Corn snake

Look what surprised us in the mangroves yesterday!

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. 

Animal sightings in the dry season

Greetings from Panama! It's the dry season here, so sloth sightings have been rare...they like new green leaves and there are not a ton of those out right now. Instead of sloths, I bring you the following:

 A river shrimp from the genus Macrobrachium, found in a black mangrove forest:

A satiny parrot snake, found alongside the road:

And a baby hawksbill sea turtle who washed up in a storm and is being kept at the Smithsonian station until he gets bigger. His name is Milagro, or Miracle.