IV. rainforest anatomy

Like all living things, the rainforest has anatomy, too. In fact, thanks to the rainforest, all the carbon dioxide that mammals exhale is converted into clean, breathable air. These tropical wet forests supply us with a great amount of natural medicine, oxygen, and water. It's important to understand how these mysterious forests work in order to role-play in them.

Rainforests come in layers. All of the layers play a part in keeping a rainforest alive, including the animals that thrive in those layers. Let's start at the very top.


EMERGENT LAYER


The emergent layer is home to the tallest trees of the rainforest. Some trees can grow over 200 feet tall. These towering giants suffer serious weather conditions, such as sweltering heat, vicious winds, and heavy rain. The hardwood evergreen trees can have trunks up to 16 feet in diameter. Despite the harsh weather this layer endures, many animals call it their home such as eagles, bats, monkeys, butterflies, scarlet macaws, insects, and more. They know safety up here. The clan cats, however, do not climb this high, and this layer of the rainforest is not available for role-play here.


CANOPY LAYER


The canopy layer sits just below the emergents. It is densely packed with flora that is trying to capture as much sunlight as possible. This layer is a huge food source because it is loaded with fruits and seeds as well as the many animals that eat them. It is a maze of leaves, vines, and branches, making it quite easy to live in. Great Jungle Clan enjoys hunting here. Animals such as snakes, toucans, scarlet macaws, butterflies, parrots, monkeys, jaguars, leopards, sloths, and other birds live in this layer. The canopy provides a natural umbrella to the understory and forest floor, protecting both layers from harmful UV radiation.


UNDERSTORY


The understory, or understorey, is a dark place teeming with insects. Apprentices train here to get used to climbing. The foliage is very dense here. Trees seldom grow larger than 15 feet in this layer, and leaves grow exceptionally large to compensate for lack of sunlight. Many animals that live here are nocturnal, and other animals will go back and forth from the canopy to the understory. Tree frogs, monkeys, owls, bats, jaguars, leopards, sloths, and an abundance of insects find their home here.


FOREST FLOOR


The forest floor is the darkest part of the rainforest, receiving as little as 5% of sunlight. It's very humid and very dark down here, though it is safe from falling. Not much flora grows here, but you'll certainly find moss and enormous ferns. Though the plant life here struggles, animals flourish. The larger animals such as gorillas, orangutans, giant anteaters, tapirs, anacondas, jaguars, leopards, and boars live here. Other animals such as frogs, lizards, snakes, beetles, termites, tarantulas, and millions of insects also call the floor their home.




sources:
BBC News
Learning About Rainforests
Tiger Homes