The island of St. John is a place to find beautiful and exotic animals, coral, and plants. Frogs, gecko, anole and iguana lizards are among some of the animals on the various islands. There are over 30 varieties of birds on the islands including the bananaquit, the ani (a black, parrot-like, smooth billed bird), and two species of Caribbean hummingbirds. Many birds seen in the continental US during the summer months are found in the forests in the winter.
Of the mammals on the Virgin Islands, the bat is the only native mammal. Bats are important to the island because of their ability to pollinate many of the island’s flowers and disperse seeds from fruit trees and shrubs. Insect control, including mosquitoes, is another important function bats serve on the islands.
Deer, sheep, donkeys, goats, cats, dogs, pigs and mongoose are not native to the islands. Their presence has altered the island including erosion, vegetation patterns, and has reduced the size of the natural species on the islands.
With over 800 plant types, there are plenty of diverse species of flora including the bay rum tree, the Teyer palm, and rare orchids. The bay rum trees’ fragrant leaves provided the oil for the manufacturing of bay rum cologne. The Teyer palm is the only native tree on the island of St. John.
Another important wildlife refuge for the islands are the coral reefs, which include fish such as parrot fish, tands, grunts, snappers, butterfly fish, angles, damsels, squirrel fish and wasses. Other animals such as sponges, starfish, urchins, worms, crabs, lobsters and anemones also inhibit the warm tropical waters around the islands.
While on the islands, a visitor might just run into dwarf herrings, great barracudas, mangrove crabs, snowy egrets, spotted eagle rays, and jellyfish. Only in certain areas is finless snorkeling allowed to protect the marine life. Off the island of St. Thomas, whales can be found breeding off the north end of the island from January to April.
A wonderful 9 day tour of beautiful Costa Rica taking in breath taking scenery including the active Arenal Volcano to the stunning beaches of Manuel Antonio.
Adventure Life made a fantastic itinerary for us(we were a group of 4) Would highly reccomend them for getting it right!
Lovely hotels with breakfast included, bespoke trips in mostly private transfers, zip-lining and white water rafting adventures! This really was an amazing trip & one we will cherish forever!
Dawn Howes
6 hours ago
Mary Curry is very responsive to my emails and sends me the information I request very quickly.
Donna Benson
8 hours ago
We book a tour to Peru with them in May. Viewing from their website we didn’t realize that they are private tour company but after quoting the price, it seems reasonable for a private tour, let’s see how’s their service after our tour. The process of booking went smoothly except the payment part which need a bit of work. Need to improve better payment method and options.
LP
1 day ago
We have used Adventure Life Travel before and we where impressed with the outcome of their handling of our travel arrangements. So we are using them again on this vacation. Tilly has been very helpful and we put our complete confidence in her! We feel very comfortable using Adventure Life.
Jerry Hatley
1 day ago
Erin was responsive, knowledgeable, helpful, and ran through a few different choices with us. She got us a fabulous price on a trip, and made everything easy to do. And QUICK!!