Terrain
- Approximately 1200 square kilometers in size
- Natural features include mountains, rivers, waterfalls, swimming holes, trees as parts of the Wet Tropics landscape
- Lush vegetation
- The vegetation grows in five layers:
- In the Emergents there are giant trees that are much higher than the average canopy height.
- Canopy (under and main): The canopy houses the upper parts of the trees. It is very leafy and full of life with insects, birds, reptiles, mammals, and more.
- Understory: This is the area under the leaves but above the ground and is very warm. Only 2-15% of light shines through.
- Forest floor: The largest animals in the rainforest live here.
- The soil has a thick litter layer, but thin humus layers due to rapid decomposition.
Location
- Located in Australia north of Queensland from Port Douglas and Mossman to Cape York.
- Latitude: 15°31′05″S Longitude: 71°45′55″W
Climate
- The climate is warm all year round with maximum temperature of 32 C in the summer and 25C in the winter.
- December to March is the “wet “season
- The rainforest has about 120 days of rain
- Rain usually occurs in torrential downpours that last only a few hours
- Daintree has been known to receive more than 6 metres of rain during the summer wet season.
Interesting Facts
- The Daintree Rainforest is over one hundred and thirty-five million years old – the oldest in the world
- The Daintree rainforest has over 3000 species of plant, over one third of Australia’s mammalian species
- 13 of the mammalian species are found nowhere else in the world other than the Draintree rainforest.
- The first person to discover the rainforest was Sir Joseph Banks in the early 1770's.
- The Daintree is the largest continuous area of tropical rainforest on the Australian continent