Top 10 Facts About the Amazon Rainforest

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The Amazon Rainforest is the world’s most famous rain forest. Located in South America, its range covers several countries. A majority of the Amazon Jungle is located in Brazil (60%). Other major parts are located in Peru (13%) and Colombia (10%). The rest are located in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. This amazing jungle has a lot of interesting things to hide underneath its layers and layers of leaves. However, you can find out some of these amazing Amazon forest facts, by checking out below for the top 10 facts about the Amazon Rainforest.

#10: The Jungle Canopy and Its Many Layers

Unlike most forests, the Amazon Rainforest canopy does not consist of just a single layer of trees and plants. In fact, it consists of 3 to 4 distinct layers (depending on the location and density of the jungle) broken up into the under-story, sub-canopy, canopy, and the emergents layer. Each of these layers make for very distinct environments where many different types of plants and animals find a home.

The emergents layers are the highest layer of the jungle canopy and can reach as high as 160-196 feet (50-60 meters) above the ground. The next layer down is the canopy that is around 82-98 feet (25-30 meters) above the ground. The next layer down is the sub-canopy. This layer is dominated by trees that are waiting for beams of sunlight to poke through the layer above them. Once this happens, they can grow up to the canopy layer. The lowest layer is the under-story. Amazon forest plants, such as small trees and shrubs that are adapted to low light conditions, dominate this layer. In fact, the thickness of the trees above them is so great that in many places, the floor of the Amazon jungle is in permanent darkness. Rain can take as much as ten minutes to reach the ground.^[1]National Geographic Kids – 10 AMAZING AMAZON FACTS!

#9: The largest tropical rainforest in the world

The Amazon Rainforest is the largest tropical rainforest in the world. It covers an area of 2.1 million square miles (5.5 millions square kilometers).^[2]WWF – AMAZON This dwarfs the world’s second largest rainforest, the Congo in central Africa. It only covers 690,000 square miles (1.78 million square kilometers). To help give you an idea of how big the Amazon really is, if it was its own country it would be the world’s 7^th largest country based on area. It would be smaller than only Russia, Canada, the United States, China, Brazil, and Australia. However, it would be bigger than famously large nations such as India and Mexico.

#8: The Rainforest – The Earth’s Lungs

Plants and trees are an important part of the ecosystem on this plant. They are integral part of the oxygen, carbon dioxide cycle. They “breath” in CO2 and expel the oxygen we need to breathe. One of the most interesting Amazon Rainforest facts is that the Amazon Jungle is such an important and big player in this process that it is sometimes called the Earth’s lungs. In fact, the Amazon Jungle is responsible for more than 25% of the oxygen production in the world.^[3]Science – Amazon rainforest ability to soak up carbon dioxide is falling

However, due to global warming and deforestation, the Amazon’s ability to produce oxygen and act as a carbon dioxide sink is being reduced. This makes it very important on humankind to pay attention to what we are putting out in nature especially as the Amazon Jungle is getting smaller due to deforestation caused by logging and agriculture. While wide tracks of the Amazon still exist, this is not the case for all the rainforests in the world. At the current rating of logging, rainforests in West Africa, Madagascar, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea are nearly completely destroyed.

#7: The Amazon’s biological diversity is mind-blowingly vast

One of the amazing facts about the Amazon rainforest is its biological diversity. It is truly off the charts. Scientists are consistently discovering new types of tropical rainforest animals and rainforest plants all the time, some of which are critically endangered animals. For example, there is an estimated 2.5 million different types of insects living in the Amazon.

In fact, recent studies “indicate at least 40,000 plant species, 427 mammals, 1294 birds, 378 reptiles, 427 amphibians, and around 3,000 fishes.”^[4]Wiley Online Library – The Fate of the Amazonian Areas of Endemism However, this list is mostly likely far from the total amount of bio diversity in the Amazon forest. For example, between 2014-2015, 381 new species of animals and plants were discovered (216 plants, 93 fish, 20 mammals, 32 amphibians, 19 reptiles, and 1 bird).^[5]PHYS.org – 381 new species discovered in the Amazon This comes out to around 2 new species species being discovered every day!

#6: The Amazon Rainforest’s Indigenous tribes

The Amazon Rainforest is filled with around 240 tribes at a total of around 900,000 people living in Brazil today. However, this is a dramatic decrease in the indigenous population. In 1500, Europeans first came to Brazil. At this time, historians estimate that there were at least 11 million indigenous people in about 2,000 tribes living in the Amazon. However, today their situation is quite perilous. In fact, it is only getting worse. Farmers and loggers are constantly encroaching on their protected land.

While some tribes, such as the Guarani still remain relatively large at 51,000 members there are other tribes that are hurting such as the Akuntsu tribe which now only consists of 5 members. Furthermore, it is thought that there are at least 80 uncontested tribes living in the Amazon forest.^[6]Survival – Brazilian Indians These peoples are in even greater danger as they are susceptible to diseases such as the flu and measles to which they have no natural immunity.

#5: The Amazon River is longer than the Nile River

For the longest time, the title of “longest river” in the world has gone back and forth between the Amazon River in South America and the Nile River in Egypt and Africa. You may have learned that the debate was over. The Nile River was the longest river in the world. While the Amazon River was the largest river in the world based off of volume. However, measurements like this can be very tricky. It is very difficult to determine exactly where a river starts and ends.

In 2007, a group of Brazilian scientists commenced a 14 day voyage along the river. Their goal was to try and find the source of the river somewhere deep in the mountains of southern Peru. At the end of their expedition, they increased the recorded length of the Amazon River by 176 miles (284 kilometers). Officially, this makes it the longest river in the world at 4,225 miles (6,800 kilometers) compared to the Nile’s 4,160 miles (6,695 kilometers).^[7]National Geographic – Amazon Longer Than Nile River, Scientists Say

#4: The origin of a lot of our food and medicines

The Amazon Rainforest is a very important food basket of the world. In fact, over 80% of the food that we eat has its origins from there. A small variety of the foods include “fruits like avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangos and tomatoes; vegetables including corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane, tumeric, coffee and vanilla and nuts including Brazil nuts and cashews.”^[8]Rainforest Maker – Facts Rainforest Facts Additionally, 25% of modern day medicines can find their origin from the rainforest. A few examples of medicines derived from the Amazon forest include: the cure for malaria, treatments for multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease, the active ingredient for birth control pills, and the blueprint for everyday. We really do have a lot to thank about the rainforest and its bounties.

#3: The Sahara Desert and the Amazon Rainforest

What do the Sahara Desert and the Amazon Rainforest have in common? The Amazon Rainforest actually depends on the Sahara Desert in order to survive? How can two completely different biomes an ocean apart have such a big effect on each other? It is the dust from the Sahara Desert that blows across the Atlantic Ocean that is so important for the Amazon forest.

More specifically, the phosphorus found in the desert dust is what is so important to the rain forest. It contains remnants of the dead microorganisms that used to live in lush lands that used to be there before the Sahara Desert, 10,500 years ago. The phosphorus is an essential nutrient for plants. It helps them grow. Additionally, the Sahara Desert provides around 22,000 tons of sand per year filled with fertilizing phosphorus to the Amazon forest.^[9]NASA – NASA Satellite Reveals How Much Saharan Dust Feeds Amazon’s Plants Another great example, of how the world, its climates, and ecosystems are vitally interconnected.

#2: The Direction of Flow of the Amazon River

The Amazon River flows from high up in the Mountains, which hug the western coast of the South American continent, east towards the Atlantic Ocean. However, this was not always the case. Before, the Amazon River used to flow westward into the Pacific Ocean. However, once the Andes mountain range started rising up 45 million years ago due to tectonic plates shifting, the direction of the Amazon River changed to its current direction.^[10]University World News – Mountains on a plate form the Andes

#1: The Underground River Rio Hamza

Almost everyone has heard of the Amazon River in the Amazon forest. However, not until recently did people even know of another river just as long, hundreds of times wider, and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) below the Amazon River. Scientists name the river Rio Hamza. The team names it after the head of the team of scientists who discovered it. It flows along the same course as the Amazon River in the same west to east direction. The Amazon River may be anywhere between 0.6 to 62 miles (1 to 100 kilometers) wide. However, the Rio Hamza is between 124 to 248.5 miles (200 to 400 kilometers) wide.^[11]The Guardian – Underground river ‘Rio Hamza’ discovered 4km beneath the Amazon Despite its greater size, it does not drain as much water into the Atlantic Ocean. The speed of the water flow is much slower, moving along at millimeters per hour.