Tikal forest shelters a very wide range of animals, difficult to see for most of them : jaguars, pumas, ocelots, monkeys, something like 300 bird species among which parrots, the marvellous hummingbirds which pollinate some epiphytic cacti, and last but not least, the famous quetzal. This long-tailed bird, has become very rare nowadays; it's the Guatemalan national bird, and has given its name to Disocactus quetzaltecus (photo on my website in the May photo gallery). The Quetzal is also the currency of Guatemala.

Alas, among all these animals, I only got to see some monkeys, hummingbirds and hundreds of parrots, which, at sunset, fly while shrieking, from pyramid to pyramid.

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