Tirimbina--Day 3

It would seem that Tirimbina couldn't get any better, but day three just kept up the trend! We hiked across the reserve to a station on the other side. During the hike we found a Hog Nosed Pit Viper (Porthidium nasutum)! It was actually in the middle of the trail and a few of the other students stepped on it before realizing what it was. Luckily, these snakes are pretty small and not aggressive...If it were a Fer de Lance, they would have been dead :) After everyone passed by, I moved it off of the trail with a stick. It was fun to get to do a little snake wrangling again, and it was cool watching it move. A little further along the trail, we saw a turtle in a stream (Rhinoclemmys funera)! That was the first turtle I have seen here :)

We got back to thew station a little before dinner, so Dan and I went down to the pond to actually see it in the daytime :) While we were walking by the egde, we saw a little plumed basilisk (Basiliscus plumifrons) run away from us out onto a log. We stopped to look at it, and we realized that there was a long green snake on the bush right in front of us! It was about a 4 foot long Parrot Snake (Leptophis depressirostris). These snakes are notoriously aggressive, but being me, I tried to catch it :) They do a threat display where they open their mouth up really wide and try to bite. After a few minutes of Steve Irwin style snake wrangling, I finally got it behind the head, with just a small bite on my thumb :) It was such a beautiful snake! A very exciting find :)

 That night, we had a group night hike led by our professors. We went down to the river, but this time we just walked in the river :) It was a bit more extreme, and super fun! We found glass frogs along the edges and even saw a big male basilisk on a vine over the water. We also saw a cat-eyed snake (Imantodes cenchoa) on a log on the edge. We went down to the pond again and saw more cool frogs :) I caught another baby caiman and showed it to the group. They thought it was pretty cool :) When everyone went back, Dan and I stayed for one last attempt. I caught a second baby caiman and tried to use them to lure in the mother, but that failed...Dan and I decided to try to imitate the sound the babies make, and it actually worked! At one point, the caiman was only 10 feet away from Dan, staring right at him! Unfortunately, that was as close as we got. She seemed to figure out that were, in fact, were not her babies, and she lost interest...We headed back to the station, fully satisfied with our three days in Tirimbina :)

Tirimbina was an incredible 3 days! That was exactly what I have envisioned a rainforest to be ever since I was a little kid. I hope that I will be able to return someday to experience the incredible diversity we saw there!

Hog Nosed Pit Viper (Porthidium nasutum) on

the trail

Under a log after I moved him...I love their

coloration and camouflage :)