While there are many monkeys
in most
rainforests, and Orangutans in
Asian rainforests (more exactly Borneo and around), Africa is the
continent that has the two largest and most intelligent primates -
chimpanzees and gorillas.
There are two species of Chimpanzees.
The Common Chimpanzee lives in western and central African rainforests,
while Bonobo lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Gorillas
also belong to two species and both live in Central African
rainforests. Mountain gorilla lives in higher elevations up in
mountains, while Lowland gorilla lives in lower altitudes in lowland
forests and swamps and marches.
Other
classic animals found in Africa are giraffes, zebras and lions. None is
a real rainforest dweller but they are all hard to ignore on a page
about wild animals in Africa.
Giraffes all
belong to the same
species - Giraffa
camelopardalis.
But there are different subspecies in countries like Chad, Sudan,
Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
Mosambique, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.
Zebras
are related to horses and donkeys. There are three species of them -
the (more horse-like) Mountain Zebra and Plains Zebra; and (the more
donkey-like) Grévy's Zebra. The Plains
Zebra
is the most wide-spread and it is found in Sudan, Uganda, Kenya,
Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Bortswana, Namibia and South Africa. Mountain Zebra is
found in more
mountainous areas in Namibia and South Africa; and Grévy's
Zebra is found mainly in Kenya (some in Ethiopia).
Lion is not totally endemic to
Africa - there are tiny populations still left in India. But once it
covered large areas in Africa, Asia, Middle East, and even Central
America. All lions belong to the same species, Panthera leo.
Apart from
the small
populations in Gir Forest National Park in India,
lions are found in remnant pockets in most countries south of Sahara in
Africa.
Note:
This site uses British English, which is the English we use in
Australia. Disclaimer:
This website is about interesting facts about rainforests.
It
is not
trying to be comprehensive. Although best efforts
have been made to
ensure
that all the information on this
site is correct, rainforest-facts.com
is
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