Facts about Rainforests
A rainforest can be defined as a forest that experiences a high level of rainfall. It gets at least 250cm of rain in a year. About 6% of Earth’s land surface is rainforest but half of all animal and plant species live there. They also work as a defense system against climate change. There are two different types of rainforests which are tropical and temperate.
Tropical rainforests are more common as compared to temperate. Approximately 20% of the world’s freshwater resides in tropical rainforests. The Amazon rainforest is the largest tropical rainforest. It produces as much as 20% of the planet’s oxygen alone.
Quick Facts: –
- A falling raindrop takes 10 minutes to travel from a rainforest’s thick canopy to the floor.
- Rainforests can be found on every continent except for Antarctica.
- There are some pine trees in Tasmania’s temperate rainforests that can live up to 2,000 years.
- Veiled stinkhorn fungi are found in tropical rainforest. They smell like rotting food.
- The Amazon rainforest is so big that if it were a country it would be the 9th biggest in the world.
- There is a tree known as the idiot fruit which grows in Australia’s Daintree rainforest.
- The rhinoceros hornbill birds are found in Southeast Asian forests. They have a hornlike structure on their head that appears like an extra beak.
- Rainforests are important for our food supply. Many components of our daily diet originally come from the tropical rainforest.
- There are a few tribes in Central America and Brazil that still live in rainforests and have no contact with the outside world.
