Caño Island ( es, Isla del Caño) is a small

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

and biological reserve in the Bahia de Corcovado ( Corcovado Bay) in Osa,

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

. It is on the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

side of Costa Rica, west of ''Punta Llorona'' on Península de Osa. It rises steeply to a flat top of in height.

Biological reserve

Caño Island Biological Reserve ( es, Reserva Biológica Isla del Caño), is a protected area in

, managed under the

Osa Conservation Area Osa Conservation Area is an administrative area which is managed by SINAC for the purposes of conservation in Costa Rica, on the southern Pacific coast region. It contains two National Parks, and numerous Wildlife refuges and other types of natu ...

, it was created in 1976 by decree 6385-A. The island and surrounding marine area of has been established as a biological reserve, with a permanent ranger station on the island. It is a popular tourist destination for

ecotourism Ecotourism is a form of tourism involving responsible travel (using sustainable transport) to natural areas, conserving the environment, and improving the well-being of the local people. Its purpose may be to educate the traveler, to provide funds ...

such as

whale watching Whale watching is the practice of observing whales and dolphins ( cetaceans) in their natural habitat. Whale watching is mostly a recreational activity (cf. birdwatching), but it can also serve scientific and/or educational purposes.Hoyt, E. 2 ...

, 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 rays are large rays belonging to the genus ''Mobula'' (formerly its own genus ''Manta''). The larger species, '' M. birostris'', reaches in width, while the smaller, '' M. alfredi'', reaches . Both have triangular Pectoral fin#AnchPect ...

dolphins A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (t ...

false killer whale The false killer whale (''Pseudorca crassidens'') is a species of oceanic dolphin that is the only extant representative of the genus ''Pseudorca''. It is found in oceans worldwide but mainly in tropical regions. It was first described in 1846 ...

s,ANNIE. 2012
False Killer Whales
Costa Rica Scuba.com. Retrieved on August 25, 2017

sea turtles Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, ...

whales Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...

, a wide variety of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing 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. Approximately 95% of li ...

, and possibly

manatee Manatees (family Trichechidae, genus ''Trichechus'') are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. There are three accepted living species of Trichechidae, representing three of the four living species ...

s as well. The nudibranch '' Mexichromis tica'' was described from here and

Darwin Island Darwin Island (Spanish: ''Isla Darwin'') is among the smallest in the Galápagos Archipelago with an area of just . It is named in honour of English scientist Charles Darwin. With no dry landing sites, Darwin Island's main attractions are fo ...

on the

Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands (Spanish: , , ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands. They are distributed on each side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, and are part of the Republic of Ecuador ...

in 2004. 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.

Archaeology

Evidence of

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

human activity on the island is substantial, with some of the most interesting artifacts being stone spheres evidently carved by early civilizations.

References

External links

Photos of Caño Island
Cano, Isla del Lighthouses in Costa Rica Nature reserves in Costa Rica Protected areas established in 1976 {{CostaRica-geo-stub

Biological reserve

Archaeology

See also

References

External links