Animal Life In Rainforest

Introduction

Rainforests are populated with insects, arachnids, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals and worms. The rainforest is home to more than half of the world 's animals. The rainforest is a very dense, warm and wet biome. So, where are the rainforests? Most rainforests are located in a latitude band around the equator between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Below is a map of the major rainforests over the world.

Strata

The rainforest contains of four different layers (or strata) crawling with mammals and insects. The first layer is called the EMERGENT LAYER. This layer contains the tallest trees that are over 200 feet tall and the animals found here are eagles, monkeys, bats and butterflies. The next layer is

Amazingly, only 6-7% of the total land surface on Earth is covered by rainforest. On average, there are between 20 to 80 different species of trees per acre. There is also a wide variety of animal life found in the rainforest. Many of the animals have special adaptations that allow them to live in the tropical conditions, but they would not survive outside of this ecosystem.

Animal Adaptation

The animals have to compete for food so many animals must adapt by learning to eat a particular food eaten by few animals or no other animal. Toucans for example have adapted by developing a long, large bill. This allow this bird to reach fruit on branches that are too small to support the bird’s weight and to cut the fruit from the tree. Another good example is the sloth. The sloth uses behavioral adaption and camouflage to survive in the rainforest. It moves very, very slowly and spends most of the day hanging upside down from trees and sleeping. Green algae also grows on its fur giving it camouflage to hide from predators such as boa constrictors. Lastly, the chameleon who has ‘exceptional eyesight’ for a reptile as the structure of the chameleon 's eye, allows the chameleon to have complete 360 degree vision around it 's body!This adaptation, allows the chameleon to hunt prey and spot predators more

As in any food web, there are more plant-eaters than meat-eaters and many more plants than plant-eaters. There are also more small animals than large animals. Insects are the most numerous animals in rainforests. If/when one species goes extinct, it can affect the entire life of another species. In a rainforest the producers include the trees, shrubs and plants. Primary consumers consists of okapis, mouse deer, monkeys, chimps, and apes. The secondary consumers are the genet (a tree cat) and eagles. Tertiary consumers include jaguars and snakes like boa constrictors. The decomposers include mushrooms, insects and