#46 - See a New Animal in the Wild

I kinda set myself up for this one, but I'm so glad I did and I'm going to keep this on my list for every year!

When I created my list last year, my family already had a tentative plan to visit Costa Rica. My mom's only dealbreaker was that she could see a sloth. It was asking a lot, but well, yeah, Mom, we can make that a priority. Sure.

While I knew we would be sloth seeking, I had no idea how easy it is to see wildlife in Costa Rica. I suppose I should have figured it out after reading about how Costa Rica is only 0.03% of the Earth's surface yet contains 6% of its biodiversity.

Maybe I just had in my head that most of that biodiversity would be plants I wouldn't recognize. That was surely true, but the animals were everywhere too.

We arrived in San Jose late the first night and stayed at a hotel in the city. We heard some chirps and such outside but didn't see anything besides plants on the grounds. In the morning, while waiting to leave, I read the wildlife section of the book on Costa Rica I had brought. It started out great. Sloths, monkeys, birds... wait, harpie eagles... vultures... Wait, we're okay, not many venomous spiders. Tarantulas, yes, but those that mostly hunt from the mouths of their dens at night and are even fairly safe to handle. But then, there was the tarantula hawk. No, it's not a flying tarantula. It's a huge wasp that stings and paralyzes tarantulas, buries their LIVE bodies, and then lays eggs on the body so it's hatchlings can have a fresh meal. AHH! And bullet ants, the ant that has a bite that registers a 10 on the pain scale. And a couple other ouchy ants and things. Nothing that can kill you though. Oh wait, but then there are SEVERAL snakes there that can kill you. Some brightly colored and living in trees (feeling pretty good about avoiding them by not climbing trees at night) and others that are leaf colored and hang out on the ground, including the fer de lance that was described as quick, agile, and excitable--and the most deadly snake in the country. Great. And it hangs out along trails. Great. Great. Great. (Not great.)

On our drive from San Jose to Parrita, we saw plenty of farm animals (mostly cows, horses, chickens, a few goats) and dogs. Then, as we traveled further toward the coast, we started looking more carefully. We saw an iguana. Then the striking red of a scarlet macaw sitting in a tree.

When we pulled up to our house, we learned that green iguanas pretty much owned our yard. I would say they were like squirrels, but if there were that many squirrels in your yard, even in the Midwest, you'd likely be concerned. They sunbathed and chased each other around the yard, bobbing their heads at us and each other. I know they are super common in some areas of the world, but I still think they're really cool.

At night, our porch roof swarmed with geckos who feasted off the insects our lights attracted. They were some of my favorites, just these little lizards that rotated around, sometimes barking at each other at a level that my mom still doesn't believe could have come from such small creatures.

Every now and then, a pair of bright red macaws would fly overhead. We never caught them sitting still enough to take a photo, but we'd catch them yammering and flying sometimes.

We didn't see any up close, but we saw lots of frogs bounding across the road when we drove at night.

One day, we saw some capuchin monkeys in a palm tree across the road. We used my dad's smartly packed binoculars to watch them jump from tree to tree. We were even able to see one tear apart a coconut and drink its water by scooping its little hand into the fruit and dribbling the liquid into its mouth.

We still hadn't seen a sloth. Then, one afternoon, my brother was looking into the trees and said, "There's a sloth." It was tough to see as it was nestled into a dense set of leaves, but sure enough, there was a sloth just about 15 feet from our porch. It didn't move much (shocking), so we just got glimpses of its long limbs. Then, the next day, I looked out and said, "There's another sloth." There was one sitting with its back to us about 30 feet away, again, not really moving. We'd see the sloths shift, but rarely saw them move. Until one day, we found they were both in the dense leaves together, and my mom managed to catch one climbing out a tree limb and then back. The next day, one of them hung right out in the open, sometimes moving slightly to allow us to see its cutey face. We kept trying to catch them in more action, but mostly we could see them between the leaves, just chilling, as sloths do.

The same day the sloth climbed out the branch, I also missed a little monkey mini-migration across the yard, including moms with babies clinging to their backs.

Chris and I went zip lining in Manuel Antonio Park with some really fantastic guides with Titi Canopy Tours. Because we'd gone in the afternoon, a lot of the bigger animals were out of sight, but the guides pointed out a couple poison dart frogs, and I managed to catch my first glimpse of what skyrocket into my Top 5 favorite bugs: leaf cutter ants. Yes, the poison dart frogs were bright and small and awesome. But these leaf cutter ants, which I would see multiple times on trails on this trip, were so fascinating. They are incredibly organized, not just working together to cut and gather leaves to take to their nests to feed the fugus they eat, they also clear trails to make the work easier. It's really quite impressive. They march in little lines back and forth, carrying pieces of leaves 3-4 times their size. So busy. So focused. Unphased by people stomping about near them. The guides also showed us a sleepy fern that folds up on itself to look dead whenever it feels nearby vibrations. Awesome.

The next day, my dad and I went out to watch the sunset from the beach. It was just an okay sunset, but while there, I saw a little creature peek out of a hole in the sand and then dart back in. I waited patiently to watch a small crab crawl out and then dart back in when it saw me again. I went to tell my dad and then realized the beach was basically swarming with these small crabs, who darted away from me as fast as they could. My brother and I agreed that they must be thinking, "Ahhh!!! Don't catch me! I'm so delicious! Why do I

have to be so delicious?!" I mean, they were too small for people to get much out of, but I totally get why birds eat those suckers. They way they run means they must be scrumptuous.

The next day, we went on a short, pleasant hike as a family. We're pretty sure we saw some spider monkeys, though they weren't as used to people as our neighborhood capuchins and move away from us quickly. We also saw more leaf cutter ants. Yay!

The day after that, Chris and I went horseback riding (another fantastic choice). Our guide point out a huge termite nest and told us that if, just in case, we were ever lost in the jungle, we could eat termites, and 50 termites is the equivalent to the amount of protein in a banana. As Costa Rica also has bananas, I think I'll stay vegetarian if ever lost in the jungle. He also showed us a plant that holds told of water and grows in trees, so if we need fresh water, that's the place to go for it. Honestly, he was great.

As I'm an experienced rider, the guide had given me a horse with a lot of pep in his step and insisted on being first in line, so I often found myself about a dozen meters ahead of everyone else. At one of those moments, a blue morpho butterfly fluttered along with me. I turned to share it, but no one was near enough, so I just watched it move alongside us and then flit out to a field.

When we got home from our little adventure, we were still gabbing and then Chris turned to a tree next to the car and froze. "Oh, hey guys." There were two capuchin monkeys baring their teeth at him. We realized there were monkeys all through the trees, so we slowly moved inside. (It reminded me of that scene in the second Hunger Games, which I have watched WAY too many times.)

Up on the porch, we watched as this barrel of monkeys (yes, that's one of the acceptable terms for a group of monkeys, so why would I use anything else?) bounced around in the trees, then crossed the yard to mess around in the other trees, get upset about something they saw on the ground that we could not see, and then move back over to the first set of trees. It was pretty flippin cool. They kept their eyes on us, but they did not seem concerned now that we were on a porch.

We also saw lots of bugs: leaf bugs, moths, crickets, all kinds of things. I saw one spider in Jaco, just a little guy in a web, though we did see some bigger webs on our drive.

Oh and vultures. Vultures all the time.

Crocs below

On our last day, we drove back to San Jose. We came to a bridge that, when we had crossed it the other way, was filled with tourists. We figured it was just a vista and just an okay one. On this trip, however, I said, "Wait, is this the bridge where all the crocodiles hang out?" Someone had posted a video of this bridge on my facebook feed when I first asked for recommendations for Costa Rica. So, we stopped, and Chris, Mom, and I walked out to see HUGE crocodiles in the river below us. They were quite, quite scary. I'm super thankful that the scariest thing we saw was on the last day. Because nope. Nope nope. And people take tourists on mangrove tours to see these things from boats. No. No no no.

So... good news: We saw mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, crustaceans, arachnids, insects, pretty much most categories of animals except for live fish, though we did see some very, very freshly caught fish, delicious red snapper pulled from the mangroves.

So while I set myself up, knowing I'd likely see a sloth on this trip, since that was everyone's #1 goal so that Mom would like the trip, I had no idea what other animals I'd see in the wild, truly in the wild, just hanging in the jungles/beaches of Costa Rica. What a truly incredible country, and I'm so thankful for them for embracing ecotourism where they preserve the beauty of their country and the things that live in it while also allowing others to learn about the wildlife without disturbing it. The more I think about how much I loved it there, the more I want to go back. Except for the snakes.