Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica
Positioned along the ocean on Costa Rica's southwest coast is one of the most pristine rainforests in Costa Rica: Corcovado National Park. What a beautiful place! The ocean waves surge onto the shore to meet the rainforest! We were in search of monkeys, sloths, tropical birds, tapirs - and if lucky, jaguars.

Our hosts at Corcovado were Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, Director of CATIE Tropical Research Center, and Eduardo Carillo, researcher. Eduardo had spent many years in the rainforest studying white-lipped peccaries, tapirs, and jaguars. We spent a lot of time waiting for peccaries, but they eluded us - as did the tapirs. At one point Eduardo used his radio-telemetry device to locate a jaguar. The radio signal indicated that this magnificent cat was within 100 feet of us! But the forest was so dense that we couldn't see the elusive feline. It was an eerie feeling, knowing the a jaguar was watching us without us knowing!

In the treetops we saw howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, and spider monkeys! On the forest floor, we encountered several troops of "leaf-cutter ants." These ants are essentially farmers. They head out in search of green foliage, clip a piece off and carry it back to their den. Once there, the foliage is chewed up by the ants and then spread out where it is left to grow mold. Once the mold crop has grown, the ants can feast! Walking through the forest, you can easily see them. They often cross right in front of you in long lines, single-file, carrying pieces of green leaves often many times their body size! It is thought that each ant follows in line using the sense of smell. Sometimes, these leaf-cutter ant lines can be 100-200 meters long with more than 1 million ants!

Once evening at about 10:00pm, Eduardo offered to take Jack on a night hike into the rainforest. The going was a bit rough, as the forest floor was wet and littered with leaves. And it was pitch dark! With flashlights, they found their way to an area where tapirs are sometimes found at night. Sure enough, lucky Jack saw one!

INBIO - The Institute of Biodiversity, Costa Rica
Kathaleen visited INBIO to see what they were up to. INBIO is a research and education center right in the city of San Jose. City-dwellers can visit and experience what the wild parts of Costa Rica are like! There are sections of INBIO that represent the rainforest, complete with plants, trees and frogs; and others that mimic the dry forests and other habitats.

INBIO is the center for arthropod (in essence, bugs!) identification. Researchers collect and identify every type of arthropod that can be found in Costa Rica - from the size of a pin-head to huge beetles. I would hate to have one of those big armored beetles crawling around my tent! Several very large rooms were filled with insect-specimen boxes. There must have been millions and millions of arthropods!