Deja de dar leña al mono

This phrase literally translates to “stop hitting the monkey with firewood,” which might be what you want to tell me after this, the third blog post about my spring break trip, because its English equivalent is “stop beating a dead horse.” It's fitting that both of these idioms involve animals, because that's what this post is about. I'd say more than half the photographs I came home with were of animals, or at least some plant that purportedly contained some. The following are the photos that most clearly display more fauna than flora. 

Costa Rica has more butterfly gardens than Ohio has auto-parts stores. And the one we visited was behind a restaurant where we ate for lunch. Despite the odd location, it was pretty cool to be so close to so many varieties of butterflies. I found it interesting that most of the species tended to be attracted to the flowers that resembled them, like this orange-on-orange action. Maybe the animal kingdom isn't as color blind as we like to claim. Butterflies aren't the only diverse insects in Costa Rica; there are plenty of arachnids to go around. Unfortunately, they don't tend to be attracted to flowers, but to human abodes, as I can attest to from the abundance near our apartment. This one was a bit close for comfort as well, because it had built a web large enough to trap a person outside our cabin in Tortuguero. Luckily, every time I checked, it was always in its web. Next, we move to reptiles, the most prolific species of which seemed to be lizards. We saw plenty of iguanas, including dozens in a tree on our way to Rio San Juan. This Jesus Christ lizard was hanging out on the banks of the river. The running joke about its name is that when you see one, you say, "Jesus Christ, did you see that lizard!" But really, the nickname comes from the fact that they can run on water, much like the Christian figure did at the Sea of Galilee. We didn't see as many snakes as lizards, although they are just as ubiquitous. Costa Rica has some of the most venomous species in the world, including the highly aggressive fer-de-lance. This snake from the canals at Tortuguero is not near as threatening, but in the rainforest by Arenal, we also saw the dangerous pit viper, which much to my dismay was the size of a garter snake, about as small as the dead snakes I have seen around our property. The best animal that I saw and photographed in Tortuguero had to be a caiman. This one was hiding out in some rushes by the bank, but when we approached, he dove into the water and came within 2 feet of our boat. I think he might've been coming for me; I mean, look at the evil eye he is giving me and my camera. In truth, caimans don't eat humans; they're not big enough, like their crocodile cousins. They mainly eat other reptiles, amphibians, fish, and water birds, like this one that was hanging out, totally undisturbed with a caiman a few feet away. I didn't get a photo of that caiman because he was hiding out so well, lying in wait for a good meal, I imagine. I also don't remember the name of this bird, but I call him "caiman chow." Later on in the day, when we took a boat ride further into the canals, our guide spotted a houtou. I had become pretty good at spying herons and egrets, but I would've never found this bird. Apparently, seeing a houtou is a treat for bird watchers because it is so well camouflaged and lives deep in the forest, but not being an ornithophile myself, I wouldn't know. As just a regular schmoe, though, I did find its timber mimicry pretty amazing. On the other hand, we saw so many anhingas that they began to seem pedestrian; actually, you can find them in Florida, so they are pretty common. Nonetheless, I find it fascinating that they don't have the oil to make their feathers waterproof so they must dry their wings before flying. That means they have to sun themselves between every meal they catch. Can you imagine if people had to go to the tanning salon after every stop at the drive-thru? Kingfishers are found troughout the Americas, too, but Costa Rica is special enough to have all six types of them living in country. We saw three of the six during our ride on the Rio San Juan: the green, belted, and Amazon varieties. I'm not sure which one this is, because the three vary only slightly in color and crest, but I can tell you it is real, even though it looks like a wood-carved model you would put in your yard. When a fellow tour member went running while we were at the Hanging Bridges in Arenal, because she saw a big, colorful bird, I was hoping it was a quetzal, one of the most unique-looking but hard-to-spot endangered birds. I was only slightly disappointed when I discovered a pair of blue macaws instead. Blue macaws aren't endangered, but they have dwindled in population in Costa Rica, so there is an effort to reintroduce mating pairs to the wild. Macaws mate for life, and they can live for up to 70 years, so there's a good chance the population will recover, as long as divorce remains taboo in avian society. Birds aren't the only cool flying creatures in Costa Rica. These bats, which our guide on the Rio San Juan pointed out, are camouflaged even better than the houtou. See those six bumps that make the tree look like it has teeth? Those are actually bats. Although I wasn't quick enough to get photographic proof, I was able to verify the veracity of the guide's assertion when he provoked them into flapping their wings a bit. The bats ranked pretty high on my list of favorite animal sightings, but when it comes to the ones I was able to capture on film, nothing beats the howler monkey. Oh sure, I've seen the spider monkeys scramble over my head and I've even heard the howler monkeys grunt at me from a disconcerting distance, but this was the first time I was able to get a full frontal photo. And trust me, this guy clearly voiced his objection to giving us a free publicity shot. In the end, we didn't get to see a jaguar attacking a tapir as it was being eaten by an anaconda, as we had hoped, but our Costa Rican safari was still more than satisfactory.