December and January are the two easiest months of the year to see wildlife in Manuel Antonio National Park, and the reason is not that more animals arrive. Every species on this page lives in the park year round. What changes in the dry season is visibility: less foliage in the canopy, rain that falls in the afternoon instead of the morning, and 8.3 to 9.0 hours of sunshine a day instead of the 5 hours of August. This page is the month-specific version of our Manuel Antonio National Park animals guide: what each species is doing in December 2026 and January 2027, at what hour, what the Swarovski ATX spotting scope changes, the whale and dolphin odds for those two months, the nine Tuesdays the park is closed, and what the tour costs. Nothing here is a promise that you will see a particular animal — this is wild nature.
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Booking a December or January date? Book a December Manuel Antonio tour or write to us on WhatsApp at +506 8514 1361 — a person answers, not a bot. Group tour from $30 per person.
The biggest animals of these two months are not on land at all: December starts the northern humpback season on the Central Pacific, and they are seen from the boat, not from the trails. If that is what you came for, the Manuel Antonio whale watching tour covers the season month by month, the four published prices from $65 shared to $100 VIP private, and why a closed Tuesday is a good day to be on the water.
The animals you are most likely to see on a December or January morning are white-faced capuchin monkeys, the endemic Central American squirrel monkey, mantled howler monkeys, the brown-throated three-toed sloth, green iguanas, white-nosed coatis, northern raccoons, halloween crabs, and yellow-throated toucans or collared aracaris overhead. Scarlet macaws and the eyelash viper are the two that come down to luck. The single biggest factor is not the month — it is the hour. Mammals and birds feed early, rest through the heat, and become active again after the park has already closed at 3:00 p.m.
| Species | Best window in Dec-Jan | Where to look | What the scope changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central American squirrel monkey | 7:00-9:00 a.m. | Mid-canopy, fast troops of a dozen or more | Turns a blur of moving leaves into faces; the troop is gone in ninety seconds |
| White-faced capuchin | All day | Trail edges and the treeline behind Playa Manuel Antonio | Least needed here — capuchins forage at eye level |
| Mantled howler monkey | Heard 6:00-8:00 a.m.; seen resting midday | High canopy forks, 30-40 m up | The clearest case: a dark lump becomes a face, a tail, sometimes an infant on the back |
| Three-toed sloth | Any time – it barely moves | Cecropia along Sendero El Perezoso | Shows the mask and the claws instead of a grey mass |
| Two-toed sloth | Asleep all day; active at night | Vine tangles, higher up | Separates a sleeping sloth from a termite nest |
| Scarlet macaw | 7:00-8:30 a.m. and late afternoon | Flying over the beach almond trees | Little – these are flight sightings |
| Toucan and collared aracari | Early morning, at fruiting trees | Half-bare crowns, easier in the dry months | At 30x you see the ridge and the colour break on the bill |
| Green iguana and basilisk | Mid-morning, as the sun warms up | Iguanas in sunlit branches over water; basilisks at stream edges | Useful for iguanas high over a watercourse |
| Coati and raccoon | All day, picnic area and sand | Ground level behind Playa Manuel Antonio | Not needed – these walk right up to you |
| Halloween crab | All day, forest floor | Burrows along the main trail | Not needed |
| Eyelash viper | Luck, any hour | Coiled on a palm frond or heliconia at chest height | Lets you look closely from a safe distance |
See tour times and book the 7:00 a.m. entry — in the dry season the first entry is worth more than any other decision you make about this park.
Three of Costa Rica’s four monkey species live in Manuel Antonio, and in December and January the thinner canopy makes all three easier to pick out than in the green season. The spider monkey is the one you will not see here.
Manuel Antonio is one of the few places on earth where you can see the Central American squirrel monkey, because this subspecies lives nowhere else. Saimiri oerstedii citrinellus is endemic to a narrow strip of Costa Rica’s Central Pacific coast — roughly the Quepos and Manuel Antonio area — and the IUCN lists the species as endangered. The howler, the capuchin and the spider monkey all range from Mexico to South America. This one does not, so if you have seen monkeys elsewhere in Costa Rica this is still a new animal. They travel in loud, fast troops of a dozen or more through the mid-canopy and almost never come down to the trail: the troop passes overhead, the leaves move, and the group is gone in ninety seconds. First light is when they move most, which is why the 7:00 a.m. entry matters more for this animal than for any other. Full species page: the Manuel Antonio squirrel monkey.
Capuchins are the monkey you are most likely to see in December and January, and the one you should be most careful around. Cebus imitator works the main trail and the treeline behind Playa Manuel Antonio all day long, and generations of them have learned that human bags contain food — a learned behaviour created by visitors who fed them, not natural curiosity. In high season, with the trail at capacity, that behaviour is at its most intense. An unzipped daypack left on the sand is an open invitation. Feeding them is prohibited inside the park and it is also how monkeys end up bitten, sick or aggressive. Our rule on tour is simple: nothing edible comes out between the gate and the beach, and bags stay closed and on your body. More on this species: the white-faced capuchin in Manuel Antonio.
You will hear howler monkeys before you see them, because the mantled howler’s call carries for over a kilometre through the forest — one of the loudest sounds any land mammal makes. Alouatta palliata calls hardest at dawn and again before dusk, so at 7:00 a.m. inside the park you will very likely hear a troop long before anyone spots one. Visitors regularly mistake it for a big cat. Seeing them is a different problem: howlers are leaf-eaters, leaves are poor fuel, and they spend most of the middle of the day motionless in the high canopy digesting, often a dark shape wedged in a fork forty metres up. This is the species where the spotting scope stops being a luxury. More: the howler monkey in Manuel Antonio.
Month by month, we publish what the park is actually producing: see the Manuel Antonio wildlife sightings index, or go straight to the Manuel Antonio wildlife December 2026 sighting report.
Both sloth species live in the park, and your odds in December and January are much better with the three-toed one, because the two-toed sloth is nocturnal. The brown-throated three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) is active in short bursts through the day and is the one usually found along Sendero El Perezoso, the boardwalk named after it. Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni) feeds at night and spends daylight hours curled into a ball in a fork or a tangle of vines, which from below looks exactly like a termite nest. The dry-season advantage is real but modest: a sloth in a Cecropia that has dropped part of its leaves is visible from the boardwalk; the same sloth in September is behind a wall of green.
| Three-toed (Bradypus) | Two-toed (Choloepus) | |
|---|---|---|
| Active when | Short bursts during the day | Night |
| Face | Dark mask, looks like a permanent smile | Pig-like snout, no mask |
| Where to look | Cecropia and secondary growth along the Sloth Trail | Dense tangles and vine masses, higher up |
| Chance on a Dec-Jan day tour | The better of the two | Possible, usually asleep |
If sloths are the whole reason for the trip, read our Manuel Antonio sloth tour page before you pick a date.
Coatis and raccoons are bold rather than dangerous, and in December and January — with the picnic area full — they are the most common reason a visitor loses their lunch. The northern raccoon (Procyon lotor) and the white-nosed coati (Nasua narica) both patrol the picnic area and the sand behind Playa Manuel Antonio, and both have learned that beach bags and towels hide food. A coati will walk right up to a group in broad daylight. Do not feed them and do not try to move one out of the way by hand: these are wild carnivores with a real bite, and rabies risk is the reason park staff take contact seriously. Keep food closed, keep it on you, and they lose interest. They are also a genuinely good sighting — coatis move in loose family groups with their tails held straight up, nose-down in the leaf litter, and they are one of the few park mammals you get to watch at ground level for minutes at a time.
Look up into the branches over water for iguanas, and look down at the stream edges for basilisks. The green iguana (Iguana iguana) is cold-blooded, so it climbs into open sunlit branches to warm up through the middle of the morning — often hanging over a watercourse. December and January are good iguana months for exactly that reason: more sun, more basking. Snakes work the other way. Reptiles and amphibians are much more active in the green season, so the dry season is the quieter half of the year for them. The one guides look for is the eyelash viper (Bothriechis schlegelii) — small, venomous, and often coiled motionless on a palm frond or in a heliconia at about chest height, sometimes a startling yellow. Boa constrictors (Boa imperator) also live in the park and are not venomous. Most snake days on a tour are quiet days, and the sensible conclusion is that snakes are a reason to stay on the trail, not a reason to stay home.
Two kinds of toucan live here, and the dry season is the better half of the year for both. The yellow-throated toucan (Ramphastos ambiguus swainsonii) is the big one, and its call is a repeated yelping whistle that carries across a valley. The collared aracari (Pteroglossus torquatus) is the small toucan, travels in groups of half a dozen, and is quieter. Both follow fruit, so the reliable way to find them is not to walk further but to find a fruiting tree and wait — which is the single biggest difference between a guided walk and a fast one. In the dry months from December to April many trees carry less foliage, and a toucan in a half-bare crown is far easier to see than the same bird in August.
Scarlet macaws are seen along this coast, most often at the start and the end of the day, and they are far more likely over the beach almond trees than deep inside the forest. Ara macao is a Central Pacific success story: the population of this coast has recovered from near-collapse, and Quepos and Manuel Antonio are now part of its range again. They feed on the seeds of beach almond (Terminalia catappa), the broad-leaved tree that lines the shoreline, travel in pairs or small groups, fly high and straight, and like the toucans you hear them before you see them. A pair crossing over the beach at 7:30 a.m. is the classic Manuel Antonio macaw sighting. Be honest with yourself about the odds: this is the least predictable animal on this page. Some weeks they are over the park daily, some weeks they are not.
The Fiery-billed Aracari, the Scarlet Macaw and the trogons above are exactly why the dry season is the best birding window of the year here: 8.3 hours of sun in December against 5.1 in September, and birds that sit still long enough to be found. If birds are the main reason you are coming and not a bonus along the way, the dedicated morning goes deeper than a general wildlife walk — see the Manuel Antonio bird watching tour, which starts at 6:30 a.m. with a Swarovski ATX scope included and runs from $30.
The red and purple crabs on the forest floor are halloween crabs, and they live on land, not on the beach. Gecarcinus quadratus is black-shelled with orange legs and purple claws, it digs burrows in the forest floor along the main trail, and it is one of the first animals visitors notice because dozens will scuttle sideways into their holes as a group walks past. They are present all year and come out in far greater numbers after rain, so the green season is the spectacular one for crabs — but in December and January they are still along the trail every day, and they are the animal children on our tours talk about afterwards.
It changes a shape into an animal. Almost everything on this page is between fifteen and forty metres above your head, and at that distance the naked eye gives you a silhouette: a dark lump in a fork, a bird-sized black shape against the sky. Our guides carry a Swarovski ATX spotting scope, and through it a howler forty metres up becomes a face with an infant on its back, and a toucan becomes the ridge and the colour break on its bill. It also changes what you take home: the guide lines the scope up on the animal and takes the photo and the video for you through the eyepiece with a phone, and you get them at the end of the tour at no extra cost — by AirDrop on iPhone, or as a Google Drive link on Android. The scope is part of every tour, from the $30 Classic up. The honest limit: optics do not create animals. They make the ones you find count for more.
December and January fall inside the shorter northern-hemisphere humpback run, so whales are possible in both months but the odds are well below the August-September peak. Humpbacks pass Manuel Antonio in two runs: the southern-hemisphere season roughly July to October, with August and September as the strongest months, and a shorter northern-hemisphere run around December to February (sources: MyTanfeet, Costa Rica Day Trip). Spotted and bottlenose dolphins are possible in every month of the year along this coast, together with sea turtles, frigatebirds, pelicans and brown boobies. None of this is visible from inside the park — it needs a boat.
| Month | Humpback whales | Dolphins |
|---|---|---|
| December 2026 | Northern-hemisphere run begins | Possible |
| January 2027 | Northern-hemisphere run | Possible |
The boat leaves from the marina, not from inside the park, so departures run daily through December and January including Tuesdays — the one day the park itself is shut. Details and the full twelve-month table are on our Manuel Antonio catamaran cruise page, quoted in the $69-$100 per person range.
January is the sunniest month of the year in Manuel Antonio and December is the month the rain drops off, which is the whole reason the dry season is easier for wildlife. The numbers below are measured at the Quepos station 7 km from the park, the same source as our Manuel Antonio weather month by month page — no new figures, the same ones.
| Month | Avg high | Avg night low | Rainfall | Rainy days | Sunshine / day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December | 27.4 °C / 81.3 °F | 22.8 °C | 503.1 mm | 14.1 | 8.3 h |
| January | 27.6 °C / 81.7 °F | 23.0 °C | 222.7 mm | 10.5 | 9.0 h |
| August (for contrast) | 27.6 °C / 81.7 °F | 23.4 °C | 939.7 mm | 21.9 | 5.1 h |
January’s rainfall is less than half of December’s and less than a quarter of August’s. The practical reading for a wildlife morning: rain in these two months arrives in the afternoon and evening, so a 7:00 a.m. tour sits in the dry half of the day. The trade-off is crowds — clear skies bring visitors, the park caps entry at 2,500 people a day, and in January the constraint on your tour is availability, not weather. Month-specific pages: Manuel Antonio National Park in December and Manuel Antonio National Park in January.
The park is closed every Tuesday, which in the 2026-2027 high season means nine closed days: December 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, and January 5, 12, 19 and 26. None of the holiday days falls on a Tuesday this season — Christmas Day and New Year’s Day are both Fridays — but December 22 and December 29 do, and those are exactly the days many families arrive and try to book the park first. The park is open Wednesday to Monday from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
| Month | Park closed (every Tuesday) |
|---|---|
| December 2026 | Dec 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 |
| January 2027 | Jan 5, 12, 19, 26 |
When you plan, count your park days from Wednesday to Monday. If your only free day is a Tuesday, the catamaran runs and the mangrove and night tours run — the same table is in our Manuel Antonio tour cost guide for December 2026.
Park tickets are sold only online through SINAC, they open a maximum of two months before your visit, and they are not sold at the gate. For a December 2026 visit that means the window opens in October 2026; for January 2027, in November 2026. The entrance costs $18.08 for a non-resident adult and $5.65 for a child aged 2 to 12, checked against SINAC’s official park page on 25 September 2026; children under 2 enter free. Three things catch travellers out every dry season: the daily cap of 2,500 visitors, which sells out weeks ahead from December to April; look-alike websites that dress up as the official park page; and the ID check, because rangers match your passport against the ticket. The full sequence is on our Manuel Antonio park tickets page.
There are four ways to do it, all with the same guides, the same Swarovski scope and the same trails — what changes is logistics and who walks with you. Prices are per person; children aged 3 to 12 pay $10 less on every option (Classic $20, Premium $55, Classic Private $59, VIP $90).
| Option | Price | Group | Park ticket | Hotel transport | Food |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classic – small group, 2 h | $30 | 8 to 10 guests | Not included – you buy it on SINAC | No, meeting point | No |
| Premium – shared, all-in | $65 | Small shared group | Included | Yes, Quepos & Manuel Antonio | Fresh fruit snack |
| Classic Private – only your party, 2 h | $69 | Private | Not included – you buy it on SINAC | No, meeting point | No |
| VIP Private – all inclusive | $100 | Private | Included | Yes, private transport | Fresh fruit snack + Costa Rican lunch (casado) |
With Premium ($65) and VIP Private ($100) we reserve the SINAC ticket for your date as soon as the window opens, which in a sold-out December is the practical reason to pick one of those two. With the Classic group tour ($30) and Classic Private ($69) you buy your own ticket online before the tour. Compare all four on the Manuel Antonio National Park guided tour page, or read the wider Manuel Antonio wildlife tour guide.
Book your December 2026 or January 2027 date or ask us on WhatsApp at +506 8514 1361. Tell us your dates, your hotel and how many you are, and we answer with the four options and what is still open.
These are the questions we get on WhatsApp about wildlife on a December or January date, answered by the operator that runs the tour. Each answer starts with the short version.
January is marginally better on paper and December is better for availability. January is the sunniest month of the year with 9.0 hours of sunshine a day and 222.7 mm of rain, against 8.3 hours and 503.1 mm in December, so the canopy is drier and the mornings more reliable. But January is also the busiest month, and with the park capped at 2,500 visitors a day the constraint becomes availability rather than weather. If your dates are open, book an early-December or a mid-January morning and take the 7:00 a.m. entry either way.
No. Every species on this page lives in the park year round, and the month does not change whether they are there – it changes how easy they are to see. In December and January there is less foliage, so monkeys, sloths and toucans are easier to pick out of the canopy. Reptiles, amphibians and crabs go the other way: they are far more active in the green season, from May to November.
The first two hours after the gate opens at 7:00 a.m., without exception. Squirrel monkeys move most at first light, howlers call hardest between 6:00 and 8:00 a.m., and scarlet macaws cross the shoreline between 7:00 and 8:30 a.m. By late morning the mammals are resting through the heat and the trail is at its fullest, and the park closes at 3:00 p.m. – before the animals become active again.
Nine days: December 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, and January 5, 12, 19 and 26. The park closes every Tuesday all year. Christmas Day and New Year’s Day both fall on a Friday this season, so neither is affected, but December 22 and 29 are Tuesdays and those are peak arrival days. Plan your park day between Wednesday and Monday.
Whales are possible in both months and the odds are well below the peak. December and January fall inside the shorter northern-hemisphere humpback run, roughly December to February; the strong season is the southern-hemisphere run from July to October, with August and September as the best months. Dolphins are possible year round. None of it is visible from inside the park – it needs a boat, and boats run daily including Tuesdays.
As early as the window allows, because SINAC opens tickets a maximum of two months before the visit date and the park caps entry at 2,500 people a day. For December 2026 the window opens in October 2026; for January 2027, in November 2026. From December to April dates sell out weeks ahead. If you book our Premium ($65) or VIP Private ($100) tour we reserve the ticket for you as soon as it opens.
Probably, and the one you are likely to see is the three-toed sloth, not the two-toed. The brown-throated three-toed sloth is active in short bursts through the day along Sendero El Perezoso; Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth is nocturnal and spends the day balled up in a vine tangle looking like a termite nest. We never promise a specific animal. What the dry season and a trained eye change are the odds, not the guarantee.
You can walk the park alone, and most of what is described on this page you will walk straight past. Almost every animal here is fifteen to forty metres above your head and camouflaged; the guide’s job is finding it and then putting it in the Swarovski ATX scope so it stops being a silhouette. Our guides are ICT-certified bilingual naturalists, the scope is included from the $30 Classic up, and the photos and video through the eyepiece come free after the tour.
Not on the list? Ask us on WhatsApp at +506 8514 1361 – a person answers, 24/7.
Related reading: wildlife in Manuel Antonio in December · all the animals of Manuel Antonio National Park · weather month by month.