Rest in Costa Rica Day 2 (part 2/2)

We signed up for a two hour nighttime frog-spotting tour (hereafter FST) not really having any idea what we were in for. I guess the name gives you some idea, and the description sounded cool, but more than that? Oh, what the heck, let’s try it out.

Before we get started, you should know that there are a lot of pictures in this post, and at the end are a few pictures of spiders and snakes. Some people have expressed irrational fears regarding these creatures. If you don’t like arachnids or snakes, then make sure you stop scrolling at the picture of our boys on a Monday (almost at the end of this post).

Our guide was a Costa Rican lady named Yahaira who has been leading such guided tours for over 4 years. We had a private tour, so it was just the driver (who hung back with the van), Adrienne, Chris, and Yahaira. We drove to a local animal preserve, parked the van, and set out on foot. It was shortly after 6pm when we entered the preserve, and it was already dark. Yahaira gave us each flashlights, umbrellas, and a stern warning about not touching plants, trees, etc. and also a warning to stay in the middle of the trail where possible.

It seemed like about 35 feet onto the trail, we looked up (meaning Yahaira looked up because she knows what she is doing, and we then followed suit) and there was a two-toed sloth underneath the dense canopy of a tree. As we were watching him, it began to downpour, so we slipped our rain jackets on, opened our enormous umbrellas, and Freddy-Two-Toes decided to climb down the tree in full view of us, in reaching distance, seemingly not caring about our presence.

There are two types of sloths – two-toed and three-toed. 2T sloths are nocturnal and 3T sloths are diurnal (the antonym of nocturnal, I had to look that word up). These two types of sloths appear similar but only so because of convergent evolution – this is where two unrelated organisms develop similar characteristics because it’s so helpful. Insects and birds, while unrelated, both have wings – this is another example of convergent evolution. All vertebrates should have 5 phalanges (in humans, that’s toes and fingers) so why sloths have fewer is a subject for one of my upcoming Wikipedia rabbit holes.

We moved on from the sloth and Chris quickly realized that, while good at many things, he does not have a future in frog-spotting. Yahaira would stop and say “there! did you see that?” and then zero in on a frog the size of a coin, often the same color as the leaf it was on. We also moved on from the downpour, fortunately, and it ended up being a nice night.

She had some very interesting photography tricks up her rolled-up sleeves. She would drop Adrienne’s cell phone into video mode and record a video, usually with the flash on. This gave her real-time autofocus and full-time flash. She would then zoom in and adjust exposure settings. She would also commonly use her flashlight for extra illumination. Then, while taking the video, she would snap additional pictures. This is such a complicated method, but the results were absolutely incredible! Chris brought his big camera on the trip but didn’t bother to bring it on the frog walk because it would have never yielded usable pictures.

Here are a few pictures of the red-eyed green tree frog commonly seen gracing the cover of biology textbooks. These guys were so beautiful! The red eyes were so bright red, and their sides, down what Chris would refer to as the “mid-axillary line” were areas of yellow, and they had blue gracing their little legs, and then orange feet!

Here is an anole, a small lizard about the size of a spoon. Pleasant little fellow. Let us come and go in peace, and didn’t try to sell us sub-standard car insurance, not even once! (Side note: Adrienne knew what an anole lizard was because there is an episode of Daniel Tiger that discusses it).

As the FST continued, eventually Chris spotted a brown frog, then something that looked like a dragonfly (but Yahaira insisted wasn’t), then a katydid (which Yahaira pointed out was really a green cockroach, but we agreed to give Chris credit for a katydid because cockroaches, regardless of color, are gross).

When we were very nearly to the end of the 2 hour walk, Adrienne was thinking that she’d never find a frog on her own. But then…we stopped for Yahaira to take pictures of a cool looking spider web, and while Adrienne was waiting on the picture taking, she looked right next to her and saw the tiniest frog!

Here are few more pictures of frogs that we spotted on our FST.

Overall, the FST was amazing. We were in awe of Yahaira’s ability to listen for various frog calls and then locate them, even when the frog was super tiny and on an object the same or nearly the same color. Being in the rainforest at night was a whole new experience, and we were very glad we took the tour. After the FST, we came home, ordered room service for dinner, ate, showered, and climbed into bed just a little bit tired.

Here is a picture of our boys showing everyone how Mondays feel. As noted above, if you do not like spiders or snakes, we recommend you scroll back up to the top and skip to the next post.

*****

Hey everyone, we’re glad that all the fraidy-cats are gone, now we can talk about real stuff. Like spiders and snakes! Well, they were small, but using Yahaira’s photographic techniques, they look huge! They aren’t.