TROPICAL RAIN FOREST

Indicator Animal Species

The first of these are the great apes and monkeys; of the great apes only humans really get outside of the tropics to any great extent.  A few monkeys do as well, but for the most part these are species of the tropical forests.  The Gorilla is the largest of these, the Orangutan is today confined to the shrinking forests of Sumatra and Borneo.  The Spider Monkey represents the new world monkeys which are found in the tropical rain and deciduous forests of the western hemisphere.

Toucans and their kin, like the Collared Aracari (below) are among the tropical birds adapted to feed on the profusion of fruits found in the forest.  The fruit is an energy rich diet and the birds repay the plants by passing the seeds out in another place.  Birds and monkeys both disperse seeds in this way and play a major role in maintaining the high diversity of the rainforest.