A hanging bridge stretches through the canopy of the cloud forest in Selvatura Adventure Park in Monteverde, Costa Rica. My stomach did somersaults every time I peered over the side, but I loved exploring this chilly, mist-shrouded forest.
Our guide, Pablo, teaches us about different plants during our nightwalk tour of a wildlife refuge in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Monteverde has a unique type of rainforest called a cloud forest. The high altitude, combined with high humidity, leaves the whole town perpetually blanketed in a chilly fog. It’s also a perfect climate for mosses, ferns, and orchids—there are over 500 species of orchids alone in Monteverde.
A shag-carpet caterpillar crawls up a leaf close to the forest floor. As we embarked on our night tour of the cloud forest with Pablo, he taught us that around 3% of the world’s biodiversity is found in Monteverde, making it one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet. My best guess for this caterpillar is Prothysana felderi or Tarchon felderi—both from the moth family Apatelodidae, also known as the “head-standing” moths.
Pablo stopped us with an upraised hand, motioning to the treetops with his flashlight. My mom, Renae, and her friend, Missy, made their way over to the telescope to peer at our first wildlife sighting of the night.
The tailfeathers of a Lesson’s Motmot, also known as a blue-diademed motmot, peek through the leaves, giving us just a glance of this shy bird. As excited as we were, we didn’t want to disturb his sleep, so after a quick photo, we directed our flashlights to the path ahead and continued our hike. Pablo reassured us there was much more to see.
Our flashlights scanned the brush diligently as we walked. We had a competition for the night: one point for every critter you spotted and extra points if you found a frog (our main objective of the tour). I’ve always been a bug person, so naturally I was ecstatic when I saw this katydid laying its eggs.
A few minutes later, Pablo spotted our next critter, a leaf mimic katydid. Pterochrozinae, or leaf mimic katydids, have refined their camouflage over millions of years. It’s an evolutionary survival tool that helps them evade predators. Notice how detailed this one’s camouflage is: the delicate veining of the leaf, its mottled texture—it even has a “bite mark” (the jagged cutout underneath) to make its camouflage more believable.
We approached an unusual grove of trees, where I noticed a tangled, wooden mass had wound itself all around the tree and up into the canopy. This is a strangler fig, a type of ficus that wraps its roots around its host tree, “strangling” it until it rots away. Strangler figs are host plants, too, and this one was home to a special creature. Pablo told us to turn off our flashlights, and soon we were enveloped in darkness.
In the pitch black, Pablo flipped on a small blacklight, revealing a scorpion that glowed a brilliant blue against the strangler fig. Scorpions are biofluorescent, meaning their exoskeletons can absorb ultraviolet light and re-emit it as a green-ish or blue-ish glow (not to be confused with bioluminescence, like fireflies that produce their own light). The points for this find went to our guide, Pablo, but I was still giddy to see one of my favorite arachnids in the wild.
Suddenly, in the darkness, I saw something leap through the air and land with a dull splat on a pile of leaves. At last, I had found a Brilliant Forest Frog. I crouched down and, ever so patiently, adjusted my focus to get the perfect photo. This find was important for me. Frog species are declining rapidly across the globe, falling prey to threats like climate change, pollution, and habitat loss. And although the Brilliant Forest Frog isn’t endangered, many of Costa Rica’s frog species are—globally, about 40% of amphibians are at risk of extinction. Every photo I take is an opportunity to draw attention to its conservation, and ecotourism dollars spent here mean financially supporting critical habitat.
We had one more surprise before our journey came to a close. Pablo’s telescope illuminated a green snake extending down to the forest floor- a side stripe palm pit viper. They’re known for their brilliant green color, and hunt by night through the trees or near the forest floor. This one was likely looking for its next meal. With our last creature spotted for the night, Pablo guided us back to the Monteverde Wildlife Refuge entrance.
If you have a chance, I strongly recommend you take a trip to Monteverde! It’s a beautiful, misty town with incredible biodiversity and breathtaking scenery (best viewed from the hanging bridges or ziplining head-first above the rainforest canopy). This trip was also special for me because I got to share it with my mom and her friend, Missy, who travelled all the way from Iowa to visit me during my semester abroad. I can’t think of a better trip for her first time leaving the States, and it filled me with so much joy to be able to share a part of this country that I’ve come to love during my past three months abroad.