Several species of Costa Rican wildlife are suffering terrible injuries along the power lines and transformers in rural areas of the country.The most susceptible species of wildlife like monkeys, sloths, kinkajous, and squirrels are being electrocuted (and most of the time killed) because of this situation. 1 The increasing human development in rural areas and the continuous building of properties carry the need for electricity, but this has also brought the problem of poorly designed electric infrastructure. Arboreal mammals find their normal tree routes cut down so that the only way for them to cross is to get down to the ground and cross the street (where they can suffer

The colors of primates are among the most diverse phenotypes in mammals. These colors are mostly produced by the deposition of melanin pigments in hairs. Many species show considerable variability in pigmentation, but this is always temporarily fixed. Here we report the first rapid change in the pigmentation phenotype of a primate. In the last five years, the pelage of mantled howler monkeys Alouatta palliata inhabiting Costa Rica has started to change from fully black to yellowish, constituting a conspicuous color change. Raman spectroscopy analyses of hairs show that the change is due to a shift toward the production of the sulphurated form of melanin, termed pheomelanin. Most animals with anomalous coloration have been observed in forests surrounding intensive cultivations where sulfur-containing pesticides are frequently used. Exposure to environmental sulfur may increase the availability of sulfhydryls to cells, which may favor pheomelanin synthesis in melanocytes and explain the pigmentation shift.