Opuntia stricta is a species of large cactus that is endemic to the subtropical and tropical coastal areas of the Americas, especially around the Caribbean.

[2] Common names include erect prickly pear and nopal estricto (Spanish).

The blue-green shoot sections are bald, flattened, ovate to inverted egg-shaped, and are tapered at the base.

[6] Opuntia stricta occurs naturally in coastal beach scrub and sandy coastal environments in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana along the Gulf Coast in Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama in the United States, as well as Bermuda, the Caribbean, eastern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America (in Venezuela and Ecuador).

O. stricta is a major component in the understory of Bahamian dry forests in the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

It has overgrown several hundreds of hectares (acres) of sand dune areas and adjoining scrub forests and pasture lands.

No control measures have been carried out except some costly manual removal of about 10 hectares (25 acres) on the dunes near Bundala village.