Savannah and woodlands of South America


The savanna and sparse forest zone occupies the Guiana and Brazilian plateaus and the Orinoco lowlands. Here, as elsewhere in the subequatorial belt, there are dry and wet seasons. In savannas of the Northern Hemisphere, called Llanos, a longer rainy season. Therefore there are more trees here than in the savannas of the Southern Hemisphere, which are called campos. In the campus among the herbs there are separately growing cacti, milkweed, mimosa, in Llanos – different types of palm trees. Soils are red ferrallite and red-brown.

In the valleys of rivers, evergreen gallery forests grow, which resemble tropical moist forests in terms of vegetation and fauna. The farther from the Atlantic Ocean, the more the savanna vegetation changes. In the west, they pass into the shrub savannah, where a very hard kebracho tree is found.

The fauna of the savannah of South America is much poorer than the animal world of Africa. There are no large herds of ungulates. From herbivores there are small deer, tapir, pig-baker, from predators – jaguar and puma. The local “orderly” is a battleship that eats carrion, and in case of danger it quickly collapses into a ball and buries itself into the ground. Observes the termite anteater. The largest bird of the savannah is the nandu, which in appearance resembles an ostrich.

Savannah of the southern hemisphere is very altered by human activities. To replace the vegetation of the savannah came the plantations of coffee and peanuts, whose native land is precisely the local savannas. Also, large areas are occupied by cities and areas of mining.


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Savannah and woodlands of South America