- The Amazon Rainforest is the largest and densest rainforest on earth
- The Amazon Rainforest covers 2.5 million miles, about the size of the USA west of the Mississippi
- If Amazonas Rainforest were a country, it would be the 9th largest on earth
- Each minute the Amazon River discharges 3.4 million gallons of water into the Atlantic, 14 times the discharge of the Mississippi
- The Amazon Rainforest runs 4007 miles from its origin in the Andes to the Atlantic, making it the second longest river on earth
- During its journey, Amazon Rainforest touches and-or travels through 8 countries
- There are 200 major tributaries of which 17 are more than 1000 miles long and 10 of which discharge more water than the Mississippi
- Amazon Rainforest's vegetation represents about 1/3 of the remaining forest on earth and provides about 15% of the world's new oxygen
- Scientists have catalogued:
- 2500 species of fish
- 1500 species of birds
- 1800 species of butterflys
- 4 types of big cats
- 200 species of mosquitos
- 50,000 species of higher plants
- The Amazon Rainforest actually includes 9 countries? 60% of it is found in Brazil, but it is also in Peru, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
- The Amazon represents over half the plane's remaining rainforests.
- Cutting down or burning the trees in the Amazon (called "deforestation") threatens the whole planet because the amazon is the source of one fifth of the world's fresh water!
- At the current rate of deforestation, it is estimated that 55% of the rainforest could be gone by the year 2030. That's more than half!
- The planet loses 50 species ever day, almost 2 an hour due to tropical deforestation around the world.
- The amazon is home to 1 in 10 of the known species on Earth.
- One in five of all the birds in the world live in the Amazon!