Costa Rica has four species of monkeys (called monos in Spanish), three of which live in the Children’s Eternal Rainforest.  How can you tell them apart?  Here’s a photo of each and some fun facts from MCL President Mark Wainwright’s outstanding and beautifully illustrated field guide, The Mammals of Costa Rica: Mantled howler monkey (Alouatta [...]

  While the Children’s Eternal Rainforest is home to spectacular wildlife such as jaguars, tapirs, monkeys, quetzals, boa constrictors, hummingbirds and sloths, the forest hosts an even greater variety of plants, including 500 species of orchids and 800 types of trees.  These numbers are impressive, but it helps to have images to visualize this diversity. [...]

Last week when the board of Friends of the Rainforest were visiting Costa Rica they spent the night in the Children’s Eternal Rainforest at Poco Sol. Jim Wolfe, biologist, film maker and ex-board member who has a cabin nearby, put his camera out overnight near the trail from the lake down to the waterfall at [...]

by Rowan Eisner in Monteverde When you’re busy maintaining trails or patrolling for poachers in the CER every day you don’t necessarily think to tell anyone when you see an animal. But for those of us who aren’t in the forest every day it is really special and we would like to know! So Wendy [...]

  Gaudy Leaf Frog (Agalychnis callidryas)             A flower in the frangipani family The casque-headed lizard is capable of changing colors depending on its substrate. Photos by guest blogger Richard Joyce  

The area known as “Las Chutas” is on a ridge in the CER, northeast of the town of Monteverde, south of Arenal Volcano, west of the Peñas Blancas Valley, and east of San Gerardo biological station.  Forty years ago, the portion of the Caribbean slope of the Tilaran mountain range now part of the CER [...]

Dear Rainforest Friends, Recently I  returned from Costa Rica where I met with board and staff members of the Monteverde Conservation League (MCL).   There, all efforts are focused on protecting and expanding the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, as well as sharing it with others.   It’s a dedicated team! While in Monteverde I was delighted to [...]

Guest post by Richard V. Joyce Laguna Escondida (or Hidden Lagoon) lies several kilometers north of Eladio’s Refuge in the Peñas Blancas Valley. Rugged terrain and multiple river crossings mean that it can take over three hours to hike there from Eladio’s cabin. Trail-crew members, researchers and biology students are among the few people to [...]

Dear Rainforest Friends, I was going to postpone writing this blog until later, as a grand finale to the series of blogs introducing you to the various places within the CER. I changed my strategy, though, because there was a group of nature lovers who organized a hike through the CER that I just had [...]

Dear Rainforest Friends, The Three Wattled Bellbird is one of the many species throughout the world that is in serious danger of extinction. The bird has some amazing qualities, and like all other species struggling to survive in a shrinking natural world, it needs our help. Debra Hamilton and her team at the Costa Rican [...]