Costa Rica Wildlife

Butterflies and moths

There are about 1,250 species of butterflies and at least 8,000 species of moths. Butterflies and moths are common year round but are more present during the rainy season.

Costa Rican butterflies and moths have made amazing adaptations to the environment. Some examples of these are the following:

Swallowtail caterpillars imitate bird droppings and many others have bright colors to warn predators of bodily toxins.
What someone could easily mistake for a butterfly or a wasp in Costa Rica might be a moth engaging in Müllerian or Batesian mimicry.

Ecotourism is one of Costa Rica’s primary economic resources, and the country's butterflies add a lot to that. They bring life to rainforests, not only with the diversity in color, but with the magnificence of the flowers that they help pollinate.

Some common butterflies and moths in Costa Rica include:

Thoas Swallowtail
Marpesia berania
Doxocopa laure
Banded Peacock
Zebra longwing
Morpho butterfly
Green Page Moth

Other invertebrates

Invertebrate species make up most of Costa Rica’s wildlife. Of the estimated 505,000 species, about 493,000 are invertebrates (including spiders and crabs. It is known that there are tens of thousands of insects and microscopic invertebrates in every land type and elevation level. However, they are largely unnoticed or unidentified.

ome notable insects in Costa Rica are stingless bees, ants such as leaf-cutter ants and army ants, Hercules beetle, and many katydids

Amphibians of Costa Rica

Costa Rica is home to around 175 amphibians, which include frogs. Frogs in Costa Rica have interesting ways of finding fishless water to raise their young in. Fish, of course, will eat tadpoles and eggs. Poison Dart Frogs put their eggs in water pools in bromeliads. Other methods include searching ponds before laying eggs, and laying eggs in wet soil.

There are 35 species of Elutherodoctylus frogs, 26 species of Hyla frogs and 13 species of glassfrogs.

Yellow-banded poison dart frog Dendrobates leucomelas

Red-eyed Tree Frog (Agalychnis callidryas), Costa Rica.

Notable frog species in Costa Rica include Red-eyed Tree Frog , a few species of Poison Dart Frogs, the semitransparent glassfrogs, and the large Smoky Jungle Frog.

Some notable toad species in Costa Rica include the ten species of Bufo toads, and the Giant toad a huge toad known for its wide appetite. It has been documented eating almost anything, including vegetables, ants, spiders, any toad smaller than itself, mice, and other small mammals.

Birds of Costa Rica

894 bird species have been recorded in Costa Rica (including Cocos Island), more than all of the United States and Canada combined. More than 600 of the Costa Rican species are permanent residents, and upwards of 200 are migrants, spending portions of the year outside of the country, usually in North America. Seven of the Costa Rican species are considered endemic, and 19 are globally threatened

Costa Rica supports an enormous variety of wildlife, due in large part to its geographic position between the North and South American continents, its neotropical climate, and its wide variety of habitats. Costa Rica is home to more than 500,000 species, which represents nearly 4% of the total species estimated worldwide, making Costa Rica one of the 20 countries with the highest biodiversity in the world. Of these 500,000 species, a little more than 300,000 are insects.

One of the principal sources of Costa Rica's biodiversity is that the country, together with the land now considered Panama, formed a bridge connecting the North and South American continents approximately three to five million years ago. This bridge allowed the very different flora and fauna of the two continents to mix.

Four species of monkeys live in Costa Rica, three of them popular as pets. The white-faced capuchin (called cara blanca in Spanish), the spider (called mono colorado or arana), the squirrel monkey (called the titi or ardilla) and the endangered howler (called congo). The word for monkey in Spanish is mono. Howlers are the least abundant in captivity, but the most abundant in Costa Rica. They eat fruit and leaves, as do the acrobatic spider monkeys, while the capuchins and squirrel monkeys enjoy a wider diet including everything from fruits to insects and lizards.

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