I spent last week on a “romantic getaway” with my girlfriend in Dominical; a small town on the Pacific coast. Like most of you on this forum, there was no way I was going to let a trip to the tropics go to waste. We stayed in an open air cabin up in the hills surrounded by secondary rainforest (i.e. re-growth), and my girlfriend – being the cool chick that she is - was happy to compromise by spending two solid days tromping around in the primary rainforest. This was in addition to my 2 hour daily morning “hike.” She’s more into the birds and mammals, but appreciates nature nonetheless.
Anyway, enjoy the pics. As always, I’m open to suggestions on animal identification.
View from our cabin
Herping
Yellow headed gecko
A striking 4 lined whiptail (most are fairly drab shades of tan and brown). I believe the deep reds and blues only show up on sexually mature males.
Juvi common basilisk. We also saw some impressively crested adult green basilisks, but I wasn’t fast enough with the camera to catch them.
Turnip tailed gecko
Bats
A beautiful 5’ bird-eating snake. Wish I had some better pics of it.
A bite from a 5’ bird-eating snake. Incredibly fast and aggressive. I almost got tagged in the face when I stopped it from escaping into the bushes.
Spectacled Caimans and an American Crocodile. We also saw a monster croc that was every bit as long as our 14’ dingy. We came right up along side it, but it dove before I could get my camera ready.
Lobster Locust found half-dead our pool.
I forget what these trees are called, but dart frogs and litter snakes love to hide in the leaf litter around their roots.
My best guess is a red-bellied litter snake. My field guide said the ones around Dominical have cream colored bellies, which this did.
