Page 125 - Atlas Of The World's Strangest Animals

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Central and

South America

Mexico, Central and South America, and the beautiful islands of the

Caribbean are often collectively referred to as Latin America.

his is a term used to define those nations where wonders. It’s here that we find the Andes, the world’s
languages based on Latin – primarily French, longest mountain chain, and the Amazon, the world’s
TSpanish and Portuguese – are predominant.Yet, biggest rainforest.Within these environments, a quarter of
historically and culturally, this remarkable region is all the world’s animals live, including some genuine
perhaps one of the world’s most diverse and dynamic. animal record-breakers – the anaconda, the world’s
Covering approximately 21,069,501 square kilometres heaviest snake; the goliath tarantula, the biggest spider;
(8,135,000 square miles), Latin America begins in Mexico, and the Galapagos tortoise, the largest tortoise.
then snakes down through Guatemala and Belize to In this section we’ll be investigating some of the
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, which region’s amazing animal inhabitants in greater detail.
form the bulk of the Central American landmass. Some of them, like the red howler monkey, may not be
Columbia is where South America ‘proper’ begins.This the biggest or the heaviest, but are just as memorable!
massive ear of land sits between the Atlantic and Pacific Some have bodies that have adapted to life in river, jungle
Oceans, providing a home to 13 nations and more than or mountain in weird and wonderful ways.And some, as
371 million people. It’s a land of wild beauty and natural we’ll discover, have much more curious claims to fame.

(c) 2011 Marshall Cavendish. All Rights Reserved.