right The wildlife of

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

is the flora and fauna of its islands.

Birds

Ninety species of birds have been recorded in Kiribati, of which two are endemic and three have been introduced by humans. The Henderson petrel and Kiritimati reed-warbler (locally called ''bokikokiko'') are both listed as endangered on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

Reptiles

Two species of marine

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked t ...

have been positively identified in Kiribati waters: *

Green turtle The green sea turtle (''Chelonia mydas''), also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus ''Chelonia''. Its range exten ...

(locally called ''te on'') *

Hawksbill turtle The hawksbill sea turtle (''Eretmochelys imbricata'') is a critically endangered sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Eretmochelys''. The species has a global distribution, that is lar ...

(locally called ''te tabakea'' or ''te borauea'') The following marine turtle species have also been reported to occur in Kiribati waters, but only through descriptions: *

Loggerhead sea turtle The loggerhead sea turtle (''Caretta caretta'') is a species of oceanic turtle distributed throughout the world. It is a marine reptile, belonging to the family Cheloniidae. The average loggerhead measures around in carapace length when fully ...

(locally called ''te on n ae''), *

Olive ridley The olive ridley sea turtle (''Lepidochelys olivacea''), also known commonly as the Pacific ridley sea turtle, is a species of turtle in the family Cheloniidae. The species is the second-smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles found in th ...

(locally called ''te on mron'') *

Leatherback The leatherback sea turtle (''Dermochelys coriacea''), sometimes called the lute turtle or leathery turtle or simply the luth, is the largest of all living turtles and the heaviest non-crocodilian reptile, reaching lengths of up to and weights ...

(locally called ''te kabi n waa'')

Fish

There are about 500 fish species found around the

Phoenix Islands The Phoenix Islands, or Rawaki, are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs that lie east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, north of Samoa. They are part of the Republic of Kiri ...

. The Kiribati islands are located in the central

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

making it jam-packed with rare animal species native to these islands. The islands host

triggerfish Triggerfish are about 40 species of often brightly colored fish of the family Balistidae. Often marked by lines and spots, they inhabit tropical and subtropical oceans throughout the world, with the greatest species richness in the Indo-Pacifi ...

(''Xanthichthys greenei'') that reside in greater depths of the ocean. Candy scale picnic

gobies Gobiidae or gobies is a family of bony fish in the order Gobiiformes, one of the largest fish families comprising more than 2,000 species in more than 200 genera. Most of gobiid fish are relatively small, typically less than in length, and the ...

(''Trimma squamicana'') are more rare in other parts of the world, but are fairly common on the islands. They are light in color and are found at depths of 30 to 150 feet. The y-barred sandperch ('' Parapercis lata''), is a shallow-dwelling fish with a white body and patches of red.

Invertebrates

There are about 200 species of coral found around the Phoenix Islands.

References

Wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...