The geography of Puerto Rico consists of an archipelago located between the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, east of Hispaniola, west of the Virgin Islands, north of Venezuela, and south of the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean. It is compromised of the eponymous main island of Puerto Rico, and 142 smaller islands, islets, cays, and atolls, including Vieques, Culebra, Mona, Desecheo, and Caja de Muertos, Palomino, and Icacos. As the easternmost and smallest of the Greater Antilles, the main island of Puerto Rico, is about 178 kilometers long and 65 kilometers wide. With a land and internal coastal water area of 9,100 square kilometres, it is the 4th largest island in the Caribbean and 81st largest island in the world.
The Virgin Islands are an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. They are geologically and biogeographically the easternmost part of the Greater Antilles, While the British Virgin Islands are officially designated as “The Virgin Islands”, the name is most often used to refer to the entire international grouping of the British and United States Virgin Islands together with the Spanish Virgin Islands, which, contrary to their name are in fact officially part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, itself an unincorporated territory of the United States. Geographically, the northern islands lie along the Puerto Rico Trench. St. Croix is a displaced part of that same geologic structure. Politically, the British Virgin Islands have been governed as the western island group of the Leeward Islands, which are the northern part of the Lesser Antilles, and form the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The archipelago is separated from the true Lesser Antilles by the Anegada Passage and from the main island of Puerto Rico by the Virgin Passage.
The Puerto Rican spindalis is a bird endemic to the island of Puerto Rico, where it is commonly known as reina mora or cigua puertorriqueña. The species is widely distributed throughout the island and is an important part of the Puerto Rican ecosystem because of its help in seed dispersal and plant reproduction. The Puerto Rican spindalis is the unofficial national bird of Puerto Rico.
The elfin woods warbler is a species of bird endemic to Puerto Rico, where it is local and uncommon. Discovered in 1968 and described in 1972, it is the most recently described New World warbler.
The St. Croix macaw or Puerto Rican macaw is an extinct species of macaw whose remains have been found on the Caribbean islands of St. Croix and Puerto Rico. It was described in 1937 based on a tibiotarsus leg bone unearthed from a kitchen midden at a pre-Columbian site on St. Croix. A second specimen consisting of various bones from a similar site on Puerto Rico was described in 2008, while a coracoid from Montserrat may belong to this or another extinct species of macaw. The St. Croix macaw is one of 13 extinct macaw species that have been proposed to have lived on the Caribbean islands. Macaws were frequently transported long distances by humans in prehistoric and historical times, so it is impossible to know whether species known only from bones or accounts were native or imported.
The Puerto Rican owl or múcaro común, formerly known as the Puerto Rican screech owl, is a mid-sized "typical owl" in subfamily Striginae. It is endemic to the archipelago of Puerto Rico though it formerly also inhabited the Virgin Islands.
The Greater Antillean grackle is a grackle found throughout the Greater Antilles, as well as smaller nearby islands. Like all Quiscalus grackles, it is a rather large, gregarious bird. It lives largely in heavily settled areas.
Pastel is the Spanish and Portuguese word for pastry, a sugary food, and is the name given to different typical dishes of various countries where those languages are spoken. In Mexico, pastel typically means cake, as with Pastel de tres leches. However, in different Latin American countries pastel can refer to very different sugary dishes, and even to non-sugary ones as well. In some places, like Brazil, a pastel can refer to both a sugary and non-sugary food, depending on the filling used.
Leach's single leaf bat, also known as Greater Antillean long-tongued bat, is a species of bat in the family Phyllostomidae. It is found in the southern Bahamas and in all the Greater Antilles. It forms large colonies, with up to a few hundred thousand individuals, and feeds on a relatively wide variety of food items including pollen, nectar, fruit and insects.
The red fruit bat or red fig-eating bat is a species of bat in the family Phyllostomidae, in the monotypic genus Stenoderma. It is found in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Anolis cristatellus is a small species of anole, belonging to the Dactyloidae family of reptiles. The species is native to Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, with introduced populations in locations around the Caribbean. The males of A. cristatellus are easily recognizable by the fin running down the top of the tail, which is known as a "caudal crest". The females also have this crest, but it is smaller than that of the males. The species is often quite common in many areas on Puerto Rico, where it can be seen during the day passing the time on the lower parts of tree trunks, or on fences and the walls of buildings in urban areas, sometimes venturing down onto the ground in order to lay eggs, have a snack, or do other cursorial activities. Like many anoles, this species displays the characteristic behaviour of doing push-ups as well as inflating a pizza-like flap of coloured skin on its throat, known as a dewlap, in order to show others how dominant it is, and thus attract mates or intimidate rivals.
Goniopteris verecunda, synonym Thelypteris verecunda, is a rare species of fern known by the common name Barrio Charcas maiden fern. It is endemic to Puerto Rico, where it is known from only three localities. It is a federally listed endangered species of the United States.
Clinidium incis is a species of ground beetle in the subfamily Rhysodinae. It was described by R.T. Bell in 1970. It is endemic to Puerto Rico. The specific name is derived from the Latin incus and refers to the type locality, El Yunque, which is the Spanish word for anvil. Grammatically, the spelling should have been incudis.
Halophila baillonis is a species of aquatic plant in the family Hydrocharitaceae. It is referred to by the common name clover grass. It is native to Brazil, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Netherlands Antilles, Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. It is listed on the IUCN Red List as "vulnerable" due to its naturally rare occurrence and fragmented populations.
Anolis stratulus is a moderately-sized species of anole found in Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands. It is a gray-colored lizard spotted with brown markings. It is arboreal, usually found positioned on tree bark on branches in the canopies of forest trees, where in some areas of Puerto Rico it can be incredibly abundant, with tens of thousands of the lizards being present per hectare.
Pseudorhabdosynochus bunkleywilliamsae is a diplectanid monogenean parasitic on the gills of the Nassau grouper, Epinephelus striatus. It has been described by Kritsky, Bakenhaster and Adams in 2015.
Peripatus juanensis is a species of velvet worm in the Peripatidae family discovered in Puerto Rico in 1900. As of 2018, it is the only velvet worm found in Puerto Rico. Females of this species have 31 or 32 pairs of legs; males have 27.
Ceiba State Forest, also referred to as the Ceiba State Reserve, is a mangrove forest and nature reserve located in the eastern coast of Puerto Rico, in the municipalities of Ceiba and Fajardo. The forest extends over 350 acres and is mostly made of mangrove forests which are habitat to a large number of bird species. Although named Ceiba State Forest, the forest is not home to the large ceiba tree, and it is actually named after the municipality it is located in. In addition to the mangrove forests, the reserve also includes coastal zones that comprise sandy beaches and coral reefs found in both the Ceiba and Fajardo sections.
Sticta guilartensis is a species of foliose lichen in the family Peltigeraceae. Found in Puerto Rico, it was formally described as a new species in 2020 by Joel Mercado‐Díaz and Robert Lücking. The type specimen was collected by the first author on the trail to Monte Guilarte at an altitude of 1,100 m (3,600 ft). It is only known to occur at this single locality, where it grows on rocks and on roots and trunks of trees, often with bryophytes, in shaded and humid habitats. The specific epithet refers to the name of the forest at the type locality, Bosque Estatal de Guilarte.
Borinquenotrema is a single-species fungal genus in the family Graphidaceae. It contains the species Borinquenotrema soredicarpum, a corticolous (bark-dweling) lichen. Found in Puerto Rico, this lichen is characterized by its carbonizedascomata, which develop from within soralia, and its distinctive distoseptate, violet-blue ascospores. Borinquenotrema soredicarpum grows on tree trunks in shaded understory environments of Tabonuco forests in El Yunque National Forest.
