This full-color field guide is an indispensable companion to the most popular neotropical ecotourism destination: Costa Rica. Featuring all the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and arthropods that one is likely to see on a trip to the rainforest (as well as those secretive creatures such as the jaguar that are difficult to glimpse), The Wildlife of Costa Rica is the guide to have when encountering trogons, tapirs, and tarantulas.
In addition to providing details for identifying animals along with interesting facts about their natural history, this guide offers tips for seeing them in the wild. Costa Rica, a peaceful nation with many and diverse animal species, is one of the best places in the world for wildlife watching and nature study. It has an excellent system of national parks and reserves, a wide choice of ecolodges, and many professionally trained tourist guides. It is possible to leave the capital city of San José and, just a few hours later, visit a high-elevation cloud forest, dense rainforest, savanna-like plain, or coastal habitat, each with a unique collection of animal species.
This new lightweight field guide provides nature enthusiasts visiting Costa Rica with the best introduction to the country’s amazing diversity of wildlife. It is the first general field guide to Costa Rica to combine the most sought-after features:
•treatment of all major phyla in the country;
•coverage of the animals most likely and most desirable to be seen;
•more than 600 detailed illustrations integrated with the text (the preferred method of animal identification in the wild);
•full species accounts including ID points, range and habitat, size, and behaviors;
•a wealth of natural history information, including more than 20 photographic natural history features; and
•tips for seeing animals.
Product Features
- Used Book in Good Condition
Great format, should have covered twice as many animals and birds. We chose this book as a single volume to take with us on a month long trip to Costa Rica. The drawings were accurate and helped us identify a lot of wildlife, however we often saw birds and mammals that were not listed in the book. It covered the most common wildlife from mammals to insects and would be a great guide for a short trip to Costa Rica. However, if you are planning an extended stay or planning on spending a lot of time looking for wildlife, I would suggest investing in individual…
This is the basic guide to take with you I recently returned from Costa Rica and found that this book was the best to give us information on a multitude of creatures. Yes, it doesn’t cover everything in detail but you can always look it up when you return (if you’re really that interested). It is a good size, good pictures and organized well. I highly recommend it. We had purchased both the separate Mammals of Costa Rica and Birds of Costa Rica but they were very heavy and we knew we didn’t want to carry them all over the country…
Great field guide for the “casual” observer This is really good book – I wanted to find a field guide resource for the various animal species, but had a hard time finding books that extended beyond birds. This one has really nice illustrations and descriptions for the “casual” observer. It’s not completely comprehensive (if it were it’d have to be a million pages long), but it was a great size and, overall, perfect for us. I was amazed at how many of these animals we saw! (It was nice to learn their names and a bit more about…