Being in a tropical forest at night is spooky as you know there’s a chance to face up with anything. Big cats, poisonous snakes, tarantulas you name it. The latest puma spot from the area was only three months old.
We got only bright led lights with us and then into the woods. A Colt in the other hand would have felt justified at that point. But our guide Miguel took this justification away with his talent. Basically he knew the most species around and their behavior and how to spot them. We spent two hours in the forest and spotted over 10 species excluding the bugs, but unfortunately not the big cats this time. Although there was a bit scary moment as we were inspecting a scorpion with UV-light and suddenly we heard a bigger animal very close to us. At this point Miguel showed some human reflexes and was scared of what it was for a few seconds until we got the fella into the spotlight. A male White-nosed Coati who went already further from us and didn’t seem to care much about us.
A scorpion in UV-light
The real National Geography moment was when we spotted a tarantula, about a palm sized, in action. It was waiting it’s dinner at it’s door behind a leaf and we got to witness it to catch a smaller tarantula for dinner.
A tarantula waiting for dinner behind the leaf
Polar Night Escape 