National Geographic: Rain Forest
- Year:
- 1983
- 6 Views
Millions of years ago,
before man, before the ice ages,
when the world was warm and humid,
forests like these covered
much of the earth.
And it was here,
rough eons of geological time,
that a profusion of life evolved.
The remnants of
those primordial jungles
are the rain forests of today.
They are home to half of
all the animal species on earth.
Yet, in the shady depths
of the forest,
there is seldom more than a
fleeting glimpse of this abundance.
When they are seen,
the animals are often revealed
as strange
natural perfection and adaptation.
Myriad in their diversity
and sometimes bizarre in form,
these creatures give
the somber forest
a special mystery and splendor.
Endless rains and high temperatures
create the steamy atmosphere
These conditions occur now only in
a narrow belt around the equator
of the earth's tropics.
Within this belt
lies the small Central American
country of Costa Rica,
which possesses one of the richest
natural endowments on earth.
When Christopher Columbus landed
here in 1502,
he found a mountainous land
of rivers
and forests like those he'd seen
ten years earlier in Hispaniola.
Then, in what is perhaps the first
description ever of a rain forest,
Columbus wrote:
"Its lands... are most beautiful...
and they seem to touch the sky;
and I am told that
they never lose their foliage,
as I can understand,
for I saw them as green
and as lovely as they are
in Spain in May..."
But it was partly from
the early explorers
that some popular misconceptions
arose.
For many, the first glimpse
of a rain forest
was from the rivers
The forests seemed impenetrable-
a tangled mass of undergrowth
through
which a man could only hack
a path with difficulty.
But in reality,
the dim interior is more open
and usually easy to move about in.
Little light penetrates
the dense canopy
and so undergrowth is sparse.
Only a thin layer of leaves
covers the ground.
for a place to drink
in a curled leaf.
The bright bands of color warn
predators that it's poisonous.
Below this thin layer of leaves
lies the forest soil and a paradox.
For the luxuriant vegetation
of a rain forest
is often based
on impoverished soil.
The explanation lies in the way
the forest recycles its nutrients.
Dead trees and fallen leaves rot
quickly,
and their nutrients are rapidly
reabsorbed by fungi
and tiny roots near the surface.
The entire system is so efficient
that little is lost,
and fully 95 percent
of the rain forest's nutrients
are held in the living vegetation,
hardly any in the soil.
To shed its old skin,
against rough surfaces
in the leaf litter.
A male poison-arrow frog is
courting a female.
With his monotonous song,
he will try to entice her
where they'll mate.
The male leads the way.
She follows. Within the shelter
of a curled leaf,
she'll lay her eggs,
and the male will fertilize them.
She has produced five eggs
in a cluster of jelly
and will stay nearby
until they're ready to hatch.
Workers from a colony
of leaf-cutting ants
are harvesting leaves to
take back to their nests.
they easily cut the leaves
to manageable size.
But some skill is needed
for the next stage
when the leaf is hoisted into
position for the journey ahead.
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"National Geographic: Rain Forest" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2019. Web. 6 Dec. 2019. <https://www.scripts.com/script/national_geographic%3A_rain_forest_14558>.