page_title: Cocos Island
section_title: Ecology
hierarchical_section_title: Cocos Island / Ecology
caption_attribution_description: Español: El Islote Manuelita es un sitio preferido para el buceo por la inmensa variedad de especies marinas que le circundan
context_page_description: Cocos Island is an island in the Pacific Ocean administered by Costa Rica, approximately 550 km southwest of the Costa Rican mainland. It constitutes the 11th of the 13 districts of Puntarenas Canton of the Province of Puntarenas. With an area of approximately 23.85 km², the island is more or less rectangular in shape. It is the southernmost point on the North American continent if outer islands are included.
  The entirety of Cocos Island has been designated a Costa Rican National Park since 1978, and has no permanent inhabitants other than Costa Rican park rangers. Surrounded by deep waters with counter-currents, Cocos Island is admired by scuba divers for its populations of hammerhead sharks, rays, dolphins and other large marine species. The wet climate and oceanic qualities give Cocos an ecological character that is not shared with either the Galápagos Archipelago or any of the other islands in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
context_section_description: Cocos Island is home to dense tropical moist forests. It is the only oceanic island in the eastern Pacific region with such rain forests and their characteristic types of flora and fauna. The cloud forests present at its higher elevations are also unique in the eastern Pacific. The island was never linked to a continent, so the flora and fauna arrived via long-distance dispersal from the Americas, and the island therefore has a high proportion of endemic species.
caption: The islet Manuelita is a popular site for diving and observing marine species
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