Life in the shade

For each forest layer, there are different habitats and therefore different animals, apart from a few exceptions, such as, for instance, insects that can be found on the ground, on the foliages or in intermediate layers.
Starting from the ground and going back up along the different layers through to the limit of the tallest foliages, we can find animals adapted to different habitats.
The soil of the tropical forest typically has a scanty hypogean flora (of the subsurface); there are actually very few earthworms and the most common underground larvae are those of cicadas and coleopters feeding on plant roots and sap. One can often find small mounds of loose earth with a tunnel in the middle: this is what remains of a cicada larva that, after a long wait, that in some species may take longer than 10 years, comes out to metamorphose by clinging to the base of a stalk and emerging from its cocoon after a short while. Unlike the long underground life, winged life seldom lasts more than a year.
The animals that are on the forest floor are mainly fossorial mammals (rodents and armadillos), terricolous monkeys, boas and pythons, frogs, fowls, leopards and jaguars, snails and ants, spiders and scorpions.

 
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