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http://school.ebonline.com/levels/middle/article/272714

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https://goo.gl/hLjVq3

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The flannel moth caterpillar (Megalopyge opercularis) resembles Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's hair.

Credit: Jeff Cremer

New photos have revealed a bizarre, big-haired beast lurking deep in the Peruvian Amazon, and scientists noticed that the odd creature bears a striking resemblance to a certain U.S. presidential candidate's famous (or perhaps infamous) hairdo.

The flannel moth caterpillar ( Megalopyge opercularis) sports fluffy, orange tufts that look suspiciously similar to Donald Trump's hair. As such, the researchers who encountered this creature have dubbed it the "Trumpapillar," after the Republican presidential candidate.

Wildlife photographer Jeff Cremer was scouting in the Peruvian Amazon, when he came across the bright-orange, luxuriant fluff ball. [ 7 Most Misleading Animal Names]

"I was putting on my boots, and someone said, 'Hey, check out this caterpillar hanging out,'" said Cremer, who captured photos of the larva in all its hairy beauty. "Sure enough, it was Donald Trump's hair hanging on a branch."

This isn't the first time Cremer has seen the strange-looking caterpillar. He also spotted the creature four years ago, when he noticed the striking resemblance to Trump's hair, Cremer said.

Locals call this creature "ovejillo," which means "little sheep" in Spanish, Cremer told Live Science.

However, despite the critter's fluffy and adorable appearance, close contact with the Trumpapillar can be extremely irritating and even painful. That's because it's covered with so-called urticating hairs similar to those found on tarantulas, Cremer said.

"The hairs have little spines or little hooks on them that just go into your skin and irritate your skin and make you itch really bad," Cremer said. "Those spines have hypodermic needles in them that can inject venom, and it's extremely painful," causing raised welts and extreme pain for about a day, he said.

The flannel moth caterpillar, which measures about 2.5 inches long (6 centimeters) uses this venomous strategy to defend against potential predators, he added.

Like the troll dolls of the 1990s, the furry caterpillars come in a variety of colors, like white, yellow, red and pink, Cremer said. However, these aren't the only weird critters lurking in this region of the Amazon; Cremer has also found alien-like glowworms, weird symbiotic fungus, ant and caterpillar networks, and mysterious butterflies that drink turtle tears.

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'Trumpapillar': Fluffy Caterpillar Looks Just Like Donald Trump's Hair

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New photos have revealed a bizarre, big-haired beast lurking deep in the Peruvian Amazon, and scientists noticed that the odd creature bears a striking resemblance to a certain U.S. presidential candidate's famous (or perhaps infamous) hairdo. The flannel moth caterpillar ( Megalopyge opercularis) sports fluffy, orange tufts that look suspiciously similar to Donald Trump's hair.

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http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0509.htm

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INVERTEBRATES OF THE RAINFOREST FLOOR

Invertebrates are by far the most abundant and most diverse animals in the rainforest. They have invaded nearly every niche imaginable and many unimaginable, and each plays a unique, although still poorly understood, role in the ecosystem. For example, in the soil invertebrates are essential in the process of decomposition. These species feed on broken-down plant plant material and organic particles. Earthworms, termites, and others fragment larger particles into sizes more manageable for bacteria, fungi, and microorganisms.

Most invertebrates in both tropical and temperate regions are small and inconspicuous but rainforests house some of the world's largest. For example, Malagasy planaria and tropical American beetles may reach six inches (15-16 cm), and centipedes may reach eight inches (20 cm). Centipedes are often brightly colored, are carnivorous, and kill their prey with poison claws located under their first body segment. In some centipede species the female carefully guards the young. Millipedes feed on rotting logs. Jewel beetles, scarabs, termites, and earthworms are part of decomposition high in the canopy, in the soil-like debris found on epiphytes. Scorpions are much smaller than their arid and temperate counterparts but often pack a powerful sting.

Leeches are fascinating rainforest dwellers even though their feeding habits repel most people. Rainforest leeches of Southeast Asia, Africa, and Madagascar, unlike the leeches of the United States, do not live in water, but are able to live terrestrially by the humid conditions of the forest. Leeches are blood-suckers that are attracted to their prey by movement, temperature, and carbon dioxide. If one sits in the rainforest of Borneo for a few minutes, leeches, moving like inch worms, can be seen approaching from the forest floor and even dropping from the trees. The victim often does not feel the bite of the leech, which has razor-sharp teeth and releases an anticoagulant into the bite to allow the blood to flow freely. Leeches are amazingly persistent, and once attached they should be removed only by dousing them with salt or shampoo or burning them with a cigarette butt. Leeches are a nuisance, but relatively harmless, since they carry no known diseases. Leeches can ingest as much as fifteen times their body weight at a single feeding, enough to satisfy them for six to twelve months before their next meal.

ANTS

One of the most fearsome groups of animals in the rainforest are not jaguars, snakes, or crocodiles, but ants. Many ants in the rainforest can inflict excruciatingly painful bites and stings on the unwary forest visitor. The 24-hour ant of South American is regionally famous for its bite that can leave the victim in terrible pain for hours. However, ants also happen to be one of the most interesting and important animals in the forest as exemplified by two ant types: army ants and leafcutter ants.

Army ants of the New World have long been depicted in fictional movies and books as a marauding force that threatens everything in its path including people and entire villages. This is hardly an accurate scenario. Some rainforest peoples actually welcome the periodic visitations by army ants to clear their hut of unwanted resident pests. In addition, forest peoples have been known to use large soldier ants (also soldier leaf-cutter ants) for medical purposes. The ant is picked up by its body with its powerful mandibles open, and placed over an open wound where it is allowed to clamp the wound closed. The native then twists the head off and the jaws remain as a temporary, natural suture. Although soldier army ants are formidable with their huge jaws, the majority of ants in a given column are medium-sized worker ants. The sheer numbers of these ants enable a column to overtake animals that normal-sized colonies could not. There are reports of tethered animals being devoured, but most of the column's prey consists of other invertebrates. The column scares up many insects that usually remain hidden or camouflaged during the day. Enough of these insects are scared up to support numerous species of birds that follow ant columns and feed exclusively on the insects. Dependent on the antbirds are ithomiine butterflies which feed on their nitrogen-rich droppings. Unlike other butterflies which are restricted to food reserves built up during their caterpillar stage, these ithomiine butterflies are able to live and reproduce for months thanks to the proteins gleaned from the bird droppings. The ithomiines are safe from predation by the antbirds, because as caterpillars they feed on leaves containing poisonous alkaloids and giving the adult butterflies an unpleasant taste. Other moths and butterflies mimic the warning coloration of ithomiine butterflies to afford themselves protection.

Other species benefit from the army ant columns. Trachinid flies wait in vegetation above the ant column for grasshoppers to appear. When one does, the fly lays an egg on its body. The egg hatches into a larva which burrows into the grasshopper and devours the insect from the inside. Certain insects including wasps, beetles, and millipedes are capable of chemically mimicking the odor of army ants so they are undetectable as they move through the column, since most ants have very poor vision and can only really distinguish between light and dark. These creatures are able to get free meals in the form of prey exposed or captured by the column.

The Old World equivalents of army ants are the driver ants, which are blind and move in massive armies (20 million) under the leaf litter.

Another well-known group of ants are the leafcutter ants of the genus Atta. Large columns of these ants are a common sight in tropical regions worldwide. Foragers, are the most apparent, carrying cut pieces of leaves, petals, and fruit from their place of origin back to their nest. Leafcutter ants exist in highly structured communities in which individual size determines the ants' specialized role in the community. The largest ant type is the soldier which may weigh 300 times more than the next largest ant type, the forager. At the bottom of the size scale is a tiny ant type whose function is to ride atop the leaves as they are carried by the foragers, and keep a watch out for species of flies that lay their eggs on the leafcutters' leaves. When the larvae of this fly hatch, they can decimate the entire colony.
Leaf Cutters in Perspective
The leaves that the foragers bring back to the colony are not eaten, at least not in the conventional sense. The leaves are taken into a chamber some 15-20 feet (4.5-6 m) underground where the leaves are cut into smaller pieces by smaller worker ants. The fragments are taken to another chamber where they are chewed up by smaller ants into a leaf paste. This leaf paste provides sustenance for a certain type of fungus, which grows and is farmed by even smaller ants. This fungus is fed upon by the ants. There is no central coordination of leafcutter activities: each ant simply carries out its job based on its size and age. Communication, as for most other ants, comes in the form of chemical pheromones which cause ants to react in a certain way (though audio signals are also important in ant communication). Even the harvested plant species benefit from the work of the leaf cutters; studies have found that growth rates increase for many plant species after "pruning" by leaf cutters.

+ Pictures of floor-dwelling rainforest invertebrates

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Invertebrates are by far the most abundant and most diverse animals in the rainforest. They have invaded nearly every niche imaginable and many unimaginable, and each plays a unique, although still poorly understood, role in the ecosystem. For example, in the soil invertebrates are essential in the process of decomposition.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19399735

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A mysterious new species of stick insect has been discovered living in the Philippines by scientists.

The stick insect is wingless, lives on the ground rather than in trees, and is spectacularly coloured, having a green-blue head and orange body.

The insect also vents a foul-smelling spray to deter predators.

The stick insect is so unique that scientists have given it its own genus and do not yet know its relationship to other stick and leaf insects.

"Start Quote

It looked so different from any other known stick insect in the world that we immediately realised it was something very special"

End Quote Entomologist Marco Gottardo of the University of Siena, Italy

"Recently a colleague, entomologist Oskar Conle, showed us some museum specimens of a strange-looking stick insect found several years ago on Mount Halcon, a remote locality in the Philippine island of Mindoro," explains Marco Gottardo, who is studying for a PhD at the University of Siena, Italy.

The insect was found on the third highest mountain in the archipelago, which is considered one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world.

"We were baffled. It looked so different from any other known stick insect in the world that we immediately realised it was something very special."

Mr Gottardo and colleague Philipp Heller carefully examined the specimen.

"We concluded that it represented an unknown genus and species of stick insect," Mr Gottardo told BBC Nature.

The scientists have published details of the discovery in the journal Comptes Rendus Biologies.

"The new stick insect is wingless, with a stout body and rather short legs," says Mr Gottardo.

The scientists think these features are likely to be special adaptations for living in the low-growing vegetation of a montane rainforest.

Most tree-dwelling stick insects that live in the forest canopy have slender and elongated bodies and legs, thought to provide good camouflage among stick and leaves.

"Another unique characteristic is the spectacular colour pattern. [A male] has dark bluish-green head and legs, and a bright orange body with distinctive bluish-black triangle-shaped spots on its back," he adds.

It is more likely that the insect uses these striking colours to warn off predators, rather than as a form of camouflage.

"In fact we have discovered that the new stick insect has the ability to release a potent defensive spray from glands located behind its head.

"The defensive substance is sprayed when the insect feels threatened, and has a strong distasteful smell, which likely functions to repel potential predators in a similar way to skunks," says Mr Gottardo.

Enigmatic origin

The scientists have named the insect Conlephasma enigma.

"We have named the new stick insect with the specific epithet "enigma" because its systematic position in the tree of life of stick and leaf insects remains a mystery," says Mr Gottardo.

Many of the stick insect's distinctive features are unlike those recorded on other stick insects.

One feature, however, has been seen before. The microstructures of Conlephasma enigma's mouthparts are strikingly similar to those held by another group of stick insects. The problem is that these stick insects live in tropical America, on the other side of the world, raising the question of how two insects so far apart might share a similar trait.

The researchers hope that a more detailed molecular analysis of the stick insect's genetics may shed light on its true identity.

"We also hope that the discovery of this particular new insect species may draw attention into the problem of rainforest conservation in the Philippines, which are home to unique and still poorly known wildlife," Mr Gottardo says.

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A mysterious new species of stick insect has been discovered living in the Philippines by scientists. The stick insect is wingless, lives on the ground rather than in trees, and is spectacularly coloured, having a green-blue head and orange body. The insect also vents a foul-smelling spray to deter predators.

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http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/education/RainforestPlantAdaptations.pdf

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/21059874

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Swiss cheese plants' leaves help them to avoid stress, according to a US scientist.

Their familiar hole-riddled leaves allow the plants to capture sunlight more regularly, his research suggests.

The counter-intuitive idea explains how such plants can survive in shady rainforests.

Commonly grown as house plants, they are found in the wild from southern Mexico to Colombia.

Many theories have been suggested for the unusual perforated leaves.

One is that the holes in the leaves allow the plants to resist hurricane winds, by letting the wind pass through. Another is that they allow better temperature regulation or water to run through the plants down to its roots. Some have suggested the holes somehow camouflage the plants, hiding them from herbivores.

But these ideas have rarely been scientifically tested.

Now research by graduate student Christopher Muir at Indiana University in Bloomington, US, suggests the holes are an adaptation to the plants' rainforest habitat.

His findings are published in the journal The American Naturalist.

Leaves compared

The Swiss cheese plant Monstera deliciosa lives in the dark understorey of tropical rainforests. It relies on capturing unpredictable shafts of sunlight, known as "sunflecks", in order to photosynthesise for energy.

Mr Muir questioned whether the sunflecks could explain the unusual leaf shapes so he used mathematical models to compare leaves with and without holes.

He found that both leaf shapes benefit equally from the same amount of sunlight.

Although a leaf with holes will miss some sunlight, because it filters through the holes, solid leaves with the same surface area actually take up less space, so their access to sunlight is restricted.

Mr Muir's models revealed that a leaf with the same surface area, but riddled with holes, would contact sunlight more regularly because it takes up more space.

He suggests this regularity makes the altered leaf shape more reliable, causing the plant less stress giving it the best chance of survival.

But young Swiss cheese plants do not need holes in their leaves, according to Mr Muir.

Monstera deliciosa grows differently at different stages of its lifecycle; a relatively rare attribute among plants.

It is an epiphyte, or air plant, with aerial roots which attach to host trees, enabling it to climb. When young, the plant produces small leaves that are held close to the host tree's trunk.

The young plants are closer to the forest floor, where fewer flecks of sunlight reach. The poor quality of the light here means that holes do not benefit the plant, Mr Muir predicted.

Only as the plant matures does it grow taller, reaching parts of the understory with more flecks of sunlight.

Then the leaves become larger, develop holes and are held away from the trunk, where they have a better chance of capturing the sunlight necessary to survive.

"They parasitise the trunk and branches of their host plants to climb higher in the canopy where there is more sunlight," Mr Muir told BBC Nature.

Mr Muir's mathematical models suggest that leaf holes work best for plants that grow fast in shady areas, where flecks of sunlight are at a premium.

He suggests that biologists now test the idea by growing plants under different light conditions in the laboratory, simulating those found in the rainforest understorey.

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Swiss cheese plants' leaves help them to avoid stress, according to a US scientist. Their familiar hole-riddled leaves allow the plants to capture sunlight more regularly, his research suggests. The counter-intuitive idea explains how such plants can survive in shady rainforests. Commonly grown as house plants, they are found in the wild from southern Mexico to Colombia.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15033695

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A new plant that "bends down" to deposit its seeds has been discovered in the Atlantic forest in the state of Bahia, northeastern Brazil.

The new species has been named Spigelia genuflexa after its unusual adaptation.

After fruits are formed, the fruiting branches bend down, depositing the capsules of seeds on the ground and sometimes burying them in the soft cover of moss

The discovery is reported in the journal PhytoKeys.

S. genuflexa was described by Alex Popovkin, an amateur botanist who has catalogued and photographed over 800 species in his property in Bahia.

A friend of Mr Popovkin's noticed the unusual plant, and brought it to his attention.

In his efforts to identify it, Popovkin contacted experts in several countries. Finally, a botanist named Lena Struwe from Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, offered to help Popovkin study the new species.

'Short-lived'

Dr Struwe told the BBC that the the plant could have evolved its remarkable seed-planting ability for several reasons.

"Start Quote

New species are discovered every day, but so many more are not yet known."

End Quote Lena Struwe Rutgers University

"In this species, it is most likely that because it is so short-lived (just a few months) and lives in small fragments of suitable environments, the mother plant is most successful if she deposits her seeds right next to herself, [rather than] spreading them around far into less suitable environments," Dr Struwe told the BBC.

"Since the plant only survives for one season, the mother plant will not compete with her daughter plants either, which can be a problem for more long-lived plants."

Dr Struwe explained that other plants have evolved this same ability in order to survive on cliff walls - to deposit their seeds safely into cracks - or to avoid seed predators.

Mr Popovkin, a Russian emigre who lived in the US before moving to Brazil, said the discovery was a dream come true.

"I went to Salvador, Bahia, for the first time on a vacation," he recalled.

"At that time, in 1985, I was living in New York, [but] I fell in love with the place, climate and nature, and started thinking of one day moving there to live."

He finally made the move in 1991, settling in a rural area of northeastern Bahia, 130 km from Salvador.

"I started serious collecting and photographing at about five years ago," he said.

"I have collected over 900 [specimens] so far, of about 800 different species, including some rare ones that have not been collected in Brazil for over 60 years.

"It's taken me 30 years, from my days as a volunteer at the greenhouses of the botanic garden of the University of St Petersburg, Russia, to realise my dream of living in the tropics and studying its plants up close."

Endangered forest

Dr Struwe said: "This story shows that scientists need amateurs, naturalists, and citizen scientists to help discover and describe the amazing biodiversity that has evolved on Earth.

"New species are discovered every day, but so many more are not yet known."

The discovery also highlights the urgent need to protect the Atlantic Forest, which is under threat from deforestation.

"The Atlantic Forest has among the highest biodiversity in the world, with many species that are found only there," said Dr Struwe

"It is also one of the most endangered areas."

"Large areas have already been cut down and changed into agricultural land by humans, so the small remnants that are left need to be protected and preserved."

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A new plant that "bends down" to deposit its seeds has been discovered in the Atlantic forest in the state of Bahia, northeastern Brazil. The new species has been named Spigelia genuflexa after its unusual adaptation.

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http://www.mbgnet.net/sets/rforest/plants/adapt.htm

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In drier, temperate deciduous forests a thick bark helps to limit moisture evaporation from the tree's trunk. Since this is not a concern in the high humidity of tropical rainforests, most trees have a thin, smooth bark. The smoothness of the bark may also make it difficult for other plants to grow on their surface.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/ecosystems/tropical_rainforests_rev4.shtml

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A secondary school revision resource for GCSE Geography on tropical rainforests, including characteristics, formation, and how vegetation has adapted.

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http://nationalgeographic.org/video/wildindonesia_episode2_25i_clip2/

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http://kids.nceas.ucsb.edu/biomes/rainforest.html

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Location | Weather | Plants | Animals | People | Links

LOCATION: There are two types of rainforest biomes: temperate and tropical rainforests. Temperate rainforests are found along coasts in temperate regions. The largest temperate rainforests are on the Pacific coast in North America, stretching from Alaska to Oregon. Other temperate rainforests are found along the coast of Chile, the United Kingdom, Norway, Japan, New Zealand, and S. Australia. Tropical rainforests are generally found between 30°N and 30°S latitudes, covering 6 - 7% of the Earth's land surface. Tropical rainforests can be found around the world: In Central and South America; in Western Africa, eastern Madagascar, and the Zaire basin; and in Indo-Malaysia along the west coast of India, Assam, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Queensland, Australia.

WEATHER: Rainforests are important because they help maintain global weather patterns and rain. Water that evaporates from trees falls in other areas as rain.

Tropical rainforests are lush and warm all year long! Temperatures don't even change much between night and day. The average temperature in tropical rainforests ranges from 70 to 85°F (21 to 30°C). The environment is pretty wet in tropical rainforests, maintaining a high humidity of 77% to 88% year-round. The yearly rainfall ranges from 80 to 400 inches (200 to 1000 cm), and it can rain hard. It can downpour as much as 2 inches (5 cm) in an hour!

Temperate rainforests are also wet, but not as rainy as tropical rainforests. It rains about from 60 - 200 inches (150 - 500 cm) each year, while the other moisture comes from the coastal fog that lingers on the trees. The fog provides about 7 - 12 inches (18 - 30°C) of rain each year. Temperate rainforests are a lot cooler than tropical rainforests, but the temperatures are still mild. They often have two distinct seasons: one long wet winter, and a short drier summer.

PLANTS: One type of plant often found in a rainforest is an epiphyte. Epiphytes are plants that live on the surface of other plants, especially the trunks and branches. They often grow on trees to take advantage of sunlight in the canopy. In temperate rainforests common epiphytes are mosses and ferns, while in tropical rainforests there are many kinds of epiphytes, including orchids and bromeliads. There are more than 20,000 varieties of orchids found in the rainforest.

There are about 10 -2 0 species of trees in temperate rainforests that are mostly coniferous, meaning they have needles. Trees in temperate rainforests can live much longer than humans, some live for up to 1000 years! Tropical rainforests have a bigger variety of trees, hundreds of species in fact! These trees are mostly broadleaf trees and have a shorter lifespan. They usually live for 50 - 100 years.

Most trees in tropical rainforests have thin, smooth bark. They don't need thick bark to keep them from drying out because the rainforest is so wet. Also, smooth bark makes it difficult for other plants, such as epiphytes, to grow on the tree surface. Trees often have buttresses, large branching ridges near the base, for support because their roots are often shallow and they grow tall to reach the sunlight. Prop roots also help support trees in shallow soils. Many plants in the rainforests have adapted leaf shapes that help water drip off the plant to avoid too much moisture, which might make bacteria and fungus grow.

Tropical rainforests are so big that they are divided into four zones. The top layer of the rainforest is called the emergent layer. Giant trees grow here that are much taller than the trees below. The next layer is the canopy. It contains trees standing 60 to 150 feet (18 to 45 meters) tall. Their branches form a canopy, like a big beach umbrella that shades the forest floor. Thick, woody vines are found in the canopy. Over 2,500 species of vines grow in the rainforest. Some vines, called lianas, are sometimes as big around as a person! They climb the trees in the canopy to reach for sunlight. The next layer, the understory, is a dark, cool area below the canopy, but above the ground. The understory is shaded from much of the sunlight by the canopy. The forest floor is the bottom layer of the rainforest. This is the area where fallen, decomposing plants and trees lay on the ground. Many insects live here. Temperate rainforests have all of these zones except the emergent layer. The tallest trees in the temperate rainforest canopy grow to be about 300 feet (90 meters) tall.

ANIMALS: Tropical rainforests are home to half the plant and animal species on Earth. Scientists believe that there is such a great diversity of animals in tropical rainforests because they are one of the oldest ecosystems on earth. Some forests in Southeast Asia have been around for at least 100 million years, ever since dinosaurs roamed the earth. Animals in the tropical rainforest are specially adapted to live in this unique environment. A common characteristic found among mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, is an adaptation to living in trees. One example is New World monkeys that have prehensile tails that curl around branches allowing the monkey to hold onto the tree with its tail! Other animals are brightly colored, sharply patterned, have loud vocalizations, and like to eat lots of fruit. Most of the animals in the tropical rainforest live in the canopy. There is so much food available up there that some animals never go down to explore the forest floor! Birds are important to rainforests because they like to eat seeds and fruit. Their droppings grow into new plants and help rainforests to survive. In turn, tropical rainforests are important to birds because they provide winter grounds as migratory destination. Parrots are not the only type of birds you will see in the rainforest. In fact, about 27% of the bird species in the world live in tropical rainforests. Insects make up the largest single group of animals that live in tropical forests. They include bright beautiful butterflies, menacing mosquitoes, camouflaged stick insects, and colossal colonies of ants.

In temperate rainforests you'll find a different set of amazing animals. Most of these animals live on, or near the forest floor where they are protected from the wind and rain by the trees above. Many birds and small mammals, such as chipmunks, like to eat seeds that fall on the forest floor. Lots of insects live in the temperate rainforest. Most of them live in tree bark, decomposing dead plant matter, or mossy areas. Birds and amphibians like to eat these insects. Some mammals in the temperate rainforest include deer and bobcats. Cougars and bobcats are the top predators in this biome.

PEOPLE AND THE RAINFOREST: Tropical rainforests are important because they provide oxygen, take in carbon dioxide, and are a huge source of biodiversity and cultural diversity. However, people also rely on tropical rainforests for food, medicine, timber, travel, and more. Rainforests around the world provide people with food and spices, for example, allspice, vanilla, cacao, cassava, ginger, bananas, black pepper, sugar cane, nutmeg and more. Many people are also moving from crowded cities where they cannot find jobs into the rainforest where they are becoming small-scale farmers. With all of this use, we need to be concerned about the stress we are putting on rainforests. Thirty acres of trees are cut in tropical rainforests every minute! Some scientists estimate that rainforests the size of Pennsylvania are lost each year. There are many causes of deforestation. People are logging for firewood, charcoal, building materials and other uses. Trees are being removed for commercial agriculture, which may cause permanent damage. Converting rainforests to pasture land for cattle ranching has destroyed many rainforests. Mining for gold, bauxite, and other minerals can destroy the land, and make it vulnerable to erosion.

What can you do to help our world's rainforests? One way to start helping is to learn more about the plants, animals and people, as well as the issues surrounding rainforests and deforestation. When you learn about new issues, write letters to governmental officials and the newspaper suggesting ways to help solve the problem. Practice conservation at home. This will help reduce the use of rainforests, as well as ecosystems all over the world. Bauxite is a mineral used to make aluminum. By recycling, you will reduce the need for bauxite, which is mined in tropical rainforests. Pets from other countries may have been taken from the wild or imported illegally from tropical countries. If you buy pets that are captively bred in the United States, you will be sure that they didn't come from the rainforest, or another unique environment. Investigate the source of the wood for your furniture to see where it comes from, and if it was harvested sustainably. All of these actions will help protect rainforests all over the world.
LINKS: Rainforest Education Cool Planet: Tropical Rain Forest Rainforest Species Profiles Explore Africa's Rainforest National Geographic: Rainforests at Night Mongabay.com Geography for Kids: Tropical Rain Forests Tropical Rainforests: What's it Like Where You Live?

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Location | Weather | Plants | Animals | People | Links LOCATION: There are two types of rainforest biomes: temperate and tropical rainforests. Temperate rainforests are found along coasts in temperate regions. The largest temperate rainforests are on the Pacific coast in North America, stretching from Alaska to Oregon.

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https://goo.gl/ROHZSs

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Learn what threatens this fascinating ecosystem and what you can do to help.

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http://school.ebonline.com/levels/middle/article/275197
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Power Knowledge - "Rainforest Ecosystems"

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Power Knowledge - "Rainforest Ecosystems"

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https://goo.gl/wtPzft
You may need to login through the LIRC Online Resources