I came to Costa Rica in 2013 for a six-month internship with GVI volunteer program in Tortugero National Park, where I gathered data on sea turtles and jaguars and was trained in species identification. As part of the program, I traveled to Cloudbridge Nature Reserve in San Gerardo de Rivas, a 700-acre cloud forest where I often went hiking in search of reptiles and amphibians.
To my surprise, I began finding species that had never before been seen in the area, including emerald glass frogs, masked tree frogs and a rare kind of salamander.
I was invited to stay at the reserve as a resident biologist for three months, and over those months, I continued to unearth species never before documented in the area, identifying them with the help of scientific tomes and taking their photographs. My dream is to someday find a red-eyed stream frog, which was recently taken off the list of extinct species. But here are some photographs of the creatures I have already stumbled on.
