FAUNA IN CORRIENTES

The wild fauna has nicely adapted to the environment. The animals inhabiting the Province are the ones characteristic of the tropical zones.

Mammals
The largest and most dangerous stay away from men and they are usually hard to spot.

The wild boar and the jaguar look for refuge and food in the dense forest.

Others such as the coatis, the mulitas or hairy armadillos and the marsh deer are also on the brink of extinction, whilst the tayra, zorrillas, peccaries and howler or carayá monkeys populate the forests and the plains.
The most common mammal is the capybara, the largest rodent in the world. It can weigh up to 65 kg, it is gregarious and lives in groups of up to 20 individuals that roam both at day and night.

The high pirizales and floodable grasslands are the habitat for the most typical species of the zone dwells: the marsh deer, an endangered species in Argentina.

The river otters swim swiftly in the lagoons. They are abundant on the shores, together with the guinea pigs.

The aguará-guazú or maned wolf has adapted itself to life in the estuaries. It is a big fox of reddish hair and long black legs, very rarely found in the Province and on the brink of extinction as well.

The pampas cat, the rarely found onza cat or ocelot, the aguará popé, the brown mountain goat or guazuncho and the mountain fox, amongst other species, inhabit the upper parts of the sierra.

Birds
They are the ones that mostly attract the immediate attention of visitors due to their abundance and their colourful feathers.

We find the green kingfisher, cattle egret, cardinal, American coot, southern lapwing, pigeons, woodpeckers, big toucan, parrots and parakeets in the forests of talas and espinillos, whilst the rhea, hawks, common rhea, owls and tinamou usually live in the grasslands.

The tuyuyú or big john, a huge stork, feeds on fishes in laggons, along with flamingos, herons, swans, spoonbills and sirirí ducks. The federals, of flashy black plumage and orange head, sit on the long stems of the totora reeds and the pehuajó, together with the lavandera of white head and black body, while the wattled jacana or small cock of the waters goes along the aquatic vegetation looking for insects and crustaceous to feed upon.

Fishes
The fish fauna is very numerous, and you can easily find dolphin-fishes (one of the largest fishes with an adult specimen weighing up to 25 kg), surubis, patíes, shads, ray's breams, atherine, pacúes, bogas, catfishes, salmons, mandubíes and tarariraes, a voracious species considered to be the main predator that has the particularity of being able to breathe air, hence it is capable of resisting the evaporation of its environment and of surviving in places with little water. They can also move from one pond to another, crawling like eels or using their pectoral and caudal fins as if to walk.

Reptiles
Corrientes is the realm of the caiman, which mainly inhabits the estuaries and wetlands. Huge specimens of black caimans (the adult male can be up to 2.10 m long), and nesting caimans appear with the first sunrays and then remains without moving for hours.

Other reptiles: aquatic turtles, green caimans, lizards and iguanas, large and harmless snakes such as the ñacaniná and the flashy curiyú boa. This boa is perfectly adapted to water, having its eyes and nostrils on the upper head and thus allowing it to prowl its prey almost totally submerged.

Threatening poisonous snakes, such as the yarará or fer de lance, the rattlesnake and the coral snake, usually appear marauding by the watercourses when the sun sets on the grassland.

The small frog of Pedersen, (Argenteohyla siemersi pederseni), a new species rediscovered in the Province of Corrientes, is the most notable amongst the amphibious.

Numerous insects propagate in the flooded areas: mosquitoes, jejenes, polvorines and piques.