RAIN FOREST
The Amazon rainforest is the biggest forest in the world and is also the last big space covered with tropical plants and animals. The Amazon forest territory is a tropical rainforest that is located in the north side of the South American continent and is shared by 9 countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Suriname, French Guiana and Guiana. Travel through the forest can be difficult, and a guide or a river tour are the best options to see the natural wonders of the rain forest.
The largest part of is located in Brazil (60%) and covers almost half of that country. The space covered with the forest is 5.5 million square kilometers (3.4 million square miles ). When the Old World explorers reached the Americas they were all looking for gold, silver and gems. The Portuguese explorers that colonized Brazil believed that somewhere in that huge forest they would find the "Eldorado", an entire city made of gold that has an almost intangible value. This hoax came along with the myth that the Eldorado was guarded by the women warrior race of the Amazons.
Expeditions started to go up the Amazon River trying to find the Eldorado. There was a race to find the gold before the Spanish and French arrived, and found it on their own. They never found the Eldorado or the Amazons, but the name was set.
The "Rain" forest is a nickname that describes the humidity that you find in tropical and equatorial forests, but it doesn't rain all the time. Tropical rainforests are always located near the equator, and are very hot. All this heat associated with great portions of water make a lot of evaporation into the air. The forest also helps to retain water in their branches, roots and soil. All of this makes these forests very humid and there's a well defined rainy season that works towards the establishment of this nickname for tropical and equatorial forests.
All this heat, rain and humidity make these forests a very rich ecosystem or habitat for many organisms. A rainforest has trees, like any other forest, but they are very different from the temperate forest you are used to seeing in colder places like in US, Europe and parts of Asia. There are 120 foot trees, thousands of different species of plants, and all sort of rainforest animals including the red eyed tree frog, insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals. The rainforest canopy is home to thousands of animal species. The bio diversity one can experience here is unparalleled. And the most amazing part is that all this apparent chaos is actually a very balanced system, a product of million of years of evolution and natural selection.
But the forest is not only populated by animals and plants, there are many humans there too. The Indians are part of the equilibrium that existed there for thousands of years. The indigenous tribes of the forest live off the land as their ancestors have for thousands of years. The other humans, not native, have settled there for different reasons, but are always looking for opportunities in this unexplored land. Sometimes (usually) this has a negative impact over the forest. The idea of learn how to live from the forest by the forest is something that is not easy, but not impossible either. There are many examples of sustainable use. This type of information needs to become more popular, as deforestation is becoming a danger to the existence of the forest. While logging and forest clearing may be profitable in the short run, in the long run it is a danger to the amazon. It is also a danger the growing eco tourism that is a major attraction to the Amazon for tourists.
Amazonia is a huge and very complex place where nature created a unique set of biological and geological cycles, hardly seen in other places, and where mankind developed different cultures, languages, and art. The mysteries and awe around the Amazon jungle is something we should know and need to protect.
The Amazon rainforest has a huge live collection of flora species. Botanical experts say that in 2.5 acres of the forest you can find 700 different species of trees and twice that number of plants. One of the most awesome things you will notice is that the forest has a high density of trees and they are very tall. Many trees reach 130 meters high (some species reach 200 feet), and under they form a shadowed place where at times is hard to see the sun. The high canopy of the Amazon rainforest is a very unknown place even for most botanists and until recently very few researches have even explored this hard to reach area of the forest. The high canopy is also the home of thousands of still undiscovered species of insects and birds.
Although it may be hard to believe, the soil of the Amazon rainforest is very poor in nutrients. If you show a report listing the nutrients of that soil to a botanist he or she will probably say that nothing but a cactus will grow in that. This is an astonishing fact since there are huge trees and lush vegetation all over the place. The Amazon rainforest soil holds only 20% of the nutrients in the forest; the other 80% are in the trees and plants themselves. The explanation is rather simple; the Amazon Region has a dry and a wet season. In the wet season the water level of the Amazon River rises dramatically, and in some places it reaches 15 meters higher than dry season. This means that in the rainy season a huge portion of the forest gets flooded. This works like a great mechanism for exchanging and transporting nutrients and is crucial for the whole forest. The Amazon rainforest soil works like a sponge and even being not very nutrient rich, it can hold enough nutrients to help maintain the trees until the next rainy season
Some highlights from the forest include the following:
There are more than 2700 species of bromeliads . The most well-known bromeliad is the pineapple we eat. Bromeliads can have many colors like blue, purple, red and orange. These plants have adapted themselves over time and today you can find bromeliads growing in almost anywhere in the Amazon rainforest. There are bromeliads that grow on the ground, others that grow on rocks and yet others that grow on other plants and trees, usually in their trunks. Bromeliads are able to do that because they can absorb moisture and nutrients from the air. Some specialists say that sometimes a branch of a tree has so many bromeliads that they break because of their own weight. A very interesting thing about the bromeliads, and that can only be seen in their natural habitat , is that their leaves, being overlapped, can hold water from the rainfall. This creates a micro ecosystem for aquatic micro organisms, insects and even very tiny frogs, salamanders and snails. Some animals can live their whole life in this bromeliad little lake.
The orchids are very well known by their beautiful flowers and can be found in the Amazon rainforest as well. They have strong smells that attracts insects that pollinate them. One of the peculiarities of the orchids is the fact that some are pollinated by moths and thus their smell is stronger at night.
The Water Lily is the biggest flower in the world and can reach six feet in diameter. This giant can be found in the calm waters on lakes or calm parts of rivers. Although they are extremely big, they are very thin and weigh very little so they can float on the water. In the Amazon rainforest you can find lakes filled with water lilies almost creating an illusion of a solid floor.
There are about 40 different species of Heliconia and they have a leaf that resembles a lobster claw with very bright colors like yellow, green, orange, red, purple and pink. Many times the colors are mixed in the same leaf creating beautiful combinations. The flowers of the Heliconias are usually hidden among the leaf structure and need very specialized birds or insects to reach their nectar. The Heliconias are valued as ornamental plants and are common among gardens because of their unique structure and colors.
The Kapok Tree is the biggest tree of the Amazon rainforest, as it can grow to 200 feet tall and the trunk can be 10 or 11 feet in diameter. This big tree is usually the home of many other species from insects to frogs and birds, it also offer support for tree climbers and bromeliads. Another common visitor of the Kapok trees are the bats attracted by the trees flowers smell. They are actually the ones that fertilize the Kapok over the Amazon rainforest as they spread the pollen of these flowers since they are so eager to eat the sweet nectar.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, a typical four square mile patch of rainforest contains as many as 125 mammal species, 400 species of birds, 100 of reptiles, 60 of amphibians, and 150 different species of butterflies. In one study, one square meter of leaf litter, when analyzed, turned up 50 species of ants alone. Following are some nice examples of the Amazon rainforest fauna :
Tapir
The Tapir is the largest herbivore (350-600 pounds) in the Amazon rainforest and it's a very ancient mammal. The Tapir has a strange look with a "nose" that resembles a small elephant trunk. Because their digestive system is very slow and inefficient, the Tapir eats all day and much of what a tapir eats leaves its body undigested. Because of this the Tapir became a major player in the dissemination of plants in the Amazon rainforest region. They have a great sense of smell and hearing which are used to evade predators. Unfortunately because of its size the Tapir is hunted as a source of food and that combined with their low rate of reproduction puts them at a high extinction risk.
Vampire Bat
There are almost a thousand species of bats in the Amazon rainforest. One of them is the Vampire Bat, which is actually the only true vampire bat in the whole world, the only one that feed on blood. They are very silent, as they need to feed on different kinds of mammals. When they find prey they cut a small part of the prey's skin and lick the blood that came from the small wound. The blood does not clot because the vampire bat's saliva has an anticoagulant substance.
Anaconda
One of the longer snakes in the world, and the heaviest, often weighing more than a horse. The anaconda is not poisonous. The snake hunts by ambushing the victim and coiling itself around it, crushing it. The anaconda can swallow, slowly, an entire cow. Anacondas' are not easily seen (as any snake) but they can be seen when they are eating a big prey since it can take days to digest and they are pretty much immovable in the process. The anaconda is one of the highlights of the Amazon rainforest fauna .
Jaguar
The biggest feline in the Americas , the Jaguar is a powerful hunter on top of the food chain, known for their camouflage spots and the ability to climb trees. The Jaguar can move extremely quietly in the forest using especially padded paws. These abilities combined with jaws that can penetrate a turtle shell and the preference to hunt at night ( Jaguars have excellent vision), makes the Jaguar a stealthy and mortal predator. The Jaguars length can reach three to six feet and weigh between 80 and 370 pounds. The Jaguars diet is composed of large mammals like tapir , monkeys and deer, although it can eat reptiles if necessary. It's very difficult to see a Jaguar since they are so well camouflaged. So, you may not see a Jaguar in a trip to the Amazon rainforest, but a Jaguar will probably see you while you are there. Maybe you will hear a Jaguar roar at night, since the roar can spread for hundreds of feet. In many regions the Jaguar is shot on sight because a mix of fear and concern for livestock, making this wonderful animal in danger of extinction too.
Leafcutter Ant
Leafcutter ants perfectly evolved to address every small need for their survival in the last 50 million years. Leafcutter ants have a very specialized social system where every ant has a job, like colony defender , young ants caretaker, leafcutters, gardeners and foragers. The leafcutter ants even use a sustainable agriculture system, gathering fragments from different species of plants and trees, not overusing just a single species, to use in their fungus gardens that will actually provide their food source. The leafcutter ants live in the forest floor and usually build an underground tunnel and chamber complex where they cultivate and harvest their fungus gardens and get protection from the outside threats. These complexes also help the entire Amazon rainforest ecosystem, improving the nutrient cycle in the floor of the forest. The only natural predators of the leafcutter ants are the Nine-Banded Armadillo, the Giant Anteater and some carnivorous flies. Differently than many other species, the leafcutter ants are not endangered, but if the Amazon rainforest disappears, they will definitely disappear too.
