Today we went on a boat tour of the Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge in far northern CR and saw an astounding collection of creatures in the wild, including two species of monkeys (more on them below!). Here's a picture of the refuge and the Rio Frio River from our boat.
On the tour we met more awesome people -- two newlywed couples from New York and our Costa Rican guides, Julio, Diego, and Ezra. Below is a picture of our group -- Corey and Shanna (Couple #1 -- from Buffalo), Michelle and Ariel (couple #2 -- from Queens, NYC), Julio (our lead guide, with two thumbs up) and Miss O'B and I. We had lots to talk about, as our careers all connected to some combination of science, education, and/or children's mental health.
So, back to the monkeys -- we saw multiple groups of howler monkeys climbing around in trees. Julio told us a lot about them, how they live in packs with a rigid social structure where each pack is headed by an alpha male, and that they eat insects and some kinds of fruit, but not bananas as the cartoons would have you believe.
Julio induced the monkeys to howl by howling himself. Here's a picture of him howling from our boat. After he howled the alpha male would howl, and then some of the other monkeys in the group would follow suit. It was crazy!
Here's a picture of a tree with two howler monkeys in it. If you double click on the picture to make it bigger and look at the top left you will see them.
Near the end of trip we got incredibly lucky, as our driver spotted a group of endangered spider monkeys swinging in the trees. The spider monkeys are smaller and leaner than the howlers. They have long limbs and long curly tails and they move very fast from tree to tree by swinging. It was beautiful to watch. Here's a picture of a spider monkey swinging from a tree limb. If you look in the center you will see him hanging down.
In addition to monkeys we saw tons of other creatures great and small, and Miss O'B the biologist and veteran wildlife watcher will fill you in on them!
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