Pirenopolis, Brazil Photograph by © WWF-Canon/Juan PRATGINESTOS   Central South America: Central Brazil, into Bolivia and Paraguay Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands   740,100 square miles (1,916,900 square kilometers) -- about the size of Alaska Vulnerable

· A Mosaic of Habitats
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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A Mosaic of Habitats

The Cerrado is an extensive savanna shrubland mosaic and the largest ecoregion in the Americas--not to mention the sixth largest in the world. Across parts of southern Brazil, northeastern Paraguay, and eastern Bolivia, a mosaic of habitat types come together: wet and dry forests, grasslands and savannas, marshes and wetlands, and gallery forests and shrublands. An average of 50 to 80 inches (1,270 to 2,032 mm) of rain falls each year, washing over the Cerrado’s nutrient-poor but well-drained soils.

Special Features

The Cerrado is the largest savanna region in South America, and no savanna in the world is as biologically rich. The biodiversity of the Cerrado is extraordinary--at least 10,400 species of vascular plants and over 780 fish, 180 reptile, 110 amphibian, 830 bird, and 95 mammal species live here. Most of these species are restricted to the Cerrado. An abundant number of endemic species make this ecoregion their home, including four percent of its bird species and up to 50 percent of its plant species.

	The maned wolf is not really a wolf at all. The tall, red-brown mammal is actually a large fox. You might guess this by the animal’s large pointy ears, which resemble a fox’s much more than a wolf’s. This extraordinary hunter is the largest canid in South America.

Wild Side

In the afternoon light of the Cerrado’s open savanna, a maned wolf hides behind a patch of bunch grass and acacia thicket and anxiously watches a naked-tailed armadillo dig its burrow. At the right moment it will lunge into the air and pounce on this unsuspecting prey. From the nearby canopy of an endangered tropical pequizeiro tree, a rare endemic Brasìlia tapaculo sings its steady repetition of a single, rather high-pitched "chet" note to attract a female. In a bank-side thicket, a dwarf tinamou scratches the dry dirt and leaf litter in its search for tasty insects. A Brasília burrowing mouse scampers down into its burrow as the shadow of a rufous-thighed hawk sweeps across the ground. Atop a rock outcropping, a saxicolous lizard warms itself in the last rays of sunshine before the sun slides over the horizon. On the ground below, what appeared to be a pile of leaves erupts as a white-winged nightjar takes to the skies. As night falls, a shrew-like endemic short-tailed opossum peers out into the moonlight from a hollow in a nearby corteza amarilla tree as it prepares for its nocturnal foraging.

Cause for Concern

More than 60 percent of the Cerrado has been converted or modified in some way by humans. The greatest impacts come from a growing agricultural frontier, increased colonization (especially around Brazil’s capital, Brasília), and the creation of many new highways. Other pressures include cattle ranching, hunting, species collection, and irrigation.

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