25 Amazon Rainforest Facts

Welcome to Read Listen Draw! Pack your imaginary binoculars for Twenty-Five Amazon Rainforest Facts.
1. The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest on Earth, covering about 6.7 million square kilometres.
2. It stretches across eight South American countries and the overseas territory of French Guiana.
3. Nearly sixty percent of the Amazon rainforest lies inside Brazil.

4. The Amazon River carries more water than any other river on Earth.
5. From its mountain headwaters to the Atlantic Ocean, the river system winds for about 6,500 kilometres.
6. Thousands of smaller rivers and streams join it, creating the largest river basin in the world.

7. A tropical rainforest has layers. They include the forest floor, understory, canopy and the tallest emergent trees.
8. The thick canopy acts like a leafy roof, so only a little direct sunlight reaches the forest floor.
9. Some plants called epiphytes grow on tree branches, helping them reach light without putting roots into the ground.

10. The Amazon is thought to hold about one in every ten known species on Earth.
11. More than one thousand kinds of birds live there, including toucans, hummingbirds and macaws.
12. Its rivers contain thousands of freshwater fish species, while the forest shelters countless insects, frogs and mammals.

13. A jaguar’s rosette-shaped spots help break up its outline among patches of forest light and shade.
14. Three-toed sloths move slowly through the trees, using long curved claws to hang from branches.
15. Scarlet macaws are intelligent, social parrots that often travel and call together in pairs or flocks.

16. The Amazon river dolphin, also called the boto, lives entirely in freshwater. Adults can appear pink, especially the males.
17. During the wet season, rising rivers spread between the trees and create huge flooded forests.
18. Fish can then swim among submerged trunks and roots, reaching food and habitats that were dry months earlier.

19. More than forty million people live across the Amazon region.
20. They include hundreds of Indigenous peoples and ethnic groups with deep knowledge of the forest.
21. Around three hundred Indigenous languages are spoken across the Amazon, making it a place of remarkable human as well as natural diversity.

22. Amazon trees release enormous amounts of water vapour through their leaves in a process called transpiration.
23. The forest stores vast quantities of carbon in its living trees and other plants.
24. Forest clearing, damaging fires, mining, roads and climate change can harm Amazon habitats and communities.
25. Protecting intact forest, supporting Indigenous stewardship and restoring damaged land all help the Amazon keep thriving. Which fact will you draw?