Costa Rica is famous for its biodiversity and we have found that its fauna of trypanosomatids is also diverse and abundant. A number of cultures of these parasites were isolated during the March 2003 ALAS expedition to the 500 m elevation site of the Barva transect trail near El Ceibo and the February 2004 expedition to the 300 m elevation site near Cantarana (western boundary of PN Braulio Carrillo). Additional cultures were isolated in June 2003 from ACG and PN Carara. Field DNA samples were collected from the infected heteropteran bugs during the expeditions. The genotyping of the field samples using Spliced Leader RNA genes was performed in collaboration with David Campbell's lab (UCLA). The results indicate that most of the encountered parasites represent new species and some of them represent new genera.

• 10VL, 12VL
• 13BT, 14BT
• 15EC (Leptomonas costaricensis sp. n.)
• 21EC, 37EC
• 24EC-32EC

Some of these results have been published but most of the data are still being processed