How the Amazon absorbs the carbon of a billion cars
Standing rainforest captures each year what a fleet of more than one billion cars would emit, and holds between 150 and 200 billion tonnes of carbon.
Anne Silva
Marajo: Buffalo, Ocean Beaches and Thousand-Year-Old Clay
At the mouth of the Amazon, the world’s largest fluvio-marine island pairs Brazil’s biggest buffalo herd with fresh water ocean beaches, mangroves and a ceramic tradition more than a thousand years old.
The toucan is the Amazon’s most productive tree planter
Toucans swallow palm fruits whole, carry the seeds intact for more than five kilometres and drop them where new trees can grow. It is the quietest reforestation programme in the Amazon.
The Peach Palm Heart That Grows Back and Spares the Juçara Palm
Peach palm, or pupunha, is cut without felling the tree: removing the main stem triggers new shoots ready in eighteen months. It is the agroecological alternative easing pressure on the threatened juçara palm.
Piquia, the Amazon giant whose fruit yields a prized oil
Piquia (Caryocar villosum) is an Amazon rainforest tree that grows up to 50 metres tall. Its yellow, oily pulp is boiled to release an oil rich in oleic acid and carotenoids, a staple for riverside communities and a new favourite of chefs in Para.
The northern muriqui, the largest primate in the Americas and its society without bosses
The northern muriqui is the largest primate in the Americas and lives only in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. It has no large canines, no alpha male and a group life built on tolerance and cooperation.
The Armadillo That Rolls Into a Ball and Leaves the Jaguar Nothing to Bite
Faced with a threat, the Brazilian three banded armadillo seals itself into a ball with no edges and no gaps. What stops a jaguar is not the hardness of the bone but the geometry of the sphere, held shut by the animal’s own abdominal muscles.
Dragonfly Flight: The 360 Degree Hunter Engineers Copy
It steers each of its four wings separately, sees almost 360 degrees and hits its target in more than nine out of ten attempts. The Amazon dragonfly is a flight manual that drone designers are still trying to read.
Gold mining in Amazon riverbeds is unsettling the water cycle
Gold extraction churns the bed of Amazonian rivers, blocks the photosynthesis of algae and unsettles the chain that sustains fish, the water cycle and river communities.
The peacock bass eye that outsmarts water refraction
The peacock bass leaps clear of the river to catch insects and birds in flight. To hit the target, its visual system first corrects for water refraction.