Geek out on nature at Costa Rica’s new online biodiversity portal

Biologists estimate that at least four percent of the world’s plant and animal species live in Costa Rica. Now, information on all of those species is available to anyone at the Costa Rica National Museum’s online national biodiversity portal, Ecobiosis.

The portal pulls together maps, multimedia and taxonomic information from the museum’s databases. Users can browse through different species of birds, fungi, insects, mammals, plants and even fossils. There are also descriptions of Costa Rica’s different ecosystems and an interactive map showing where certain species live.

In order to search the database effectively you need either the species’ scientific name or the common name in Spanish, but don’t worry, The Tico Times already has found both species of sloths (two-toed, three-toed), the tapir and the howler monkey for you.