The Indian Rain Forest


By
Camila, Johnny, Montana, Christopher, Victor
P.S. 87
Janet Acobes


India is located in Southern Asia between Burma and Pakistan. In India you can find rain forests in the northeastern Indian state of Assam.  There are also rain forests in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Western Ghats. In the Himalayan foothills (the Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts) there are smaller rain forests.  


DID YOU KNOW?  

There are two kinds of forests: tropical and temperate.  A temperate forest has less land than a tropical forest.  You can find temperate forests along the Pacific coast of the United States of America and Canada, New Zealand, Tasmania, Norway, Ireland, Scotland and Chile.
A tropical rainforest is a forest where it is wet and warm all year round. Tropical rain forests are located near the equator and the tropic of cancer.  

India has a tropical rain forest. It is always hot, humid and sticky.  The temperature is between 70 degrees and 90 degrees Farenheit.

LAYERS OF A TROPICAL RAIN FOREST:


There are four major layers in a tropical rain forest:
1.  FOREST FLOOR - It is dark on this layer because the trees are blocking the sunlight.  You find lots of leaves on the floor but not a lot of soil.  Plants grow because the leaves that fall from trees decompose and the nutrients from the leaves help the plants to grow.  Many animals live on the forest floor. Anteaters, peccaries, ants, spiders, snails, snakes, lizards, poison dart frogs, leopards, tigers and elephants are some of the animals that live on this layer.

2.  UNDERSTORY - This layer is above the forest floor.  It doesn't get a lot of light either because the trees above are blocking the light.  Plants have to grow 12 feet to reach sunlight!  The red-eyed tree frog, owls, bats, monkeys, leopards and apes are some of the animals that live in this layer. Insects live here too.
DID YOU KNOW? The leaves in the understory are twice the size as other leaves in the rain forest. You can use them as an umbrella!

3.  CANOPY - The canopy has the tallest trees.  They form a roof over the forest floor.  If you were looking down on the rain forest, it would look like a green ocean.  More animals live in this layer than in any other part of the rain forest.  Some animals spend their whole lives in the canopy and never touch the ground!

4.  EMERGENT - In the emergent layer you are above all of the trees.


This student project was sponsored by
CultureQuest Logo
http://www.culturequest.us/