National Parks

Los Haitises National Park

Los Haitises National Park is located at the northeast of the Dominican Republic. It is framed on the Samana Bay which it belongs to.

The Haitises make up a tropical karst (limestone relief) in mogotes, which characterizes these climatic zones on earth. Its external morphology presents dolines, corridors and valleys and its internal morphology includes cavities, with some of great dimensions such as the ones on the seaboard.

The Haitises’ vegetation includes a latifolias humid tropical forest transforming into a semideciduous tropical forest in the keys and mogotes by the coast. With more than 700 vascular plants, it is one of the spaces with greater biodiversity in the country and the Caribbean. The coast vegetation of the swamp, 98 square km, covers some of the Haitises channels. Likewise, it also covers more extensively the mouth of river Yuna and San Lorenzo Bay.

The richness of the National Park Los Haitises’ fauna is reflected among the mammals including the manatee (Trichechus manatus) in the swamp keys, the solenodon (Solenodon paradoxus) a small insectivore mammal endemic from the island in the forest, and the bats in the caves.

Among the reptiles it is worth pointing out the boa (Epicrates striatus) and the marine turtles Chelonia mydas, Carretta caretta, Dermocheylys coriacea). Within the fauna, birds are the largest group. There are 270 species where the heron and other wading birds are the most common ones in the swamps.

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