Cueva de los Guácharos National Natural Park () is the oldest

national park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. Located in the western face of the Colombian Eastern

Andean The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long and wide (widest between 18°S ...

Range in the departments of Huila and Caquetá, the park covers an area of . The caves formed from the

karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

ic zones of the Magdalena and Caquetá rivers. The park is intended to protect the

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, Montane forest, montane, Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist forest characteri ...

and

páramo Páramo () may refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range, South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrower ...

ecosystems. This area hosts one of the last intact

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

forests in the country, with the native oak species '' Quercus humboldtii'' ( Bonpl.) and ''

Trigonobalanus excelsa ''Trigonobalanus excelsa'', commonly called the Colombian black oak, is a species of plant in the family Fagaceae. It is a tree endemic to Colombia. The genus '' Trigonobalanus'' is related to the true oaks (''Quercus'') and includes three kno ...

'' (Lozano, 1979) File:Parque Cueva de los Guacharos 1.jpg File:Cueva de los guácharos (5144603128).jpg, alt= File:Cueva de los guácharos (5143998153).jpg, alt=

Biodiversity

In 2005, the National Natural Parks System identified 296 registered species of birds in the park. Further recorded species are:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cueva de los Guacharos Biosphere reserves of Colombia National parks of Colombia Geography of Huila Department Geography of Caquetá Department Tourist attractions in Huila Department Tourist attractions in Caquetá Department 1960 establishments in Colombia Protected areas established in 1960