Flora and Fauna

With over 600 endemic species, plants, birds, reptiles and other animal life – these plant species became already extinct in the other areas of origin during the ice age – if you are into adventure of taking a trip far into the far past of the history of our planet Gran Canaria sure wont dissapoint you. So start packing and don’t forget your herbarium and camera!

The coastal area is a all-you-need-for-hollyday-here kind of place, but if you take an effort to move away from the coast for a kilometer into the mainland, or much less with a simple snorkel to the opposite direction to do a little diving, you will discover a very rich world just a foot-step away from the popular resorts.

The tourist zones are more-less clean of such things as the modernization took it’s part from the wild life, but people are not neglecting it so a very large area of the island is protected by UNESCO and other organizations to keep the nature intact. Which is a good thing because (other than the reason of plain sanity) it really would be shame to be lost: take a diving tour and swim together with thoulsands of fishes, go in the mountins and enjoy the incredibly clean air of the high peeks of Gran Canaria (hiking included!) while checking out the plants and the animals.

Flora

For centuries, the flora of the Gran Canaria and the Canary Islands in general has captured the interest of experts from all over the planet. This island has become a point of reference for the study of the world’s flora: what the Galapagos islands are to zoology, Gran Canaria is to botany.

The island has been relatively well explored by naturalists over the past 150 years, still, new discoveries are made. From the naturalists’ point of view, Gran Canaria is probably the most diverse and interesting of all the Canary Islands as it combines the waterless deserts of the eastern islands and the flourishing forests of the western isles. Ironically, with an ever growing population of around 1 million, 2 million tourist visits anually, and an extensive exploatation in the past hundreds of years, Gran Canaria has lost the most species of the seven Canary Islands.

For visitors who want to start discovering this unique world should not miss the opportunity to visit the “Viera y Clavijo” Botanical Garden in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, as well as the various pine forests, the extensive palm tree groves and the laurisilva (humid laurel trees) forest in Los Tiles de Moya, which is one of the last remnants of laurisilva in the world.

Fauna

The land fauna of the Gran Canaria is characterised by the absence of big, harmful species. You can wonder around feely – no snakes, crocodiles, bears, wolfs or such. Birds and reptiles are the most numerous species of the wildlife. Among the vertebrates we have the Canary Island lizard – endemic, but abundant, the Gran Canaria skink, Osorio shrew and Boettger’s Canary wall gecko.

The canary bird deserves a special mention due to its symbolic establishment that relates it both to the Canary Islands and to Gran Canaria in particular. As we all probably know, the interesting thing about this bird is it’s singing ability. It was bred through crossbreeding with other species, thus producing a great variety. I might add from personal expirience that these birds are very clever and explorer types. They can be tought tricks, and also can have a nice share of being part of any family specially when the food is on the table and they are out of their cages.

Birds have the majority when it comes to representation of the Island’s wildlife population: 48 species, including the nesting birds of this island, with endemic birds such as great spotted woodpeckers, blue chaffinch in the pine forests of Pilancones-Inagua and the robins. Besides, the Island is a resting place for many of the migrating birds. We can mention here Cory’s shearwater of the birds included in the marine and nesting species.

The sea fauna is very diverse as a result of the geographical situation of the island. One of the oddities of the marine life is the coexistence of species such as turtles and the pelagic fish. The Caretta Caretta is evidently the most common of the family turtles. These species coexist with rays, manta rays, stingrays, angel sharks, swordfishes, big tuna fish and coastal fauna such as parrot-fishes, white seabreams, goldlines, saddled seabreams, john dories, groupers, blacktail combers, pompanoes or pollacks. Common mammals that are found in the waters of Gran Canaria are dolphins, bottlenosed dolphins and whales.

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