Gibson’s World

This Spring Break, we decided to go to Costa Rica with J.D. Willson (a herpetologist we know from South Carolina) and look for herps and other animals with him. In Costa Rica, we went to Selva Verde, La Selva Biological Station, Bosque Del Cabo in the Osa Peninsula, La Sirena, and Playa Nicuesa. In each place we saw tons of wildlife and had a really good time.

Selva Verde and La Selva Biological Station: First, we flew from Seattle to Houston to San Jose and then drove 1½ hours to get to our hotel, which was pretty boring. By the time we got there, it was already 11:00 PM. J.D. had gotten there earlier and had showed us what he had found. Then, we just had to go on a night hike to see if we could find anything. We were soon rewarded seeing a Parrot-snake, a Cloudy Slug-eater, a Turnip-tailed Gecko, and various other anoles and amphibians.

The next day, we woke up to some Howler Monkeys “howling” right outside our bungalow. Then, we went down to break-fast and then on a morning hike. It was very successful finding two Hog-nosed Vipers, a Green Vine Snake, lots of Poison-dart frogs, many anoles and Whiptails, some Green Iguanas, a Green Basilisk and a couple of Eleutherdactylus frogs. That night we went on a long night hike though the jungle. After a couple of Slug-eaters, we went for a really long time without seeing anything. So, Sterling, my dad and my mom all gave up and went to sleep. Of course, then everything started to come out. We quickly saw a Forest Toad and a Red Coffee Snake. As J.D., the local guide, and I started to head back to the hotel, he realized that we hadn’t seen a Red-eyed Tree-frog. So, he took us down to the pond and found two of them for us. There were also TONS of toads hanging out by the pond. Then, the local guide left and J.D. and I did another night hike around the hotel garden. We soon found a Blunt-headed Tree-snake, three more Red Coffee Snakes, and a Smokey Jungle Frog. I was amazed at how long and thin the Blunt-headed Tree-snake was in contrast to its HUGE bulging out head and eyes!

In the morning, J.D. showed us what he had found before we got to Selva Verde. I knew what it was going to be, but nobody else did, because we wanted to keep it a surprise. I hadn’t seen it, though. He opened his snake back and took out a Central American Coral Snake! It was really exciting, because that was one of the snakes I’ve always really wanted to find, but never have. We were already off to a good start. Then, we went to La Selva Biological Station. We found lots of cool birds there, and also saw a baby parrot in a nest with a Coati right next to it. The day before, the same Coati had eaten the other baby parrot and now was after this one. We temporarily scared it away, but we were pretty sure that it would come back that night and eat the baby parrot. As we started down the trail, we told our guide that we would like to see a sloth. Within about 30 seconds, he found one for us. The guide said that they had seen an Eyelash Palm Pit-Viper the day before and we told him that we really wanted to see it, so he agreed to try to find it for us. Sure enough, about 2/3 of the way through the hike he spotted the bright yellow snake we wanted to see. It was amazingly colorful and we could even see the eyelashes on it. When we got back our hotel at Selva Verde, we found some HUGE Green Iguanas, a few Black River Turtles, and a Tawny Tree-frog that night.

Bosque Del Cabo, Osa Peninsula: The next morning, we left to go to Bosque Del Cabo on the Osa Peninsula. We met our guide, and we stared off by going to a pond. At the pond, we found lots of Spectacled Caiman, some Brown Basilisks, and tons of Whiptails. That night, we went to some other ponds and found about 5 Northern Cat-eyed Snakes, a Milky frog, a Gladiator Frog, some more Smokey Jungle Frogs, lots of Cane Toads, some little tree-frogs (Hyla Ebercatta), and as we were going back to our hotel, we found a Masked Tree-frog in the swimming pool.

In the morning, we went on another morning hike and immediately found a new dwarf gecko, some anoles, a really awesome Casque-head Lizard, a new Whiptail, a Brown Vine Snake that J.D. spotted, and some other various frogs. In the morning we went flew to La Sirena in Corcovado National Park. We went on a hike and found a bunch of cool stuff. We saw a Tapir sleeping about 20 yards away from the trail, a really cool poison-dart frog, and a new anole for us on the trip (Norops Biporcatus). Then we took a plane to Playa Nicuesa, which would turn out to be one of the best snake places of the entire trip.

  Playa Nicuesa: When we got to Playa Nicuesa, we immediately knew that it would be a great place for snakes when they told us that they had seen three different snake species the night before we got there. So, we couldn’t wait to check it out. First, we had dinner and then went on a long nigh hike through the jungle. It started off great with a moss-colored Eyelash Palm Pit Viper and then later a baby Northern Cat-eyed Snake. After a while, it slowed way down and we didn’t see much for the rest of the hike, except for a few frogs. As usual, my dad, Sterling, and the local guide left and went to be. But, J.D. and I continued herping. Once again we saw all of the cool stuff when everybody else left. We started off with a cool Coniophanes fissidens (Brown Debris Snake) that I spotted near the boardwalk to the lagoon. Then we went down to the beach and we found another Cat-eyed snake sitting right on the Yoga platform (maybe he was waiting for his yoga lesson?…). On the way back, J.D. spotted yet another Cat-eyed snake in a tree. The Cat-eyed Snake had just eaten a frog, so J.D. somehow got the snake to throw up the frog that he had just eaten by squeezing the frog up towards the snake’s head and the out of its mouth. It was really cool, but kind of disgusting.

The next day, we woke up and as usual, went on a pretty successful morning hike. We went to the place where one of the guides had seen two Bushmasters not long before we got there (a few months). Since they are vipers, Bushmasters can stay in pretty much the same place for a long time waiting for something. Unfortunately, we didn’t see the Bushmaster, but we did see a new type of poison dart frog for the trip (Phyllobates vittatus), a new species of skink for us (Mabuya Unimarginata), and two Aquatic Anoles (Norops Aquaticus). In the afternoon, we took some kayaks out and kayaked around in the ocean which was fun. That night, we went on short night hike with a group before dinner (about 30 minutes). Although, we didn’t think that we’d see very much since it was such a big group and it was only for about a half hour, we was proved VERY wrong. Right away we spotted a Mussurana crossing the trail and about to crawl under a log. When everybody gathered around the log, our guide flipped the log and we all got a great look at a really pretty, bright red, juvenile Mussurana. Finally, after everyone had gotten good pictures of it, we left him the snake and continued looking. Not long after, we found a Leptodactylus species (a frog) which was cool. Only about 10 minutes later, I spotted a snake in the low branches of a bush. At first glance, I thought that it might be a cat-eyed snake because its head was hidden in the bush, but it turned out to be the  endemic and fairly rare Red-eyed Tree-snake (Tripanurgos compressus). It was basically a brown snake with reddish blotchy bands, a white head, and red eyes. I was really excited because it was rare in the area and it had amazing colors. As we headed back to dinner, we found a bunch of HUGE Cane Toads, a few Tungara Frogs, and Cloudy Snail Sucker. After dinner, we went on another night hike. Once again, we didn’t see anything interesting until everybody but J.D. and I left. About a minute after they all left, we found a Fer-de-Lance crossing the trail. We only saw it for a couple of seconds, so neither of us got a picture. We continued hiking and found another juvenile Mussurana (it was close to where the first one was, so we thought it was probably the same one). Then, we didn’t find any thing for a while, so we decided to head back. When we got back to the hotel, we went through the restaurant and J.D. somehow spotted a cryptically colored Fer-de-Lance coiled up right outside the restaurant. We were thrilled and we both got some good pictures of it. In one night hike we found four snake species and three new ones for the trip!

Overall, it was a really awesome trip with 14 snake species, 35 individual snakes, 22 species of lizards, 2 crocodilians, 1 turtle, 39 reptiles, 20 frogs, 2 toads, 22 amphibians, 61 herp species, 20 mammal species, and over 120 birds! The trip to Costa Rica was definitely one of the best trips we’ve taken and I can’t wait to go back to Costa Rica and explore some of the places that we haven’t gone yet.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 at 8:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.