Emas National Park

Emas is flat open grassland rather than the wooded cerrado most people picture, and that openness is why it is the best place in Brazil to see cerrado mammals: giant anteater, maned wolf, giant armadillo, pampas deer and rhea are all reliably present and visible across the plain. It is listed with Chapada dos Veadeiros in the Cerrado Protected Areas World Heritage site. The park's odd spectacle is entomological - the tall termite mounds that cover the grassland are colonised by the larvae of a click beetle, which glow green from openings in the mound surface to lure flying termites, and in the right conditions at the start of the wet season whole fields of mounds light up after dark. The park is now an island of cerrado surrounded by soy.

What you'll find

• Open grassland cerrado - flat and treeless, unlike the wooded cerrado elsewhere.
• Cerrado mammals in the open - giant anteater, maned wolf and pampas deer.
• Glowing termite mounds - click beetle larvae lighting the mounds after dark.
• An island in soy - the park surrounded by converted farmland.

When to go

May to September for mammals; the mounds glow at the start of the wet season. Two days.

What to expect

You need your own vehicle, and a guide is required inside. There is no accommodation in the park - bases are in Mineiros or Chapadao do Ceu, an hour or more away. Internal roads are dirt. The glowing mounds depend on rain timing and are not guaranteed in any given week.

Nearby

Mineiros is the main base; Chapadao do Ceu is closer to the southern gate.

Key facts