Resources and Climate
The typical weather in Panama from January to May is dry and hot. But the rest of the months are wet, humid and hot. So there are basically only two seasons. In winter, temperatures get to 78 degrees or lower. In the other seasons it gets hotter! Can you believe it? It’s summer in winter!
Panama imports oil, machinery, fossil fuel, copper, equipment and chemicals. They export shrimp, coffee, bananas and clothes. Panama trades mostly with China, USA, Mexico and Costa Rica. Their agricultural exports are paper, fish, sugar, and bananas. Oil refining is an important industry .
The zones of Panama are all immensely different in climate. The first zone is the low hot zone. It the area below 2,400 feet above sea level and that equals 700 meters. The next is the temperate zone. It is between 2,400 and 4,900 feet (1,500 meters) above sea level. The last is the tiny cold zone. It is more than 4,900 feet above sea level. The three zones all have different climates. Each is higher than the last. That is what makes them so immensely different. They are the three main zones.
In all of Panama there are 214 types of reptiles, 225 mammals and 143 amphibians. One of Panama’s strangest animals is the sloth. The sloth is very very slow but can swim at a decent speed, mostly to escape floods. The harpy eagles are the country bird.
Also The Great American Interchange happened thousands of years ago in Panama. It was when animals from North and South America migrated up and down the continents. Some, like the saber tooth tiger, horses and camels evolved in North America and moved south. In South America the armadillo and the opossum both moved up north, as well as the giant ground sloths which went extinct in North America. In Panama there are more than 10,000 types of trees, and the state flower is the holy ghost orchid. Panama is also covered in rainforests.
