The Esmeraldas River is a river in northwestern
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...
that flows into the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
at the city of
Esmeraldas. Among its tributaries is the
Guayllabamba River which drains
Quito
Quito (; qu, Kitu), formally San Francisco de Quito, is the capital and largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its urban area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha. Quito is located in a valley o ...
.
Charles Marie de la Condamine
Charles Marie de La Condamine (28 January 1701 – 4 February 1774) was a French explorer, geographer, and mathematician. He spent ten years in territory which is now Ecuador, measuring the length of a degree of latitude at the equator and pre ...
sailed up it and then climbed the Andes Mountains when on the
Ecuadorian Expedition that left France in May 1735.
The mouth of the river has extensive stands of mangroves, part of the
Esmeraldas–Pacific Colombia mangroves ecoregion.
Fauna
Fish
* The Green Terror Cichlid''
Andinoacara rivulatus
The green terror (''Andinoacara rivulatus'', syn. ''Aequidens rivulatus'') is a colorful freshwater fish in the cichlid family. The fish originates from the Pacific side of South America from the Tumbes River in Peru to the Esmeraldas River in ...
''
( Günther, 1860)
* ''
Andinoacara blombergi
''Andinoacara blombergi'', is a species of fish in the family Cichlidae in the order Perciformes, found on the South American Pacific slope, in the río Esmeraldas drainage in northwestern Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; ...
''
Wijkmark, S. O. Kullander & Barriga S., 2012[Wijkmark, N., Kullander, S.O. & Barriga S., R.E. (2012)]
''Andinoacara blombergi'', a new species from the río Esmeraldas basin in Ecuador and a review of ''A. rivulatus'' (Teleostei: Cichlidae).
''Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters, 23 (2): 117-137.''
References
Rivers of Ecuador
{{Ecuador-river-stub