Interesting Facts about the Rainforests

Here we are going to share some of the most interesting facts about the Amazon rainforest for kids. These facts include exciting information about temperate & tropical rainforests, the fauna and their geographical location on Earth that you can find them.

1. A large number of tribes actually live in rainforests of Brazil and Central Africa who have never seen the modern western countries like the United States where we live.
2. According to scientists, there are still millions of insect and plant species throughout the rainforests which have not yet been discovered.
3. Central American rainforests have over 8,000 diverse plant species.
4. Every minute, approximately 2,000 live trees that grow throughout the rainforests are cut down. As human beings, we must do something to save them before they are completely wiped out from the face of Earth, as they take so long to regrow.
5. Every second, part of the rainforest, about equal to a football field will be destroyed by humans.
6. Huge bamboo plants will sometimes grow an astounding 9” each day.
7. In Australian rainforests, about 81% of flower species are unique and cannot be found in any other part of the world.
8. In most South American rainforests, there’s an animal called a sloth which moves so slowly on trees that algae are actually capable of growing on its fur.
9. One out of every 4 compounds in our medicines is actually extracted from the various rainforest plants.
10. Rainforests hold a huge array of animal species, including snakes, cougars, insects, birds, jaguars, turtles, chameleons, frogs, etc.
11. Rainforests, as the name, suggests experience very high levels of rainfall.
12. Some of the monkeys found in rainforests are omnivores – they eat both plants & animals.
13. Some of the rainforests in Asia have flying frogs, snakes & squirrels.
14. South American rainforests have over 2,000 species of butterflies.
15. Temperate rainforests are situated on temperate zone i.e. between tropics and polar circles of Earth in South Eastern Australia & New Zealand, and Western North America.
16. The canopy, as well as understory within the rainforests, is filled with numerous animals and plants species.
17. The words “Rainforest” and “Jungle” mostly refer to the same thing, but still, there exist several notable differences.
18. The world’s biggest tropical rainforest is known as the Amazon Rainforest.
19. There are basically two categories of the rainforest, tropical and temperate.
20. There was a time when our rainforests covered almost 14% of our planet, but now this has been reduced to just 6% due to heavy deforestation (cutting down trees).
21. Till date, over 24% of the natural medicinal compounds that we know of, hail from rainforests.
22. Tropical fruit species like mangoes and bananas totally rely upon bats for pollination.
23. Tropical rainforests are situated in tropics (280 North / or South the equator) in places close to the equator, like Asia, Pacific Islands, Africa & Central America.
24. Tropical rainforests have very densely packed trees. Because of this, sometimes it takes 10 minutes for the rain to actually reach the ground from the top of the trees.