Buenas noches

The main reason we went to Drake Bay was for the night tour led by Tracie the "bug lady". Despite having already taken two night tours elsewhere it was well worth the trip.

Gladiator frog - I took this one before I knew we were allowed to use a flash so it didn't come out very well - the frog was one of the most beautiful we have seen and was posing perfectly.  http://www.thenighttour.com/alien1/gladiator_treefrog.htm

Smoky jungle frog, the biggest frog in Costa Rica.  His front legs are swollen which happens to males in breeding season as well as growing spurs for fighting .

The tour started with the worlds shortest boat trip

orb spider

This click beetle was bioluminescent

A rubbish picture of a truly amazing spider, the gladiator spider

check it out in action at 2mins on this video

Tracy showed us the numerous trap door spiders hiding behind their trapdoors in this bank.

There were tonnes of trap doors on the bank, invisible to all but Tracie, however she has had 15 years to find them all.  She used the tip of a stick to lift the door flap open to reveal the spider which would indignantly tug it closed again.

Red eyed frog of 'Life on Earth' book cover fame.

A sleeping anole lizard.  We found out why they sleep exposed on these leaves.  As soon as any predator puts any weight on the leaf the anole will get tipped off to safety.

Rove beetle

leaf litter frog

Common rain frog http://www.thenighttour.com/alien1/frogs.htm

Mantis

vine snake

A vine snake, absolutely amazing, its body is triangular in cross section and it its so strong that it can anchor around a tree with its tail and stretch out horizontally onto a branch considerably further away than most snakes can reach - look how far away the guides hand is from the branch.

wolf spider

This is the same species that was introduced to Austrailia, that is now infamous as the cane toad

This random dog came and meet us at the end of the tour

The other dog owned by the cabina owners

The bus to Puerto Jimenez

We had several river crossings in the bus

Despite the bus to Puerto Jimenez from Drake bay being just over an hour we stopped after just ten mins of driving so the driver could have a sit down dinner.