By Leah Brannigan

1. By Leah Brannigan The Rainforest

2. Introduction • The rainforest is home to over half of the world’s species of animals and plants, but yet it only covers less than 3% of this world. The temperature rarely gets higher than 34° and rarely lower than -20°. Did you know that one quarter of our medicine comes from the rainforest’s plants! The rainforest consists of four layers. From top to bottom they are: Emergent layer, Canopy, Understory and Forest Floor. This habitat is disappearing fast as 6,000 metres is destroyed every second!

3. Animals Of the Rainforest

4. Colobine Monkey • Colobines are mostly herbivores but occasionally eat insects. Colobine monkeys are estimated to have a life expectancy of 20 years! Their tail can grow longer than it body which is only 50-70cm. These rare species of animals are listed as one of the 25 most endangered species of animals in the rainforest. Colobine monkeys never stay on their own so they are always in groups. They mostly stay at the tree tops, but occasionally come to the forest floor.

5. Tree Kangaroo Over the years tree kangaroos have adapted to life in trees. There are significant variations in their colour and size. Destruction of trees means a loss of habitat and food for the tree kangaroo. Only weighing 30 pounds these creatures are one of the beautiful animals of the rainforest.

6. Vietnamese mossy frog This frog is adapted very well to it’s habitat. It uses it’s skin to camouflage between leaves and on grass. When Vietnamese mossy frogs are frightened they curl into a ball and play dead. To swallow food they pull their eyes down into the roof of it’s mouth which helps them to swallow.

7. Plants of the Rainforest

8. Hot lips flower • Hot lips live in the dark forest floor in a shrub. They are very common in most rainforests. These miscellaneous flowers attract the humming bird. They contains a large amount of pollen.

9. Rafflesia plant This large flower is almost a metre wide and weighs 6 pounds. T his flower is rootless, stemless and leafless. This plant has a horrible smell, and because of it’s size makes it even worse. This odour attracts beetles and flies into the plant to pollinate it. The rafflesia plants is one of the largest plants in the rainforest.

10. Bridal-veil Stinkhorn Fungus Stinkhorn fungi has a very rotten smell. The white net around it is the source of this odour. They mostly grow during the Summer and Autumn and once grown only last a few days. In New York they sell dried Stinkhorns which sound very revolting! The Bridal-veil stinkhorn fungi is sometimes used for medicine.

11. The Pygmy tribe The pygmies are an African tribe that live in the rainforest. The pygmy people are very short and an average man only grows up to 150cm tall! The reason for their shortness is lack of calcium. They mostly feed on fruit and berries from trees. The population of the pygmy tribe in the rainforest is estimated to be just under half a million!

12. Pygmies traditional huts Dressed in special occasion gear

13. Conclusion I have really enjoyed working on this project and I hope you enjoyed it to. It has been a great experience learning all the different facts about this habitat. At the start of this project I had a lot of questions about the rainforest but with a bit of research I soon found the answers! Thanks for listening!