@gertu13 2 January 2021 more from that month

Land of grace. My country, Venezuela is a land truly rich in natural treasures. It ranks seventh as a country in the world with the greatest diversity of wild animal species, occupying different places when it comes to species classification.

It has a climatic diversity that can be observed just by going from one town to another. I live in the eastern part of the country, which is made up of four states, *Monagas*, *Sucre*, *Nueva Esparta* and my state of *Anzoátegui*. In the Monagas state, woods predominate. It’s characterized climatically by the tropical rainy climate in its upper area but it also has a lower area where a period of drought prevails, followed by one of rain... In rainy times you can observe how the most frequent thing is that the plains region floods and remains under water for longer than its citizens prefer. One of the regions that characterizes it the most is the mountain region where the town of *Caripe* is located and it has a cave called *"Cueva del Guácharo"* protected by the park conservation law. There in that cave inhabits the *Guácharo*, a bird with predominant eating habits in seeds. They travel many kilometers in flight in search of their favorite fruit. The most characteristic and striking feature about this cave is that at sunset the birds come crashing out of the place to look for their food. They go out taking up the heights and they do it in flocks in such a magnitude that the sky turns black as they pass and the noise they emit when they leave is thunderous and it’s possible to hear every day by the inhabitants around. It‘s a representative tourist place of the area.

In the state of *Nueva Esparta*, which is an island completely surrounded by the beautiful Caribbean Sea, it has a drier climate, there are almost no rains. So a dry climate prevails almost all year round with few months of rain. It’s rich in terrestrial and marine fauna where species of felines such as the *cunaguaro*, deer and diverse birds characterize the state. The marine fauna is rich in abundant species, so the life of the inhabitants is characterized by fishing, dolphins being the most striking mammals in its waters since they are species that are playful and are used to the presence of man and his interaction. In the *Sucre* state, which is a mountain region, it’s characterized by having a variety of climates depending on the height of its populations. We can find highly cold areas with thick fogs included and very dry areas with their characteristic heat because they are united on their coast with the Caribbean Sea. This state is surrounded by many islands and islets, Christopher Columbus called it *the land of grace*. Its animal life is represented mainly by abundant marine species, shellfish, mollusks and very exotic fish, the giant otter and the manatee.

But the wild animals in its mountainous areas are not far behind. Felines such as the *cunaguaro*, jaguar, sloths, deer, caiman, babo, boas, anacondas and various species of turtles such as the *terecaya*, which is very aggressive and has a flattened shell. This state was very frequented by tourists at vacation times due to the variety of beautiful beaches that characterize it. It was a pleasure for me to travel its coasts to go to my place of work when I was going to work as a rural doctor in one of its towns, its beautiful beaches along the highway that connects all its cities was a pleasure to drive through. My Anzoátegui state, which has a diversity of climate and two seasons, the predominant one is dry and the rainy one that is increasingly remote only reaches us in the form of storms. Because it has a plain and mountain area, there is a diversity of species. The Orinoco River has characteristic species like alligators and babos, the long and heavy anacondas, big cats in populations 30 minutes away from a suitable and penetrable road.

In our lagoons we can find shrimp and prawns, on the shores of beaches we have very diverse sea shells, *chipichipes*, *guacucos*, and others, the crabs on the rocky beaches, the shells like oysters and *pepitonas* in the mangroves. In our seas we have fish in high demand such as snapper, grouper, swordfish and tuna. In our rivers, manatees, dolphins and anacondas, large and robust dolphins. In the mountains we have deer, felines, the giant *cachicamo*, the anteater. Birds are many species that can be found such as owls in our fauna. These are just some of the many species that I can mention in just one of the four regions in which our national territory is divided and in which I have had the pleasure of visiting during my life as a young adult, while I worked in so many towns. Almost all the species that I named I have had the pleasure of seeing in a natural way alive in their environments or dissected by inhabitants of the regions. Later I will try to continue talking about the other regions and their peculiar species.  The images are of unsplash...