25 January 2026: Day 7, La Selva Research Station and Copearte — Road Scholar Birding in Northern Costa Rica: Tanagers to Toucans

Today we visit La Selva Biological Station, famous for tropical research and for its immense accessible biodiversity.

Founded in 1968 by the non-profit Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) “La Selva Research Station offers 1,600 hectares (nearly 4,000 acres) of well-preserved old-growth and recovering wet lowland tropical forest that abuts the Braulio Carrillo National Park. The 4 to 6 km wide forested corridor that connects La Selva at 35 m above sea level to the Barva Volcano at 2,906 m is one of the best-preserved elevational gradients in the tropics.” — quoted from La Selva Research Station (OTS)

The map of La Selva on the left shows the rapid elevation change from lowlands (orange) to highlands (blue). The map on the right shows a few of the main trails.

The variety of habitats stacked within such a small area makes for huge biodiversity with “more than 2,077 species of plants; 125 species of mammals (72 of them bats); 470 species of birds; 48 amphibian species; 87 species of reptiles; 45 species of freshwater fish; and tens of thousands of insects, arachnids, and other arthropods.” — quoted from La Selva Research Station (OTS)

La Selva is not just about birds.  It’s a very active research station.

“Recognized internationally as one of the most productive field stations in the world for tropical forest research and peer-reviewed publications, La Selva hosts approximately 300 scientists and 100 university courses every year.  Research on site results in about 240 scientific papers published per year.” — paraphrased from Wikipedia

I am looking forward to seeing:

Slaty-tailed Trogon (Trogon massena)

Graceful black-throated trogon (Trogon tenellus) … Not just a black-throated trogon, this one is “graceful.”

Yellow-throated toucan (Ramphastos ambiguus)

Snowy Cotinga (Carpodectes nitidus)

And so much more!

Just a few of La Selva’s thousands of species are shown in the video below.

I was able to identify only a few of the species in the video. This table is incomplete, so if you know a species I didn’t identify please leave a comment.

Selected species in the video	Click to see a photo of the animal
Coati	Looks like a long-tailed raccoon; it’s related to raccoons
Iguana	Green iguana, males are orange-ish
Strawberry blue jeans frog	A poison dart frog, the most toxic member of its genus
Lineated woodpecker	Looks like a fancy pileated woodpecker — a close relative
Leaf cutter ants	carrying leaves
Walking stick (insect)	don’t know which species
Ringed kingfisher	Largest kingfisher in the Americas
Three-toed sloth	with baby
Proboscis bats	Bats cling to ceiling and look like leaves
Peccary	In North American they are called javalina
Yellow-throated toucan	Handsome bird
Crested guan	red throat stands out