Per request, one more from my Costa Rica trip from a few years ago. This three-toed sloth was giving himself a nice — albeit slow and deliberate — scratch to the midsection with those big claws. The sun had almost set and I had to use a tripod and a very slow shutter speed of 1/20th of a second, but with the way that these guys move, it wasn’t a problem getting sharp focus.

Tamanduas are a genus of anteater. The southern tamandua ranges throughout South America, while the northern lives all the way up into Mexico. This guy was photographed in Corcovado National Park in southwestern Costa Rica. I took several long hikes through the rainforest of Corcovado and actually saw quite a few tamanduas — sometimes in trees and sometimes on the ground.  Interesting fact of the day: they don’t have teeth, but instead rely on their powerful gizzard to break down food — mainly termites and ants.

This is another one from Costa Rica. I was photographing the local waterfall at Tiskita when I saw this damsel fly sitting on a leaf. It was very cooperative and waited patiently while I changed lenses to get a macro point of view.

I’m not sure of the exact species on this hummingbird, but it’s just one of the many that I saw at the Tiskita Lodge in Pavones, Costa Rica. The flower the hummingbird is perched upon, however, is clearly a species of heliconia.

Agouti’s are native to Central America and resemble guinea pigs, but they are larger and with longer legs. This one was photographed early one morning in Pavones, Costa Rica. They are fairly common in rain forests and I saw quite a few while hiking throughout several areas of Costa Rica.

This sexy beast is a thee-toed sloth. It graced my presence in a place called Pavones in south western Costa Rica, not too far from the Panama border. Sloths move so slow that algae easily grows on their fur (moths also like to live in there). The algae shares a symbiotic relationship with the sloth — the sloth providing a home for the algae and the algae providing camouflage for the sloth.

Back to Costa Rica for today’s photo of the day. These two squirrel monkeys were photographed just outside the lodge that I was staying at in Pavones, near the Panama border. Squirrel monkeys travel in large troops, sometimes up to 500. They are very small, growing to just about 13 inches (not including the tail) and weighing just 2 and a half pounds. Falcons and eagles are their main predators, but the fact that they travel in such large groups enables them to fend off most attacks. And just in case you needed one more wikipedia interesting fact of the day — “Female squirrel monkeys have a pseudo penis that they use to display dominance over smaller monkeys, in much the same way the male squirrel monkeys display their dominance.” Just in case you were wondering.

This coati was sniffing around in the fruit orchards at Tiskita Lodge in southwestern Costa Rica. With over a hundred different varieties of fruit that bloom throughout the year, the orchards are a magnet for the area wildlife. Those are starfruit hanging from the tree. The coati was feasting on the ones that had fallen on the ground. I also ate my fair share of starfruit, as well as many other kinds of fruit, on this trip.

This was a pretty good fight for a while. At one point the lizard even made a nice move and had the snake in its grip. Eventually, however, the snake was too much for the lizard to handle. After about a ten minute struggle, the snake swallowed the lizard whole in a couple of seconds. This was taken in Corcovado National Park on the Osa Peninsula in southwest Costa Rica.

In all my travels, Tiskita Lodge in Pavones, Costa Rica was one of my favorite places to stay. Down near the Panama border, it’s not easy to get to, but well worth the effort once you do. I probably saw a greater variety of wildlife just walking around the grounds of the lodge than I’ve seen anywhere else. I was there for four days, and each afternoon a small troop of squirrel monkeys would make an appearance just outside my room to feed on the various fruiting trees. They were just one of the many species that I could literally photograph from the hammock on my front porch.