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A cold desert is a desert that has snow in the winter instead of just dropping a few degrees in temperature like they would in a Hot and Dry Desert. It never gets warm enough for plants to grow. Just maybe a few grasses and mosses. The animals in Cold Deserts also have to burrow but in this case to keep warm, not cool. That is why you might find some of the same animals here as you would in the Hot and D

A cold desert is a desert that has snow in the winter instead of just dropping a few degrees in temperature like they would in a Hot and Dry Desert. It never gets warm enough for plants to grow. Just maybe a few grasses and mosses. The animals in Cold Deserts also have to burrow but in this case to keep warm, not cool. That is why you might find some of the same animals here as you would in the Hot and D

A cold desert is a desert that has snow in the winter instead of just dropping a few degrees in temperature like they would in a Hot and Dry Desert. It never gets warm enough for plants to grow. Just maybe a few grasses and mosses. The animals in Cold Deserts also have to burrow but in this case to keep warm, not cool. That is why you might find some of the same animals here as you would in the Hot and D ry

Love them or loathe them, snakes are undoubtedly one of the most successful of animal groups, inhabiting a wide range of habitats.  And many species in Southeast Asia have simply stunning colours and patterning.

Slash and burn consists of cutting and burning of forests or woodlands to create fields for agriculture or pasture for livestock, or for a variety of other purposes. It is sometimes part of shifting cultivation agriculture, and of transhumance livestock herding. Historically, the practice of slash and burn has been widely practiced throughout most of the world, in grasslands as well as woodlands, and known by many names. In temperate regions, such as Europe and North America, the practice has been mostly abandoned over the past few centuries. Today the term is mainly associated with tropical rain forests. Slash and burn techniques are used by between 200 and 500 million people worldwide.[1] Older English terms for slash and burn include assarting, swidden, and fire-fallow cultivation. Slash and burn is a specific functional element of certain farming practices, often shifting cultivation systems. In some cases such as parts of Madagascar, slash and burn may have no cyclical aspects (e.g., some slash and burn activities can render soils incapable of further yields for generations), or may be practiced on its own as a single cycle farming activity with no follow on cropping cycle. Shifting cultivation normally implies the existence of a cropping cycle component, whereas slash-and-burn actions may or may not be followed by cropping.

A food chain is the sequence of who eats whom in a biological community (an ecosystem) to obtain nutrition. A network of many food chains is called a food web. The food chain starts with plants or other autotrophs (organisms that make their own food from light and/or chemical energy) - these organisms are called primary producers. The primary producers are eaten by herbivores (plant-eaters) called primary consumers. The herbivores are eaten by carnivores (meat-eaters) and omnivores (animals that eat both animals and plants) - these organisms are called secondary consumers. Secondary consumers may be eaten by other carnivores called tertiary consumers. When any organism dies, it is eaten by tiny microbes (detrivores) and the exchange of energy continues.

A food chain is the sequence of who eats whom in a biological community (an ecosystem) to obtain nutrition. A network of many food chains is called a food web. The chain starts with plants or other autotrophs (organisms that make their own food from light and/or chemical energy) that are eaten by herbivores (plant-eaters). The herbivores are eaten by carnivores (meat-eaters). These are eaten by other carnivores. When any organism dies, it is eaten by tiny microbes (detrivores) and the exchange of energy continues.

What is a Rainforest?

Rainforests are extremely important in the ecology of the Earth. The plants of the rainforest generate much of the Earth's oxygen. These plants are also very important to people in other ways; many are used in new drugs that fight disease and illness.

ropical rainforests are found in a belt around the equator of the Earth. There are tropical rainforests across South America, Central America, Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia (and nearby islands).

The key species that supports almost all other ocean life is the Phaeton, a tiny, shrimp-like androgyne that is barely visible to the naked eye. Many species of fish and marine mammals eat primarily phaeton which float freely in the ocean's currents. Those species are, in turn, food for carnivorous predators, such as sharks, orcas, devil rays, and electric eels. When predators like these maul their prey, bits fall to the sea floor and decompose, providing a rich fertilizer for the "templa" or sea floor, one of the Ocean Biomes five layers. The second layer is the "firdga," (pronounced frid-ja) a very cool and dark band of stagnant water that supports moistly lampfish--species that use special lights on their bodies to navigate and find food. The third layer, the "fluvia," channels the strongest currents, but is too turbulent for most animal species. Most marine animals prefer to occupy the "luffa," the second layer from the surface wherein phaeton are abundant and light is able to penetrate and support plant life. The "nomar," the topmost ocean layer, which includes the surface of the ocean biome, also supports a few species, mostly flying-fish and damselflies, which use the surface to mate and hatch their young.

Major Plant and Animal Life Supported by the ocean Biome Plant Life Animal Life SeaweedAlgaeDark StarSea-CactusFungal BloomsOcean LillyCimarronYorma BulbRed Tide PhaetonPin-fishFlying-FishNurse SharksMako SharkNorwhalSting-RayWhalesTarponTunaSardinesJellyfish  

Taiga is the Russian word for forest and is the largest biome in the world.

The taiga is also known as the boreal forest. Did you know that Boreal was the Greek goddess of the North Wind?

The Orangutan lives on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra in Indonesia.

The Orangutan eats tropical fruit and also leaves, bark and insects at times.

Male Orangutans weigh approximately 100 - 250 lbs and are about 4 - 5 ft. in height.  Female Orangutans will weigh approximately 60 - 110 lbs and are about 3 - 3.5 ft. in height.

What's Made From Trees? It's no wonder people have used wood products for centuries. Wood is durable, renewable, recyclable, biodegradable, energy efficient and environmentally friendly. What would your life be like without wood? Things made from trees touch our lives every day. More than 5,000 products come from trees. And there are many uses for wood that may surprise you. Trees not only provide wood and paper, but other less obvious forest products such as chemicals and other materials that are impor- tant ingredients in plastic filler, varnishes, tooth- paste, shoe polish, foam rubber and much, much more. Tree bark is used for mulches, soil conditioners, medicines and cosmetics. Once a log reaches a mill, there is virtually no waste. The entire log is used to produce either lumber, paper, particleboard products or energy. Nationally, forest product companies are one of the most efficient of all manufacturing industries because they use sawdust and other wood waste to furnish up to 75% of their energy needs.   Idaho Forest Products Commission©2005 All rights reserved.

Mojave National PreserveWorld Deserts World Deserts North American Deserts Protecting Deserts Home Desert lands cover incredible distances. Many who have driven through deserts in the United States may think they are enormous, but they are only the fifth largest in the world covering about 500,000 square miles. By contrast the great Sahara Desert covers almost 3.5 million square miles, the Australian deserts 1.3 million square miles, the Arabian deserts 1 million square miles, while the deserts of Turkestan have 750,000 square miles. Numerous smaller deserts are also scattered across the globe. All are unique, and have adapted to their own particular environments. Global Weather PatternsDeserts tend to occur in two belts that circle the globe. Both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere have this belt located between 15 and 35 degrees latitude, roughly centered over the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. This is no accident. The sun is more directly overhead the equatorial region so it receives the most intense sunlight, and this solar energy heats the air. Hot air has two important qualities: it can hold enormous quantities of moisture, and it rises up into the atmosphere. So hot tropical air tends to be moist and rise into the atmosphere. As this air rises it cools, condensing the moisture and converting it to water where it falls as rain. This is why rain forests tend to occur near the equator. What goes up must come down, and gravity pulls this mass of rising air back to the ground. Tropical air typically falls at about 30 degrees latitude on either side of the equator and along the desert belt, but robbed of its moisture it is now hot and dry. The result are often persistent high pressure systems that tend to block incoming storms, or push them into other regions. These patterns make deserts possible, but typically other factor must also intrude to make deserts a reality.

There are about 1,000 indigenous tribes in the rainforests of the world.

Those nearest the equator, where the climate is very hot and wet all through the year, are evergreen because the trees can grow all the time and so are always in leaf

Cloud forests are yet another type of rainforest, so-called because they can be found high up mountains, where they are nearly always in cloud. The climate here is very cool but extremely wet.

If It's Been Around So Long, Why Have I never Heard Of It Before Now? I guess there are still a lot of secrets in the South American Rainforests. The recent explosion in the popularity of Jagua body art just goes to show that there are many possibilities still out there that the outside world has not even noticed. More importantly it goes to show that local traditional knowledge is incredibly important to the whole world, not just the local people of the Rainforest. So every effort should be made to help preserve it.

If It's Been Around So Long, Why Have I never Heard Of It Before Now? I guess there are still a lot of secrets in the South American Rainforests. The recent explosion in the popularity of Jagua body art just goes to show that there are many possibilities still out there that the outside world has not even noticed. More importantly it goes to show that local traditional knowledge is incredibly important to the whole world, not just the local people of the Rainforest. So every effort should be made to help preserve it.

Where Can I Get Hold Of Some Jagua Then? Well you could take a trip out to the rainforests and search it out yourself. But if your going to paint from an unripe fruit, you only have a short time to do it, before the stain stops working. But recently Jagua Body Art products like Jagua Paint and Jagua Gel have been made readily available to you so you can create your own jagua tattoos whenever you like.

Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, is a multi-ethnic city and has always been so. As the seat of government for the Afghan kings, food was an important part of royal life. Chefs were commissioned from all over the empire and places afar. They are credited for creating a myriad of dishes, blending different styles and in the process creating the best examples of true Afghan cooking. Their creations include exotic kormas, palaos, sumptuous rice dishes, desserts, and other creative items. These royal chefs passed down their art to the aristocratic denizens of Kabul and they in turn to others. Several attempts were made to record the arts of the royal chefs. Two have been published. The first one, published in Afghanistan in the early 1900s recorded the ingredients and cooking styles of Afghanistan's monarchy. The second, called Aushpazi, by Wali Zikria, published in the United States in English, during the early 1990s, was essentially the cookbook of one of Afghanistan's royal houses.