Animals of the Amazon
Description: Toucans are about twenty five inches tall, and have long colorful bills up to eight inches long! These bids also weigh up to twenty ounces. That's roughly the same amount of weight as two and a half packs of butter! When a baby toucan has hatched, their beak is not yet grown. Though after a couple of months it will become full size.
Habitat: Toucans live in Central America and the Caribbean. They live in the Rainforest canopy. The nests of toucans are usually found inside tree holes. Diet: Toucans eat lots of berries. In fact, the beak of a toucan is used to squash the berries and to tear apart the bigger berries. They also eat lizards and other small birds.
Travel/Groups: Toucans travel in flocks of about six. Their bright colors help them blend into the light from the canopy. But their loud vocals make them very un-hidden.
Protection Status: Toucans are near threatened.
Interesting facts: Both the male and female toucan care for the eggs.Toucans have somewhere between two to four eggs a year The Toucan is one of the worlds most popular birds. There are over forty types of toucans.
Sources: www.pyramid-of-wisdom.com
www.animals.nationalgeographic.com
www.srl.caltech.edu
www.wikipedia.com
www.grabugeprod.comwww.wikipedia.com
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Pink River Dolphin
Description: These dolphins are in between eight and ten feet tall/long and two hundred pounds, though males tend to be larger. Pink Dolphins are usually born between July and September if they are in the wild. When they are born these dolphins are about thirty inches long/tall and two and a half pounds.
Travel/Groups: Pink dolphins travel alone, which is a disadvantage. When they are born, their mother only stays with them for one year. She then leaves them to live by themselves.
Protection Status: Twenty years ago these dolphins were one of the least endangered. Now, they are in danger of extinction.
Interesting facts: These dolphins are actually born gray. The pink color is really just the blood showing through the skin, due to its thickness. The pink river dolphin is thought to be one of the most intelligent dolphins. They have a brain capacity forty percent larger than humans.
Sources: www.isptr-pard.org
www.amersol.edu
www.nowpublic.com
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Jaguar
Description: Jaguars are about four to six feet in length. Their tails are about two feet long alone! They weigh about seventy to two hundred fifty pounds, males larger than females. When jaguars are born, they are only about two pounds! Jaguars look a lot like leopards, but there are many ways to tell them apart. For example, jaguars are heavier and have shorter tails.
Habitat: The main habitat of a jaguar is a forest. But they also live in the woodlands and grasslands (areas close to water) in Northern Mexico, Central America, and Northern South America.
Diet: Jaguars are carnivores. They eat fish, reptiles, monkeys, deer, horses, cattle, armadillos, and caimans. They are very skilled swimmers and climbers, which allows them to get animals that live in the water and high in the trees. Also, their strong jaws and good night vision play an important part in hunting. Travel/Groups: Jaguars live alone and hunt alone. Only for mating they are together. When a mother has babies, she protects them from all other jaguars, even the father. After a few years, the babies will go off on their own.
Protection Status: Jaguars are near threatened.
Interesting facts: Yaguara (the South American word for jaguar) means "animal that kills in a single bound". When a jaguar is born, they are blind.
Sources: www.animals.about.com
www.switchzoo.com
www.sandiegozoo.com
www.animals.nationalgeographic.com
www.news.discovery.com
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Three Toed Sloth
Description: Sloths are typically one and a half to two inches in length and eight to nine pounds. Sloth's have very good eyesight and sense of smell. But their hearing is not as good due to their small ears. Sloths also have stumpy tails and the ability to turn their neck two hundred seventy degrees.
Diet: Sloths are herbivores: they mainly eat leaves, fruit and shoots. They get almost all of their water from juicy plants. They use their tiny teeth to chew up leaves. Sloths eat at night, because they sleep most of the day.
Travel/Groups: When a sloth gives birth, the baby clings onto them for nine months or so. Sloths usually travel through trees, but every once in a while the sloths go onto the ground and into the water.
Protection Status: Three Toed Sloths are endangered.
Interesting Facts: Sloths are actually pretty good swimmers. But they are so bad on land that they have to drag their bellies on the ground. The sloth got its name due to its slowness. In fact, the sloth is the slowest mammal on earth and takes a month to move one kilometer!
Sources: www.wildernessclassroom.com
www.animals.nationalgeographic.com
www.wikipedia.com
www.familyonbikes.com
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Poison Dart Frog
Description: Poison Dart Frogs are usually half an inch to two inches. They have very bright colors so their predators can easily recognize them. They are usually yellow, gold, copper, red, green, blue, or black. There are over one hundred species of these frogs, each one different designs and colors.
Diet: These frogs feast on small insects and spiders. They use their long sticky tongues to capture the bugs. The poison produced from a Poison Dart Frog actually comes from their diet.
Travel/Groups: A group of Poison Dart Frogs is called an Army. When the mother frog gives birth to the egg, she puts the eggs on the leaves. The father comes to check on the eggs every once in a while. The tadpoles swim onto the males back once hatched. After a while, the tadpoles are left on their own to grow fully into a frog.
Protection Status: Poison Dart Frogs are threatened.
Interesting Facts: The only predator of a Posion Dart Frog is a snake called Leimadophis epinephelus. The Leimadophis epinephelus has created a resistance to the frog's deadly poison. Just two and a half grams of poison from this frog can kill a one hundred fifty pound man.
Sources: www.coolipadwallpaper.com
www.library.thinkquest.org
www.nationalzoo.si.edu
www.animals.nationalgeographic.com
www.rainforestanimals.net
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Plants of the Amazon
The pollination is for a water lily is different than most flowers. Water lilies are pollinated by beetles instead of bees. The first day that this flower blooms, there is no pollen, but fluid. So when an insect visits the flower, they fall into the fluid.
The next day, the pollen is released and no fluid is produced. The insect will most likely be unharmed, though some down drown in the fluid.
These flowers mostly grow in the Amazon River Basin and sometimes Brazil. They are actually found all over the world, but they only live year round in warmer climates. For example, this flower will live year round in Brazil, but only during summer will they grow in Great Britain.
Source: www.trails.com
www.imagejuicy.com
www.naturia.per.sg
www.tolweb.org
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Orchid
Orchids area a very popular flower due to their beauty and smell. There are somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 species - making it the largest plant family around the world. About 10,000 of these species are found in the tropics. The species also vary in color, size, and weight.
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Kapok Tree
The Kapok Tree is the giant of the Rainforest. This tree is about nine to ten feet in diameter and can grow to be up to two hundred feet tall, making it the tallest tree in the Amazon Rainforest. The wood is a light pink to dark brown color. The trunks are tall, cylindrical, and grey.
The top of this tree kind of looks like an open umbrella. Many animals live in the canopy: bird's nest here, mammals use them as roads, and frogs breed in the water collected in the leaves.
The Kapok Tree also has many different purposes besides the ones listed above. For example, the white fluffy seed of this tree is used in pillows and mattresses. It's also used in paddling and flotation devices. This tree has been used to treat many diseases, such as asthma, fever, dysentery, and kidney disease. This tree is also very sacred to the Mayans.
Sources: www.blueplanetbiomes.com
www.rainforest-alliance.org
www.tropilab.com
www.srl.caltech.edu
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Bromeliad
All bromeliads are different, varying in color, shape and size. Bromeliads come in a variety of colors, such as red, purple, orange, and blue. Almost every color of the rainbow! The bromeliads also very in sizes, from the small Spanish moss to the largest of them all: Puya ramondii.
Bromeliads grow almost any where: on rocks, on the ground, on tree trunks, and even on other plants. Some of the spikes can grow up to be ten meters tall, but only two to three millimeters across.
There are over 2,000 species of bromeliads. Bromeliads are found in most of South America, but some species are found in Africa and Central America. The most popular species, however, is the pineapple: a delicious fruit eaten almost every day!
These plants have very thick leaves, which allow them to store water. Scientist have even found more then 250 insect species in the pools of water stored in the leaves! A few of these include: tadpoles, spiders, worms, and mosquitoes.
Sources: www.trails.com
www.wikipedia.com
www.bromeliads.info
www.rainforest-alliance.org
Sources: www.library.thinkquest.org
www.unique-southamerica-travel-experience.com
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