Flora and Fauna of Aruba
We traveled to Aruba, an island nation which is part of the Lesser Antilles and part of Leeward Antilles located in the Caribbean Sea and ~25 miles off of Venezuelan coast. It is part of the Dutch Caribbean and one of the countries of the Kingdom of Netherlands.
We stayed in Oranjestad, the capital of Aruba and visited beaches and other areas where we saw some trees, birds, and animals which are unique. First in the beach we saw trees that are unique to the Caribbean.
We saw lots of iguanas. The young ones are in green color and older adults were ranging in color from blue to dark grey. We also some skinks.
Iguanas were plentiful and they were very shy and ran away if you even came closer than 10 feet.
We also saw lots of house sparrows, black birds, and bare eyed doves.
We also saw lots of black birds called Carib Grackle Quiscalus lugubris that were roosting on the palm trees next to our hotel. They were lots of noise in the morning and took some time in the night before they settled down.
In the area near the Alto Vista chapel (past the Arashi beach) and the north eastern corner of Aruba also called Hudishibana, we saw a male Aruban whiptail lizard (Cnemidophorus arubensis) with its beautiful turquoise color. Locally they are called codoco or kodoco.
We saw lots of cacti too.