The Amazon is the world's biggest rainforest, larger than The Amazon rainforest, covering much of northwestern

the next two largest rainforests — in the Congo Brazil and extending into Colombia, Peru and other
Basin and Indonesia — combined. At 6.9 million square South American countries, is the world’s largest tropical
kilometers (2.72 million square miles), the Amazon Basin rainforest, famed for its biodiversity. It’s crisscrossed by
is roughly the size of the forty-eight contiguous United thousands of rivers, including the powerful Amazon.
States and covers some 40 percent of the South
River towns, with 19th-century architecture from rubber-
American continent. The "Amazon rainforest" — which
boom days, include Brazil’s Manaus and Belém and
defined biogeographically includes the rainforest in the
Peru’s Iquitos and Puerto Maldonado.
Guianas, which technically are outside the Amazon
Basin — covers 7.8-8.2 million square km (3-3.2 million
square mi), of which just over 80 percent is forested.

A rainforest is an area of tall, mostly
ev ergreen trees and a high amount
of rainfall. Rainforests are Earth's
oldest liv ing ecosystems, with some
surv iving in their present form for at
least 70 million years.
The açaí palm, Euterpe oleracea, is a
species of palm tree cultivated for its fruit,
hearts of palm, leaves, and trunk wood.
Global demand for the fruit has expanded
rapidly in the 21st century, and the tree is
cultivated for that purpose primarily.
Orchids are exceptionally beautiful and
range in size from roughly a dime to a CD.
They are brightly colored, which makes
them an aesthetic delight and they can be
found all over the Amazon Rainforest.
The rainforest biome remains warm all
year and must stay frost-free. The
av erage daily temperatures range
from 20°C (68°F) to 25°C (77°F)
The kapok tree is found throughout the
Neotropics, from southern Mexico to the
southern Amazon. Its wood is lightweight
and porous; good for making carvings,
coffins and dugout canoes.
Sloths—the sluggish tree-dwellers spend their
lives in the tropical rain forests. They move
through the canopy at a rate of about 40
yards per day, munching on leaves, twigs
and buds. Sloths have an exceptionally low
metabolic rate and spend 15 to 20 hours per
day sleeping.
Rainforests receive the most rain of all
of the biomes in a year! A typical
year sees 2,000 to 10,000 millimeters
(79 to 394 inches) of rain per year.
The cocoa tree or chocolate tree, is found
in the Upper Amazon Basin where it can
reach over fifty feet high. The fruit is thick
and oval shaped, usually yellow or red, and
can sometimes grow as big a as a football.
The inside of the fruit is packed full of
between twenty and sixty seeds.
The rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) is a
deciduous species native to the rainforests
of the Amazon basin and found in Brazil,
Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia and
Peru. It is mostly encountered in lowland
moist forest habitats, including disturbed
forest, wetland areas, and forest clearings.
The toucan is a ubiquitous symbol of the
Amazon, instantly recognized by its colourful
bill, which is almost the same length as its
body. The plumage is equally colourful, and
includes patches of green, yellow, red and
white.
Wildly coloured and notoriously toxic, poison
dart frogs range from the rainforests of
Central America to those of the Amazon
Basin. Most of them live on the rainforest
floor, although some prefer the safety of
trees. They are most active in the daylight
hours.
There are around 173,000 jaguars left in the
world today, and most of these big cats are
found in the Amazon rainforest and the
Pantanal, the largest tropical wetland. Their
stronghold is in Brazil – it may hold around
half of the estimated wild numbers.