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Tropical Rain Forest
 Diverse Rainforest (Tropical Rainforest)
Frequent rainfall, year-round warm temperatures, and uniform periods of daylight and night lead to abundant and constant sources of food for tropical forest animals. Within rain forests, different animals and plants are found at each level of the forest: on the ground, lower and middle layers of the forest, and the canopy. The soils of tropical forests are very poor, with most of the nutrients used to sustain vegetation.
Try a Jungle
The small deer finding its way through the dense vegetation is a mazama or brocket deer. In the tropics, mammals are often small, while the insects are frequently large.
Tropical rain forests are home to the greatest diversity of animal life on earth. The richness of this diversity can be seen in this Mexican rain forest, where you can see a spider monkey, parrot, termite pest, anteaters, and many other plants and animals.
Losing Our Rain Forests
 Rain forests all over the world are being destroyed at an alarming rate to harvest timber, mine minerals, plant crops, and graze livestock. In 1989 surviving rain forests occupied an area roughly equivalent to the size of Florida. In parts of the world the rate of destruction is even greater today.
Most of the animals and plants native to rain forests are found nowhere else. The number of species lost each year in the destruction of the rain forests is estimated to be 27,000, equaling 74 species lost every day or three species each hour. Loss of tropical rain forest leads to a steep decline in our global biological diversity.
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Rain forests all over the world are being destroyed at an alarming rate to harvest timber, mine minerals, plant crops, and graze livestock. In 1989 surviving rain forests occupied an area roughly equivalent to the size of Florida. In parts of the world the rate of destruction is even greater today.
