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Flora & Fauna
The vegatation in Uruguay consists mainly, like at the Argentina pampas and in Southern Brazil, of vast shelving pastures and gallery forests along the rivers. These forests consists of willows, eucalyptus trees, acacias and poplars. One of the strangest trees of Uruguay is the ombú, of which the inner bark feels soft and fluffy.
Ombú
The ombú mostly stands solitary in the field. At two locations in Uruguay (Bosque de Ombues, Rocha and Cerro Arequita, Lavalleja) there is a large group of several hunderds of individuals. An other remarkable tree is the ceiba-tree which has gorgeous red flowers.
In the South-East there is a large Palmsavanna in front of the Brazilien border. The rest of the country has only a limited area covered with woods.At moist soils in the valleys there is mainly brushwood. Along the coast are cocosnut trees.
Large wild animals are rare in Uruguay, although the ñandus are living near the Río Uruguay. The animal world is typical an open plane fauna of South America. So fauna of the open grass savanna in close contact with North Eastern Argentina. In the rivier forests and the swamps a wide variety of birds live i.e. swans, geese.
Ñandu
In the pastures we find, next to the already named ñandu, patridges and the hornero which builds it nest (looks like an oven) often in telephone poles.
Sweet water fish are amongst other piranha, salmon and pejerrey. Furthermore we find the pacú, tararira and surubí, all family of the North American perch. The most famous sweet water fish of Uruguay is the criolla, which can weight up to 32 kilo. Sportfishers from all of North and South America come to Uruguay to fish the criolla in the Río Santa Lucía. The Río de la Plata has a large variety and large amounts of fish. There is an combination of salt and sweet water fish like sharks, rays, ansjovis and corvina. Animals like jaguars, mountain lions and giant ant-eater are extinct in Uruguay. Mamals which still live in Uruguay are armadillos, capibara's (worlds largest rodent) en three-toe-ant-eaters or tamanduá. Threehunderd years of extensive cattle breading has had a negative impact on the animal and plantlife.
In Piriápolis there is a Zoological Rescue for indigenous animals. You can also see a lot of native animals here at display in the park.
Uruguay has several locations of national parcs:
