Backpacker Magazine – March 2009

Wilderness Wonders: Highest Biodiversity

From jaguars to river dolphins, Amazonian animals are diverse.

by: Marcus Woolf, Photos by Michael and Patricia Fogden

Biggest Cave | Scariest Predator | Driest Desert | Hottest Geysers | Largest Glacier | Highest Peak | Tallest Tree | Highest Biodiversity | Largest Primate | Most Active Volcano | Strangest Rock Formation | Biggest Bear | Largest Crater | Farthest Migrator | Tallest Waterfall

What The Amazon reigns supreme. Jaguars, howler monkeys, river dolphins, piranhas, and up to 10 million other life forms thrive here, and you'll find more tree species in 2.5 acres of the Peruvian rainforest than in all of North America. The Amazon is also the largest of the world's warm (a near-constant 80°F), wet (up to 400 inches of rain annually), and ancient (about 100 million years old) rainforest ecosystems–at 1.2 billion acres, this sultry biome encompasses an area two-thirds the size of the Lower 48.

 

Where Manú National Park, Peru. Look out for a thousand kinds of birds, 200 mammal species, and a million different insects in this 3.7-million-acre jungle park. Hotspots include oxbow lakes, 13,000-foot Andean peaks, and a "clay lick" that attracts hundreds of macaws each morning. peru.info

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