Many species of animal inhabit the jungles and forests. Elephants, widely used as beasts of burden, are abundant. Other large animals include the rhinoceros, tiger, leopard, gaur, water buffalo, and gibbon. The Siamese cat is, as its name implies, indigenous to Thailand. Thailand has more than 50 species of snakes, including several poisonous varieties.
Crocodiles are numerous, as are various species of fishes and birds.
Agriculture Thailand is one of the world's leading producers of rice, despite the fact that the yield per hectare is low. In the early 1990s Thailand annually produced approximately 18.5 million metric tons of rice, up from about 11.3 million metric tons per year in the 1960s. The second most important crop in value is rubber, which is raised mainly on plantations on the Malay Peninsula. In the early 1990s approximately 1.4 million metric tons of rubber were produced each year. Livestock totaled about 6.8 million cattle, 4.8 million buffalo, 5.1 million pigs, and 153 million poultry.