When you think of Costa Rican wildlife – the kind that brings the tourists – it is monkeys, sloths, and toucans that come to mind. But as an expat living in Costa Rica you soon learn there is another opposing class of wildlife here, one more likely to freak most visitors out. Leave your windows open long enough and the inside of your house can be transformed into a wonderland of bichitos as my wife calls them.
From floor to ceiling, countertop to cabinet, and maybe even flying around your living room, the sightings of these critters are as commonplace as rain in San Jose in October.
Here are 8 of my favorite:
1. Flying Langostas
Imagine a grasshopper on steroids, with wings and no sense of direction or fear of humans. I once lived in a house where opening the front door or a window was an invitation to be assaulted. They flew in at all angles and I was struck at various times in the head, face and upper and lower body.
2. Mula del diablo
The English translation for this bizarre insect is the devil’s mule. The first time I saw one I thought I was hallucinating; a twig had come to life and was walking along the edge of the sink. It looks like a thin stick with legs, which is the perfect camouflage against predators, unless they live on a diet of twigs.
3. Grillos
When they get cranking, their ear-splitting hum comes in at over 100 decibels. If you ever want to extract a confession from someone, lock them in a room where a few of these are humming together at full volume; your victim will confess to anything from Abe Lincoln’s assassination to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, just to get away from the skull-rattling shrillness.
4. Barking Gecko
I don’t mind seeing these guys in my house as they consume insects by the score. Right now I see two chilling high on the wall of my office, near the ceiling, lying in wait. But their weird barks and mini turds I can do without.
5. Hard Shell flying beetle
I don’t know the actual name for these, neither scientific nor Spanish, but they show up in my office, usually in the evenings. I will feel a sudden tickling on my foot or leg and look down to see one of these sluggish, hard shelled insects, having used my appendage as a landing spot. Once there they tend to dig in and I have to pluck them from my body and deposit them back outside.
6. Tiny ants
Not to be confused with the amazing and disciplined leaf cutters, or the biting ones that live in outdoor mounds, these miniscule ants show up en masse wherever there is the tiniest remnant of food. A drop of milk attracts hundreds. A partially unclean plate becomes an urban area for thousands. Unfortunately for these tiny ants, they end up squashed on a dishrag or washed down the sink. For these little dudes, I am Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin and Pol Pot all rolled into one.
7. Cockroaches
The mighty cockroach can live indefinitely without its head. That fact alone makes me look upon them with a mix of fear, awe and wonder. They were here before us and will be here after we have made ourselves extinct.
8. Spiders
There are over 2,000 types of spiders in Costa Rica, but only a few are considered dangerous, so the odds are that the weirdly colored tarantula hanging just outside my window is harmless.
And if the above isn’t enough, I haven’t even mentioned scorpions, snakes and bats, all of which are also here in abundance. Pura vida!
