

The bronze skink basking on every wall, ruin and hotel lawn in the country turned out in 2020 to be an endemic species, not the Indian one everybody had been calling it.

Where: Sand, shell banks and open ground. Best: Year round.

Bengal Monitor Occasional

Varanus bengalensis

A dry-country monitor that climbs well, digs constantly and eats essentially anything smaller than itself.

Where: Dry sandy scrub across the island. Best: Year round.

Green Sea Turtle Occasional

Chelonia mydas

The great grazing turtle of the tropics, the only sea turtle that turns vegetarian as an adult.

Where: Seagrass beds in the gulf. Best: December to April. The seagrass that feeds the dugongs feeds the green turtles too.

Indian Star Tortoise Occasional Vulnerable

Geochelone elegans

The most trafficked tortoise on earth, and the Sri Lankan animals are the biggest and the most boldly starred of the lot.

Where: Open sandy scrub and the palmyra edges. Best: Year round, most active after rain.

Olive Ridley Turtle Occasional Vulnerable

Lepidochelys olivacea

The smallest and most numerous sea turtle, famous elsewhere for mass nestings of thousands at once.

Where: Shallow coastal water on both sides of the island. Best: Year round.

Oriental Rat Snake Occasional

Ptyas mucosa

A long, fast, wide eyed snake that races across open ground and is one of the region's great rodent controllers.

Where: Open scrub and around the salt pans. Best: Year round.

Saw-scaled Viper Occasional

Echis carinatus

A small viper that saws its own flanks together to make a sizzling warning, and in Sri Lanka it lives only in the arid north.

Where: Dry sandy ground and scrub, almost entirely after dark. Best: Year round. One of only two areas on the island where this snake occurs. Small, bad tempered and medically serious: watch where you put your feet at night.

Beaked Sea Snake Rare

Hydrophis schistosus

Drop for drop, one of the most venomous snakes in the sea, and it is responsible for most sea snake bites in Asia.

Where: Shallow turbid water and the lagoon channels, often taken in fishing nets. Best: Year round.

Hawksbill Turtle Rare Critically Endangered

Eretmochelys imbricata

The reef's sponge specialist, its beautiful shell also the reason it was hunted to the edge.

Where: Reef and rubble in the Gulf, and around the Adam's Bridge shallows. Best: Year round.

Indian Chameleon Rare

Chamaeleo zeylanicus

Sri Lanka's only chameleon, and it is genuinely scarce here, so finding one in a thorn bush in the northwest is a proper piece of luck.

Where: Thorn scrub and palmyra country on the island and the mainland approach. 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: Open scrub and the palmyra edges. Best: Year round.

Wandering Glider Common

Pantala flavescens

Makes the longest migration of any insect on earth, crossing open ocean between India and Africa.

Where: Over the salt pans and the seasonal pools. Best: Year round.

Signature Spider Common

Argiope anasuja

Writes a bold zigzag across the middle of its own web, and nobody is entirely sure why.

Where: Scrub and roadside vegetation. Best: Year round.