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The
reservation is located in the south of the province of
Mendoza, 470 kilometres from the capital city and 65
kilometres east from the town of Malargüe, in the
department of the same name. The area was declared a
preservation site in 1980. It protects approximately
40000 hectares covering the entire extension of the lake
that gives the name to the reservation.
The Llancanelo term derives from the indigenous voice
Yanca = quartz stone with which the arrowheads were
made, and Nelo = greenish blue colour, which is believed
to be a reference to the appearance of the triangular
lake. The latter when observed from high places shows
the shape of an arrowhead constructed by the natives to
hunt.
The basic idea behind the creation of this reservation is
the richness of water birds as it is one of the sites
for nesting, feeding and migrating birds, it is
considered one of the most important wetlands in South
America. The park rangers’ base is called Carilauquen.
In contrast to the elevation of the Andes, in different
sectors, adjacent to the mountains, depressions were formed such as the extensive Huarpes Depression.
In the Southern part of this depression and in the so-called
bajo Llancanelo is where the lake lies.
Landscape
The lake is bordered on the South and East by the region
of the Payunia, highlighting the ancient volcano known
as Cerro Carapacho. This volcano has the particularity
that the lava that gave it shape was very fluid (called
hydroclastic since it was mixed with water), and its
shape shows a broad base and low altitude. There are
also the volcanoes El Trapal and El Coral. The lake has
a length of about 50 kilometres from the North to South and 10 to 12 kilometres from East to West,
and the depth is almost entirely less than a metre. Even
though rainfall is rare, permanent streams and semi-permanent
ones feed this body of water. The surface of the lake
varies markedly from year to year depending on the
contributions of its main tributaries and the total area
of the watershed contribution is 4600 square kilometres
(a watershed represents the entire area whose waters
flow into the same sector). To the North flows the Malargüe River,, one of its main tributaries on the
surface, forming marshes and swamps. Towards the
northwest, some slopes form grazing meadows and even
originate little creeks that run through a short
distance, such as the Carilauquen, Menucos and Carapacho creeks. This ecosystem forms a group of swamps,
marshlands, salt marshes and ponds. Generally, there is
an increase in the salinity in the soil as we move
closer to the lake, and this affects the plant
communities according to the concentrations of salt from
the soil. One of the most striking features when the
fauna is analysed is the great diversity and abundance
of waterfowl and water birds. This site preserves one of
the largest nesting populations of flamingos in the
world (three species). The flamingos are specialist
feeders, filtering plankton and small organisms with
tiny channels that they have within their beaks that are
plunged upside down in the water.
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