Wildlife

There's rich wildlife here, more than 430 species of birds (saw toucans with huge orange cartoon beaks), 70 species of mammals (eg pumas, tapirs, capuchin and howler monkeys) and friendly coati with their spriped tails. We took a long walk through the jungle and saw electric blue butterflies the size of our hand and an alarmingly large lizard. The spiders were big, too, and as we walked along we sometimes collided with their webs and had to fight to get them off. If someone had seen us from a distance they'd have thought we were having some strange fit! One monster spider (with segmented limbs ie forearm, upper arm and deltoid) was devouring a poor flapping butterfly. Younger sis wanted to catapult a stone at it like Denis the Menace and break the web but older sis squeezed her arm restrainingly and said, "the spiders have a right to be here, too, and they're an important part of the ecosystem"....and we moved gently on.