Anuradhapura is a city in Sri Lanka 127 miles north of the capital of Colombo on the Malvathu River. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and famous for its well-preserved ruins. It was the center of Theravada Buddhism for many centuries. We visited in March 2019 for the ruins, but found it to be a treasure for animal viewing as well.
Below are photos of some of the animals we saw there in less than a day spent:
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| This huge Bengal monitor lizard was just sauntering along some grass while we were walking between sites. It was probably my favorite siting of the day and one of the favorites on our trip to Sri Lanka. |
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| This Sri Lanka gray hornbill is only found in Sri Lanka and is the only one we say in Sri Lanka. Our guide said they are difficult to find. |
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| The common toque macaque is the smallest of the 23 species of macaques and is found only in Sri Lanka. It is endangered but very common in Anuradhapura. The Disney film, "Monkey Kingdom," was partially filmed in Anuradhapura. |
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| This grizzled giant squirrel is the coolest squirrel I've ever seen by a mile. It is huge and has an awesome face (obviously not seen in this photo). They are only found in Sri Lanka and a few places in India. |
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| The Sri Lankan common myna is one of two subspecies of common myna and is only found in Sri Lanka. It is much darker and has a larger cheek patch than the other subspecies of common myna. |
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| A cattle egret. |
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| The tufted gray langur is one of the coolest monkeys we've seen. |
These are all animals we saw while visiting historic sites without any attempt to look for animals. Imagine what we could have found had we been focused on animals like we did in other spots in Sri Lanka.
I thought we would see tons of animals in the Amazon when we were there, but we really didn't see many. Sri Lanka was AMAZING for wild animal sighting! The various species of monkeys were my favorites.
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