Don't ever try to play that game of alphabet animals using only tropical rain forest animals. You would run out of time before you even get past the As. I'm just going to talk about three tropical rain forest animals here. First the Agouti Paca, this particular rain forest animal is a loner that comes out at night all over the forests from Mexico to Paraguay. It lives near water in burrows which have only one entrance but Agouti Pacas have several burrows. The Agouti Pacas survive by running away from predators to water they are good swimmers. They look a little like small deer and have three to five spots on the sides of their flanks. They are only small and weigh up to 12 kilos. They use their urine and anal glands to mark their territories. The Agouti Paca is not a friend to farmers as they eat their food crops.
My favorite tropical rain forest animal is the sloth. These extremely slow-moving mammals are found in Central and South America. There are two species of sloth distinguished by having either two or three toes. Thee surreal creatures are about the size of a small dog and they have short, flat heads. Their hair is grayish brown but at times they look grey-green in color because they move so slowly that tiny camouflaging algae grow all over their coats. Some sloth stays in the same tree for years. Their huge hooked claws and long arms allow them to spend most of their time hanging upside-down from trees. Everything about the sloth is slow including its metabolism. They feed on fruit, leaves, buds, and young twigs. Sloth’s also sleep upside-down for up to 18 hours at a time.
The Zebra Long wing butterfly is a small, bad-tasting butterfly whose wing camouflage makes it hard to catch. Its yellow stripes make it hard to tell if the butterfly is coming or going. That it tastes bad is its best technique for survival in Central America, and northern South America. The Zebra Long wing goes through the typical butterfly life cycle. As an egg that is the size of a pinhead. Five to fifteen eggs are laid on passion vine leaves. Its white caterpillar has long black spines on each segment and a pale yellow head. The caterpillar eats almost continually until it pupates. It hangs upside-down from a leaf or branch, attaching itself with a silken string. An adult forms from the caterpillar, whose internal structure changes completely. The chrysalis becomes almost transparent when it is about to split open. This stage lasts from 10 to 14 days. When an adult emerges from the split chrysalis, it hangs upside down and pumps blood into its four wings, inflating them. The adult Zebra Long wing is mostly black with yellow stripes and spots with a 5 - 10 cm wingspan.
