Caterpillars
Costa Rica's amazing variety of butterflies and moths of course guarantees us a similar cornucopia of
caterpillars - the larval stage of these beautiful insects.
Warning! Many caterpillars can sting you. Some are like jellyfish in that the slightest touch on the
fuzzy hairs causes a sting. My wife Karen touched a small fuzzy one with her foot by accident and said it
felt like an ant or bee sting. Other types have a barbed stinger that will harpoon your tender flesh if you
bother it. So, treat these amazing bugs with respect.
Shown here is just a tiny sampling of the species. Please send us photos of others if you have them. And
if any bugologists out there are reading this, then feel free to tell us what species these caterpillars
belong to, and we'll add that info to the site.
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| Giant green caterpillar found in Montezuma jungle. Someone told us that this is the caterpillar for the blue morpho butterfly, but we haven't confirmed it. |
Cluster of giant green caterpillars in Montezuma. |
Fuzzy brown caterpillar found in Delicias, near Montezuma. This was 4cm long |
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| Amazing fuzzy green caterpillar from Delicias - incredibly well camoflaged for hiding in the jungle. |
Small 'old man' caterpillar from Montezuma. This is the type that stung Karen's foot. |
Photo by Tania Johanning V. - Bizzarre horned caterpillar found in Delicias. It looks much like a weird slug, but it seemed to be a type of caterpillar. |
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| Strange spikey caterpillar that looked like it was made from rubber. |
Giant red, orange, yellow and black "Frangipani Sphinx Moth" caterpillars. They have a thin black whip-like tail that flicks back and
forth as they eat. Their favorite food is flora blanca (frangipani) leaves. This one doesn't sting, and I was told that when
fully grown, can be up to 10 inches long! |
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| Humungous brown caterpillar that we found crawling across our deck. It looked very much like the black and yellow one above,
and we gave it to the Mariposarium in Montezuma. Hopefully it will hatch into a moth and we'll see what it looks like. |
These caterpillars were changing color as they got bigger and older. Some of them were even half red and half green! |
Another spikey caterpillar that looked like a cactus. Photo by Adam. |
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| This is a freshly hatched moth or butterfly that wriggled out of its silky covering. However, instead of unfolding into a beautiful
flying creature, it apparently chooses to remain a shiny maggot for some time. |
This monstrous purple caterpillar was among the largest I've seen. It was found on guava tree leaves. |
Moths
Known in Costa Rica as "night witch butterflies" the following photos show only a very tiny sampling of the moths in the area. The best way to find these guys
is to put out a uv/blacklight at night. Within minutes, it will be crawling with moths and other night fliers
who are attracted to its glow. Of course, they will go towards any bright light, and especially during rainy
season anyone with outside lights will see plenty of moths.
The best moth to find, which I have yet to see, is the legendary "lanternfly" which some people call the
"alligator head moth". It's called the lanternfly because it has a large, bulbous reptilian-looking head, and
its original discovered found one that had a phosphorescent glow coming from it, possibly from fungus, so he
thought it glowed. However, usually this moth doesn't glow. Someone please send us a photo of one.
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| Camoflaged leaf-shaped moth. Even close-up this moth still looks like a leaf. 2 inch wingspan |
A giant yellow moth with a very fat body. The wingspan was 5 or 6 inches. |
Huge night moth, well camoflaged to sit hidden on tree bark. |
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| Another giant night moth with purple on its wings. |
Very large moth with an interesting wing shape. |
Click/snap moth which is active during the day, usually in pairs on a single tree.
They make a loud snapping/clicking sound when they flutter about, which is very distinctive. |
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| The wookie moth. This weird furry guy was about 1.5 inches long. |
A fuzzy moth about 1.5 inches long. It only had four legs and even from fairly close,
it looked like just a piece of wood or a leaf. |
Close-up of the Fuzzy Moth. It has amazing antennae. |
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| A moth seen in Montezuma with a very high contrast design, useful for camoflage. |
This brightly colored moth came out at dusk and was extremely fast. I was very lucky to
be able to take a photo of it after I saw it land on a leaf. Its wings were narrow and it sat still only for a moment. |
I have to admit that we caught this moth, which seemed near death, and put it on the flower for the photo. |
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| A fuzzy spotted moth, about one inch wide, seen in Montezuma. |
This was a remarkable moth, seen only at night feeding on these flowers. It was quite large and at first we thought it was
a hummingbird. We could only tell what it was by looking at this flash photo. Known as a "Hawk Moth", they feed on nectar at night, from large white flowers. Did you know that flowers that are white are colored that way so they can be pollinated at night, and thus more easily seen in low light? |
Another wookie-like moth that reminded me of Chewbacca |
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| A pretty golden-yellow moth with spots. |
A lanternfly, also known as an alligator-head moth. This unusual species was mis-named because the first species found was dead, and had phosphorescent material glowing on its head. The person who found it mistakenly assumed that it was a glowing insect. |
Butterflies
Costa Rica has many butterfly parks where you can go to see butterflies of all colors and shapes. The most
beautiful I think is the blue morpho, which isn't actually blue, but grey. The blue color on its wings comes from very
fine lines which make a diffraction grating, creating an electric blue color that looks very fairy-like. I've
been told that there are many types of blue morphos, the largest in Costa Rica is in the Osa Peninsula.
I haven't been very successful in photographing butterflies, because many types seldom stay still and I don't
want to net or kill them for a photo. Also, many of them, such as the blue morpho, fold their wings with they
do sit still.
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| Medium sized blue morpho with folded, torn wings. Good luck getting a photo of
its wings showing blue without catching or killing it! |
Large yellow butterfly found in Delicias, Montezuma. |
A brown butterfly with orange bars. This one was dead when I found it. |
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| This is a typical orange butterfly, commonly seen fluttering around flowers in the garden. |
This was the prettiest butterfly I've seen in Costa Rica. It looked like a faerie or sprite, and was eating mangoes. |
A brown butterfly that landed on my hand while I was holding the camera. |
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| A common butterfly in Montezuma - black with yellow, red, and white spots. |
A metallic green butterfly with a long tail - these move very quickly. |
A common orange and black butterfly. |
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| This butterfly is mostly black, with red/pink markings on the tail. |
Dragonflies
Dragonflies are usually a great blessing to have near your home because many types eat mosquitos. At our house, they
show up every day around dusk, then disappear shortly afterwards. I've often wondered where they go during the rest of
the day.
This part of Costa Rica has a huge variety of dragonflies. I've seen nearly every color of the rainbow within a few kilometers
of Montezuma.
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| A group of electric blue dragonflies live in the Quebrada Buena Vista, near a waterfall. I've
often seen dragonflies at waterfalls, not just in Costa Rica, but in other countries. I wonder if the water stirs up something
that they like to eat. |
This beautiful fuscia dragonfly lives just a few meters behind the beach in Santa Teresa / Playa Hermosa. |
This black dragonfly's winds are only partially transparent, making it look very strange when it
flies, almost like a miniature helicopter. |
Spiders
The good news is that none of Costa Rica's thousands of spider species are dangerous - unlike the U.S. which
has three dangerous species - black widow, brown recluse, and the dreaded hobo spider. However, some still
can and will bite if disturbed.
One type of spider apparently has acid urine and if you're unlucky you may wake up one morning with burn spots
from this liquid dropped onto you. My wife and I have had it happen twice. The 'acid' is actually a poison
which slowly kills the skin and so the burn develops over a few days and doesn't really hurt. After a while,
it just heals.
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| This amazing 'glass' spider was so transparent that we could easily see the blood
pumping through its insides. It was also missing two legs, which apparently didn't bother it much. |
There are many types of large colorful web spiders in Costa Rica, known in Florida
as 'banana spiders' Supposedly they have a painful bite, but I've bumped into them many times and never been bitten. |
This one in the photo has just caught a very large cicada.
This green spider was almost invisible, waiting for prey on our basil plant. |
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| I apologize for this blurry photo. This was an ordinary giant tarantula that
we see occasionally in Costa Rica. There are other varieties around with more color, especially red. Apparently
you can pick them up and they don't bite unless they feel threatened. So far, I've only let them walk across
my hand. |
This was a large jumping wolf spider found on beach logs. It was around 1/2" long.
| This water spider is 3-4" in diameter and can walk on top of water. |
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| This is the front side of the alien spider, which has an almost pearlized sheen
to part of its skin. You can also see the lightning bolt in its web, no doubt recently shot from his energy cannon. |
Closup of the back of the alien. Wow, this looks like an alien in two different ways
if you look carefully, both of them are pretty scary. This is definite proof that "they" are here. |
Photo by Amanda. This spider is very similar to the "alien spider" but with slightly different coloration.
Like the other, its body had a metallic/pearl sheen. This was in Santa Teresa. |
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| Photo by Karen McCabe. This was a very unusual site - a group of baby spiders forming a line and walking
across the yard near our house like ants. |
On a typical night coming home from somewhere, we saw this hand-sized beast on the side of our house, no doubt
looking for a way in so he could feed on our blood. Once again, I chickened out and failed to pick him up. One of these days I'll do it... |
Small Tarantula found in our house. |
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| Nest of Daddy Longlegs |
A yellow Crab Spider. Bright colors on spiders often warn predators of a poisonous bite, and locals say this one has a painful one. |
White Crab Spider |
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| Brightly colored spider with two large spikes. |
This was a very distinctively colored spider. It has a white stripe all along its back, and bright orange on the belly. It was fairly large, and had a beautiful flat, classically-designed web. |
Beetles
Costa Rica has one of the world's largest insects, the rhinocerous beetle, which have been seen in Montezuma,
but not yet by me. Their larvae live in large rotten logs.
Most beetles are harmless, and the metallic scarab beetles are especially fun to pick up and play with.
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| This beautiful beetle had a wonderful 'tribal' pattern on its shell. |
This large beetle was two inches long. It had big mandibles that looked like
they could inflict a painful pinch, so I didn't pick it up.
| A large beetle with big pinchers and long antennae that I found during the daytime. |
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| Metallic beetles mating in Cabuya. |
This cute beetle was just under one inch long. |
A golden metallic scarab beetle. These are approximately 1.5" long. They
don't bite and are fairly common. It feels cool to let them walk around on your hands. They have prickly toes. |
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| Medium-sized black beetle-bug with a long nose and strangely shaped wings. |
Glowing Bugs
There are many types of glowing instects with lights that you can see at night. Along with several colors
of fireflies, I've been able to find two species of amazing glowing bugs. In Monteverde, we saw one called
a "click beetle" which has two lights on the front like a car's headlights, but we don't have them in the
Montezuma area.
In addition to these species, you can often find what looks like small, thin glowing centipedes, which I've
been told are the larval stage of fireflies. They have a single light on their forehead that doesn't flash,
and can be found crawling around the jungle floor during rainy season at night.
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| This large glowing beetle is an inch long. At night, you can find them by
the large glow coming from their abdomen. If you move your hand near them, they will glow in warning. |
The backside of this large glowing beetle has five individual glow spots, easily seen
in daylight in this photo.
| This is one of the weirdest bugs around. As it walks, it curls its tail underneath
repeatedly, unlike any other creature I've ever seen. We discovered that at night it has a glowing light on
its head that flashes on and off. From the shape of its body and legs, I suspect that it's not an insect at
all, but is a type of crustacean, like a sow bug "roly-poly" that we have in the U.S. |
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| The most amazing bug in Costa Rica! The click beetle has two glowing lights on its head that are so bright, you can pick them up and read using the light. The lights don't blink, but the glow intensifies as a warning. If the beetle gets scared enough, it will snap itself in a way that makes it jump out of your hand, and a loud noise will scare the crap out of you. I first saw these at night in Monteverde and was thrilled to discover that they also live in Montezuma. |
Scary Bugs
To some people, all insects and spiders are scary, but a few are particularly scary because they have a painful bite or sting,
or in the case of the whip scorpion, they appear to be very dangerous (but arent'). None of the bugs in this section are
actually dangerous (the most dangerous spiders and scorpions live in the United States).
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| I first saw this scary bug at the insect museum in Monteverde, and it's called a Dobsonfly. This is the female, which apparently can give a nasty pinch with its mandibles. The male has much scarier, longer mandibles which can't bite. This insect is very large... at least 2 1/2 inches long. Thanks to Jessica for remembering the right name for it. |
You can't see it from the photo, but the legs of this 2-inch centipede were actually a dark
blue. I couldn't tell if this type of centipede would bite or not. |
According to the insect museum in Monteverde, there are 12 types of scorpions in Costa Rica,
and they had samples of all of them. One was black, and the other 11 were various shades of brown that all looked almost
alike to me. They said that none of them were dangerous, but one of the brown ones had a very painful sting. The others
had a sting that was not much worse than a bee or wasp. |
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| Is this a "mal de chaga" - a dangerous bug that supposedly injects bacteria into you when it bites, which can
attack your heart and cause a heart attack a few years later. This is not a mal de chaga, but it looks sort of like one. Hopefully I won't find one in the Montezuma area to take a photo of, because this is the most dangerous bug in Costa Rica. |
A fairly large centipede that looks like it could bite - I didn't want to find out. |
The tailless whipscorpion is huge - nearly the size of a full grown tarantula, and it looks like it would deliver a nasty
bite. However, it is supposedly harmless, and I picked one up and found it didn't bite me. |
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| This huge bug, which was at least 5 inches long, was waiting for us when we returned home one night. I've only seen it once. |
This is the same bug, with all kinds of crazy wings out. From the looks of it, you wouldn't even know it had all those wings folded
up in there, and I was lucky to catch this photo when the camera flashed. |
This creepy little big scuttled around the floor and looked like some type of runty scorpion. Ian from Southern California identified this as a 'Solipugid', also known as a Sun Spider, Wind Scorpion, or Camel Spider. They can kill and eat scorpions, but are not venemous. |
Miscellaneous
This last section is for everything else for which we don't have enough good photos to create separate categories.
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| I've only seen red army ants in Montezuma once. I don't really know if they're
even real army ants, but they behaved like them in that they were invading an area in mass. |
This tiny preying mantis at first glance looks just like an ant, which may be
a type of defense mechanism. |
These huge aphids may not really be aphids, but they looked like them to
me. |
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| This colorful bug looked like a cross between a grasshopper and a moth. |
An ordinary Katydid, always an amazing insect because it looks so much like
a leaf. Our cat loves to eat them. |
This was a very unusual type of preying mantis that we seldom see. It varied
from the usual type in that it had a leaf-shape camoflage. |
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| I have to admit that this was dead when I found it. I haven't seen one alive yet. |
I'm not sure that these are actually stink bugs, but they had the classic shape. I
haven't smelled one yet, but I witnessed my cat get blasted by a differnt type of stink bug in our house, and she jumped back and ran across the room
from it making weird snuffling noises. |
The incredible walking stick. These are almost impossible to find they're so
well camoflaged. Our friend Jacob found one in Montezuma well over a foot long. |
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| This is a second type of walking stick. It was twice as long as the other, yet thinner and
didn't have those bright green legs. It had a 7-8" body length. |
Strange weirdly shaped bug. |
photo by Tania Johanning V. - Beach grasshopper on Tania's hand. |
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| This ugly bug looks like it would definitely bite, but it didn't. I put it on the flower for
the photo, which isn't its natural habitat. |
Large colorful bumblebee. |
Termite mounds in the trees are a common site in Costa Rica, often mistaken for sleeping
howler monkeys. The termites build a covered road to protect themselves, which extends down their nest tree to the ground, then
through the ground and then up onto another tree which has dead branches for their feast. |
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| Orange and black bug in Montezuma. The body is approximately one inch long. |
We were excited to find these thorn bugs, having only seen them in photos or on the Discovery Channel. They were all on a single
stem of a Guanacaste tree seedling. We wondered if this was a momma and babies, or a male and his harem, or a female with suitors? If a bugologist out there
is reading this, please let me know. |
These were vividly metallic blue wasps, congregating for an unknown reason. There are so many types of wasps here, and yet neither
my wife or I has ever been stung, despite several nests on our deck. |
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| This remarkably beautiful bug was approximately two inches long. |
This insect looked like a fly, but it could have been a bee. It was the most metallic bug I've ever seen. |
This interesting little guy had bits of all kinds of stuff stuck on his back, and crawled around slowly, very well disguised as a
dust-bunny. |
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| This photo shows two differnt bugs that happened to be in the same spot. The white one looks like some kind of strange undersea
creature. I have no idea what it is. |
This is a small totally bizarre-looking bug photographed by Adam. |
I love preying mantises, and so I had to show another photo of one. |
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| This was a giant cricket or grasshopper that was photographed while it was on glass, so we could clearly see its spotted belly. |
I found this bug in Malpais on the door of my office. Its antennae were unusually long. |
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