Isla del Caño
Encyclopedia
Island
An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...
in the Bahia de Coronado (Coronado Bay) in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
. It is on the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
side of Costa Rica, 10 miles west of Punta Llorona on Península de Osa
Osa Peninsula
The Osa Peninsula is a peninsula located in southwestern Costa Rica, in the Puntarenas Province, on the Pacific Ocean, at . The peninsula was formed geologically by a faulting system that extends north into California....
. It rises steeply to a flat top of 123 meters in height.
It has been established as a protected national park, with a permanent ranger station on the island. It is a popular tourist destination, attracting visitors for its beaches, coral beds, and sea life. Researchers currently use the coral beds to study the factors surrounding coral death and recolonization. Marine life includes manta ray
Manta ray
The manta ray is the largest species of the rays. The largest known specimen was more than across, with a weight of about . It ranges throughout waters of the world, typically around coral reefs...
s, dolphins, sea turtles, whales, and a wide variety of fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
. The limited diversity of terrestrial fauna, however, is noticeable, with the island having less than one percent of the insect diversity of the peninsula and an absence of numerous animals native to the nearby mainland. Evidence of preColumbian human activity on the island is substantial, with some of the most interesting artifacts being stone spheres
Stone spheres of Costa Rica
The stone spheres of Costa Rica are an assortment of over three hundred petrospheres in Costa Rica, located on the Diquis Delta and on Isla del Caño. Known locally as Las Bolas, they are also called The Diquis Spheres...
evidently carved by early civilizations.