Selva Verde Lodge...

Our brief time at Rancho Naturalista over, we headed to our next filming location, Selva Verde Lodge in Sarapiqui. Selva Verde Lodge is another of Costa Rica's great eco lodges and we had a number of species to film here. The weather let us down a little...it was wet, very wet. Ok, it's technically the rainy season but it's been a particularly dry el niño year in Costa Rica and up until this point we hadn't encountered too much in the way of adverse conditions.

Most of our time at Selva Verde involved crossing the suspension bridge between the Lodge and pristine lowland jungle on the other side. It's not for the faint hearted or anyone with a fear of heights.

Selva suspension bridge

The far side of the bridge has a sliding locked gate to stop unauthorised access. As the guide unlocked it on the first day and slid the gate aside he said 'welcome to Jurassic Park', and he wasn't wrong - the exactly what it felt like. The guardian of this bridge was a 5 ft long adult Green Iguana, which remained perched on the top of vegetation for two solid days just basking.

Green Iguana Iguana iguana - it didn't move for two days.

Close-up of it's head.

It was a little damp...

Even our guide Ivan took shelter.
Check out the track conditions!

Waiting for the rain to stop...even the camera gets a brolly

Despite the weather, we did get some work done and we did see some birds...

Black-throated Trogon, female

A pair of Crested Owls

White-necked Manakin

Our guides were also into herping and found this beautiful Clouded Snail-eater (Sibon nebulatus). These snakes have specially adapted dentition evolved to extract snails from their shells. They are frequently encountered, especially after rain when snails and slugs come out to feed.

Clouded Snail-eater Sibon nebulatus

Clouded Snail-eater Sibon nebulatus

Clouded Snail-eater Sibon nebulatus

Can you spot this snake?

Right by the side of the track...

It sits perfectly still and relies on its cryptic colouration to avoid detection. In fact it had been sitting in this general location for about a week! It was a tiny Rainforest Hognose Pitviper Porthidium nasutum. This small pitviper is typically found in this habitat, wet lowland forests, where it will sit and wait for its primary prey - lizards. It's not really considered dangerous to humans and there have been no fatalities from this species. This individual was around 15 inches in length.

Rainforest Hognose Pitviper

Later that day our guides arrived with another great little snake - another snail eater in fact. This time a Bi-coloured Snaileater Dipsas bicolor*.  Like Sibon nebulatus, this species is specially adapted to eating snails and slugs and are completely harmless to humans.

Dipsas bicolor

Other species of note included pure white tent-making bats, these large green Cicadas a several brightly coloured frogs.

This Cicada was about 2 inches long.

The famous 'Blue-Jean' Poison Dart Frog
also called the Strawberry Poisson Dart Frog

Red-eyed Tree Frogs
Both sexes have brilliant blue and white
striped sides but males are noticeably smaller

An enormous hawkmoth species spotted by Nigel

It had a wingspan of around 5 inches!

We were lucky enough to see another lovely hawkmoth Hemeroplanes triptolemus, a species known for its unique larval stage where the caterpillar imitates a snake to protect itself against predators - do Google it!  

Hemeroplanes triptolemus in the restaurant

We also saw lots of Bullet Ants. These are one of the largest ant species in the world at 1.2 inches long! Their sting is incredibly painful and commonly results in up to 24 hours of agony, which frequently also leads to blood in the victims faeces. A scientist once described the sting of the Bullet Ant as being 'a pure intense pain, like walking across burning hot coals with a 3 inch nail stuck in your foot'. Needless to say none of us wanted to get stung by one of these. Luckily they are only aggressive if the nest is disturbed.  This one was just out for a stroll.

Hard to see from the video but this ant is over an inch long.

Next up...we were in for something different...Trogon Lodge.

*Dipsas bicolor is considered by some to be a single species Dipsas articulata but the jury is still out on that one so for now it is listed here as bicolor.