Kanneliya Wildlife: What You Will Actually See

Purple-faced Langur Regular 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: High canopy, usually heard before seen. Best: Year round.

Orange-billed Babbler Regular

Argya rufescens

The engine of the Sinharaja feeding flock: hear this bird and everything else is about to arrive.

Where: Moving through the understorey in noisy flocks. Best: Year round.

Sri Lanka Blue Magpie Occasional Vulnerable

Urocissa ornata

Cobalt and chestnut with a blood-red bill, and it comes to look at you rather than the other way round.

Where: Mid canopy in the wetter forest. Best: Year round.

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 the trails. 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 near streams. Best: Year round.

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: Understorey twigs and low branches. Best: January to April and July to September.

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: Low branches on the forest trails at night. Best: Year round, night.

Rough-horned Lizard Rare Endangered

Ceratophora aspera

A horned lizard the length of a finger, living in the leaf litter of the lowland rainforest and shaped exactly like a dead leaf.

Where: Leaf litter on the lowland rainforest floor. Best: January to April.

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 boulders. 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 forest waterfalls. Best: Year round, night.

Golden Shrub Frog Rare Endangered

Pseudophilautus auratus

Genuinely gold in torchlight, which in a genus of browns and greys is the whole point.

Where: Foliage inside closed canopy forest, well beyond the trail head. Best: Year round, night.

Southern Whipping Frog Rare Endangered

Taruga longinasus

A lowland outlier in a mountain genus, and its scattered range is the ghost of a wet forest belt that no longer joins up.

Where: Vegetation over lowland stream pools. Best: Year round, night.

Nagao's Pug-snout Frog Very rare Endangered

Uperodon nagaoi

Its entire life cycle happens in a few hundred millilitres of rainwater trapped in a rotting trunk.

Where: Water held in rotting tree holes in the old growth forest. Best: Year round, night. Kanneliya is the type locality. The whole life cycle happens inside a hollow trunk.

Ceylon Killifish Regular

Aplocheilus dayi

Hangs motionless at the surface with an iridescent green spot between its eyes, which is how you find it.

Where: Ditches and marshy margins around the reserve edge. Best: Year round.

Black Ruby Barb Occasional

Pethia nigrofasciata

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

Where: Shallow gravel margins on the main forest stream. 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: Shaded stream pools along the forest trails. Best: January 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: Leaf-littered pools along the forest stream trails. Best: January to March.

Fire Rasbora Occasional Endangered

Rasboroides vaterifloris

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

Where: Shaded pools along the stream trails. Best: January to March.

Ornate Paradisefish Rare Endangered

Malpulutta kretseri

The only species in its genus, anywhere, and it lives in shaded puddles of a stream in one corner of one island.

Where: Shallow leaf-filled pools and seepages off the main streams. Best: January to March.

Weaver Ant Common

Oecophylla smaragdina

A rust-red ant that sews living leaves into nests using its own larvae as glue guns.

Where: Nests in the canopy and low branches along the trails. Best: Year round.

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: Sunlit rocky stretches of the forest streams. Best: January 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 and stream openings inside the reserve. Best: January to March.

Sri Lanka Birdwing Occasional

Troides darsius

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

Where: Canopy gaps and clearings along the reserve trails. Best: January to March.

Ceylon Rose Rare Critically Endangered

Pachliopta jophon

Critically Endangered, endemic, and confined to the shrinking rainforest of one corner of the island.

Where: Forest trails and clearings inside the reserve. Best: January to March.

Green's Gem Rare

Libellago greeni

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

Where: Rocky stretches of the forest streams. Best: January 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: Trail edges and fallen fruit inside the reserve. Best: January 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.

Sri Lanka Relict Ant Ultra rare Critically Endangered

Aneuretus simoni

The only surviving species of an entire subfamily of ants, and it lives in the leaf litter of one island.

Where: Forest floor litter in the least disturbed sections. Best: Year round.

Golden Orb-weaver Common

Nephila pilipes

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

Where: Trail edges and clearings through the reserve. 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: Hollows in the large trees near the stream trails, at night. Best: January 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: Tree trunks along the stream trails after rain. Best: May to September and January to March.

Sri Lanka Tree Crab Very rare

Perbrinckia scansor

A freshwater crab that lives up a tree, in rainwater trapped in a hollow trunk, and only comes down to breed.

Where: Rot holes and hollows in mature trees along the stream trails. Best: February and March.