Gatun Lake, Panama

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A crystal clear lake fringed with islands where monkeys scamper along branches overhanding the water, green iguanas bask in the trees and bats roost on the banks, Gatun Lake is a paradise. Snail kites plunge into the lake to catch their prey, lizards skitter along the waterlilly leaves, sloths sleep amongst the leaves and puff birds look keenly for fish.

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If peace, beauty and a wealth of wildlife are what you're after, I highly recommend letting the magic of Gatun Lake work its serene spell on you. Sit back on your boat seat, enjoy the bobbing of the blue water, breathe in that fresh air and relax with the cuddly sloths. Ahhhhhhhhh

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And of course, watch the video

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Why go?

• A wealth of wildlife lives here, some of which is easy to spot. You can't miss the monkeys who are used to humans and you are guaranteed sightings of mantled howlers, white-faced capuchins and Geoffroys tamarins at their respective locations (each species lives on a different tree-covered island). If you have food on board, hide it or the tamarins and capuchins will jump onto your boat and take it from you. Do not feed the monkeys - peanuts and other food that is not part of their diet can upset their digestive systems. If you must feed them, give them bananas which they can find naturally in the wild.

• The lake and its islands and banks form part of a protected area, so many animals and birds are out in the open, knowing they will not be harmed.

• Gatun Lake is large so you generally have the part of the lake you are on to yourself, making your wildlife viewing even more special. It is 425 square kilometres (164 square miles) in area and when it was built in the early 20th century as a water storage area for Panama Canal, was the biggest manufactured lake in the world.

• You can custom make your boat tour to suit you - there are fishing, bird watching and hiking tours available as well as wildlife viewing. Hiking takes place on Barro Colorado, a protected island where the Smithsonian Institute conducts research.

• The scenery is beautiful and the entire boat trip is mega relaxing and interesting.

• It's a chance to ride on Panama Canal with the massive cargo ships – to access the lake, you generally have a short ride on the canal.

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Getting there

Gatun Lake is part of the Panama Canal, and there are many companies offering trips including transport from your hotel to where you board the boat. It is only a short distance from Panama City and a comfortable day trip. You can combine the trip with a visit to Miraflores Locks and Panama Canal, or Gamboa Rainforest Retreat which has a sloth sanctuary, an orchid house and a frog house with poison dart frogs among other attractions.

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Wildlife

You are likely to see a huge variety of birds, mammals and reptiles. There are black caiman and American alligators, which we didn't see but they are there.

 

Mammals 

Monkeys

We saw:

• mantled howler monkeys Alouatta palliata

• white-faced capuchins Cebus imitator

• Geoffroys tamarins Saguinus geoffroyi

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  10 fun facts about Geoffroys tamarins

   https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/41522/10488675#threats

   https://a-z-animals.com/animals/geoffroys-tamarin/

   https://www.factzoo.com/mammals/geoffroys-tamarin-small-colorful-new- 
   world-monkey.html

1. They only live in Panama and the very northern tip of Colombia. They can be seen nowhere else in the wild.

2. Geoffroys tamarins are social animals, living in tight-knit troops that feed and travel together. If the group gets separated, they call to each other and will go
   back to collect stragglers if necessary.

3. They constantly communicate with each other while they feed and travel, using chirps and trills.

4. Geoffroys tamarins are into girl power. Troops are led by the oldest female.

5. Each female mates with two or more males. Male tamarins carry and groom their babies more than the females even thought they are not certain they are the father(though the mother cleans the babies more than the father).

6. They eat fruit, flowers, sap, nectar, green plants, frogs, lizards and insects.

7. These monkeys spend nearly all their time in trees, travelling through and eating in trees and sleeping in treetops at night. 

8. Geoffroys tamarins use scent to mark their territories, and the males will aggressively defend these territories.

9. The tamarins can live up to 13 years in captivity.

10. These monkeys are named after Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. He was a French scientist who spent much of his time in Central America discovering new species.

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See Geoffroys tamarins and the other monkey species on the video

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Sloths 

We saw:

• Hoffman's two-toed sloth Choloepus hoffmanni

• Brown-throated three-toed sloth Bradypus variegatus

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  10 fun facts about brown-throated three-toed sloths

  www.worldlandtrust.org/species/mammals/brown-throated-three-toed-sloth/

  www.animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/brown-throated-three-toed-sloth/

1. Brown-throated three-toed sloths spend nearly all their time in trees, only coming to the ground once a week to defecate. 

2. They are very tidy animals, digging a hole to defecate in and covering it up afterwards.

3. Their fur is light brown but often looks green because algae grows on their fur, especially in the rainy season. This algae does not harm them and helps camouflage them against predators. The algae in turn is home to a harmless species of moth, Cryptoses choloepi, which lives in their fur, and lays its eggs in the dung.

4. As well as the algae, sloth fur harbours fungi which protects the animal from mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and Chagas disease. 

5. Sloths’ fur hangs from their stomach to their back so rainwater trickles down their fur while they are upside down in a tree.

6. Males can be distinguished from females by a long orange patch of short fur that almost looks like naked skin on their backs. The orange fur has a black stripe.

7. The sloths are vegetarians, and their favourite food is cecropia leaves, so if you want to find these animals, look at the top of a cecropia tree. These trees are pioneer species native to Central America, often growing along roads and at the edges of forests.

8. Brown-throated three-toed sloths mainly eat leaves, so it takes them
   between two weeks and a month to digest their food. As a result, they are generally slow moving but if they need to go somewhere in a hurry they can move at a fast human walking pace for a short time (I saw this happen and was impressed by their speed). 

9. These sloths can turn their heads up to 300 degrees to scan for predators like snakes and harpy eagles.

10. Baby sloths spend 5-10 months clinging to their mother to prepare for a life hanging in the trees. If they fall off, the mother will descend to the ground to save them.

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Although we saw these sloths on Gatun Lake, we did not include them in this video as there is a lot of footage in our Canopy Tower and Panama Canal and wildlife videos.​

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Bats

We saw:

• proboscis bats Rhynchonycteris naso

• lesser white-lined bats Saccopteryx leptura

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See lesser white-lined bats on the video

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Birds

We saw heaps of birds on Gatun Lake, especially:

• brown pelican Pelecanus occidentalis

• white-necked puffbird Notharchus hyperrhynchus

• great egret Ardea alba

• common moorhen Gallinula chloropus

• green heron Butorides virescens

• little blue heron Egretta caerulea

• mangrove swallow Tachycineta albilinea

• osprey Pandion haliaetus

• smooth-billed ani Crotophaga ani

• chestnut-mandibled toucan  Ramphastos swainsonii

• keel-billed toucan Ramphastos sulfuratus

• snail kite  Rostrhamus sociabilis

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  10 fun facts about snail kites

  sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v111n02/p0265-p0268.pdf

  https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/snakit

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1. Snail kites are found throughout North and South America but were rare in Panama before the 1980s.

2. They feed almost exclusively on apple snails which are found in fresh water. If snails are scarce, they will eat small amphibians, reptiles and insects.

3. Apple snails were introduced to Gatun Lake in the 1980s from Guatemala to control hydrilla, an invasive water weed. Snail kites followed, and soon became a common species on Gatun Lake.

4. Snail kites are opportunistic and will follow their prey (see point 3). As a result, their population on Gatun Lake has swelled, meaning hope for this species which has shrunk in other areas of its habitat where lakes and marshes are drying due to climate change.

5. The slender curved beak of the snail kite is uniquely adapted to prise snails out of their shells. They dive into the water to catch the snail, then perch on a branch and hold it down with a claw while extracting it from its shell with their beak.

6. Females defend their nests more than males, but as foraging areas are small, pairs share feeding areas. Snail kites are sociable and there can be up to 1,000 nests in a relatively small area.

7. This sociability extends to nesting with other species, such as herons and egrets.

8. Nests are important, so courting males generally carry a stick for nesting material.

9. Both males and females construct the nest, then incubate and feed the nestlings.

10. Adult males are dark grey with orange or red legs; females are browner with yellow to orange legs.

 

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Do you have questions or comments about this article? Email maddestinations@gmail.com or leave a comment under the video.