Linhares, Brazil Photograph by WWF/ Margaret Mariet   South America: a coastal strip in central-eastern Brazil Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests   42,400 square miles (109,700 square kilometers) -- slightly smaller than Louisiana Critical/Endangered

· Treefrogs to Tamarins
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Treefrogs to Tamarins

Take a trek into the Bahia Coastal Forests ecoregion and you'll encounter an amazing community of species, from treefrogs to tamarins to slow-moving sloths. In fact, the Bahia Coastal Forests ecoregion has been given high priority for biodiversity conservation because it harbors an extraordinary number of endemic plants, birds, primates, and butterflies.

Special Features

The Bahia Coastal Forests ecoregion covers a 90 mile- (150 km-) wide strip along the Atlantic coast of Bahia and Espirito Santo states in eastern Brazil. The climate in this area is hot and humid. Between 47 and 71 inches (1200 and 1800 mm) of rain falls annually, but there are occasional dry periods between May and September. The terrain is hilly, and mixed forests grow on nutrient-poor soils on the ancient slopes of the Serra de Mantiqueira mountain range. Wander through the forests and you'll see many layers of vegetation--from the forest floor up to the tallest tree crowns, which are more than 115 feet (35 m) high.

	Because of their relatively small size, mice, snakes, and small frogs can fall from the tops of the tallest trees of the forest canopy and land unharmed on the soft leaf litter below. They sometimes use these kamikaze techniques to escape predators.

Wild Side

These humid forests, known as "Mata Atlântica" by local people, are home to endemic golden lion tamarins--small primates with red-golden manes. As night approaches, a tawny-browed owl awakens from its canopy roost, just in time to see a spiny rat emerge from its tree hollow nearby. At daybreak, mist fills the air, making it hard for hummingbirds such as saw-billed hermits and hook-billed hermits to find their way through a tangle of flowering vines. Well camouflaged among the large umbrella-like leaves of a cecropia tree, a rare maned sloth creeps along the branches hanging upside down from its large toe-claws. As a chunk-head snake slithers near, a treefrog leaps from the security of a tiny pool of water trapped in the cup of a bromeliad plant high in the canopy, then falls safely through the understory to the leaf litter below. A large red-billed curassow walks along the ground, scratching through fallen debris as it searches for insects.

Cause for Concern

The forests of coastal Bahia are considered among the most endangered habitats on Earth, yet more than 90 percent of the forests have been altered by humans. Forests have been lost to agriculture and pasture, colonization and settlement, and urban expansion. Hunting--both legal and illegal, wildlife trade, and pollution also threaten the species of this ecoregion.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.