Buggin Out in Costa Rica

Weevil (Curculionoidea)

Selvatura Park in Monteverde

Costa Rica holds a very special place in my heart for many reasons. It’s a place of breath taking tropical landscapes, friendly people, and incredible wildlife including lots and lots and lots of BUGS! Bugs are omnipresent in many of the world's tropics and if you’ve never been in one of these regions you’ll be stunned at the many shapes, colors, and sounds you’ll hear when visiting.

Rio Penas Blancas

Photo taken on the way to Arenal from San Jose.

For the most part the little critters keep to themselves and with a little bug spray you should be fine but if you're into bug catching, entomology or macro photography, Costa Rica is an incredible place to explore.

Monteverde National Park

Costa Rica has more then 750,000 species of insects including 20,000 species of spiders, roughly 40,000 different types beetles and 10% of the world's butterfly population. To me this seems incredible given the fact that Costa Rica only makes up 0.03% of the world's landmass. I assume one of the reasons for this amazing biodiversity is the countries typography. At it's narrowest point only 75 miles separate the Caribbean Sea from the Pacific Ocean, yet the mountains in the middle of the country reach an astonishing 12,500ft. This means there’s hundreds if not thousands of micro climates where creatures can specialize and evolve to fill niches.

Monteverde National Park

Exploring these places can be challenging but rewarding and for me there’s something about coming across an interesting arthropod in the wild that makes the experience worthwhile.

Cicada (Cicadoidea)

Arenal Volcano National Park

Often heard but rarely seen, Cicadas fill the jungle at times with an almost deafening rasping/ buzzing sound. They'll often synchronize their sounds creating a rhythmic harmony for what I can only assume is predatory avoidance.
This Cicada emerges from its molt and was allowing its exoskeleton to harden.

It often takes time and a bit of knowledge on where and how to look for bugs but in the end if you find a really cool bug it’s worth the effort.

Curi Cancha Wildlife Refuge in Monteverde

To be honest you don’t need to go much further then your door step to find them and there are many places in the country that make seeing and photographing them very easy.

This photo of a Sphinx moths (Bombycoidea) was taken in the hallway just outside of our hotel room.
Arenal

Eco zoos and butterfly gardens are a few of the places you’ll find very cool looking insects without having to look too hard.

Panoramic view from one end to the other of the butterfly garden at Selvatura Park in Monteverde.

Hali'a holding one of many Blue Morphos butterfly's inside the garden. We saw many of these in the wild but they were extremely hard to photograph and near impossible to hold.

For me, however, there’s nothing like grabbing my camera, a good macro lens and flash and going out at night or in the early morning in search of interesting things to photograph which 3 times of 5 means bugs!