Inhabitants Of The Rainforest
Young Readers Condensed Learning Resource
Rainforest Animals In Focus
We all seem to feel better around forests and trees as this feeling is a deep memory of our ancient past. Walking under the canopy of trees above our heads, we will feel refreshed as the greenery around us is very calming and hence the joy of being close to the natural world.
Living in the world’s great rain forests are some of the most spectacular animals. The vast rain forests also hold an incredible range of plant life, hosting all the valuable medicines and healing properties sought after by the big pharma industries. The animals that inhabit the rain forests all have special powers and abilities for perfect adaptation to their environment.
In this rain forest animal series I am presenting just a short description and summary of some of our most loved and colorful rain forest inhabitants. I hope young readers may enjoy some rapid learning benefit here and keep exploring these animals with further reading and study.
Amazonian Toucan
Ramphastos Toco
The Amazonian Toucan has a large and colorful beak.
Toco Toucan is the most common species.
Toucans are said to be frugivores as their main diet is fruit but they do also eat insects, lizards and frogs which really makes them omnivores.
A Toucans brightly colored beak is essentially a honeycomb of keratin, just like your fingernails. The edges are serrated to help them peel fruit.
Interestingly, the closest relative of the toucan is the woodpecker as they share some common behavior characteristics. They both nest in tree cavities. Also they both have long feathery tongues for catching insects and beetles. Also they both have zygodactyl feet, which means two toes pointing backwards and two toes pointing forwards.
The main habitats of the Toco Toucan are the rain forests of the Amazon. They live high up in the canopy of the tallest trees.
The way to protect these creatures is to protect the sacred rain forest and stop deforestation for the benefit of all the animals.
Toucans are not on the immediately endangered list but their numbers are declining due to habitat loss and human urban expansion and forest clearance for more farmland.
Bornean Orang Utan
Pongo Pygmaeus
The Orang Utan lives in the tropical rainforests of the Indonesian Islands of Borneo and Sumatra.
There are 3 species. The Bornean, the Sumatran and most recently discovered Tapanuli. They are all well known for their distinctive dark red/brown hair. Their feet are very similar to their hands making them incredible climbers. They live high up in the tree canopies, swinging and climbing through vast stretches of the rain forest to find enough food to eat and find a mate.
Baby Orang Utan stay with their mums for up to 7 years to learn everything they need to survive on their own.
Due to this lengthy learning curve Orang Utans only have young babies every 7 years or so.
Interestingly Orang Utans build a nest to sleep in every night by pulling together bunches of branches and smaller leaves and twigs to form a platform to sleep on.
The life span of these unique primates is around 30 to 50 years in the wild.
Orang Utans have long arms which are about 1 and a half times longer than their legs
This is the heaviest tree dwelling primate in all of Asia and all the 3 species are critically endangered due to habitat loss from deforestation for oil palm farming and production, logging, road building and other human encroachment.
There are around 100,000 Bornean, 14,000 Sumatran and 800 Tapanuli Orang Utans left in the wild and major conservation programmes are underway on these Indonesian tropical islands.
Jaguar
Panthera Onca
The apex predator of the Amazon, the Jaguar is the largest feline species in all the Americas.
Body length is up to 6 feet
Body weight up to 96kg (212lbs)
Third largest feline in the world behind tigers and lions.
The jaguar is admired for its stunning coat covered with dark spots and rosettes.
Jaguars have quite large rounded heads and short legs. Their slightly shorter ultra strong jaws give them the most powerful bite force of all the cats, capable of biting through the skull of a crocodile or shell of a turtle. They will eat almost any live prey, deer, armadillo, monkey, lizards and so on.
Often living near lakes or low lying wetlands jaguars are great swimmers and so will catch fish and other aquatic animals.
Jaguars play an important role in the Amazon, controlling the populations of other species which in turn maintains a healthy and balanced ecosystem for all the other animals.
Around half of all jaguars are living in the Amazon rain forest in Brazil. The other 50% are distributed among the other 8 countries that border and share the Amazon.
This is a beautiful and amazing animal and a symbol of the power and mystery of the Amazon.
Humming Bird
Archilocus Colubris
Humming birds are one of the world’s smallest birds measuring on average around 3 to 3.75 inches in length.
These tiny birds weigh around 1 tenth of an ounce.
Their beaks are long and thin to enable them to hover, probe and forage for nectar from flowers, like bees and butterflies.
This bird is adapted to do everything fast.
These birds have a long forked and feathery tongues which they use to lick up plant nectar at 10 to 15 licks per second.
A humming bird’s heart rate is approximately 600 bpm resting and incredibly over 1200 bpm whilst in flight, compared to humans whose resting heart rate averages 60 to 80 beats a minute.
Their breathing rate is around 250 breaths per minute.
To maintain enough energy for all this activity a humming bird must consume on average twice its body weight in nectar and pollen every day. In addition humming birds eat small insects, ants, bees, flies and beetles making them omnivores.
A humming birds wings can beat on average 60 to 70 beats per second but can increase to around 200 beats per second in a courtship dive at around 60mph. Normal flying speed is 25 to 30mph.
North American humming birds will double their weight prior to migration. They will then fly 600 miles nonstop without feeding across the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatan Peninsula to find tropical forests and pastures.
Humming birds are the only birds in the world that can fly backwards. They can perform incredible flight manoeuvers including flying sideways and upside down.
These birds have evolved in special ways to have light skeletons with porous bones and some fused wing joints to allow for greater flight stability. An amazing creature.
Three Toed Sloth
Bradypus
Three-toed sloths are arboreal tropical mammals. This unusual and curious creature is the only member of the genus Bradypus. The animal family name is Bradypodidae.
The sloth habitat is the tropical rain forests of Central and South America. Their algae-covered fur helps to camouflage them in their forest environment.
Being arboreal mammals they spend most of their time in trees, eating, sleeping, mating and descending to the forest floor only around once a week to defecate.
This curiously slow moving creature will reach crawling speeds of 6 to 8 feet per minute whilst moving on the ground. Then again it’s a wholly different situation up in the treetop canopies where they may reach the tearing speed of around 15 feet per minute.
Sloths are in no hurry to move anywhere and this slow, thoughtful movement helps to hide them from predators, further aided by their natural camouflage in the dappled light of the rainforest treetops.
Their movement and skeletal structure does not allow them to walk but they are excellent swimmers and have been proven to be able to hold their breath underwater for up to 40 minutes.
Sloths have an average lifespan of 25 to 30 years in the wild. Their diet wholly consists of leaves of various mangrove and forest trees making sloths true herbivores.
The four living species of sloth are the brown-throated sloth, the maned sloth, pale-throated sloth and the three-toed pygmy sloth. All four species are vulnerable with the three-toed pygmy sloth critically endangered where it has been estimated that there are only about 100 left alive in the world.
Red Parrot
Psittaciformes
The parrots are a broad family of around 350 birds. Cockatoos, macaws, lorikeets, amazons to name but a few, are all considered to be parrots.
Diet: Omnivore
Size: 3.5 to 40 inches
Weight: 2.25 ounces to 3.5 pounds
Average lifespan in the wild up to 80 years
Although there is great diversity among the 350 different species, there are a number of shared characteristics common to all parrots.
They all have curved beaks and all are zygodactyls meaning they have two toes pointing forwards and two toes pointing backwards.
The diet of most parrots consists of fruit, nuts, seeds, and flowers as well as small insects.
Parrots thrive mostly in Australia and South and Central America although have also manged to create new colonies in different ecosystems over time in Europe and North America.
Most parrots are charismatic and colourful and make great pets due to their high level of intelligence and uncanny ability to mimic human voice and sounds.
Some parrots species are critically endangered due to the illegal pet trade around the world. The clearing of rain forest habitat will also adversely affect these amazing, clever and colourful birds.
Howler Monkey
Alouatta
Group name: Troop (families 15 to 20 monkeys)
Average lifespan in the wild: 15 to 20 years
Size: Head and body 22 to 36 inches
Tail: 23 to 36 inches
Howler monkeys live in the tropical rain forests of Central and South America. They are omnivores but their diet consists mainly of leaves as well as flowers, fruit and nuts.
Howlers get almost all the water they need from the food they eat and therefore spend most of their time high up at the very top of the forest tree canopy.
Howler’s won’t move too much each day and so stay within their territory, eating and socialising at a leisurely pace.
These mammals are said to be among the loudest animals on earth where their whooping roar can be heard up to 3 km away. They call out generally in the mornings and evenings to define their territory and to warn others to stay away.
The only time these monkeys climb down to the ground is during really hot and dry spells where they may need to search out extra water.
Howler monkeys have prehensile tails enabling them to grip branches as a 5th limb, helping them as they eat and move around high in the treetops.
The troop leader is most often an elder male. The species is not considered to be in immediate danger, however their numbers are in decline with deforestation, human development and farming.
Kimodo Dragon
Varanus Komodoensis
Komodo Dragons are carnivorous reptiles that can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh around 300 to 330 pounds making them the heaviest lizards on Earth
The average lifespan in the wild is up to 30 years.
They have huge muscular tails and bowed legs. The skin is scaly and they have long flat heads with a rounded snout.
Komodo Dragons have thrived for millions of years in the harsh environment of Indonesia’s Lesser Sunda Islands. Their favourite habitats are the tropical rain forests although have been found across the islands.
These giant lizards can walk up to 7 miles a day although prefer to stay close to the forests and valley’s where they first hatched as babies.
They breed once a year. The female gives off a scent in her faeces for the male to follow. He will then lick her. If she licks him back they will mate.
The Dragons main diet consists of carrion, pigs, deer and even water buffalo.
They hunt by remaining camouflaged then springing on passing prey and ripping them with its sharp claws and serrated shark like teeth.
The Dragon has venom glands so that a bite prevents blood clotting, lowers blood pressure, induces massive blood loss and shock. A fearsome ambush predator.
The Indonesian Government shut Komodo Island to tourists recently as around 30 to 40 Dragons were stolen to be shipped abroad as pets.
The main threats to the Komodo Dragon are destruction of the rain forests where they live and the encroachment of human settlements and urban development.
Gorilla
Gorilla Berengei - Eastern central Africa
Gorilla gorilla - Western central Africa
Habitat: Jungles and forests
Location: Sub-saharan Africa- Gabon, Cameroon, Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.
Lifespan in the wild: 35 to 50 years
Size: 4 ft 7 in to 6 ft 5 in (1.4 to 2 m)
Weight: 300 to 590 lbs (135 to 275kg)
Colour: Black with some silver hair developing on the back of the older more dominant males.
Diet: Herbivore – Vines, fruits, shoots, leaves and roots.
No natural predators except for humans and occasionally Leopards.
Top speed: 30 to 35kph (20 to 25mph)
Number of species: 2
The Gorilla Berengei is the bigger of the 2 species and have darker, longer fur and live in the tropical forests and mountains of Eastern Central Africa. The smaller species Gorilla gorilla lives in the forests and lowlands of Western Central Africa.
Gorillas are the world’s largest primates weighing up to 3 times heavier than an average man. They are highly intelligent and some have been taught sign language with over a 1000 word vocabulary.
Theses primates live in family groupings of around 30 individuals called a troop consisting of a dominant silver back male, a number of females and immature offspring.
Anaconda
Eunectes Murinus
Classification: Reptile
Lifespan in the wild: 10 years
Weight: Up to 225kg
Body length: between 6 and 9 meters
Diet: carnivore
Habitat: rivers and swamps of tropical South America
This powerful predator belongs to the family of constrictors. These are not venomous snakes but instead they coil their muscular body around their prey and squeeze and suffocate them.
Stretchy ligaments in their jaws allow them to unhinge and open their mouths so wide to swallow their prey whole.
Anacondas will eat large fish, wild pigs. Deer, rodents and most other small animals.
They spend most of the time in water so their considerable body weight is suspended. They don’t have to chase prey over rough terrain like land based snakes.
The two smaller species of anaconda are the yellow anaconda and the dark spotted anaconda.
The rain forests of South America need to be preserved from further destruction so unique species like the anaconda may continue to thrive along with all the other creatures in the forest ecosystem.
Tree Frog
Polepedates Leucomystax
Tree frogs are some of the world’s most interesting amphibians. There are approximately 800 different species. Tree frogs are arboreal animals living their lives climbing on and around trees in the warmer jungles and forests of the world.
Habitat: Forests, woodlands and marshes
Diet: Carnivore, eating insects like flies, beetles and moths
Colours: Green, black, yellow, brown and grey
Skin: Permeable and able to colour match to their surroundings making very effective camouflage.
Life span in the wild: 5 to 9 years
Weight: 2 to 17 grams
Top speed: 10mph
Unlike more terrestrial living frogs, tree frogs have bright colours and can change their skin colour to browns, yellows, greens and grey’s to camouflage themselves to best blend with their natural environment.
Tree frogs can sense approaching rain and make a barking noise. They are heard more than seen as they are mostly active at night time.
They also have a strong sense of hearing and can feel vibrations in the ground around them. These frogs also have an additional set of eyelids to protect their large eyes
A tree frogs most distinguishing features are their feet as the last bone in their toes is claw shaped and their toes have tiny suction cups to aid climbing.
These amphibians are oviparous meaning they lay their eggs in water which in turn grow into tadpoles.
Some tree frogs are in danger of extinction from deforestation and habitat loss
© Copyright 2023 Mitchell Lee Mednick. All Rights Reserved.