My Biome



The Amazon Rainforest Biome is over a billion acres large, if it were a country it would be the 9th largest country.  The biome of the Amazon Rainforest is also called the "lungs of our planet" because the it produces more than 20% of the worlds oxygen.  The Amazon Rainforest is 54% of the total amount of rainforests left on the planet. The biodiversitiy of the Amazon rainforest is so great that less than 1% of its millions of species have actually been studied by scientists. A single pond in the rainforest has a greater variety of fish than found in all of Europe's rivers.

Tropical rainforests are located in the "tropics", the sun hits this area at a 90 degree angle 12 hours a day, 356 days a year.  This constant sunlight provides for some very warm temperatures year round and also provides the necessary energy to power the rainforest via photosynthesis.  A real important characteristic of the rainforest is the ample rainfall that it gets every year.  80 inches to 430 inches can fall in a year.  Usually the period between rainfalls is not long enough for leaves to dry out completely.

There is an estimated 15,000 different kinds of animals that you can find in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil.  A few examples of those animals include: the anaconda snake, the jaguar, the manatee, the piranha, the tapir and the vampire bat.  The Amazon Rainfores is home to 2.5 million insect species, tens of thousands of plants, and about 2000 birds and mammals.