San Jose, Dec 28 (IANS/EFE) The forests of Costa Rica provided the setting this year for science to discover 53 new species of insects, fungi and plants.

The National Biodiversity Institute, or INBio, said that it is still too soon to say if all these species are endemic to this country.

"We can't say if they are endemic or unique to Costa Rica because this is the first description ever made of them. It's very probable that, with time, we'll begin to discover them in other countries as well," said INBio's director of science, Jesus Ugalde, as cited in the daily La Nacion.

This year 26 new species of insects, 19 of plants and eight of fungi were discovered in the Central American country.

Costa Rica's biodiversity inventory includes some 500,000 species, of which 75 percent are easily distinguished on sight because they are insects.

For that reason experts found it unsurprising that most of the species discovered this year were forms of mites, bumblebees, fruit flies, wasps, lice and moths.