Vincent Losasso

Around five years ago after I started my camera trapping adventures through Guanacaste Wildlife Monitoring I found myself alone, deep in a forest in Guanacaste. After a two-hour hike through a tropical dry forest I slid down an embankment to a large, quickly flowing stream. The surrounding forest was brown […]

In the area of Guanacaste where my family and I have lived for the last 12 years it is almost impossible to go through a day without hearing the shrill calls of orange-chinned parakeets. They’re so common that their presence and calls could be tuned out if you’re not paying […]

Sometimes it can feel as though the time of wildlife discoveries is in the past. Sure, there are probably some insects or other tiny creatures out there that haven’t been documented, but all of the larger, more charismatic species probably have a stack of scientific papers and a few nature […]

Some animals seem perfectly designed for their environments. Dolphins’ streamlined bodies appear excellently adapted to slipping through the waves just as magnificent frigatebirds’ long wings make it look as though they could fly forever. The same could be said for today’s featured creature, the Central American spider monkey. They move through the […]

The number of camera traps I have in the field at any one moment varies with the number of projects I have. Right now, I have about 40 cameras stuck to trees around the country busily recording whichever creature happens to walk, slither, or fly by. Though I record each […]

The cuckoos are a family of birds that always pique my interest. I can hear groove-billed anis at this moment exclaiming ‘tijo, tijo…’ to each other in my backyard. They remind me of a pack of wolves the way they seem to coordinate their group efforts. The rufous-vented ground-cuckoo is a birding all-star that one can only hope […]

Nothing screams ‘I’m becoming an old man!’ like complaining about how things are different than they used to be. The fact is, my wife and I moved to the beaches of Guanacaste in 2012, and the beaches of Guanacaste in 2024 are a significantly different place. I’m tempted to say […]

Today we mee the gray hawk, a pretty bird of prey from the northern parts of Costa Rica with a nearly identical twin flying around the southern parts of the country. These birds enjoy eating animals with squirrel in their name, but hate wearing backpacks. I’ll explain. The gray hawk […]

Each species that inhabits Costa Rica’s varied landscapes lives a full life eating stuff, trying not to be eaten by stuff, and looking for the right opportunities to pass their genes on to the next generation. A few good books, some wildlife documentaries, and the proper use of a search […]

Question – What’s both diurnal and nocturnal, fossorial, insectivorous, and oviparous? Answer – the black threadsnake. What does any of that mean? Let’s find out. The black threadsnake (Epictia ater) is also known as the black blind snake in English. In Spanish, it’s called the culebra hilo de bosque seco, […]