Animals on the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica
| Index and Dictionary | Mammals | Birds | Insects | Others |
The animals you are most likely to see all the time and everywhere are Ants of every size and speciality.
From their base camp "Army Ants" undertake raids into the neighbourhoods, killing and taking home insects and small animals. Their main targets are the nests of other ant tribes whose eggs they steal to feed on their own offspring. Should they visit your house just leave them alone to do their work: when they are finished, you may enjoy a home which is absolutely bug free.
House owners detest them.
Termites are incredibly fast in building
their hidden paths to and inside their favourite dish: wood.
But they neither reject a good book or your clothes.
This is no wasp nest, but a termite's cardboard house.
A colony can comprise up to 100,000 workers with a sole reproductive king and queen.
Even more big and complex are colonies of leaf-cutting ants which can count several million members. You believe this when wandering through a dense jungle and suddenly arrive at a bright clearing with their mounds. In their subterrainean homes they cultivate a special, breadlike fungus, which they consume.
