Franas and Monsters

David: In some circles of people Costa Rica is very well known for it’s abundance of beautiful frogs that can be found throughout the country. In other circles some do not even know that frogs are amphibians. I’m going to hope that you are in a circle somewhere in the middle. Frogs are amphibians and a biologist who specializes in amphibians and reptiles is a herpetologist. And if you are our niece Gracelyn, you mix Spanish and English and call them “franas.”

Sarah and I had the privilege of joining the Cossel family on their Caribbean quest for herps (amphibians and reptiles). We spent three nights with them on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica; I say nights because the night time is the right time for many spectacular herps. Two of our three nights were homeruns. The other just involved barking dogs, roosters crowing, and hot humid air.

One of our nights was spent at the Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center. We received a private tour from one of Costa Rican’s leading frog experts. It was a five hour night hike from 9 pm to 2 am. All together we saw 11 frog species, 1 salamander, and 1 snake. Alas, it wasn’t a poisonous snake like Sarah was hoping for, it was one called a Cat-eyed Snake. The pictures here are of the Red-eyed Tree Frog, Dwarf Glass Frog, Lemur Leaf Frog, and Strawberry Poison Dart Frog. It was an exhausting yet extremely rewarding night.

Our other night of high adventure that ended in a huge success was a night searching the beaches of Gandoca looking for nesting Leatherback turtles. These turtles are the ones that can be as big as a VW Bug and are EXTREMELY endangered. Most biologists believe that they will go extinct within a decade. We found ourselves a 45 minute boat ride into the southern parts of Manzanillo-Gandoca National Wildlife Refuge and we set up for the night at a tiny little motel at the only restaurant in Gandoca. This stretch of beach is a hot spot for nesting Leatherbacks at this time of the year. So, at 8 pm we took off with a local guide with high hopes of seeing one of these prehistoric monsters instinctively carrying out nesting behavior that has been happening for many, many years. The anticipation didn’t have to build long because 30 minutes into walking along the beach we found one who was already digging her hole. She was about five feet long and four feet in width. Impressive. We stayed with her and watched the entire process. One thing that impressed me was how skillful she was with the tip of her three-foot long back flippers in digging deep the small hole she would deposit her eggs. The hole had to have been at least three feet deep. One of the highlights had to be been walking back with her to the ocean and being right next to her as she scooted into the waves. The experience was awesome. John, the herpetologist, was in herp heaven, and his family was very impressed and excited. His youngest daughter was so impacted that the first thing she did upon returning to QERC was to start writing letters to her state representatives to share her experience and urge them to take action in changing fishing practices that are needlessly killing these monstrous creations before we lose them all together. Now that is a cool story.

Another worthy story is that of Sarah being attacked by and conquering the wild world of icky biting bugs. Throughout our hiking and beach combing Sarah accumulated over 150 ticks on her body in one hour, that she then picked off for the next 12 hours, and 175 sand flea bites on just one leg. She looked those ticks and fleas in their microscopic eyes and told them where they could go and how they could get there.