#48 = See a New Animal in the Wild

Costa Rica is the most biodiverse country on the planet, which is one of many reasons I love to visit. We saw capuchin monkeys, sloths, macaws, brown pelicans, white herons, caracaras, crocodiles, and many others I'd seen before. Here are a few that were new to me!

My favorite sighting started like this: 

"Hey, Chris, I think I just saw a fish jump."

"Where?"

"Oh, there's another one!"

"It must be running from a predator or something!"

...the next day...

"There's more jumping..."

...the next day...

"More jumping? Where are the binoculars?"

Turns out, the jumping beings were not fish but devil rays! For two weeks or so, nearly every day, we'd see the rays jumping, surfing, and splashing in the waves. While that made me much more anxious about surfing (though I think devil rays are related to manta rays, rather than sting rays, so I'm still not sure if they sting), I was fascinated by these playful beings. 

I couldn't quite catch the jumping on camera, and the videos I took of them splashing just aren't that great, so here's a link if you want to see them jump!

We also saw a ton of birds, which I logged on my Merlin app, but most were too quick to catch a photo.

Here are some of the many animals we spotted in Manuel Antonio National Park.

Some kind of eel

Hermit crabs

Land crabs. Apparently they are usually nocturnal but come out en masse to breed a few days each year, and we managed to be there during those days. They were EVERYWHERE in the forested areas of Manuel Antonio Beach.

Squirrel monkeys. A whole gang of these little creatures played in the trees around and above us on our way out of Manuel Antonio. They were very cute and jump huge distances between trees, like little flying squirrels.

Howler monkeys. It's quite easy to hear these monkeys but much tougher to spot them, as they spend their days lounging in the canopies. It was so cool to see several of them walking around the tree tops on this day.