{"id":270168,"date":"2022-07-08T17:18:57","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T15:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/highlights\/flora-and-fauna"},"modified":"2022-07-08T17:30:35","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T15:30:35","slug":"flora-and-fauna","status":"publish","type":"highlights","link":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/destinations\/caribbean\/st-maarten\/flora-and-fauna","title":{"rendered":"Flora and fauna"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Hiking and diving<\/h3>\n<p>Framed by lush marine life and a mesmerizing coastline full of pristine sandy beaches and cliffs,  <a href=\"\/?continent_category=st-maarten-reizen\">St. Maarten<\/a> blessed with diverse landscapes filled with palm trees, cacti, orchids, fruit trees and ferns. The hilly interior is covered with scrub and cacti in the far west and a green and rich flora on the east coast. Lush places to spend some time among lizards, iguanas and more than 160 different bird species are the fairytale <strong>Loterie Farm<\/strong> and the <em>slopes<\/em> of <strong>Pic Paradis<\/strong>, the highest peak on the island.<\/p>\n<h4>Mangroves<\/h4>\n<p>Mangroves that form buffer zones between sea and marsh are the ideal breeding ground for birds. Not only is it the habitat of the brown pelican &#8211; St. John&#8217;s. March&#8217;s national bird &#8211; several hummingbirds, frigate birds, herons and ducks are also frequently observed here.<\/p>\n<h4>Coral Reefs<\/h4>\n<p>A little further offshore, reefs of coral flourish. Here swim protected sea turtles and numerous fish such as emperor fish, parrot fish, wrasse, seahorses, rays and a little deeper dolphins and whales and predatory fish such as nurse sharks and barracuda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Versatile landscapes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":270161,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"country":[671],"highlight_category":[600],"continent_category":[423],"class_list":["post-270168","highlights","type-highlights","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","country-st-maarten-en","highlight_category-hoogtepunt-en","continent_category-caribbean"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights\/270168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/highlights"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights\/270168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270170,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights\/270168\/revisions\/270170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=270168"},{"taxonomy":"highlight_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlight_category?post=270168"},{"taxonomy":"continent_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/continent_category?post=270168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}