Tree frogs and chimpanzees live here, burrowing holes to live in the vast vegetation. This grows beneath the canopy. The gorilla makes this his regular hangout, also pythons lie here waiting for prey. The dim forest floor teems with life. Termites and ants feed on all the decomposing matter on the ground, and elephants make their way down a path of moss.
Butterflies move silently by, and the air is still and very humid.
These are the layers that make up the rain forest's complex ecology. In the rest of the essay I will describe some of the life forms found in the rain forest, and ways they affect the environment. In the rain forest, plants develop poisonous alkaloids to protect against insects, and insects develop complex digestive chemistry to overcome these poisons. Some of these plant alkaloids give native indians great poisons for darts, and to cancer researchers hope for a new medicine. The rain forest root systems are so efficient that almost all of the nutrients in decaying plants are recycled into new ones.