SOUTH/CENTRAL AMERICA

While the previous three habitats and their inhabitants are defined as biomes, this section, containing animals from South and Central America, is more properly described as a region. The countries of South and Central America encompass an amazingly diverse series of habitats including grassland, desert, tropical and temperate forests, coral reefs, mountains, and wetlands. The result of this is species variety or biodiversity. Another reason that there are so many different species in these areas is the influence of climate. Through many years of scientific exploration, naturalists have found that the closer to the equator the habitat is, the more types of species will be found in it.

Examples of species-rich habitats that border the equator are coral reefs and tropical rainforests. The largest area of tropical rainforest in the world lies in the basin of the Amazon River in Brazil. Some of the animals that you will find in the tropical forest include howler monkeys, kinkajous, fruit bats, tree frogs, and leafcutter ants. Some South and Central American animals, like the jaguar, live in a variety of habitats. Jaguars take advantage of the many types of environments in their region by having an individual range of up to 200 miles that may include dense jungle, scrubland, swamp, and shoreline woods.