ADVENTURES IN BRAZIL.

Brazil is a vast country with several distinctly different biomes. The mighty Amazon rain forest covers almost half of the country. Below that on the west is the Pantanal, the world's largest wetlands. Central Brazil is covered with Cerrado, or grassland and gallery forest habitat. Northeastern Brazil is caatinga desert, with patches of tropical moist forest on the coast. Southeastern Brazil hosts Atlantic rain forests, less well known than the Amazon but 20 million years older. The great Serra do Mar mountain range follows up much of the southeastern coast and inland north of Rio de Janeiro. In the upper altitudes of these mountains, one finds Brazilian alpine and isolated mountain tops with many endemic species. The southern part of the country turns temperate, with grasslands, wetlands and stands of Araucaria pine forests.