Fun and maybe troubling facts about tropical rainforests:
-They cover about 6 percent of the earth’s surface, but MORE than half of the world’s animal and plant species live there!
-They recycle and clean water
-Tropical rainforests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
-We get many of the foods we eat from the rainforests such as: Brazil nuts, Macadamia nuts, bananas, plantains, pineapple, cucumber, cocoa (chocolate), coffee, tea, avocados, papaya, guava, mango, cassava (a starchy root), tapioca, yams, sweet potato, okra, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, mace, ginger, cayenne pepper, cloves, oranges, grapefruit, lemons, limes, passion fruit, peanuts, rice, sugar cane, and coconuts.
– 70 percent of the anti-cancer plants identified so far are rain forest plants.
-Almost half of the Earths’ native forests have been cut down, and each year more than 30 million acres are lost.
-Tropical rainforests are not one ecosystem, but hundreds of ecosystems all working together.
We visited a local “tropical rainforest” at our zoo and enjoyed seeing some of the species of plants and animals that call the rainforest home. We left with an awareness of how fragile these ecosystems are.
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