Lake Miragoâne () is a

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

, located one kilometer southeast of the city of

Miragoâne Miragoâne () is a coastal commune in western Haiti and the capital of the Nippes department. It is also the headquarters of the Miragoâne Arrondissement. It is regarded as one of the major ports in the trade in used goods. Bales of used clot ...

. It is one of the largest natural

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. The term excludes seawater and brackish water, but it does include non-salty mi ...

lakes in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

. The lake is long and in area.

Fauna

Many species of water bird inhabit Lake Miragoâne including the snowy egret (''

Egretta thula The snowy egret (''Egretta thula'') is a small white heron. The genus name comes from Provençal French for the little egret, , which is a diminutive of , 'heron'. The species name ''thula'' is the Araucano term for the black-necked swan, app ...

),'' the West Indian whistling duck ('' Dendrocygna arborea''), the yellow-crowned night heron ('' Nyctanassa violacea)'' and the glossy ibis (''

Plegadis falcinellus The glossy ibis (''Plegadis falcinellus'') is a water bird in the order Pelecaniformes and the ibis and spoonbill family Threskiornithidae. The scientific name derives from Ancient Greek ''plegados'' and Latin, ''falcis'', both meaning "sickle" a ...

''). Lake Miragoâne is also considered an important centre of endemism for the livebearing genus ''

Limia ''Limia'' is a genus of livebearing fishes belonging to the Cyprinodontiform family Poeciliidae. It comprises 22 described species found in fresh, brackish, saltwater, and hypersaline habitats of the Greater Antilles islands in the Caribbea ...

'', with a total of 9 described species, the newest described species being ''Limia mandibularis''.

References

External links

* Miragoane {{Haiti-geo-stub