Bahama Wildlife

Bahama Wildlife

The following pictures were taken during a 2002 trip to Grand Bahamas. We stayed in Port Lucaya at the Our Lucaya Resort. The resort had a number of birds, lizards and snails. Lizards included; Curly-tailed Lizard (Leiocephalus corinatus), Bark Anole (Anolis disitchus) and Blue-tail Lizard (Ameiva auberi)


Curly-tailed Lizard (Leiocephalus corinatus)	Blue-tail Lizard (Ameiva auberi ??")

A variety of snails were found as well as a Hermit Crab just outside Willy Broadleaf Restaurant. Large orange Land Crabs (not pictured) were common just outside the resort

Birds around the resort included Gray Kingbird, Eurasian Collared Dove, Common Ground Dove, White-crowned Pigeon and a Bahama endemic, Red-legged Thrush, pictured below with a lizard in its beak.


Red-legged thrush	White-crowned Pigeon	Common Ground Dove

We made a trip up to the Rand Nature Center. A wider variety of birds were found including


Striped-headed Tanager Now called Western Spindalis	Cuban Emerald, a hummingbird	and captive American Flamingos

The most amazing sights were spiders. Spinybacked Orbweavers were everywhere. Their webs were crossing less used footpaths. Just outside the nature center we found 3 inch spiders called Banana Spiders or Golden Silk Orbweavers. The females grow over 3 inches in length. The males are much smaller, less than a half an inch. Both are relatively harmless to humans


Spinybacked Orbweavers (Gasteracantha cancriformis)	Golden Silk Orbweaver (Nephila clavipes)

Some of the butterflies that were seen:


Mexican Fritillary (Euptoieta hegesia)	Dorantes Longtail (Urbanus dorontes)	Ceraunus Blue (Hemiargus ceraunus)