Tangalle Marine Life: What You Will Actually See

Golden Jackal Occasional

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 behind the beach and the lagoon margins at dusk. Best: Year round.

Toque Macaque Occasional 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: Wooded ground and coconut behind the beach. Best: Year round.

Tufted Grey Langur Occasional Near Threatened

Semnopithecus priam

Long-limbed, silver-grey and black-faced, sitting in the open on a ruin or a track edge in every dry zone park.

Where: Tall trees around the lagoons and the villages. Best: Year round.

Black-headed Ibis Common Near Threatened

Threskiornis melanocephalus

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

Where: Lagoon margins and wet paddy. Best: Year round.

Pied Kingfisher Common

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: Hovering over the Kalametiya lagoon and the channels. Best: Year round.

Bronze-winged Jacana Regular

Metopidius indicus

Toes so long it walks across floating leaves, and a breeding system in which the female holds the territory and the males do all the work.

Where: Floating vegetation on the lagoon and adjacent tanks. Best: Year round.

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 at Kalametiya. Best: November to March.

Indian Peafowl Regular

Pavo cristatus

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

Where: Scrub and open ground behind the lagoons. Best: Year round.

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: Kalametiya lagoon and the surrounding tanks. Best: Year round.

Brown Fish Owl Occasional

Ketupa zeylonensis

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

Where: Large trees at the lagoon edge and along the channels, at dusk. Best: Year round.

Cotton Pygmy Goose Occasional

Nettapus coromandelianus

One of the smallest waterfowl on earth, nesting in tree holes and sitting out on lily pads.

Where: Lotus and floating weed on the quieter lagoon arms. 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: Dry lagoon margins and the sand spits. Best: November to March.

Grey-headed Fish Eagle Occasional Near Threatened

Icthyophaga ichthyaetus

Sits low over the water on a dead branch for hours, then drops feet first and comes up with a fish half its own weight.

Where: Tall trees around the lagoon. Best: Year round.

Yellow Bittern Occasional

Ixobrychus sinensis

Freezes with its bill pointed straight up and vanishes into the reeds, which is why almost nobody sees it despite it being everywhere.

Where: Reed beds at the lagoon margins. Best: Year round.

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 and the channels behind the beach. Best: Year round.

Checkered Keelback Common

Fowlea piscator

The snake you will actually see in Sri Lanka, hunting fish in a paddy channel in broad daylight.

Where: Lagoon shallows and the irrigation channels. 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, gardens 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: Sandy ground, walls and track verges. Best: Year round.

Green Sea Turtle Regular

Chelonia mydas

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

Where: The beaches between Tangalle and Rekawa at night. Best: February to July. The same nesting coast as Rekawa, with less structure around it. Do not use white light on a nesting beach.

Mugger Crocodile Regular Vulnerable

Crocodylus palustris

The broadest snout of any living crocodile, and in one Sri Lankan park block there are more of them per square kilometre than anywhere else on earth.

Where: Kalametiya lagoon and the brackish channels behind the dunes. Best: Year round. Never wade in the lagoon, however shallow it looks.

Bengal Monitor Occasional

Varanus bengalensis

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

Where: Scrub and open sandy ground behind the beach. Best: Year round.

Indian Black Turtle Occasional Near Threatened

Melanochelys trijuga

The dark, three keeled turtle basking on every half sunk log in the dry zone, and the northern race is found nowhere else on earth.

Where: Kalametiya lagoon shallows and adjacent tanks. Best: Year round.

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 scrub and grassy ground inland of the beach. 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: The nesting beaches. Best: December to January.

Saltwater Crocodile Occasional

Crocodylus porosus

The largest living reptile and the ocean going giant of crocodiles, now virtually gone from Thai waters.

Where: The lagoon channels and the river mouths, more often than people expect. Best: Year round. A different and more dangerous animal than the mugger, and it is in the lagoons and the river mouths here.

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: Offshore reef and rubble rather than the nesting beaches. Best: Year round.

Leatherback Turtle Rare Vulnerable

Dermochelys coriacea

The largest turtle on Earth, a jellyfish hunter that dives deeper than most whales and crosses whole oceans.

Where: The beaches between Tangalle and Rekawa, coming ashore at night. Best: April to July. The largest turtle in the world and the least often seen. A nesting leatherback is a genuinely rare thing to witness.

Asian Common Toad Common

Duttaphrynus melanostictus

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

Where: Gardens and building surrounds after dark. Best: Year round.

Indian Green Pond Frog Common

Euphlyctis hexadactylus

One of the very few frogs anywhere that deliberately eats plants, which for an order of committed carnivores is close to heresy.

Where: Lotus beds and the still lagoon margins. Best: Year round.

Skittering Frog Common

Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis

Disturbed, it does not dive. It skips across the surface like a flat stone, and it can launch from open water with nothing to push against.

Where: Lagoon margins, ditches and paddy. Best: Year round.

Green Chromide Regular

Etroplus suratensis

One of only three cichlids in all of Asia, and the other two are its close relatives.

Where: The Kalametiya and Rekawa lagoon systems. Best: Year round.

Crimson Rose Common Near Threatened

Pachliopta hector

Flies slowly and in the open because it is poisonous and every predator on the island knows it.

Where: Flowering scrub behind the beach. 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 lagoons, the paddy and the seasonal pools. Best: Year round.

Oleander Hawkmoth Occasional

Daphnis nerii

Camouflaged like military fatigues and fast enough to cross the Mediterranean, it hovers at flowers like a hummingbird.

Where: Coastal gardens and scrub at dusk. Best: Year round, dusk.

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 lagoon-edge vegetation. Best: Year round.

Horn-eyed Ghost Crab Common

Ocypode ceratophthalmus

The fastest crab on earth, clocked at over two metres a second, and it growls at intruders from inside its burrow.

Where: The open sand at night, sprinting between burrows. Best: Year round, night. The crab that sprints past while you are waiting for a turtle.