The rainforest is incredible, with all the different species of plants, flowers, mammals, amphibians, and insects. The trees in the rainforest are covered in many different epiphytes.
Epiphytes are plants that grow on other plants and trees. Some epiphytes we discovered were: orchids, moss, water vines, and strangler figs. Strangler figs are my favourite epiphyte, they start on the top of the tree and the roots run down wrapping around the host tree, and competes for the sunlight and nutrients in the soil. Slowly the strangler steels all the sunlight and nutrients from the tree and the tree dies, leaving just the Strangler Fig.
strangler fig
The leaves are different from Canadian leaves for a couple different reasons. First the leaves have elongated tips. These tips help drain off the water that collects on the leaves, preventing the leaves from rotting. Secondly the leaves feel waxy to the touch. Why? Because with all the rain they might absorb too much water, and possibly disturb the photosynthesis. The leaves produce the plastic like cover to let in enough water, but keep out any excess.
The birds are are incredible, the colours are vibrant and beautiful! The smallest bird is a bumble bee hummingbird. It’s only half a penny large! The largest hummingbird is a violet sabrewing who is 15cm large. The largest bird in the rainforest is a Jabiru Stork, at 1.5 meters tall. The birds are really interesting, they sleep in swaying branches to sense predators. The also watch the sun to know when to fly North and South.
The other animals include little tiny frogs, and monkeys. Though we didn’t see any, there are howler monkeys, capuchins, and spider monkeys. There are squirrels, and orange knee tarantulas, as well as scorpions. On our night hike at Baho del Tigre, we saw 2 scorpions. First we saw a “small” one than we saw a larger one😒. That was NOT a highlight.
Even though Costa Rica only covers 0.03 of the worlds surface, it contains 5-6% of the worlds biodiversity. As you can tell its much more varied than Canada’s forests. The animal species are different as well as the plants. But some are similar to Canada, like the squirrels.
~Aly