The most ancient natural zones of the Earth are forests of giant trees, constantly humid, occupying the equatorial regions of Africa, almost the entire Amazon region, in Asia cover the islands of Indonesia, going to the northern tip of Australia and the southern regions of the Malacca Peninsula. The main feature of these forests is the amazing constancy of temperature and humidity. Only on the outskirts of forests, where variable-humid forests grow, does summer have a slightly lower amount of rainfall - it does not rain every day.
Life in the equatorial forests
Living conditions in the equatorial forests are optimal for all living things. The rich woody vegetation makes these territories much more biologically capacious due to the incredibly complex spatial structure. In the gilea, as the equatorial forests are also called, there are up to seven vertical tree tiers. This allows animals to "disperse" in space, having acquired many adaptations to life in the upper and lower tiers of the forest. Therefore, the local fauna is the most diverse and plentiful.
The gileas are gloomy, moist, high-stemmed forests; tree trunks are braided by vines, and crowns are very high.
The earth is usually bare, because there is no grass due to a lack of light, and fallen leaves quickly decompose.
Equatorial Forest Animals
Not surprisingly, animals and birds live on earth in the equatorial forests.In Africa, from mammals, these are the carp and big forest pigs, the dwarf hippo, the African deer, the dukers, and several other types of dwarf antelopes. Okapi live on the forest edges, where there is lighter and more grass and shrubs, gorillas prefer these places. In South America, pigs are replaced by bakers similar to them, antelopes are small deer of the mazama, and tapirs can be considered an analogue of hippos. The latter live in Southeast Asia, where small deer and pigs are also found.
There are few terrestrial rodents: these are several African representatives of the murine family (variegated mice, rusty rats), in South America they have the largest rodent on Earth, capybaras, smaller animals - pac and agouti, as well as several species of echimides similar to rats and mice.
Among the terrestrial predators of the Old World gileys, one can name a leopard, in America it is replaced by a jaguar. Smaller cats are also found in the American guilea - ocelot, jaguarundi.
The fauna in the crowns of trees is most diverse in the equatorial forests. Monkeys reign here - colobuses, monkeys, chimpanzees and mandrills (in Africa), marmosets, tsebids, turnips, arachnids and capuchins (in South America), lory, gibbons and orangutans (in Asia). Everyone knows the monkeys' adaptations to tree life - here there are tenacious tail and fingers, and well-developed muscles of the arms and legs, and addiction to fruits, flowers, leaves, insects - to everything that can be found in abundance on trees. Gilea rodents also adapted to life between heaven and earth, many of them fly from tree to tree, planning on a leathery membrane stretched between notes and tail (spine tails in Africa). The most common rodents are numerous squirrel species.And very well the various bats mastered the air element.
In South America, there are sweet-tooth leaf-bearers and real vampires desmodus. Among the mammals that prefer animal food, in the tree layer in Africa and Asia, the most are civets — genet and tangalungs. In South America, an anteater tamandua and a small predator from the Kunih taira family live.
Most birds prefer fruits, parrots are especially noticeable among them. African pigeons, turraco, rhinoceros birds, banana-eaters, American craxes also eat fruits, and the goatsin, who lives in the Amazon, eats leaves. The smallest of these gourmets are nectaries in the Old World and hummingbirds in the New.
These birds are very similar, because they lead a similar lifestyle, sucking out sweet juice (and at the same time small insects) from the corollas of flowers. However, there are no less insectivorous birds.
