Not all the diversity of a forest is easy to see. Today I want to show you some of the smaller and more elusive creatures we’ve found over the last few weeks in El Yunque. First, here’s one of the forest’s more common but hard-to-see species. This is the coquí frog, Eleutherodactylus coqui. Its loud…

I’d like to introduce you to a very distinctive tree, straight out of Dr. Seuss. In the Puerto Rican rainforest here, you will often see Cecropia schreberiana (Urticaceae) with its long spindly branches and ringed white trunk spiraling up to the highest points of the canopy. It reminds me of a long metal hose with…