Yala in February: The Start of the Leopard Season

Asian Elephant Regular Endangered

Elephas maximus

The largest land animal in Asia, and a herd crossing open grassland at dusk moves over the ground faster than its size suggests.

Where: Waterholes and open scrub in Block 1. Best: February to July.

Sri Lankan Leopard Regular Endangered

Panthera pardus kotiya

The largest leopard subspecies in the world, and on this island it is the top predator, which changes how it behaves.

Where: Rock outcrops, track edges and waterholes in Block 1. Best: Feb-Jul, first and last two hours of light. The highest leopard density recorded anywhere. Listen for chital alarm calls, which is how every guide finds them.

Pallid Harrier Rare Near Threatened

Circus macrourus

Quarters the grassland at head height on raised wings, tilting and rocking, hunting entirely by sound and surprise.

Where: Open scrub and burnt grassland. Best: Dec-Feb.

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: Waterholes and tank edges throughout Block 1. Best: February to September.

Bengal Monitor Common

Varanus bengalensis

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

Where: Open scrub, rock outcrops and track edges. Best: February to September. Nostrils set midway between eye and snout tip, and a round rather than flattened tail.

Indian Rock Python Occasional Near Threatened

Python molurus

Sri Lanka's largest snake, and in the dry season it lies out at the edge of a shrinking waterhole where every animal in the park has to come.

Where: Basking at waterhole edges and swimming across tanks. Best: February to July, cool mornings. Often seen from a jeep, stretched out at full length in the open.

Antlion Common

Myrmeleon sp.

The larva digs a conical pit in dry sand and flicks grains at anything trying to climb out, collapsing the walls under it.

Where: Sandy soil under bushes and around the bungalows. Best: February to July.

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: Track edges and open scrub. Best: February to July.

Common Rose Swallowtail Common

Pachliopta aristolochiae

A velvety black swallowtail with a crimson body and rose-pink spots, floating slowly to show it is poisonous.

Where: Track edges and flowering scrub. Best: February to July.

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: Track edges and flowering scrub through the blocks. Best: February to July.

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 track-edge vegetation through the blocks. Best: February to July.

Giant Forest Scorpion Occasional

Heterometrus swammerdami

Among the largest scorpions on earth, and its sting is milder than a bee's.

Where: Under logs and around the bungalows and track edges after dark. Best: February to July, night.

Chital (Spotted Deer) Common

Axis axis

The prey base the whole leopard story rests on, and the animal whose alarm call tells you where the cat is.

Where: Open ground and waterholes throughout Block 1. Best: Year round. Learn the alarm bark. The deer see the leopard long before anyone in a jeep does.

Toque Macaque Common 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: Track edges and around the bungalows. Best: Year round. Never hand food to one. The rule is the same here as in Thailand.

Tufted Grey Langur Common 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: Open ground and track edges throughout. Best: Year round. Long-limbed, silver, black-faced, often on the ground.

Wild Water Buffalo Common Endangered

Bubalus arnee

Wide-swept horns spanning further than any other bovid, on an animal that is genuinely dangerous and genuinely rare in its true wild form.

Where: Wallowing in tanks and waterholes through the heat of the day. Best: Year round. Buffalo injure more people in Sri Lanka than leopards do.

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: Tracks and open ground, and at leopard kills once the cat has left. Best: Year round, dawn and dusk. Watching one work an abandoned kill is a good lesson in how the system fits together.

Ruddy Mongoose Regular

Urva smithii

A big reddish mongoose that carries its black-tipped tail curled up over its back as it crosses a track.

Where: Crossing tracks and working the scrub edge. Best: Year round, daytime. Black tail tip carried upcurved is the field mark at a glance.

Indian Pangolin Ultra rare Endangered

Manis crassicaudata

A walking pine cone that eats ants, rolls into an impenetrable ball when threatened, and is the most trafficked wild mammal on earth.

Where: Night records and occasional burrows near the tracks. Best: Year round, after dark. Realistic chances on a normal trip are close to zero, and saying otherwise would be dishonest.

Rusty-spotted Cat Ultra rare Near Threatened

Prionailurus rubiginosus

The smallest wild cat in the world, about half the weight of a house cat, and one of the least seen animals on the island.

Where: Night records and camera traps in Block 1 scrub. Best: Year round, after dark. Listed for honesty. Realistic chances on a normal trip are close to zero.

Indian Peafowl Common

Pavo cristatus

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

Where: Open scrub, termite mounds and waterhole edges throughout Block 1. Best: Year round, dawn. Displaying males on open ground at first light are one of the images people come away with.

Sri Lanka Junglefowl Common

Gallus lafayettii

The national bird, and the wild ancestor's cousin: a jungle cockerel with a yellow-centred red comb found nowhere else on earth.

Where: Scrub edges and track sides throughout the park. Best: Year round, first and last light. Runs rather than flies. A guaranteed endemic on any Yala drive.

Pied Kingfisher Regular

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: Tanks and waterholes. Best: Year round.

Sri Lanka Woodshrike Regular

Tephrodornis affinis

A plain grey-brown bird of the dry zone scrub that repays anyone willing to look at something that is not a leopard.

Where: Exposed branches beside the tracks. Best: Year round. Perches upright and drops onto insects. Gives a safari page depth.

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 over the tanks and along the watercourses. Best: Year round, dusk. Often found by following the mobbing calls of crows and drongos to the day roost.

Crimson-backed Flameback Occasional

Chrysocolaptes stricklandi

A big crimson woodpecker that hammers so hard you hear it before you see the tree move.

Where: Dead timber and larger trees along the tracks. Best: Year round. A reminder on a safari drive that the birds repay the same attention as the mammals.

Crimson-fronted Barbet Occasional

Psilopogon rubricapillus

Green with a crimson forehead and a blue face, and a call like a hammer on a distant fencepost.

Where: Fruiting figs and larger trees along the tracks. Best: Year round. Call like a hammer on a distant fencepost.

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: Tank margins and the larger waterholes. Best: Year round.

Malabar Pied Hornbill Occasional Near Threatened

Anthracoceros coronatus

The island's big hornbill, sealing the female into a tree hollow behind a wall of mud for the whole nesting period.

Where: Riverine strips and large fruiting figs. Best: Year round.

Great Thick-knee Rare Near Threatened

Esacus recurvirostris

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

Where: Tank margins and dry riverbed inside the park. Best: Year round.

Sirkeer Malkoha Rare

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 beside the tracks. Best: Year round. More often glimpsed running along the ground than seen in flight.

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: Bungalow and park building walls. Best: Year round, night.

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, track verges and bungalow surrounds. 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: Rock outcrops, track verges and bungalow surrounds. Best: Year round.

Checkered Keelback Regular

Fowlea piscator

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

Where: Tanks and waterholes throughout Block 1. Best: Year round.

Oriental Rat Snake Regular

Ptyas mucosa

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

Where: Crossing tracks and hunting rodents in open scrub. Best: Year round, daytime.

Bahir's Fan-throated Lizard Occasional Endangered

Sitana bahiri

A finger length lizard of the coastal sand that unfurls an orange flag from its throat and does press ups to show it off.

Where: Coastal scrub and sand around Palatupana and the Kirinda approach. Best: Year round, warm mornings.

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: Waterhole margins and half sunk logs. Best: Year round.

Indian Cobra Occasional

Naja naja

The spectacled cobra of South Asian myth, and one of the very few snakes a visitor to the dry zone parks has a real chance of seeing.

Where: Crossing park tracks and around rock outcrops. Best: Year round, early morning and late afternoon.

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 ground and roadside scrub in Block 1. Best: After rain.

Russell's Viper Occasional

Daboia russelii

The snake that kills more people in Sri Lanka than any other, sitting in plain sight on a paddy bund and hissing like a punctured tyre.

Where: Coiled on warm tracks and open ground at dusk. Best: Year round. Listen for the hiss before you look for the snake.

Sri Lankan Termite Hill Gecko Rare

Hemidactylus depressus

An endemic gecko flattened almost to paper, with a serrated tail, living inside termite mounds and cave roofs.

Where: Buildings and rock at Palatupana on the park edge. Best: Year round, night.

Asian Common Toad Common

Duttaphrynus melanostictus

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

Where: Bungalow surrounds, track verges and waterhole margins. Best: Year round, night.

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: Waterholes and tank margins throughout the park. Best: Year round.

Weaver Ant Common

Oecophylla smaragdina

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

Where: Leaf nests in scrub and woodland along the tracks. Best: Year round.

Sloth Bear Rare Vulnerable

Melursus ursinus

A shaggy, long-clawed insect specialist that vacuums termites out of a mound loudly enough to hear from fifty metres.

Where: Block 1 scrub and fruiting trees. Best: Jun-Jul, early morning. Possible but well behind Wilpattu. This animal charges when surprised.

Mugger Crocodile Common 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: Buthawa Wewa, Heenwewa, Katagamuwa Tank and the waterholes through Block 1. Best: May to September, mid morning basking. Block 1 alone carries an estimated 500 to 600 animals, close to half the national population.

Sri Lankan Flapshell Turtle Occasional Vulnerable

Lissemys ceylonensis

The only chelonian species found solely in Sri Lanka, split off from its mainland cousin eight million years ago, and still without a conservation status of its own.

Where: Muddy waterholes and tank shallows. Best: May to September.

Jerdon's Bullfrog Occasional

Hoplobatrachus crassus

The biggest frog on the island, and its tadpoles hunt and eat other tadpoles, including each other when the pool gets crowded.

Where: Rain pools and flooded grassland. Best: October to January, night.

Sri Lankan Painted Frog Occasional

Uperodon taprobanicus

Grabbed by a snake it inflates into a balloon and exudes a glue that gums the snake's mouth shut, and it shares tree holes with ornamental tarantulas.

Where: Rain pools and bungalow surrounds. Best: October to January, night.

Golden Orb-weaver Common

Nephila pilipes

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

Where: Scrub edges, track margins and around the bungalows. Best: August to December.