--- title: The rainforest from the top: emergent layer and canopy — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The rainforest from the top: emergent layer and canopy», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A tropical rainforest is a tower of homes in layers: a few giant emergent trees poke out at the very top, below the --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / The rainforest from the top: emergent… # The rainforest from the top: emergent layer and canopy Lesson 2 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/0/) — A tropical rainforest is a tower of homes in layers: a few giant emergent trees poke out at the very top, below them the canopy, a thick roof of leaves 30 to 45 metres up, then the dim understorey and the dark forest floor. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/1/) — From a helicopter the canopy looks like a green sea of broccoli, and that roof is where most rainforest animals live, because that is where the sunlight, the fruit and the fresh leaves are. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/2/) — Rainforests lie near the equator, where the sun is strong all year, so on a holiday in Malaysia the hot morning air rises, cools into storm clouds and pours down almost every afternoon. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/3/) — Up in the canopy every animal has its own trick: the sloth hangs still, the gibbon swings, the toucan reaches with its beak and the harpy eagle waits on the tallest tree above them all. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/4/) — In The Jungle Book, King Louie the orangutan rules a ruined temple in an Indian jungle; real orangutans live only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, and they are quiet, mostly solitary apes, not kings of a monkey gang. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/5/) — The canopy is the thick upper layer of leaves and branches about 30 to 45 metres above the ground, and the emergent trees stick up above it. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/6/) — Rainforests cover only about 6 per cent of Earth's land, but scientists think more than half of all land plant and animal species live in them. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/7/) — The harpy eagle perches on emergent trees and swoops into the canopy for sloths and monkeys; it can weigh up to about 9 kg, with talons around 13 cm long, about as long as a grizzly bear's claws. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/8/) — Three-toed sloths hang by long curved claws, eat leaves that give little energy, move only a few metres a minute, which saves energy and helps them hide from eagles, and climb down about once a week to go to the toilet. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/9/) — Green algae grow in a sloth's fur and help to hide it among the leaves. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/10/) — Howler monkeys roar at dawn to tell other groups where their territory is; a large hollow bone in the throat makes the boom, which can carry about 5 km, making them some of the loudest land animals. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/11/) — A toucan's huge beak is light because it is a honeycomb of bone covered with keratin; it reaches fruit on thin twigs and also lets the bird lose heat, like a radiator. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/12/) — Orangutans are the largest tree-living animals, build a fresh sleeping nest of bent branches almost every night and live only on Borneo and Sumatra. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/13/) — The blue morpho's blue is not paint: tiny ridges on its wing scales bounce back only blue light, so the colour would vanish if the scales were ground to powder. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/14/) — Bromeliads grow on branches and catch rainwater in a cup of leaves, a tiny pond for insects, and some poison dart frogs carry their tadpoles up and drop each one into its own little pool. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/15/) — Scarlet macaws fly in pairs that stay together for many years, nest in tree holes and eat clay from riverbanks, which scientists think gives them scarce salt. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/16/) — A strangler fig starts from a seed dropped high on a tree by a bird, sends roots down to the ground and wraps the host, which may die and rot away inside it. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/2-the-rainforest-from-the-top/18/) — Trees release so much water from their leaves that the Amazon makes much of its own rain, so cutting down the forest can make the region drier. - ← previous: [What a habitat is: home, food, shelter and fitting in](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/1-what-a-habitat-is/) - next →: [The rainforest from below: understorey and forest floor](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/3-the-rainforest-from-below/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)