Vipers
Fer-de-lance as adults are terrestrial, but partially arboreal as juveniles.They inhabit moist forests but also some drier areas. They eat mammals such as opossums, and birds. Palm vipers move through trees, along vines and twigs, searching for tree frogs, lizards, and mice to eat. These snakes are often seen sunning themselves on leaves and branches.
Rattlesnakes
Tropical Rattlers are denizens of the forest floor and of more open areas. They eat primarily mammals and lizards. Like other pit-vipers (and some other snakes), they can sense the heat radiated by prey animals, which aids their foraging. Searching by heat detection probably works for both warm-blooded prey (birds, mammals) as well as cold-blooded (lizards, etc.), as long as the prey is at a higher temperature than its surroundings.
Bushmasters
Bushmasters are terrestrial snakes that feed chiefly on mammals. They are mainly nocturnal and therefore, even where common, are infrequently seen. In a recent Costa Rican study during which these snakes could be followed closely because they were affixed with radio transmitters, biologists learned that the Bushmaster diet consisted almost entirely of spiny rats, rather large rodents. Typically, a Bushmaster would lie in wait for several days or even weeks beneath a palm tree; after capturing a rat, a snake moved to a new site.
Coral Snakes
Coral Snakes. Coral snakes are usually secretive and difficult to study; consequently relatively little is known about their ecology and behaviour in the wild. They apparently forage by crawling along slowly, intermittently poking their heads into the leaf litter. They eat lizards, amphibians including, and small snakes, which they kill with their powerful venom. They are often found under rocks and logs.
Boas
Boas. Boas are mainly terrestrial but they are also good climbers, and young ones spend a good deal of time in trees. When foraging, boas apparently search for good places to wait for prey, such as in a mammal's burrow or in a tree, near fruit. The diet includes lizards, birds, and mammals, including domesticated varieties. Prey, recognized by visual, smell (chemical), or heat senses, is seized with the teeth after a rapid, open-mouth lunge. As it strikes, the boa also coils around the prey, lifting it from the ground, and then constricts, squeezing the prey. The prey cannot breathe and suffocates. When the prey stops moving, the boa swallows it whole, starting always with the head.
If you want to read about Eco-Tourism, Ecology, Behavior, Breeding and more of Costa Ricas' Fauna, we recommend to buy the Travelers' Wildlife Guide of Costa Rica by Les Beletzky (or Belesky) with beautiful illustrations by Davis Dennis. This priceless guide is our constant companion, when we travel around Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua.
To buy the complete book visit Interlink Books
The team of FlamingoLink, S.A. wishes you the best of times in our little paradise called Costa Rica.
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