Life in the Rainforest

Into the Green World

Imagine stepping into a forest so thick and green that the sky almost disappears above you. The air is warm and damp. Strange calls echo from the trees, raindrops drip from giant leaves, and everywhere you look something is crawling, climbing or flying. Welcome to the rainforest.

A rainforest is a forest where a great deal of rain falls. The most famous kind, the tropical rainforest, grows near the middle of the Earth where it is warm all year round. It rains there almost every single day. The biggest one of all is the Amazon rainforest in South America, but great rainforests also grow in Africa and in Southeast Asia.

Rainforests are special because more kinds of plants and animals live in them than anywhere else on land. In this book we will climb through the layers of the rainforest, meet its amazing creatures, and discover why this green world matters so much. Let's explore.

Why It Rains So Much

The rainforest gets its name for a good reason: it really does rain almost every day. Why?

Because rainforests grow where it is hot, the warm sunshine heats up the water in the leaves, the soil and the rivers. This water rises into the air as an invisible gas called water vapour. High up, the air is cooler, and the vapour turns back into tiny drops that form clouds. Soon those clouds become heavy and the rain pours down again.

The rainforest even makes a lot of its own rain. The trees breathe out water from their leaves, which rises and forms new clouds. So the forest waters itself, again and again. All this rain keeps everything wet, green and growing.

The Layers of the Rainforest

A rainforest is a bit like a tall building with different floors. Scientists call these floors layers, and each layer is home to different plants and animals. There are four main layers.

The top layer is the emergent layer. A few giant trees push their heads above all the rest, like towers above the city. Up here it is bright and windy, and it is where eagles and large birds like to perch.

Below that is the canopy, the thick roof of treetops where the branches and leaves grow close together. Most of the rainforest's animals live here, because this is where the sunlight and the fruit are. Monkeys, parrots, sloths and countless insects make their home in the canopy.

Under the canopy is the understorey. It is darker and cooler here, full of smaller trees, vines and big leaves reaching up for any scrap of light. Snakes, frogs and many insects hide in this shady world.

At the very bottom is the forest floor. Almost no sunlight reaches down here, so it is dark and damp. The ground is covered in fallen leaves that rot away quickly in the warm wet air. Big animals like jaguars and tapirs roam here, and armies of ants march across the ground.

Animals of the Canopy

The canopy is the busiest part of the rainforest, so let's spend some time among the treetops.

Monkeys are perfectly built for life up here. They have long arms for swinging from branch to branch, and many have a gripping tail that works almost like an extra hand. The howler monkey has one of the loudest calls of any animal, and its roar can be heard far across the forest.

Sloths take life slowly. These furry animals hang upside down from branches and move so slowly that tiny green plants grow on their fur, helping them hide. A sloth can spend almost its whole life in the trees.

Brightly coloured birds fill the canopy too. The toucan has an enormous, colourful beak that lets it reach fruit on thin branches. Flocks of noisy parrots screech as they fly from tree to tree. And tiny, glittering hummingbirds zip between the flowers to drink nectar.

Life on the Forest Floor

Down on the dark forest floor, life is very different. With so little sunlight, few plants can grow here, but many animals roam the shadows.

The biggest hunter of the South American rainforest is the jaguar. This powerful spotted cat hunts silently and is a strong swimmer too, often catching fish and other animals near the rivers.

Among the leaves you might find the brilliant poison dart frog. Its bright red, blue or yellow skin is a warning that says, "Do not eat me — I am dangerous." Other animals quickly learn to leave it alone.

The forest floor is also the realm of the ants. Long lines of leafcutter ants carry pieces of leaf many times their own size back to their nests, where they use the leaves to grow a special fungus for food. Millions of tiny creatures like these help break down fallen leaves and keep the soil rich.

Amazing Rainforest Plants

The rainforest is not just about animals. The plants here are some of the strangest and most amazing on Earth.

Giant trees grow tall and straight, racing each other to reach the sunlight at the top. Their roots spread out wide at the bottom, like the feet of a giant, to hold them steady in the thin soil.

Climbing plants called vines wind their way up the tree trunks, using the trees like ladders to reach the light. Some vines grow as thick as your arm and stretch for many metres.

Many plants grow right on the branches of trees instead of in the ground. These are called epiphytes, and they catch rainwater and falling leaves to feed themselves high above the floor. One special plant, the rafflesia, grows the largest flower in the world — as wide as a car tyre — and it smells like rotten meat to attract flies.

Why the Rainforest Matters

Rainforests are precious to the whole world, not just to the animals that live there.

The trees of the rainforest breathe out oxygen, the gas that people and animals need to live. They also soak up a gas called carbon dioxide, which helps keep the planet's climate steady. Some people call rainforests "the lungs of the Earth."

Rainforests are also home to an astonishing number of living things. More than half of all the kinds of plants and animals on land are thought to live in rainforests. Many of our medicines, and foods like chocolate, bananas and coffee, first came from rainforest plants.

Protecting the Rainforest

Sadly, rainforests are in danger. People cut down the trees to sell the wood, to make farmland, and to build roads and towns. When the trees are gone, the animals lose their homes and the rich soil washes away. This is called deforestation.

The good news is that many people are working to save the rainforests. They protect large areas where no trees may be cut, plant new trees, and help local people care for the forest instead of clearing it. Even far away, we can help by using less paper and wood, and by learning about why rainforests matter.

What We Learned

What an adventure through the green world! Let's remember what we found.

A rainforest is a warm, wet forest where it rains almost every day, and the rainforest even helps make its own rain. We climbed through its four layers — the emergent layer, the canopy, the understorey and the forest floor — and met monkeys, sloths, toucans, jaguars and poison dart frogs along the way. We discovered amazing plants like giant trees, climbing vines and the huge rafflesia flower. And we learned that rainforests give us oxygen, hold countless living things, and need our protection.

The rainforest is one of the richest, most wonderful places on Earth. When we understand it, we want to help keep it green.

Want to explore more amazing places? Travel the world's habitats in Amazing Animals of the World, or dive beneath the waves in Explorers of the Deep Sea.