The Layers of the Rainforest
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The rainforest has different layers.
First is the Flooded Basement. Two thirds of the world's fresh water is recycled by rainforests and the Flooded Basement is home to five thousand species of fish, but scientists have estimated that another two thousand are yet to be discovered. Occasionally, the sloth, said to be the slowest animal in the world, gets down from its tree and goes for a swim.
The Ground Floor layer comes next. The animals most at home here are the animals with the fewest predators, such as the tiger, the jaguar and the elephant. Hundreds of thousands of plant species grow in the rainforests and some of them are very important to us. One in four purchases from a chemist is based on a rainforest plant.
The third of the rainforest layers is the Understory. The middle zone of the rainforest is like an animal highway. One of the strangest animals in the rainforest, the sugar glider, lives here. It is basically a flying squirrel that has very stretchy folds of skin between its arms and legs which enable it to glide. There is also a flying snake! A tree which grows to 25 meters (middle zone height) is the rubber tree and the smallest hummingbird also lives in this part of the rainforest. It only lives a couple of weeks because its heart beats so fast.
The Upperstory or Canopy is like a huge blanket covering the whole of the rainforest. The first explorers of the rainforest had to keep cutting their way through huge walls of foliage. They named it the 'jungle' because the word 'jungala' means 'wall of leaves'. The canopy absorbs ninety-nine percent of the sun's light and is responsible for ninety-nine percent of photosynthesis.
The Emergent Zone is the topmost layer of the rainforest where the tallest trees (some as tall as eighty-seven metres) show their foliage. This layer has been explored less than any other as it cannot easily be reached.
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