The majority of Costa Rica’s biodiversity comes in small packages.

Costa Rica’s rich ecological heritage has earned it international recognition, a booming eco-tourism industry, and a landscape that ranges from mountains to valleys, active volcanoes to oceanfront tropical forests. Residents are proud of the country’s incredible biodiversity, and tourists are delighted to discover Costa Rica’s unique wonders.

Costa Rica only boasts 0.03% of the world’s entire land area, but it is one of the 20 most biodiverse countries on the planet. With two tropical coasts and mountain ranges dotting the scenery, Costa Rica’s natural wealth includes more than 500,000 animal species, representing an incredible 4% of the world’s total species. Even more incredibly — though entirely believable for any who live or travel here — 300,000 of the country’s 500,000 species are insects.

In Ingo Wehrtmann and Jorge Cortés’s new book, the authors confirm that Costa Rica is a hotspot for world biodiversity. In fact, the Rich Coast’s biodiversity doesn’t end at its beach borders - with just 0.16% of the world’s entire ocean surface, Costa Rica is home to 3.5% of all marine species, a percentage equivalent to 6,778 identified species.

Costa Rican oceans’ predominant species are gastropods, fish, crustaceans, bivalve mollusks, seaweeds, fitoplankton, ocean worms, and sea slugs. In fact, the nation’s oceans are teeming with about 1,300 species of gastropods, or sea snails, equaling an almost unbelievable 22% of the world’s total gastropod species. Costa Rican waters are also home to more 1,000 species of fish (17% of all species in the world), more than 500 crustacean and mollusk species (9% of each), 400 seaweed and algae species (7%), 250 fitoplankton species (4.7%), 320 ocean worm species (5.4%), and 220 sea slug species (4%).

There are several less abundant species swimming Costa Rica’s waters, including marine mammals like whales, dolphins, and orcas, totaling 34 species. There are also eight sea insect species, three of which are endemic to and swim exclusively in Costa Rica’s oceans.

Of all Costa Rica’s diverse marine life, 4,754 species were identified in the Pacific Ocean, with 1,254 kilometers of coastline (779 miles), and 2,321 marine species found in the Caribbean, with 212 kilometers of shoreline (132 miles). Of the 6,778 officially identified species in both oceans, only 96 are believed endemic, or exclusively native to this area.

Though at a quick glance it may appear that the country’s Pacific coast if far more ecologically diverse, it is actually the Caribbean side that boasts a greater biodiversity: to the Pacific’s four species per square kilometer of shoreline, the Caribbean offers nine marine species. In addition to their differences, the Pacific and Caribbean coasts have 288 identified species in common, or 4% of Costa Rica’s total marine species. These shared species are likely due to the fact that more than 3 million years ago, before the appearance of Central America isthmus due to volcanic activity, this area was home to only one fluid ocean.

Costa Rica is a country of colorful birds, beautifully scented orchids, beachside rain forests, and mountaintop cloud forests, all home to thousands of plant and animal species. And with Wehrtmann and Cortés’s new research, we now know that this small Central American nation is also home to 3.5% of the world’s total marine life, just another piece of supporting evidence in Costa Rica’s growing ecological repertoire.

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Filed under: Costa Rican Wildlife on March 27th, 2008