Amazon Amazon Daintree Daintree Written by Tracey Michele Tracey Written by Rainforest Rainforest, Rainforest,

Daintree Rainforest, Amazon Rainforest Springboard 5

Murray River, Murray Mississippi River, River in Springboard 5: Simpson Desert, Mojave Desert Other Information Reports (Compare/Contrast) fascinating – rainforests the Daintree Amazon.and the and plants that live in these hot, It wet places. compares and contrasts two most of the world’s information information report examines the bizarre and wonderful animals Rainforests are Rainforests some of the most amazingThis places on Earth. For inspection teachers' Daintree Rainforest, Amazon Rainforest

Written by Tracey Michele Cover images of a North American temperate rainforest (left), Cola de Caballo Waterfall in Nuevo Leon (right), lorikeets ( top middle), crocodile (bottom right) and a strawberry poison dart frog Daintree (bottom middle) Photography by Corbis/Tranz (pp6–7, p9, p16, pp20–23, p25, p26 bottom, p27 bottom, pp28–29); ONLY Getty Images (Gail Shumway p8, Dorling Kindersley p11, Will & Deni McIntyre p18); Photolibrary (p15); Courtesy Daniel Yoshio Spronk (p19); Digital Vision (p1, p24, p27 top); Photodisc (cover bottom middle & bottom right, p5, p30); Corbis (cover left & top middle, p17, p26 top); Stockbyte (cover right) Rainforest, © 2007 Macmillan Education Pty Ltd

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Published by Macmillan Education Australia Pty Ltd Level 1, 15–19 Claremont Street, South Yarra, Victoria 3141 Rainforest www.macmillan.com.au

Edited by Ruth Adeane-Nancarrow/Gordon Coutts Designed by Kuljit Kaur Printed in Hong Kong 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents ISBN: 978-1-4202-6181-3

Introduction...... 4 The Daintree and Amazon Rainforests...... 12 Rainforest History...... 14 Climate...... 17 Plants...... 18 Animals...... 24 Threats to the Rainforests...... 29 Glossary...... 31 Index...... 32 For inspection teachers' Introduction

Forests that have a lot of rainfall are called ONLY rainforests. They are very important to the world for a number of reasons. Thousands of kinds of plants and animals live in rainforests. In fact, rainforests contain two-thirds of the world’s plant and animal species. A lot of these plants and animals are rare or nearly extinct. Scientists use the plants found in rainforests to make medicine. A quarter of all the medicines that people use have plants from rainforests in them. Rainforests can help stop the effects of pollution on the world. Plant life helps remove a gas called carbon dioxide from the air. Too much carbon dioxide in the air is one of the main causes of global warming. This means that saving the rainforests can help slow global warming. Plants also give out oxygen into the air. Animals and people need to breathe oxygen to live. This book will take a close look at two tropical rainforests, the Daintree and the Amazon. But first, read on for some Rainforests are full of bizarre, rainforest facts. colourful animals such as this toucan.

  For inspection teachers' Tropical rainforests are located in three main parts of Tropical Rainforests around the World the world – • South and Central America – including the Amazon ONLY • Africa – including the Zaire basin, western Africa, and eastern Madagascar EUROPE • South-East Asia – including the western coast of India, NORTH ASIA AMERICA

Indonesia, Malaysia, New Guinea, and Northern PACIFIC OCEAN , Australia ATLANTIC AFRICA OCEAN All of these places are near an invisible line that goes round the middle of Earth. This line, the equator, divides PACIFIC SOUTH INDIAN OCEAN AMERICA OCEAN Earth into two sections, the northern and southern hemispheres. The equator is the place on Earth nearest the AUSTRALIA sun, because of the way the planet spins round. Earth spins round on its two poles, at the north and south of the planet. The equator is halfway between these poles, meaning it is ANTARCTICA always closest to the sun. This makes tropical rainforests hot

throughout the entire year. They lie between two invisible Key lines known as the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Tropical rainforest

A tropical rainforest is teeming with life.

  For inspection teachers' The temperature in a tropical rainforest does not change Other things that all rainforests have are much through the year. Also, there is not much change in a lot of rivers and streams. Most rainforests heat between day and night. have big rivers with smaller streams running ONLY Every day of the year has about 12 hours of daylight. into them. These smaller waterways are Other places on Earth have longer or shorter days than the called tributaries. Tropics. The length of the days in other places depends on the season. Tropical rainforests have just two seasons, the wet and the dry. However, the short dry season in a rainforest still has rain. As the name suggests, rain plays a massive part in the life of a rainforest. Some rainforests can get more than 250 cm of rain in a year. It usually rains each day, in heavy downpours that can last a couple of hours. The amount of moisture in the air of a rainforest is also very high. The amount of moisture in air is humidity. People measure it by percentage. A high percentage means high humidity. When there is a high humidity level, the air feels sticky on your skin. In a rainforest, this level does not drop below 80 percent.

A red-eyed frog in a rainforest downpour

Rivers and their tributaries carve winding paths through even the densest rainforests.