Where can you lot find an antelope the size of a rabbit, a snake that can wing, or a spider that eats birds? All in tropical rainforests, of course!

Tropical rainforests are habitation to the largest and the smallest, the loudest and the quietest of all land animals, as well as some of the well-nigh dangerous, about beautiful, most endearing and strangest looking animals on earth. You've probably heard of some of them: jaguars, toucans, parrots, gorillas, and tarantulas all make their dwelling house in tropical rainforests. But have you lot e'er heard of the aye-aye? Or the okapi? There are so many fascinating animals in tropical rainforests that millions haven't been named or even identified yet. In fact, nearly one-half of all the globe's fauna species live in tropical rainforests.

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Q: Why do more animal species live in the rainforest than other parts of the globe?

A: Scientists believe that there is a groovy diversity of animals because rainforests are the oldest ecosystems on earth. Some rainforests in Southeast Asia have been around for at least 100 million years, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. During the Ice Ages, the final of which ended near 10,000 years ago, the frozen areas of the Due north and Due south Poles spread over much of the earth, causing a loftier charge per unit of animal extinction. Merely the giant freeze did not reach a number of refuges in tropical rainforests. Therefore, rainforest plants and animals connected to evolve, developing into the near diverse and complex ecosystems on earth.

The almost perfect conditions for life also helped contribute to the great number of species. With temperatures constant at 75 -80 degrees F. year-round, animals don't have to worry about freezing during cold winters or finding shade in the hot summers. They rarely have to search for water, as rain falls almost every day in tropical rainforests.

Some rainforest species have populations that number in the millions. Other species consist of only a few dozen individuals. Living in limited areas, most of these species are endemic, or institute nowhere else on globe. The Maues marmoset, a species of monkey, wasn't discovered until recently. Its entire population lives within a few square miles in the Amazon rainforest. It's so small, it could sit in a person's hand!

Q: Which type of rainforest species is most numerous?

A: If you were to visit a rainforest, you probably wouldn't run into many jaguars or monkeys. The but living animals you could be sure to see are the millions of insects creeping and crawling around in every layer of the rainforest.

Scientists gauge that there are more than l million unlike species of invertebrates living in rainforests. One scientist constitute l different species of ants on a single tree in Peru! You would probably only need a few hours of poking around in a rainforest to detect an insect unknown to science. You could even name it after yourself!

Insects are often cute and ever fascinating. Have you ever heard of an ant that farms? Or ants that act as security guards? Leaf-cutter, or parasol ants, can rightfully be chosen the world'southward first farmers. They climb trees upwardly to 100-anxiety tall and cut out small-scale pieces of leaves. They and so carry these fragments, weighing as much equally 50 times their body weight, dorsum to their homes. Sometimes they demand to travel 200 feet, equal to an boilerplate homo walking well-nigh half-dozen miles with 5,000 lbs. on his/her back! The forest flooring is converted to a maze of decorated highways full of these moving leafage fragments.

These ants don't eat the leaves they have collected, but instead bury them underground. The combination of leaves and substances that the ants produce such equally saliva allows a type of fungus to abound. This fungus is the simply food that they demand to eat.

The perfect partnership – Azteca ants live on the Bloated Thorn Acacia Tree, which offers the ants everything needed for survival – lodging, water, and food for themselves and their immature. In return, the ants protect the trees from predators. Whenever the ants feel something moving at the foot of the tree, they blitz to fiercely fight the intruder. They as well protect it from vines and other competing plants that would otherwise strangle it. As a result, nothing tin can abound about these trees. They are the simply trees with a born alert organization!

Q: How do all these species manage to live together without running out of food?

A: The abiding search for food, h2o, sunlight and infinite is a 24-60 minutes pushing and shoving match. With this fierce contest, you may be amazed that so many different species of animals can all live together. But this is really the cause of the huge number of dissimilar species.

The primary secret lies in the power of many animals to adapt to eating a specific establish or animal, which few other species are able to eat. Have yous ever wondered, for instance, why toucans and parrots accept such big beaks? These beaks give them a great advantage over other birds with smaller beaks. The fruits and nuts from many copse accept evolved with tough shells to protect them from predators. In plow toucans and parrots developed big potent beaks, which serves as a nutcracker and provides them with many tasty meals.

Q: Do animals ever help each other out?

A: Many animals species have adult relationships with each other that benefit both species. Birds and mammal species dear to eat the tasty fruits provided by trees. Even fish living in the Amazon River rely on fruits dropped from wood trees. In turn, the fruit copse depend upon these animals to eat their fruit, which helps them to spread their seeds to furthermost parts of the wood.

In some cases both species are so dependent upon each other that if one becomes extinct, the other will equally well. This well-nigh happened with trees that relied on the at present-extinct Dodo birds. They once roamed Mauritius, a tropical island located in the Indian Ocean. They became extinct during the tardily 19th century when humans over-hunted them. The Calvaria Tree stopped sprouting seeds soon later. Scientists finally concluded that, for the seeds of the Calvaria Tree to sprout, they needed to first be digested by the dullard bird. By force-feeding the seeds to a domestic turkey, who digested the seeds the same fashion every bit the Dodo birds, the trees were saved. Unfortunately humans will not exist able to relieve each species in this same way.

Q: How do rainforest animals protect themselves?

A: Every brute has the ability to protect itself from being someone's adjacent meal. Each species has evolved with its own set up of unique adaptations, ways of helping them to survive.

BLENDING IN The coloring of some animals acts equally protection from their predators. Insects play some of the best hibernate-and-get-seek in the wood. The "walking stick" is one such insect; it blends in so well with the palm tree it calls its abode that no i would notice information technology unless it moved. Some butterflies, when they close their wings, await exactly similar leaves. Camouflage also works in reverse, helping predators, such as boa constrictors, sneak upwards on unsuspecting animals and surprise them.

The three-toed sloth is born with brown fur, just you would never know this by looking at it. The green algae that makes its dwelling in the sloth'south fur helps information technology to blend in with the tops of the copse, the canopy, where it makes its domicile. Only dark-green algae isn't the simply affair living in a sloth's fur; information technology is literally "bugged" with a diversity of insects. 978 beetles were once found living on i sloth!

STAYING OUT OF SITE The sloth has other clever adaptations. Famous for its snail-like pace; it is one of the slowest-moving animals on earth. (It can even take upward to a month to digest its nutrient!) Although its tasty meat would make a good meal for jaguars and other predators, most exercise non find the sloth equally it hangs quietly in the trees, loftier upwardly in the canopy.

ARMED AND Dangerous Other animals want to announce their presence to the whole wood. Armed with dangerous poisons used in life-threatening situations,their bright colors warn predators to stay away.

The coral snake of the Amazon, with its brilliant red, yellow, and black coloring, is recognized equally one of the most beautiful snakes in the globe, But don't admire its beauty likewise long; its deadly poison can kill within seconds

The toxicant arrow frog also stands out with its brightly colored pare. Its skin produces some of the strongest natural poison in the globe, which Indigenous people oftentimes apply for hunting purposes.

Another animal with no friends is the hoatzin. Oft called the stinkbird, it produces a horrible smell to scare away potential predators.

Q: Is it true that dozens of creature species a day go extinct in tropical rainforests?

A: An average of 137 species of life forms are driven into extinction every day in the world's tropical rainforests. The forces of destruction such every bit logging, cattle ranching have all contributed to the loss of millions of acres of tropical rainforest. Animals and people alike lose their homes when copse are cut down. These animals are given no alarm to move – no time to pack their bags – and most die when the forest is destroyed.

Many large mammals such as leopards and apes need miles and miles of territory to roam and have a tough fourth dimension surviving in the smaller and fragmented habitats they are forced into past humans. Other species such as the golden toad, whose entire population lives on one mount in Costa Rica, could get extinct within seconds from a bulldozer'southward trounce.

When rainforests are destroyed, animals living outside the tropics suffer likewise. Songbirds, hummingbirds, warblers and thousands of other North American birds spend their winters in rainforests, returning to the same location yr afterwards yr. Less return northward each spring, as few make information technology through the winter because their habitat has been destroyed.

The cutting downwardly of trees is not the only reason for species extinction. Thousands of monkeys and other primates are traded illegally on the international market each twelvemonth, wanted for their fur, every bit pets, or for scientific inquiry. Parrots and macaws accept too become popular pets; buyers will pay up to $10,000 for 1 bird. Fifty-fifty the male monarch of the jungle, the jaguar, is in danger of becoming extinct. Its fur is highly valued for apply on coats and shoes.

Pollution from mining has killed fish populations in the mighty Amazon River. Many Indigenous people, who have depended on these fish for centuries, have become sick from the poisoned fish.

Extinction is a natural process. Species like the saber-toothed tiger have died off from their failure to adapt to a changing surroundings. Others like the dinosaurs died off due to a catastrophe such as a comet or asteroid striking the world. But today humans are altering their habitats too speedily for animals to adapt. Then many species become extinct in such a short period of fourth dimension, that the impact of the industrial historic period can be compared to the catastrophe of a comet strike on the diversity of life.

Humans must share the globe with all plants and animals; otherwise our carelessness will issue in the connected extinction of many species. It would be a lamentable world indeed without the beauty of a toucan or the grace and power of the jaguar.

Glossary

Aye-Yep: a primate from Madagascar, whose most unique features are its one long finger and giant eyes. It uses its finger to pull out hard-to-attain grubs from trees to swallow, and its optics to run into better at night.

Ecosystem: an ecological community; complete with plants, animals, and its physical surround (soil, h2o, air etc.).

Endemic: plant and beast species living only in a sure express surface area.

Invertebrates: species such every bit spiders, beetles and other insects who have no backbone.

Okapi: timid animals related to the giraffes who only live in the Congo river bowl in Africa.

Primates: an club in the animal kingdom; species include monkeys, apes and human beings.

Written by Susan Silber, William Velton