Costa Rica has been a destination for ecologists since at least the 1970s, well before it had ecotourism infrastructure--one of its strengths today. The attraction of Costa Rica to professional biologists was having so many different tropical habitats in a small area. Naturally, at 9 degrees north of the Equator, there is tropical rainforest. A line of mountains runs down the center of Costa Rica, so while the rainforest as sea level is always very warm, as you go up there are a whole series of fascinating very wet montane forests. Cross over the mountains and lowland rainforest is there but it is not quite the same.
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| lowland rainforest, Costa Rica |
Finally Costa Rica has dry tropical forest, a region that is very rainy half the year and rainless the rest of the year. This a climate extends along the Pacific coast of Central America, ending in Guanacaste Province, in northwestern Costa Rica. Many elements of that community are shared with Mexico and even Arizona.
I had imagined the tropical rainforest but tropical dry forest was quite unexpected.
