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The Sumatran rhinoceros is a small, hairy rhinoceros which survives in limited numbers in pockets of Indonesian and Malaysian rain forests. In the early 1900s it ranged over most of Southeast Asia from the Himalayas in Bhutan, eastern India through Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo. Now they are only found in little forest pockets on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the Malay peninsula.

The smallest living rhinoceros, the Sumatran rhinoceros has a gray-brown leathery hide. Its deep folds around the neck, behind the front legs, and before the hind legs give the rhinoceros an armor-plated appearance. It has a short, stocky body and stumpy legs which are covered with coarse reddish-brown hair. Its body length is from 8 to 8.5 feet and stands 4.5 feet at the shoulders. A mature rhino weighs from 2200 to 4400 pounds.

The Sumatran rhinoceros is the only Asian rhinoceros with two horns. Both sexes of rhinos have horns, the front horn being larger, averaging 15 to 20 inches. The male's horns are usually bigger than the female's, whose second, smaller horn is often absent. The upper lip curves down and can move around to grasp objects.

Many species of animal life can be found in the rain forest. Common characteristics found among mammals and birds (and reptiles and amphibians, too) include adaptations to a life in the trees, such as the prehensile tails of New World monkeys. Other characteristics are bright colors and sharp patterns, loud vocalizations, and diets heavy on fruits. Insects make up the largest single group of animals that live in tropical forests. They include brightly colored butterflies, mosquitoes, camouflaged stick insects, and huge colonies of ants. The Amazon river basin rainforest contains a wider variety of plant and animal life than any other biome in the world. The second largest population of plant and animal life can be found in scattered locations and islands of Southeast Asia. The lowest variety can be found in Africa. There may be 40 to 100 different species in 2.5 acres ( 1 hectare) of a tropical rain forest.   When early explorers first discovered the rainforests of Africa, Southeast Asia and South America, they They were amazed by the dense growth, trees with giant buttresses, vines and epiphytes . The tropical vegetation grew so dense that it was difficult to cut one's way through it. It was thought at the time that the soil of a rainforest must be very fertile, filled with nutrients, enabling it to support the immense trees and other vegetation they found. Today we know that the soil of the tropical rainforests is shallow, very poor in nutrients and almost without soluble minerals. Thousands of years of heavy rains have washed away the nutrients in the soil obtained from weathered rocks. The rainforest has a very short nutrient cycle. Nutrients generally stay in an ecosystem by being recycled and in a rainforest are mainly found in the living plants and the layers of decomposing leaf litter. Various species of decomposers like insects, bacteria, and fungi make quick work of turning dead plant and animal matter into nutrients. Plants take up these nutrients the moment they are released. A study in the Amazon rainforest found that 99% of nutrients are held in root mats. When a rainforest is burned or cut down the nutrients are removed from the ecosystem. The soil can only be used for a very short time before it becomes completely depleted of all nutrients.

Besides these four layers, a shrub/sapling layer receives about 3 % of the light that filters in through the canopies. These stunted trees are capable of a sudden growth surge when a gap in the canopy opens above them. The air beneath the lower canopy is almost always humid. The trees themselves give off water through the pores (stomata) of their leaves. This process, called transpiration, can account for as much as half of the precipitation in the rain forest. Rainforest plants have made many adaptations to their environment. With over 80 inches of rain per year, plants have made adaptations that helps them shed water off their leaves quickly so the branches don't get weighed down and break. Many plants have drip tips and grooved leaves, and some leaves have oily coatings to shed water. To absorb as much sunlight as possible on the dark understory, leaves are very large. Some trees have leaf stalks that turn with the movement of the sun so they always absorb the maximum amount of light. Leaves in the upper canopy are dark green, small and leathery to reduce water loss in the strong sunlight. Some trees will grow large leaves at the lower canopy level and small leaves in the upper canopy. Other plants grow in the upper canopy on larger trees to get sunlight. These are the epiphytes such as orchids and bromeliads. Many trees have buttress and stilt roots for extra support in the shallow, wet soil of the rainforests. Over 2,500 species of vines grow in the rainforest. Lianas start off as small shrubs that grow on the forest floor. To reach the sunlight in the upper canopy it sends out tendrils to grab sapling trees. The liana and the tree grow towards the canopy together. The vines grow from one tree to another and make up 40% of the canopy leaves. The rattan vine has spikes on the underside of its leaves that point backwards to grab onto sapling trees. Other "strangler" vines will use trees as support and grow thicker and thicker as they reach the canopy, strangling its host tree. They look like trees whose centers have been hollowed out. Dominant species do not exist in tropical rainforests. Lowland dipterocarp forest can consist of many different species of Dipterocarpaceae, but not all of the same species. Trees of the same species are very seldom found growing close together. This bio diversity and separation of the species prevents mass contamination and die-off from disease or insect infestation. Bio diversity also insures that there will be enough pollinators to take care of each species' needs. Animals depend on the staggered blooming and fruiting of rainforest plants to supply them with a year-round source of food.

There are four very distinct layers of trees in a tropical rain forest. These layers have been identified as the emergent, upper canopy, understory, and forest floor. Emergent trees are spaced wide apart, and are 100 to 240 feet tall with umbrella-shaped canopies that grow above the forest. Because emergent trees are exposed to drying winds, they tend to have small, pointed leaves. Some species lose their leaves during the brief dry season in monsoon rainforests. These giant trees have straight, smooth trunks with few branches. Their root system is very shallow, and to support their size they grow buttresses that can spread out to a distance of 30 feet. The upper canopy of 60 to 130 foot trees allows light to be easily available at the top of this layer, but greatly reduced any light below it. Most of the rainforest's animals live in the upper canopy. There is so much food available at this level that some animals never go down to the forest floor. The leaves have "drip spouts" that allows rain to run off. This keeps them dry and prevents mold and mildew from forming in the humid environment. The understory, or lower canopy, consists of 60 foot trees. This layer is made up of the trunks of canopy trees, shrubs, plants and small trees. There is little air movement. As a result the humidity is constantly high. This level is in constant shade. The forest floor is usually completely shaded, except where a canopy tree has fallen and created an opening. Most areas of the forest floor receive so little light that few bushes or herbs can grow there. As a result, a person can easily walk through most parts of a tropical rain forest. Less than 1 % of the light that strikes the top of the forest penetrates to the forest floor. The top soil is very thin and of poor quality. A lot of litter falls to the ground where it is quickly broken down by decomposers like termites, earthworms and fungi. The heat and humidity further help to break down the litter. This organic matter is then just as quickly absorbed by the trees' shallow roots

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.

Cold, snowy, windy. When you hear those words they make you think of mountains. The Alpine biome is like winter is to people in New England; snow, high winds, ice, all the typical winter things. In Latin the word for 'high mountain' is 'alpes'. That is where today's word alpine comes from. Alpine biomes are found in the mountain regions all around the world. They are usually at an altitude of about 10,000 feet or more. The Alpine biome lies just below the snow line of a mountain. As you go up a mountain, you will travel through many biomes. In the North American Rocky Mountains you begin in a desert biome. As you climb you go through a deciduous forest biome, grassland biome, steppe biome, and taiga biome before you reach the cold Alpine biome. In the summer average temperatures range from 10 to 15° C . In the winter the temperatures are below freezing. The winter season can last from October to May. The summer season may last from June to September. The temperatures in the Alpine biome can also change from warm to freezing in one day. Because the severe climate of the Alpine biome, plants and animals have developed adaptations to those conditions. There are only about 200 species of Alpine plants. At high altitudes there is very little CO2, which plants need to carry on photosynthesis. Because of the cold and wind, most plants are small perennial groundcover plants which grow and reproduce slowly. They protect themselves from the cold and wind by hugging the ground. Taller plants or trees would soon get blown over and freeze. When plants die they don't decompose very quickly because of the cold. This makes for poor soil conditions. Most Alpine plants can grow in sandy and rocky soil. Plants have also adapted to the dry conditions of the Alpine biome. Plant books and catalogs warn you about over watering Alpine plants. Alpine animals have to deal with two types of problems: the cold and too much high UV wavelengths. This is because there is less atmosphere to filter UV rays from the sun. There are only warm blooded animals in the Alpine biome, although there are insects. Alpine animals adapt to the cold by hibernating, migrating to lower, warmer areas, or insulating their bodies with layers of fat. Animals will also tend to have shorter legs, tails, and ears, in order to reduce heat loss. Alpine animals also have larger lungs, more blood cells and hemoglobin because of the increase of pressure and lack of oxygen at higher altitudes. This is also true for people who have lived on mountains for a long time, like the Indians of the Andes Mountains in South America and the Sherpas of the Himalayas in Asia. bibliography: "Himalayas", http://encarta.msn.com/find/, (June 2000). "General Ecology, EEOB 404", http://www.tulane.edu/~eeob/Courses/Ecology_Materials/arctic_alpine_99f.html, (June 2000).

Shrub and scrubland biomes are found in dry, temperate area. They have mild winters and very hot summers. Dry weather and lightening storms sometimes cause flash floods during the summer. Flash fires start and spread quickly. They make room for new plants to grow by burning the large, older plants. The heat of the fire causes seed shells to crack. After the fire, the seeds sprout and grow into new plants. The main plants are low-growing woody plants with evergreen leaves. These plants have a tough skin that holds in moisture and thorns that protect the plants from grazing animals. Many plants have long roots that enable them to find water underground. Some suck water from the stems of other plants.

Poverty in Asia,caste and progress. In this FAO Poverty In Asia map, Darker is Poorer but some light areas are just 'no data' - see our Poor in a Rich World page.A majority of the worlds poorest people today are in Asia - partly because it holds a majority of the world's population. Of course some Asian countries like Japan and South Korea are not as poor as others like India and Cambodia, with Asian poverty being concentrated in South Asia.  Asian poverty1. Poverty in some Asian countries is largely due to the pressure of population growth on scarce resources and inadequate governments allowing strongly negative caste discrimination. 2. Education, medicine, clean water and sanitation are often inadequate also3. In some Asian countries land ownership being problematic also encourages poverty. 4. Asia till recently attracted less foreign investment than Latin America, but more of it has been stable longer-term European investment. Some of Asia has shown good progress on poverty in recent years, like China and South Korea. (in China noteably helped partly by controls on population growth)  But Asia, holding the largest populations, still has many extreme poor. The current world recession is also causing family remittances from overseas workers or migrant workers to fall. As more migrant workers lose jobs in Western Europe and the USA, remittances to their poor families in Central Asia are being hit hard. And the likely prospect for aid in the short term is a sharp fall.

# The new green selected food crops have been helping in reducing poverty in Asia, but the newer genetically modified food crops and their monopoly providers seem to have been unhelpful to date ? See South Asia Land Management  - SACEP pdf 1.5 mb # For one small charity trying to do some good extreme-poverty work in India today, see SEED at seedkolkata.org or for another similar good small extreme-poverty charity working in Cambodia, see the Sao Sara Foundation at ssfcambodia.org Good small charities like these often lack the money they need to do as much as they would like. # For facts about individual countries, see NationMaster

This spotted cat most closely resembles the leopard physically, although it is usually larger and of sturdier build and its behavioral and habitat characteristics are closer to those of the tiger. While dense rainforest is its preferred habitat, the jaguar will range

The jaguar is a near threatened species and its numbers are declining. Threats include habitat loss and fragmentation. While international trade in jaguars or their parts is prohibited, the cat is still regularly killed by humans, particularly in conflicts with ranchers and farmers in South America.

The jaguar prefers large prey and will take deer, capybara, tapirs, peccaries, dogs, foxes, and sometimes even anacondas and caiman. However, the cat will eat any small species that can be caught, including frogs, mice, birds, fish, sloths, monkeys, and turtles;

The four major types of biomes are aquatic, grasslands, forests, and desert. Aquatic biomes are probably the most important of all the biomes. Their medium, water, is a major natural resource. Aquatic biomes can be subdivided into freshwater, seawater and atmospheric biomes. Grasslands can be subdivided into savanna, temperate grasslands (prairie) and tundra. This classification corresponds to decreasing average temperatures. Forests receive more precipitation than other biomes and vary from boreal, to temperate, to rainforest. This classification corresponds to increasing temperatures. Deserts have the fewest species and the most extreme climate

Today, more than 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed and is gone forever.