Animals of the Rainforest

There are many different types of species that make the rainforest their home. Among these different species are birds, reptiles, mammals, reptiles, and rodents. Protecting these beautiful creatures is something we should all be thinking about. Here's a little information about some of these magnificent creatures.

Birds:

Harpy Eagle

The Harpy Eagle is the most powerful bird in the Amazon Rainforest. The harpy can have a wingspan of up to 7 feet and weigh as much as 10 pounds. It feeds upon monkeys, sloths, and various other small animals. It can be identified by it's black chest, white belly, and grey head. The Harpy Eagle mates every other year producing one to two chicks. The young are raised in nests built from sticks.

Yellow Tufted Woodpecker

The Yellow Tufted Woodpecker was named for the yellow streak of feathers found on the back of it's head. This bird is omnivorous, drilling into trees and vines to find it's food and to build it's nest. It has a very sharp bill that is used for drilling and a barbed tongue for helping it to eat insects. It's strong neck muscles help it absorb the impact from drilling. The Woodpecker is a very social bird and is often seen traveling in groups of five.

The Macaw

The Macaw is the largest and most endangered long-tailed parrot in the world, widely known for it's array of beautiful rainbow colored feathers. It is a very social bird and is found in large, noisy groups. This bird is monogamos, mating for life. They are finicky nesters and will only raise their young in dead palm trees or in the holes of other canopy trees. Human admiration has endangered eight of the eighteen species of this bird, due to the fact of people raising them as exotic pets.

Insects:

Leaf Cutter Ant

The Leaf Cutter Ant is a fungus growing insect. Groups of these ants can be seen at night, dismantling area vegetation leaf by leaf. The worker ant cuts leaves of trees or bushes into tiny pieces and cariies them back to it's nest. The ant does not eat the leaves but feeds them to a fungus. The fungus then digests the food, producing food that the ants can eat. Leaf cutter ants usually consist of two million worker ants and one queen, who is responsible for the laying of eggs. The queen takes a piece of the fungus to use as a nest and then cultivates it with her own body waste. When the nest is ready, the Queen lays up to 30,000 eggs a day.

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