| In the Amazon rainforest, the fish don't stay in the rivers. Or rather, the rivers don't stay in the rivers. During huge seasonal floods, rivers spill over their banks and leave some areas of forest under 10 meters of water. | Over 100,000 square kilometers of the Amazon basin can be flooded at once. Nutrients in the river sediments are carried out into the forest. And so are the fish, which swim through the trees, feeding on the fruits, seeds, leaves, flowers and insects that are suddenly available to them during the flood. |
| About 200 species of fish in the Amazon are fruit- and seed-eaters, far more than in any other forest. Even piranhas have been known to feed on seeds! | The flooded forest is such a rich source of food that many fish species feed heavily during the floods and build up reserves of fat to last them between the seasonal flood cycles. Sometimes they don't have to wait long--in some areas of the Amazon, the forest stays flooded for as long as ten months every year. |
| Many Amazonian fruits and nuts float on the surface of the water, which allows fish to easily locate them and gobble them up as they swim through the trees. Fish are actually an important seed disperser in the flooded forest. | Seeds from many palm trees are encased in thick shells that most animals can't open. Some fish, such as the tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum), have evolved large, molar-like teeth that are specialized for grinding palm nuts and other hard seeds. |
fish in the forest -- page 3 of 3
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[water] [riparian zones] [seeds, nuts, & fruit]
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