Thursday, May 7, 2009

Do some animals live in plants?

Do some animals live in plants?

Plants are an important part of rainforests, providing animals and people with food, shade and shelter. Some animals, like tree frogs, live inside a type of plant called a bromeliad. Many bromeliads have stiff, overlapping leaves that, like buckets, hold rainfall inside them. Bromeliads are like small ecosystems where animals such as tree frogs, snails, flatworms, tiny crabs and salamanders can spend their entire lives.

What do some of the animals eat?

One way that scientists categorize animals is by analyzing their diets. Herbivores feed only on plants, carnivores on other animals and omnivores on both plants and animals. Some animals, like howler monkeys, are vegetarians. Other animals, like jaguars, are hunters and are known to eat more than 85 species of prey.

Why are sloths green

Why are sloths green and how do they catch their prey if they are so slow?

Sloths are among the slowest-moving animals on Earth; they can swim but are virtually unable to walk. They have long, coarse fur that is light brown in color, but often appears green due to the blue-green algae that grow there. Instead of toes, their front and hind feet have three curved claws that allow them to easily hook onto tree branches and hang upside-down. Sloths move too slowly to hunt. They are herbivorous, which means they eat only plants. Their low-energy diet consists of leaves, twigs and fruit. Because of their slow movement and metabolism, it can take up to a month for a sloth to digest a single meal.

Do birds migrate to rainforests?

Many birds that spend the summer in North American back yards migrate to tropical rainforests in the winter. The Baltimore oriole travels from the eastern coast of the United States, more than 3,000 miles to winter in the warm forests of Central and South America, where they often find refuge in shade-grown coffee farms. Not only do the trees on these farms provide habitat for the birds, they protect the coffee crop from the harsh rays of the sun. The birds do their part by eating insects that attack the coffee plants

Unknown Plants and Species

Are there any unknown plants in rainforests?

Scientists are continuing to discover new species of plants and animals. Many rainforest plants provide us with food and medicine. One quarter of the Western medicines that we use today are derived from plants, yet less than one percent of these tropical trees and plants have been screened by scientists for pharmaceutical properties. Tropical forests have given us chemicals to treat or cure inflammation, rheumatism, diabetes, muscle tension, surgical complications, malaria, heart conditions, skin diseases, arthritis, glaucoma and hundreds of other maladies.

How do rainforests affect the Earth's climate?

Around the world, rainforests store an estimated 610 billion tons of carbon. By absorbing carbon dioxide from the air, storing the carbon and giving us fresh, clean oxygen to breathe, tropical forests act as the Earth's thermostat, regulating temperatures and weather patterns. More than 20 perecent of the world's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest. Excess carbon dioxide produced by cars, industry and uncontrolled logging and burning in tropical forests all contribute to global warming.

Products from the Rainforest

What products do we use in our daily lives that originate in rainforests?

Rainforests provide us with valuable resources such as timber, wood pulp for paper, firewood, medicines, fibers, latexes, resins and fruits. Foods such as chocolate, coffee and bananas all come from rainforests.

Products from the Rainforest

Bananas, cocoa, coffee, wood and many more products originate in the rainforests of Latin America. As demand for products from the rainforest increases, more pressure is exerted on these precious ecosystems. ['ɪkə.sɪstəm生态系统 ] With 90% of the world’s forests outside of protected areas, the Rainforest Alliance works to protect ecosystems and the people and wildlife that depend on them by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. For instance, companies and communities in Brazil work with the Rainforest Alliance and their partners to harvest wood while ensuring the forest will remain healthy and productive for generations to come.