Road life

Seeing road life is always better than seeing roadkill. And let's be honest, catching sight of animals as they cross the road is sometimes the only way to see them, because they blend in so well in the forest. Here are a few of the road crossings I have captured or almost-captured on film. 

 This snake is taking up one lane of the road. I'm not sure what it is, because it's hard to detect any pattern and the lighting is not great. I'll update if I find out!

Below is a coatimundi (coati, for short). Check out its tail (in the second picture). This one is probably a male, since the females and their young travel in groups. They spend a lot of time in trees--the babies are born up in the tree tops, but venture out with supervision after a few weeks. 

I thought I had a picture of a baby crocodile on the road for you, but it's so hard to see it's not even worth it. Getting photos out of a moving vehicle is notoriously hard, even when you're not trying to capture a moving animal running for its life. The best subjects are the ones who don't move quickly. Introducing the sloth, the perfect roadside photographic subject:

Sloth, you are just too cute. 

Sleeping sloth

Two-toed sloths are less common in low elevations than their three-toed counterparts (the earlier sloth video is a three-toed). You can tell them apart by their eye patches; three-toed sloths have circles around their eyes and two-toed sloths don't. Both have three claws on their hind feet; it is the front feet that sets them apart. Their claws allow them to grip tree branches and hang upside down without expending energy. Although they are not graceful walkers, sloths are excellent swimmers! Two-toed sloths are aggressive, so I avoided provoking this one. This is a sloth doing what it does best:

Wildlife spottings

I have seen a bunch of cool animals in Panama, including a jaguarundi, coatis, lots of crabs, birds, insects, spiders and sloths. Here are some photos:

This is one of my favorite animals, a three-toed sloth. They are easiest to see in Cecropia trees, though they eat many other types of leaves.

This is a green kingfisher that flew into a glass door. It was a little confused for awhile and may have had a minor concussion, but Loes nursed it back to consciousness and it was fine.

This is a Junonia evarete caterpillar. It specializes on black mangrove (Avicennia germinans) leaves during the rainy season (this photo was taken in January).

This is a hummingbird in a cashew tree. The fruit of the cashew tree is edible, but the nut must be roasted because it is toxic if eaten raw.

This is a new friend I made. =) He was wearing a collar, so I didn't take him home.
Special thanks to Sierra Flynn for taking some of these photos!