Cerro Verde, Guatemala Photograph by Steve Cornelius   Central America: southern Mexico, through Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras into northern Nicaragua Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests   5,100 square miles (13,300 square kilometers) -- slightly larger than Connecticut Vulnerable

· Islands in the Sky
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Islands in the Sky

The Central American Montane Forests ecoregion is made up of forests occuring in patchy, island-like mosaics on the isolated tops and slopes of the highest mountains of Central America, from southern Mexico into northern Nicaragua. At such altitudes, the tropical climate gives way to a more temperate-like climate--allowing these forests of oak, maple, and conifer trees to flourish. Traveling into these high-rise forests, you might find beautiful birds such as the resplendent quetzal, strange birds such as the horned guan, squirrels bounding through the trees, and vines covered with colorful flowers.

Special Features

These mountaintop forest "islands" range in size from a few square miles to several hundred square miles and are often blanketed by clouds. Here, huge conifers exist alongside tropical broadleaf trees, both types laden with orchids and bromeliads. Because of the uniqueness and isolation of each forest island, many of the species in this ecoregion can be found nowhere else on Earth.

	Many bromeliads are epiphytes--plants that live on other plants--and have evolved a variety of ways to collect water without roots. Some species accumulate water in a little cup formed where their leaves spiral out as they grow--like on the top of a pineapple. They are like tiny aquariums, with their own fungi, algae, tadpoles, insect larvae, and other small creatures living inside.

Wild Side

Although the forests that make up this ecoregion are isolated, each is full of life. The horned guan--an unmistakable turkey-like bird with a white chest, black body, and red horn--makes its way through the forest in search of fruit. Meanwhile, colorful variegated squirrels bound from branch to branch, chattering territorial warnings to their neighbors. Higher up in large maple trees, weasel-like tayras chase mouse opossums through dense vine tangles and across orchids and bromeliads, while large fulvous owls emit their barking hoots. Hummingbirds, including the rufous sabrewing and green-throated mountain gem, dine on the fresh nectar of flowering lianas.

Cause for Concern

The lower slopes of this montane ecoregion have been heavily modified by subsistence agriculture for cash crops such as coffee and beef, and by the cutting of firewood. Higher elevations are more difficult to access, and the terrain is harder to sow. But, with increased human populations, even these areas are becoming threatened.

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