Dynamite trees

The Amazon rainforest is home to a variety of strange plants and animals. One of the strangest may be the dynamite tree, which is also known as a sandbox tree. What makes it so strange?

In order for these trees to spread their seeds, they bear fruit. Now, instead of dropping to the forest floor when it becomes ripe, the fruit actually explodes, which sends seeds hurtling as far away as 150 feet!

Rainforest’s fruits

There are around 3000 fruits found in rainforests, and in the west they make use of around 200 of them. However, indigenous tribes make use of over 2000!

It is said that around 80 per cent of the food eaten worldwide originally came from rainforests. Some of the more popular examples include coffee, chocolate, rice, tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, black pepper, pineapples and corn.

Glass frogs

If you spend enough time in the Amazon, you’re sure to see a diversity of frogs like you never imagined.

Some of them are colourful, some camouflaged and some are even incredibly poisonous.

The coolest of them all, however, may be the glass frog, which has completely translucent skin, allowing you to look directly at its internal organs. Seriously, look at its picture, how cool is that?

Medicines and their origins

Over a quarter of the medicines we use today have their origins in the rainforests — and that’s after only about one per cent of rainforest plants have been examined for their medicinal properties. Imagine what else could be there?

It’s not outlandish to think that our best chance of curing the diseases that plague our world could lie within the rainforest. But with so many species exterminated every day, we may never find out.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 19th, 2015