• Summary
• Text account
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• Reference and further resources

Site description (2003 baseline)
This site consists of the remaining forest fragments of the Burica Peninsula south of Puerto Armuelles. Charco Azul, on the coast 4 km south of Puerto Armuelles, consists of three adjacent fragments of mostly young secondary lowland evergreen forest (121 ha total) around the Quebrada Merida. The forest is within the operating area of the facilities of Petroterminales de Panamá (PTP), the Pacific terminal of the oil pipeline from Puerto Armuelles to Chiriquí Grande. It is easily accessible by road. The Quebrada Mellicita area, 7-11 km south of Puerto Armuelles, contains five large and several smaller fragments of more mature forest (2 to 56 ha, about 224 ha in all). The remaining forest is in the Quebradas Manzanillo, Melliza, and Mellicita within 3.5 km of the coast.

Key biodiversity
The globally near-threatened, and nationally critically endangered, Baird's Trogon persists at the site. The threatened Yellow-billed Cotinga was recorded once in 1982, but it is unlikely that it now occurs regularly. The area contains 12 of 16 species (75%) of South Central American Pacific Slope EBA, and 14 of 42 species (33%) of biome N05. Several nationally endangered species also occur. Red-throated Caracara was present in 1982 but is now probably gone.

Non-bird biodiversity: The globally endangered Red-backed Squirrel Monkey* occurs, as well as Central American Wooly Opossum, Central American Spider Monkey, Neotropical River Otter, Ocelot and Jaguarundi (Rodríguez 2000, A. Rodríguez pers. com.). Reptiles and amphibians that have been recorded from the Puerto Armuelles area include the frog Eleutherodactylus taurus, the salamander Bolitoglossa lignicolor, the lizards Sphaerodactylus graptolaemus, Bachia blairi, Sphenomorphus cherriei and Leposoma southi, and the snake Micrurus clarki.

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Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Quebrada Mellicita-Charco Azul (Panama). Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/quebrada-mellicita-charco-azul-iba-panama on 23/11/2024.