Cueva del Guácharo National Park
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The Guácharo Cave National Park () is located from the town of
Caripe Caripe is a town in Caripe Municipality in the mountainous north of the state of Monagas in eastern Venezuela. The official name of the town is Caripe del Guácharo 'Caripe of the Oilbird', referring to a colony of nocturnal birds which lives i ...
,
Monagas ) , anthem = '' Himno del Estado Monagas'' , image_map = Monagas in Venezuela.svg , map_alt = , map_caption = Location within Venezuela , pushpin_map = , pushpin_m ...
,
Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
. It has as its centerpiece a large limestone cave. The cave was visited in 1799 by
Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, ...
, who realised that the thousands of
oilbird The oilbird (''Steatornis caripensis''), locally known as the , is a bird species found in the northern areas of South America including the Caribbean island of Trinidad. It is the only species in the genus ''Steatornis'', the family Steatornith ...
s ( in Spanish; scientific name '' Steatornis caripensis'') which live in the cave belonged to a species unknown to science. Humboldt named the
frugivorous A frugivore is an animal that thrives mostly on raw fruits or succulent fruit-like produce of plants such as roots, shoots, nuts and seeds. Approximately 20% of mammalian herbivores eat fruit. Frugivores are highly dependent on the abundance an ...
, nocturnal species after the town of Caripe.


The cave

The cave is a limestone cavern over long, with a number of large chambers and spectacular rock formations. The temperature inside the cave generally remains near and the humidity at 100%.


Guácharo bird

Oilbirds are fruit-eating birds that live within the first section of the cave; they leave at night in search of food. The Spanish name is onomatopoeic, and comes from an old Castilian word for one who shrieks or cries, because of their characteristic sound. They are brown with black and white spots, have a long tail and bristles around their beak. They measure around in length, including the tail. The produce an organic layer in the cave called guano, formed by excrement and vomited seeds, which provide the basic nutrients for the cave's ecosystem. The most important daily event in the park occurs in the evening, as dusk falls, when the birds exit the cave in great flocks, in search of food. Visitors are able to view the birds leaving the cave.


Conservation

The cave was designated as Venezuela's first National Monument in 1949. The National Park was created in 1975 to conserve the cave and the forest ecosystem where the oilbirds feed. The altitude of the national park is . There are 367 species of bird in the national park, which has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA). Although the oilbird is not an endangered species, several other resident birds fall into this category, for example the
Venezuelan flowerpiercer The Venezuelan flowerpiercer (''Diglossa venezuelensis'') is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae. It is endemic to Venezuela. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests in the north of Venezuela. It is threatene ...
(''Diglossa venezuelensis'') and the Venezuelan sylph. The national park is part of Cordillera de Caripe Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) site, along with another IBA, the . BirdLife International (2015). datazone/sitefactsheet.php?id=14938 Important Bird Areas factsheet: Parque Nacional El Guácharo (part of Cordillera de Caripe AZE) Downloaded from on 25/08/2015


Humboldt Museum

Near to the cave entrance is the Humboldt Museum.The Natural History Museum of Berlin, in Germany, has been popularly known for 60 years as the "Humboldt Museum" (from 1949 to 2009). This other Museum in Venezuela has nothing to do with the German museum located in Berlin. It offers information about the cave, the national park, the oilbird (), and Alexander Von Humboldt.


Notes


References


External links


Guácharo Cave spelunking siteCaripe.net - Spanish site about Caripe
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cueva Del Guacharo National Park National parks of Venezuela Birdwatching sites in Venezuela Important Bird Areas of Venezuela Caves of Venezuela Protected areas established in 1949 Geography of Monagas Natural monuments of Venezuela Tourist attractions in Monagas