Monteverde's Golden Toad 

The Golden Toad (only found in Monteverde) was among the first casualties of amphibian declines. Formerly abundant, it was last seen in 1989. The Golden Toad lives under the surface in little underground burrows. The Golden Toad started getting seen less and less because of global warming. The Golden Toad is the very first living thing in Monteverde to be extinct!

Monteverde Cloud Forest

A visit to this misty forest is a wonderful journey.  It spreads over 10,500 hectares of land and it holds six different life zones. The Cloud Forest, also called the fog forest, is a typically tropical or subtropical evergreen moist forest. Characterized by a high incidence of low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level. Cloud forests often have a lot of mosses covering the ground and vegetation, so sometimes they are called mossy forests. Mossy forests usually develop on tops of mountains where clouds leave moisture.

A canopy walkway disappearing into a cloud forest near Santa Elena, Costa Rica.  One of the many tourist-geared suspension bridges in the area. In Monteverde the rain forests there are more than 100 species of mammals including 5 species of cats, over 400 species of birds including 30 kinds of hummingbirds, thousands of insect species which consists of over 5000 species of moths and 2,500 species of plants and 420 kinds of orchids. The area is claimed to be one of the most outstanding wildlife refuges in the New World Tropics.