Brazilian Rain Forest Term Paper

Brazilian Rain Forest. There are four references used for this paper.

The world is filled with a variety of climates, each with its own type of habitants. It is interesting to examine the Brazilian Rain Forest and determine the life style and sustainability of the rare and exotic animals that live there.

Understanding the Rain Forest

Brazil is the home to almost half of the Amazon basin. The "river and forest system covers 2.7 million sq. miles and stretches into eight countries besides Brazil, including Venezuela to the north, Peru to the west and Bolivia to the south. The river itself, fed by more than 1,000 tributaries, meanders for 4,000 miles and every hour the Amazon delivers an average of 170 billion gallons of water to the Atlantic (Linden,1989)."

Home to Thousands of Species

The Brazilian Rain Forest sustains so many species of life forms that biologists have difficulties in completely describing them. It has been estimated that a "typical 4-sq.-mile patch of rain forest may contain 750 species of trees, 125 kinds of mammals, 400 types of birds, 100 of reptiles and 60 of amphibians. Each type of tree may support more than 400 insect species.(Linden, 1989). The forest sustains itself through a variety of methods such as "plants exuding the smell of rotting meat to attract flies as pollinators, and trees relying on fish to distribute their seeds when the rivers flood (Linden, 1989)."

Sustaining Life

The age of Amazon Basin, which was "formed between 500 million and 200 million years ago, has much to do with the richness and unique diversity of the plant and animal life. The Amazon rainforest contains the largest collection of living plant and animal species in the world, and currently one in five of all the birds in the world live in the Amazon rainforests (www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm)."

The large freshwater system of the Amazon River is responsible for depositing huge amounts of silt at the mouth of the river, resulting in "life beneath the water which is as abundant and diverse as the surrounding rainforest's plant and animal species. More than 2,000 species of fish have been identified in the Amazon Basin - more species than in the entire Atlantic Ocean (www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm)."

Mass Destruction

The rain forest has been under attack for more than 400 years by developers and settlers. While.....