make this biome their home. Besides the native
plants the family cultivates to create prime frog
habitat in this wildlife reserve, “This farm is located
in a special animal corridor bordering Arenal
National Park. The real secret is in the water.”
Apparently, spring-fed ponds abound in the rain-
forests of El Río Burio.
Blackness looms around the nine of us - Jason, a
vacationing family of six from Providence, RI, plus
Gus and I - as the vociferous song of gazillions of
cicadas drifts down from the obscurity of the tree-
tops. The guttural growls of howler monkeys echo
through the darkness, as glowing fireflies and
Headlight Click Beetles (Pyrophorus nyctophanus)
bioluminesce overhead, for a brief second partially
illuminating the branches and leaves of arbours
nearby. An orb-weaver spider, just one of over
16,000 species of arachnids in the isthmus, has
plaited an intricate silk web in less than 30
minutes and sits in the middle, somewhat camou-
flaged, awaiting her prey. Before dawn, she’ll feed
on any insect she manages to entrap, along with the
fine strands of her web.
We begin our journey along a narrow trail through
the jungle: past spider-veined Horsetail Plants;
alongside thick-trunked Kapok trees, sacred to the
Mayas; next to red Ginger Bushes, philodendrons
and exquisite cerise-and-yellow heliconia flowers.
“Costa Rica is one of the richest countries in the
world for amphibians. There are 42 species of frogs
in Costa Rica.”
Even as he walks and talks, Jason is wielding his
flashlight in a tight arc into a cluster of bromeliads.
With over 400 varieties of these mostly-epiphytic
plants to conceal them during the day, the tiny
‘froggies’, as our guide affectionately calls them, no
longer need to hunker down inside the vegetation,
and begin to materialize with the onset of night.
Tink, tink…like the jingle of a tiny bell, a Dink
Frog (Diasporus diastema) reposing on a
trumpet tree emits his onomatopoeic call.
Nocturnally pale pink to tan in colouration,
the small female will deposit a maximum of 10
eggs in a bromeliad sheave where they mature
via direct development - emerging from their
gelatinous goo as fully-formed miniature
versions of their parents.
As we continue along the trail, I tend to look
downward at my feet, where oftentimes zig-
zagging root systems crisscross the path. My
eyes follow the small circle of light, shifting
from the leaves underfoot to the proliferation
of ferns and palm fronds closing in from both
Above: Dink Frog (Diasporus diastema). Image by Olga
Nosatova.
Below: Red-eyed Tree Frog (Agalychnis callidryas). Image by
Sascha Burkard.
sides. Suddenly, one of the women squeals and Jason
swings his beacon in her direction. A Red-eyed Tree
Frog (Agalychnis callidryas) activates its ‘bubble’
vocal sac and commences to sing.
We are enamoured by the brilliant neon-green body,
yellow-and-blue flanked legs, and the huge crimson
eyes that seemed to snap open and shut as if on cue.
No less impressive is the split-second flicker of its
long, sticky tongue to snare an unfortunate green
cricket that ventures too close. Jason is quick to
inform us, “It doesn’t matter how attractive they are,
male frogs can only attract a female by their song.”