Rainforest trees have above-ground buttress roots due to poor soil.
The frog's habitat depends on a fragile balance of temperature and rainfall, maintained by the intact forest canopy.
Much of the Amazon's richness is parasitic. Plants of ten grow on each other, rather than in the surprisingly infertile soil.
95 percent of plants and animals in Amazon still unclassified
Wild jungle worth more intact
Over 50 percent--possibly up to 80 percent--of all of the species on planet earth are found in the tropical rainforests. Yet these ecosystems cover only seven percent of the world's landmass. Here are found one-fifth of all bird species on the planet. Here also a single hectare may bear 300 tree species, in marked contrast to the handful of tree species found in a hectare of temperate rainforest.
To date only about 5 percent of the species have been identified by non-natives. Yet even this 5 percent has yielded 25 percent of our medicines.
One third of the world's tropical rainforest is found in the Amazon, which covers 5.5 million square kilometres (2.1 million square miles). Over 3,000 species of fish inhabit the Amazon system. Fishing expeditions usually result in no two fish alike!
Brazil's forestry agency calculate that in the Amazon only 5 percent of the trees cut reach market. The remaining 95 percent are either burned or left to rot.
The seringueiros, or rubber tappers, who convinced the governor of Acre to declare the area known as Seringal Cachoeira, Brazil's first "extractive reserve", have shown that over the long run the production of natural rubber is more profitable than farming or cattle ranching. Other products that can be extracted from a standing rainforest without destroying it include chicle, palm fibre, Brazil nuts and medicines.
Opposition from cattle ranchers to rainforest preservation is fierce. Soon after the rubber-tappers achieved the extractive reserve, two ranchers put a bounty on the head of the charismatic leader of the rubber tappers, Chico Mendes. Six months later, assassins silenced his eloquent and powerful voice.
"The diversity of species, especially of insects, is unmatched anywhere in the world."
This is the Xingu River, to be impounded by the Kararao and Babaquara dams if international banks fund dam loans to Brazil.
