Costa Rica · verified wildlife guides
Pick the animal. Book the trip.
Type the species you came for. See the guides who actually find it, ranked by verified sighting rates — not star ratings.
No guide can promise a wild animal. We can show you who's delivered it, and how often.
The lifers index
Pick a species.
Start there.
A live sample from our verified catalogue. Each card shows the current 12-month success rate from logged trips.
The Sighting Score
Your odds of seeing the animal —
before you book.
A single percentage, from 0 to 100, for one species on one trip. Higher means more likely. We combine five verified inputs and recompute live as you change them.
daily_chance = base × season × guide × location × climate
Verified monthly sighting rate from 24 months of field logs.
The guide's own per-species success rate, locked from edits.
Prime hotspot vs secondary range vs opportunistic edge.
ENSO phase (El Niño / La Niña) multiplier from regional indices.
Daily contact compounded over your time in the field.
Try it now
Score a trip in 10 seconds.
Pick a species, a month, and a length. We compute your odds with assumed top-guide accuracy.
Your odds
What moves the needle
Based on 50 logged trips · updated Jun 2026
Multi-target tours
Pick one species.
See what else is in range.
Lyferr cross-references every verified location. Choose your headline target and we plot every other species within a realistic drive — same country, a tour list, not an itinerary brochure.
Headline target
Black Hawk-Eagle
Jan–Apr
Add to tour · 5 within 600 km
The platform
Built around the species.
Not the destination.
01 — Search
Filter guides by what they actually find.
Every guide is indexed by verified species sightings, success rate, and season. No more guesswork from a destination page.
02 — Verify
Real numbers. Real photos. Real history.
Each profile shows the guide's last 50 trips, species-by-species, with timestamped photo evidence you can check yourself.
The journey
From target list
to confirmed sighting.
Six steps. No travel-agent prose. A trip designed around the animals you came for — every choice scored, every leg unlocked.
Build your target list
Add the species you want. Set season, country and difficulty tolerance. Lyferr scores how realistic the combination is.
Resplendent QuetzalTalamanca highlandsThree-Wattled BellbirdMonteverdeScarlet MacawCarara · OsaScore your window
We overlay each target's seasonality. Lyferr highlights the overlap window with the highest combined probability.
Match verified guides
For each target, Lyferr surfaces guides whose 12-month success rate exceeds your threshold and whose calendar is open.
Stitch the itinerary
Lyferr chains the matched guides into a single route — transfers and rest days included — that you confirm in one tap.
Lock in stays & transport
Pick lodging tier and ground transport per leg. Lyferr surfaces only the operators within your matched guides' field radius — and shows what each upgrade does to your odds.
Travel & log
Every confirmed sighting feeds back into the index. Your evidence helps the next traveler pick honestly — and unlocks badges on your lifer profile.
The founding bet
“Every wildlife brochure promises the animal. Almost none can prove they actually deliver it.”
Lyferr was built by photographers who stopped trusting itineraries and started trusting evidence: timestamped sightings, locked guide success rates, and a single transparent score per trip.
Read the story →Why the numbers are honest
A sighting rate you can actually trust.
Anyone can claim a 100% success rate after one lucky trip. Our Accuracy Index won’t let them. Every sighting is backed by two-sided proof — the guide’s geotagged, timestamped photo plus the traveler’s confirmation — and cross-checked against eBird, GBIF, and iNaturalist.
How the Index works →“A guide at 1-for-1 won’t outrank one at 47-for-52.”
- Nat Geo–featured team
- Two-sided, cross-checked records
- Costa Rica first
Common questions
What travelers ask before a trip
The animal won’t wait. Pick your species and see who can find it.