natural features of

NATURAL FEATURES OF

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Contents

The Amazon Basin

The Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon River

Iguazu Falls

The Pantanal

The Cerrado

Lencois Marahenses (the bedsheets of Brazil)

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The Amazon BasinThe Amazon Basin is such a large natural space that it sits across seven South American countries, but mostly within Brazil. There are two main features to this area, the Amazon Rainforest and the Amazon River which runs through it.

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The Amazon RainforestThe Amazon Rainforest is sometimes known as the lungs of the planet. This is because it is home to over 80,000 types of plants and billions of individual trees. The cacao plant from which chocolate is made and the coffee tree both grow freely here. Palmtrees, vines, rubber trees and flowers such as orchids can be found all over the forest.

Some of the leaves and bark from certain Amazon Rainforest plants are good for making medicine. Other plants are very poisonous. One example of this is the rare curare, a plant that can be used to make poisonous arrows by local tribespeople.

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The Amazon Rainforest is home to thousands of species of insects, as well as birds, snakes, turtles, other reptiles and mammals. Jaguars are the biggest hunters in the forest. They live alone and hunt for meat and fish. They can grow up to two metres long and their patterned fur is different for each animal.

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More than 300 types of butterflies can be found here, including some that drink the tears of the yellow spotted river turtles. Hummingbirds, macaws and toucans eat leaves, fruit and nuts and drink the nectar from various flowers. There are many types of frogs found in the forest. The poison dart frog may look beautiful but its bright colours warn other creatures to keep away.

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The Amazon RiverThe Amazon River is more than 6,400km long. It has more water than any other river system in the world. More than 1,100 smaller rivers and creeks flow into it along its path to the Atlantic Ocean. The water from the Amazon River is known to be the freshest and cleanest in the world.

The Amazon River is surrounded and filled with lush, green vegetation such as floating vines, water grasses, ivy and giant water lilies.


More than three thousand types of fisheslive in the Amazon River, including flesh eating, red bellied piranhas.Other species found here are snakes, electric eels and rare pink dolphins.The green anaconda is a giant snakethat can stay under water for up to ten minutes at a time and can grow up to six metres long. These hunters don’t justfeed on fish from the river but can eat larger animals like pigs, deer and even jaguars.

Where the Rio Negro River meets the Amazon River, it creates a strange natural sight. The temperatures of the water in each river and the speed of the flow of their water are so different that the flows don’t mix. This creates an interesting dark and light, side by side look.


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Iguazu FallsThe Iguazu Falls is the largest and most powerful waterfall system in the world. Water from the Iguazu River flows here to create more than 270 separate waterfalls. These falls cover an area that is up to eighty two metres high and twenty seven kilometres wide. Located in the south of Brazil, the Iguazu Falls is a World Heritage listed site.



Around 2000 species of animals and plants can be found in the Iguazu Falls area.The native toucan can be seen flying around at dawn and dusk where they feed oninsects, smaller birds and lizards. Other interesting animals include the grey crownedcrane and the howler monkey. Spotted jaguars can be seen here along with raccoons,caimans and anteaters.

The humid weather here means there is plenty of rain and sunshine all year round. Plants grow well around the falls and many beautiful flowers bloom here. These include orchids, begonia and impatiens, which can can be seen growing on therocks of the lower falls along with moss, lichen and ferns. Trees, mostly palms, grow around the edges of the falls and can reach up to forty metres in height.

The PantanalLocated in the central part of Brazil, The Pantanal is the largest wetland in the world.

It covers an area of nearly 2000km squared. This area is a floodplain that receives run off from water in higher areas that surround it.

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The Pantanal



The Pantanal is home to a wide variety of animal species, including more than 1,000 types of birds and many rare and endangered species. Some of these includethe giant river otter, the marsh deerand the giant anteater. Large groupsof caimans (American alligators) and more than 400 species of fishes thrive here. The apple snail, which can live in water and on land, is an important part of the food chain here, surviving in both the wet and dry season.


The higher parts of The Pantanal does have some forests of trees. A huge part of The Pantanal is under water during the long wet season, so aquatic plants grow well here. Palm trees, water lillies, marshes and floating plants likethe water hyacinth grow in, aroundand on top of the water.

The greenery of the marshes provide good hiding spaces for many varieties of animals to live and hunt.

The Cerrado The Cerrado is a large region in the centre of Brazil. It covers an area of nearlytwo million square kilometres. This is a tropical savannah region which has two seasons: a cool, dry winter and a hot, rainy summer.



A large variety of animals call this place home. Monkeys, rats, deer, jaguars and rattlesnakes are all native to this area. Eagles, finches and hummingbirds can be found nesting in trees.

Many animals in The Cerrado are threatened with extinction. Their natural habitats are being destroyed by people using the land for farming and trees being cut down for their timber. The giant armadillo, the maned wolf, the giant anteater and the jaguar are all endangered in this area.


There are more than ten thousandtypes of plants in The Cerrado. The soil is not very rich here and there is a long dry season each year, so many of the plants are short and dry looking. Because it is so large, there are several types of vegetation regions within TheCerrado but much of the area iscovered in grasslands or dry woodlands, where unusual looking twisted trees can be found.

Lencois Marahenses (the bedsheets of Brazil)This unusual place looks like a desert as it is covered with 1,500 square kilometres of sand dunes. It cannot be called a desert though because the area usually receives more than a metre of rain during the first half of the year.


Following the rains, water collects in the valleys between the sand dunes creating beautiful deep pools and lagoons, filled with the rainwater. These blue and green fresh water pools then become filled with fish and other water dwelling creatures like krill and crabs.Fish, like the tiger fish spend the dry season burrowed deep under the sand and then come out to make the lagoons their home. Many tourists come here when the lagoons are full of warm water and enjoy swimming with the fish.Because it is so hot, sandy and windy, vegetation does not grow in and around the sand dunes. Small shrubs and grasses can appear in the dry season and grow where the lagoons have dried up.


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