Cacao

Cocoa is the processed product made from the beans of the cacao plant, an evergreen plant that grows to about 4.5m to 7.5m in height in the lowland rainforests of the Amazon River basins. They cannot survive in very dry weather and thrive in climates with high humidity and rainfall. The flowers and fruits, called pods, which can be 10cm to 25cm long, grow from its trunk. When the pod is young it is green in colour, turning yellow, red or purple when ripe. Each pod contains 20 to 60 reddish-brown cocoa beans up to 2.5cm long that are generally arranged in five rows surrounded by a sugary pulp. The pods are harvested at the end of the wet, or rainy, season and it takes seven to fourteen pods to produce about 500g of dry cocoa beans.

Kapok Tree

The kapok tree can reach over 60m in height, can grow as much as 4m per year, with a trunk as wide as 2.5m to 3m in diameter and it towers over the other rainforest trees. Many species, such as frogs, birds and bromeliads, live in its grooves and nooks. The kapok tree is deciduous and sheds its leaves during the dry season. It grows white and pink flowers, which emit a foul odour to attract bats that fly from flower to flower feeding on the nectar and transfer pollen with their fur. The kapok tree produces between 500 and 4,000 fruits at one time, with each fruit containing 200 seeds. As these fruit burst open, silky fibres spread the seeds all over the forest.

Carnivorous plants

Some plants in the Amazon are carnivorous, or meat-eating. They attract insects, such as ants and flies, with sweet or foul smelling nectar contained in a chamber or pitcher that has steep sides and is covered with downward pointing hairs.  Examples of these are pitcher plants, which hold small amounts of water in their slippery leaf structures to catch prey, and small, strong hairs that stop small insects from easily climbing out. When an insect enters the pitcher plant to drink, it slips down underneath the water and is absorbed by the pitcher plant. Another carnivorous plant is the bladderwort, which is found in areas of the Amazon basin.  Bladderwort plants feed on small crustaceans and other smaller animals that trigger a trap door in the flat part of one of the plant’s hundreds of small sacs located in their underwater branches. The prey is taken into the plant and ingested.

Bromeliads are related to the pineapple family and the pineapple and Spanish moss are two of the most common bromeliads. Their thick, waxy leaves make a bowl shape in the centre for catching rainwater. Some bromeliads can hold several litres of water and are miniature ecosystems in themselves providing homes for creatures such as frogs and their tadpoles, salamanders, snails, beetles and mosquito larvae. The dying plants decompose and give nutrients to the plant. There are more than 2,700 species of bromeliads in the Amazon rainforest, and about one-third of them are endangered. Some bromeliads are so heavy that they can break the trees from which they grow. Poison arrow frogs lay their eggs in the endangered tank bromeliad.

The Jaguar (Panthera onca) is a very large, powerful cat with a large head and short, strong legs. It is at the top of the food chain and its only predator is people.  Jaguars are found in rainforests, spending much of their time on the ground but are able of climbing trees to hunt or to rest. They use their padded paws to move silently through the forest floor. They can reach up to 1.83m in length from their nose to the tip of their tail , and grow up to 0.9m tall at the shoulder. The average male jaguar weighs about 54kg but some can weigh as much as 136kg. At birth most jaguars weigh only 1kg. Jaguars are known for their beautiful spotted coats that look like broken rosettes, rather than true spots like a leopard. These allow the jaguar to hide amongst the grasses, bushes and trees that dominate its habitat. The rare all-black (melanistic) jaguar is referred to as a black panther. Jaguars generally give birth to 2–4 cubs that stay with their mother for up to two years.  Jaguars are an endangered species and would become extinct if there were not laws to limit hunting and exporting their furs.

The anaconda is a member of the Boa Constrictor family and is the largest Boa. It averages 6 m in length, 150kg in weight and a diameter of 300mm. There are two kinds of anaconda, yellow and green, with the yellow being the smaller. Anacondas live near water, in swamps of the Amazon. They are nocturnal, but they'll sunbathe during the day on a branch over hanging the water. Their green and black patches on their backs, camouflage them easily from their prey that come to drink from the swamp or river.  Anaconda's have jaws allow them to open wide enough to swallow larger animals, such as birds, small mammals, such as deer, and large rodents and fish. They have been known to swallow a cayman. After eating, anacondas rest while digesting their meal, sometimes for several weeks, depending on the size of dinner. Anacondas are bear live young and 20-100 baby snakes are born at a time, little is known about the snake's breeding cycle.

The toucan is easily recognizable by its oversized, colorful bill and is found in many tropical rainforests, including the Amazon. Both females and males use their 19-centimeter-long bills to catch food, flinging fruit to one another during a mating ritual fruit toss and using it to reach up to high branches for the fruit. They also use their bill to peel fruit and catch insects, young birds, eggs and even lizards. The showy bill probably only deters predators because of its size , as it is a honeycomb construction that would be little use as a weapon. Their feathers look mainly black but have a greenish shimmer over them, with a white front and red under side of their tail. Their bright colors act as camouflage in the dappled light of the rain forest canopy, but they are usually noisy, so not well hidden. Toucans live in small flocks of about six birds. They nest in tree holes and usually have two to four eggs a year, which both parents care for. The small bill that young toucans are born with grows as they develop and does not become full size for several months. Indigenous people look upon the bird as sacred where they are traditionally seen as channel between the worlds of the living and the spirits.