Original subtitles

We're going to be setting up a new camera

trap to see if we can get some of the Costa Rican mammal

species on camera. What!

For real, are you kidding?

- No, look. - No way.

Oh, my gosh!

Yes!

This has been such an epic day!

Love you Costa Rica.

It is our first day out in the Costa Rican rainforest.

I personally haven't been here in almost 2 and 1/2 years.

And we're doing an initial scout mission right now.

But what's unique about this mission,

is we're going to be setting up a new camera trap that Mario is

testing to see if we can get some

of the Costa Rican mammal species that

live on this reserve on camera.

This is a Mario centric episode.

This is your day, buddy.

Oh, this is my day?

This is your day.

Man, funny.

Why am I stuck carrying everything?

Don't you have a couple free hands.

I do.

I have to carry the snake hook.

Oh.

To keep us safe just in case

something crazy happens. - Got you.

I noticed you've got

a pretty cool shirt on though.

Oh, yeah.

Well let me got a shot of this.

This is your new Costa Rican rainforest biome t-shirt.

Well, I was very excited to actually wear

this shirt in Costa Rica because it was inspired,

of course, by the jungles here.

So there you go.

Later on, we'll get some cool shots that maybe

will grace the page of Esquire.

I don't know.

Let's find a good spot that is hopefully

going to get us the unbelievable shot of a Costa Rican mammal.

I think I like this spot and I'll explain why.

So we've got a trail that's going down to the stream

and then it curves up continues in that direction.

Trails are great for people to walk

on because well, it creates the path of least resistance.

Well, guess what?

Animals like that too.

So this spot right here, I think it's leveled enough so if we

position the camera trap right here aiming in this direction

of the trail, we have a chance of an animal coming up

triggering it here or if the animal's

coming down to potentially go to the stream to drink.

So I think this is a spot.

OK, with any luck,

we'll catch something pretty cool on camera.

All right, let's do it.

Set it up.

So this is a custom built housing by Camtraptions, that

is the company that actually sent us

and designed these camera traps and housings.

This thing is awesome.

We're going to put an expensive camera in here

and I'm going to have no worries at all that it's going to get

destroyed by the environment.

This is watertight, this is bug tight.

So we put the camera in here and it's going

to be as protected as possible.

All right, Coyote. - Good?

I need the camera.

Camera.

There it is.

What?

Why is it in a Ziploc bag?

In case it rains.

It's not in the housing yet, so I wanted

to make sure it was protected.

But I told you to protect it, like cushion it.

I mean, that's not going to cushion off camera.

Well, I didn't pounce it around too much.

I double checked it though, to make sure that it still works.

It smells like-- did you have like cookies or something?

I did.

Oh, great.

Thanks.

Now this is the brains of the operation here.

This is the PIR Camtraptions sensor

which is basically an infrared sensor that detects,

well, heat off of animals.

Basically, will detect if something passes

by with a different ambient temperature-- body temperature,

and it's going to actually trigger

the camera to take an image.

The camera itself will then trigger the flashes to, well,

illuminate the subject.

We have several different programs that we programmed

into this that allows this to only take pictures at night

because most of the mammals here in Costa Rica are, of course,

nocturnal.

Well, check this out.

That's me.

That was us last night practicing the settings.

So we used Coyote as a subject.

All right, Mario, what's the next step?

The next step, one of the most important, of course,

is positioning the sensor.

So you have to actually

have something come right in front of this for the camera

to set off.

Yeah, so imagine there is an invisible beam

that's being let out.

And that beam needs to be triggered,

only that beam is simply just detecting

heat infrared radiation.

Camera is officially on.

I've got a transmitter and a receiver

connected to this camera.

What I'm going to do for now, is close this up.

All right, our next step is the flashes.

But this is one of the most important parts, isn't it?

This is certainly one of the most important parts

because at night if you don't have light, well,

you're not going to capture anything.

So we've got these two flash units.

Now, here's the cool part.

We have a housing for the camera to protect it from the rain

but there was no existing housing for the flashes.

And once again, this is a very important

aspect of camera traps.

So our very own Trento, he created this amazing housing.

What is this, to keep the flash out of the environment?

- Yeah. - Here you go, Trent.

Why don't you go ahead and put one in there.

So typically, Mario, they're in PVC pipes or bags.

So this here is a sealed front glass.

And then when we open this here.

We have a complete O-ring in here, just like the box

and it seals it completely.

So they slip right in.

And where did this come from?

So I designed these from the bottom-up, every single

piece and then 3D printed them.

So believe it or not, every single piece

including this front glass is all 3D printed.

So it is an exact fit.

And then we make sure the seal is there.

Put our clip on.

Lock it down.

And now it is waterproof.

Very cool.

That's amazing.

We set it and now we forget it.

OK, Mario's camera trap is officially set.

And we will leave that there for a total of six days

and then return to see if we've caught any animals on camera.

It's important that we don't come back down into this area

and disturb it too much that'll give us the better

chance of something not picking up our scent

and hopefully, we will get something cool.

Will it be a jaguar or will it be

an ocelot, anything is possible out here

in the jungles of Costa Rica.

OK, guys.

It's been six days since the camera trap has been

out waiting for our return.

Now, all we can do is make the long hike

down and cross our fingers.

OK, everything is in place.

Clearly, it is not taking pictures.

That's good because we only programmed it to take pictures

at night.

The burrow.

That looks like there's less leaves around this.

I wonder if something came out of there, a mammal or something

like that and maybe scurried around in front of this.

This is it.

I mean, should I just go for it?

Go for it man.

It's like Christmas.

This is your big present.

Is there anything on that memory card?

It's either going to be a melanistic jaguar.

OK, so the camera housing worked flawlessly.

Is the camera actually still on?

It is.

OK, so the battery didn't die?

Battery did not die.

That's one good step.

OK, ready?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, my God.

What?

Oh, my God.

For real?

If there's really something there.

Dude, we got an ocelot. What?

For real, are you kidding?

No, look.

We got an ocelot.

No way

Oh, my gosh!

COYOTE PETERSON AND MARIO That is an ocelot!

Oh, my gosh.

Dude, that is an amazing picture.

Hold on a second.

That's an ocelot.

Oh, we got an ocelot on the camera!

Are you kidding me?

Dude, it stays in front here for a little bit.

It's like investigating.

Oh, that's a smoky jungle frog.

What?

That little burrow.

Smoky jungle frog came out of here?

Yeah, look.

It's a little smoky jungle frog.

OK, so an ocelot and a smoky jungle frog so far.

This is getting better and better.

We got the ocelot again. Again?

Yeah. No way!

Hold on, let me see.

We got him leaving.

Oh, he came like back down the trail.

That's a male.

Oh, yeah.

There is this ocelot berries.

And that's it. That's it?

That's it.

Oh, dude.

An ocelot.

Boom.

Wow.

Everything worked.

I cannot believe it.

I mean, it's not a melanistic jaguar but that's

kind of like one in a zillion.

But an ocelot is like the next best

thing we could have gotten.

I cannot believe that.

An ocelot.

What are you feeling right now?

The camera trap worked.

Tell us about it.

I feel, I guess a sense of relief

that our hard work paid off.

And it worked.

And of course, Camtraptions did their part, right?

Everything worked perfectly from their systems.

And we have the proof of an ocelot.

Wow.

Unbelievable.

We've got an episode.

Do you know what would be cool?

What?

What if we print out a few of these,

give it away to the audience?

Ooh, I like where you're going with that.

Let's get ourselves composed, we'll do a proper outro.

Yes! Yeah!

We got an ocelot, guys.

This has been such an epic day!

Love you Costa Rica.

Man, that's awesome.

What's going on Coyote pack?

Right now we're on location in Cleveland, Texas,

staying at the Chain of Lakes Resort.

We thought it'd be really cool to go out and explore

the grounds at night, to see how many creatures we could find.

We've got Mario behind the light.

Hey, Mario.

Hey.

We've got Mark, right there behind the camera as usual

Hey, guys.

And if you guys out there watching already,

we're going to head off and see what we can find.

I've got a net, I've got my snake hook,

and anything is possible.

You ready? Let's do it.

OK, let's go.

Snake!

Snake!

Snake!

Wow.

Got it.

Oh, you got it. - Got it.

Wow. - Yes!

Oh, my God.

Holy!

Oh, there's another little gecko right there.

Tiny bird.

There's one. - Where?

It went off. Right there.

Right there.

Oh, you're right.

Look at that.

Good spotting, Mario. Oh, that's a nice one.

That's a big one.

Yeah, it's probably sleeping, so as long as I'm pretty quiet--

Got him! Yes!

Nice!

Whoa, don't fall off the edge, Coyote.

Now, look at that.

Now this one can give you a pretty good bite.

Oh, that is good size.

All right, coming back.

Yeah.

Oh, super cool.

Look at that.

Now we've done an episode before on brown anoles,

but the green anole is not invasive here in Texas.

This is a naturally occurring species.

Look at that.

It's actually changing color in my fingers.

Ow, uh!

Look at that.

Reached great around the side and grabbed on to my finger.

Now, the gecko bit me and those teeth

were too small to break skin.

I don' think this guy is going to break skin but,

ooh, that does hurt a little bit.

Hold on.

Just like that.

Oh, and this one's beautiful. Look at that dulap.

Oh, that dulap.

Oh, wait for it.

Oh, how pretty is that.

That is so cool.

Now I don't know if you can see there

in your camera, Mark, look at the blue colouration

around the side of the eyes.

That is my favorite feature of the green anole.

All right, so let him go.

Great, I'm going to climb back under there.

All right.

There he goes. And off he goes.

All right.

All right.

You know what?

At this juncture, I think we should head away from the lodge

and off into the darkness, and see what we can find out there.

Are you guys ready? Let's do it.

All right.

Coyote, why do they call this place Chain-O-Lakes?

That's a great question.

Well, we are literally staying in an area

that is a bunch of lakes tied together

by little pieces of land.

This is perfect because you'll find

aquatic and nonaquatic species both living in the same areas.

What I want to do now is actually get away

from the lodge and head off into the darkness

to see what we can find. All right, let's do it.

Flashlights on.

Oh, there's a turtle.

That's a pretty deep in there.

Are you going to get in there?

Oh! Got it!

Got it!

Wow, you went all the way in.

Talk about going for the gold.

Wow.

Look at that.

Hold on, face full of water.

That is a razorback musk turtle.

Oh, he is musky.

Ow, he stinks.

Soaking wet.

Look at that, his little face.

Looks like a little snapping turtle.

So are they related to snapping turtles?

They're not.

Although, it would be really easy to

misidentify this as a snapping turtle.

You see it's got the very sharp, hooked beak.

And then let's look at the underside, the plaster on

is actually very small.

You see the turtle can't completely tuck into its shell.

You have a lot of exposed meat just like snapping turtle.

But actually, musk turtles are not related

to snapping turtles at all.

Let's see it's tail.

Tail's kind of stubby not like a snapping turtle.

Nope, it's not.

Snappers have very long tails.

But look at, still has a bunch of little spikes on the tail.

It stinks.

Now these musk turtles get their names

because one of their defenses if they're caught is to musk.

But it's a razor-backed musk turtle

and can you see that ridge line that runs right down

the center of the carapace?

Almost looks like saw teeth.

Wow, how awesome is that?

That was a great grab.

I didn't think you're going to go in.

I wasn't expecting that.

No?

Mouthful of water but totally worth it to catch this turtle.

All right, let's let it go see what else we can find

along the edge of the pond.

Snake! Snake!

Snake!

Oh, it's garter snake.

No, no, no.

Oh, my gosh.

It's a ribbon snake.

Wow, look at that.

That snake is blue.

Oh, my gosh.

Well, there are some color morphs of garter snakes

that can be blue but based on how

slender this snake is, I'm about 100% certain

it is a ribbon snake.

Look at the belly.

That is like a beautiful sky blue.

This has got to be the coolest looking

snake I have ever caught.

Mark, have you ever seen a blue snake before?

No, and definitely not in this part of the world either.

That is crazy.

Let me see if I can just get to sit on my hands.

And it's being very, very calm.

Wow.

Now, the snake was hunting along the side of the pond

but this is a terrestrial species.

It's not often that you would see the snake in the water

but they can swim.

Do you want to see what that looks like?

Sure.

Oh, you can see the blue really good there.

Look at it go.

That is beautiful.

Just like a ribbon.

It does.

It almost looks like ribbon candy

with that blue coloration and that striping.

Come right towards it, Mark.

Don't worry, non-venomous.

Let me bring it back here.

Based on the location we're in right now-- close to the Gulf

of Mexico, I am going to guess that this

is a Gulf Coast ribbon snake.

Super cool.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, well, I'm going to put it back down

on the embankment, allow it to keep hunting,

and we're going to head this way.

There you go.

Look at how clear that water is.

So, Coyote, what are we looking for here?

Really, anything that is moving

under the surface of the water.

You've got a fish right here.

It looks like a gar.

Hold on a second, keep the light right there.

You see it swimming?

Yeah. - I'm going to try to catch it.

Keep your light on it.

Nice.

Whoa.

Whoa, look at that.

That is a gar.

No way.

How did you catch that?

A little bit of patience pays off.

Hold on, it's very slippery.

OK, there we go. - There we go.

Whoa, look at those teeth.

Yeah, that will rip apart your hand.

Wow.

OK, well, you guys are always asking for more fish

and they are very difficult to catch.

And I just slowly slinked into the water there.

I think it was sleeping, which I think helped the situation.

And look at those teeth.

Wow, they are needle sharp.

Now, this is not an alligator gar.

I do believe it is a spotted gar.

And the way I can tell that is look at the spots

on top of the head.

Wow, this fish is strong.

Woo, I can only keep it out of the water

for a couple of minutes here.

And it feels like it is armor-plated.

I cannot believe that it is incredibly slimy.

Look at that.

It looks like a dinosaur.

Wow, It does look like a dinosaur.

These fish are incredibly ancient.

They get significantly bigger than this.

But wow, my heart is racing right now.

This is so cool.

I've never seen one before.

You want to touch it? Yeah.

Feel, it's like armor-plating.

Is it?

Yep. Oh, wow.

It's like super bony. - Yeah.

It's like not soft at all.

Nope.

Yeah, that is not a fish that you

would ever want to try to eat.

And they are predators, you could see from that mouth.

Wow, this fish certainly is prehistoric-looking.

So cool to get up close with one.

I can't believe I caught it with that net.

That was awesome.

All right, we're going to get it back off into the water.

I'm going to do this very slowly and watch how

quickly this animal takes off.

Go ahead, light it from over top there, Mario.

Just want to get some water going back through the scales.

There it goes.

Look at that.

Good as new. - Whew.

Ha!

That was a seriously amazing.

Dude, wow.

Slimy high five there.

Mario. Awesome.

Great job. OK, well.

So cool.

I think we've found pretty much everything we're

going to find around this lake.

It's only been about 35 minutes.

Yeah, all right, let's head deeper

to the far edge of the property and get into the swamp,

and see what we can find there.

Wow, there are so many creatures out and about in this cypress

swamp.

Can you see this?

Just let's-- let's take a look around.

This is ancient.

Pretty eerie actually.

This is pretty eerie.

I feel like if I wasn't so preoccupied with looking

for animals, you're out here by yourself,

you would be like really creeped out.

Whoa.

You don't want to get any closer than that.

Those are super dangerous, right?

Well, if we disturb that, we are

going to be swarmed by inch and a half long extremely

painful stinging wasps.

Look at the size of those things.

This is one of the many biological landmines out here.

It's why you walk slow and you do not just

rifle through the underbrush.

I mean, you can be down here exploring,

come up through this, disturb these wasps,

and you would literally be swarmed in seconds.

I don't even know how you would get those all off you

because it's not like a bee.

It's not like it stings once in the stinger comes off,

they can sting over and over and over.

They have little hooks on the sides of their legs.

They basically latch on and sting you again, and again,

and again.

OK, that is like a living nightmare right there.

Let's keep going this way.

Oh, guys, right here.

No, let me stay.

Coyote, Coyote, look at this one right here.

Seriously. Where?

Right here. Come over here.

That was doable.

This monster. Where?

Oh, here she is.

There he is.

You got him? All right.

I'm going to swoop down in front of him

and try to get him in the net.

That is a huge frog.

You ready?

One, two, three.

Oh, you got it?

Yeah!

Yes!

Holy mackerel!

Look at the size of that frog.

OK.

Whoa.

This has got to be the biggest bullfrog I have ever captured.

Hold on, let me get a hold of it.

Whoa.

Whoa.

Are you believing this?

Look at the size of its legs.

Oh, my gosh.

Have you ever seen a bullfrog that big before?

No way.

That's like a small cat.

Oh, my gosh.

I don't think there's any way I could

have caught this frog by hand.

Look how big around its back legs are.

That thing is enormous.

It dwarfs the bullfrogs that I catch in Ohio.

Wow, look at you.

Now, this is a frog that I would consider a predator

and not prey.

Now, certainly, an alligator would eat it

but a frog of this size is actually

big enough to eat other frogs and even small snakes.

Look at you.

Wow.

Let's look at the belly.

Look at the speckling on the belly.

Can you see that?

Wow, it's like a leopard.

Absolutely gorgeous.

So is this a bullfrog?

It looks way different.

This is an American bullfrog.

And I would guess that this coloration

is based on the habitat that it lives in.

All this duck weed and all of this mud

is probably what has forced it to create

a camouflage that blends it in perfectly

to the swamp atmosphere.

I am so excited right now.

I'll tell you what, when I was a kid, if I had caught this frog,

I guarantee you that I would have won

the local frog jumping contest.

Well, how cool was this?

Spending the night just about an hour now,

exploring out here in the wilds of Texas

and we came across so many amazing animals,

including the biggest bullfrog that I have ever seen.

I'm Coyote Peterson.

Be brave, stay wild.

We'll see you on the next location.

All right, I'm going to set the frog down on the ground

and let's see how far it can jump.

You ready?

Oh.

He hit me.

Jeez.

He jumped right into the camera.

He did.

He took off like a lightning ball.

Wow, that was awesome.