During our 1-month field trip to Costa Rica, Carlos and I spent 20 days at a remote location called Rara Avis. It is really more of an ecolodge than a proper biological field station, but there are a few biologists who still conduct research at this site (its heyday was back in the 80's and 90's). To get there is difficult. To get in, Carlos and I rode horses and hiked the final 2 km up the mountain while our gear was brought in on a big tractor. To get out, we hiked most of the way before getting on the bumpy tractor.
Rara Avis is nice and quiet. There is no electricity (except for a generator for a couple of hours at night) and there is a lot of rain (about 8 m per year!). The elevation at Rara Avis ranges from 600 - 800 m asl and is classified as tropical premontane forest. Carlos and I collected lots of beetle and plant specimens for his project. I even made a completely new discovery of a beetle-plant interaction that I plan to write up and submit as a manuscript.
The photo mosaic above shows highlights from the trip. Here are some short descriptions for each photo by row (starting at the top and going left to right):
ROW 1: Paca skull at Plastico station, Waterfall, Mosquito net covered bed, stained glass palm, Carlos collecting plants
ROW 2: Me on the bridge, hummingbird, waterfalls, pink coral fungus, me setting a camera trap
ROW 3: Tent bats (Artibeus), Carlos and Heliconia, eyelash viper (there were TONS of these at Rara Avis), red and black weevil, a new discovery
ROW 4: Cow weevil, spotted weevil, Rolled leaf, bromeliad inflorescence, canopy
ROW 5: Mot mot, tapir skull, view of the forest, river, Erythrina fruits
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