The Amazon rainforest is home to more kinds of animal than anywhere else on Earth, more than ten percent of all the species we know of. Among them are the jaguar, the harpy eagle, the toucan, the scarlet macaw, the giant river otter, the poison dart frog, the capybara, the sloth, the pink river dolphin, and the green anaconda. Each one has a job in the forest, moving seeds, controlling prey, keeping the whole system in balance. Lose them and the forest itself begins to unravel.
Here are ten of the Amazon's most remarkable animals, and what makes each one matter.
The ten at a glance
| Animal | Where it lives | What sets it apart | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jaguar | Forest floor and riverbank | Apex predator, strongest bite of any big cat for its size | Near Threatened |
| Harpy eagle | Emergent layer and canopy | Talons as long as a grizzly's claws | Vulnerable |
| Toucan | Canopy | A bill that is huge and nearly weightless | Least Concern |
| Scarlet macaw | Canopy and emergent layer | Lives around 50 years and mates for life | Least Concern |
| Giant river otter | Rivers and oxbow lakes | Up to about 1.8 m long, hunts in family groups | Endangered |
| Poison dart frog | Forest floor and understory | Bright colour as a warning, toxic skin | Varies by species |
| Capybara | Riverbanks and wetland | The largest rodent on Earth | Least Concern |
| Sloth | Canopy | Moves so little that algae grows in its fur | Varies by species |
| Pink river dolphin | Rivers and flooded forest | Swims between trees in the wet season | Endangered |
| Green anaconda | Shallow, slow water | The heaviest snake in the world | Least Concern |
1. Jaguar
The largest cat in the Americas and the apex predator of the Amazon. A big male can weigh close to 100 kilos, and where most cats kill by the throat the jaguar bites straight through the skull, carrying the strongest bite of any big cat for its size. It swims well, hunts caiman and turtle, and is as at home in the water as on the bank.
The jaguar holds the whole food web in check, and because it needs vast, unbroken forest to survive, protecting it protects everything beneath it. It has already lost roughly half its historic range. We draw it on the Onça-pintada tee, and there is more on it here. If you have ever wondered how to tell one from a leopard, that is a different animal entirely.
2. Harpy Eagle
One of the most powerful birds of prey alive, with talons as long as a grizzly bear's claws and a grip strong enough to crush bone. The harpy eagle hunts inside the canopy rather than above it, flying between trunks to take monkeys and sloths straight off the branch.
It is rare, slow to breed, and raises a single chick over more than a year, which is why it disappears so quickly where forest is cleared. A nesting pair needs thousands of hectares of unbroken canopy, so a harpy eagle in the trees is one of the clearest signs that a forest is still whole. It lives on our Harpia tee.
3. Toucan
The bright, loud voice of the canopy. That huge bill looks impossible, and it very nearly is: it is made of keratin over a honeycomb of air pockets, so it weighs almost nothing. It lets the toucan reach fruit on branches too thin to climb, and it doubles as a radiator, dumping body heat through its surface.
Because it eats fruit whole and moves on, the toucan is one of the forest's great seed planters. Trees it never sees grow from the seeds it drops. The Tucano tee draws it like an old field guide.
4. Scarlet Macaw
A parrot that can live fifty years, mate for life, and fly in screaming red-and-gold flocks across the canopy. Macaws gather at riverbank clay licks to eat mineral-rich earth, which is thought to help neutralise toxins in the unripe fruit and seeds they eat. Hundreds arrive at once, and it is one of the great sights of the Amazon.
Their strength is also their weakness. A bird that pairs for life and breeds slowly cannot easily recover from the pet trade, which has emptied macaws out of large parts of their old range.
5. Giant River Otter
Up to about 1.8 metres long, close to six feet, the giant otter hunts fish in family groups and is loud, social, and bold enough to face down a caiman. Groups of up to a dozen work a stretch of river together, and they are noisy about it, with a vocabulary of whistles, hums and screams that carries across the water.
It is endangered now. Hunted almost to nothing for its pelt through the twentieth century, it survives only in the cleanest, quietest stretches of river, and mercury from gold mining is undoing even those.
6. Poison Dart Frog
Tiny, jewel-bright, and toxic. The poison dart frog's colours are a warning rather than a decoration, and the toxin is not made by the frog at all: it comes from the ants and mites it eats, which is why captive-raised frogs are harmless. Indigenous peoples used the skin of a few of the most potent species to tip hunting darts, and the name stuck to the whole family.
It is the forest at its most beautiful and most dangerous at once, and it is small enough to sit on a thumbnail.
7. Capybara
The largest rodent on Earth, about the size of a big dog and completely at home in the water. Capybaras live in herds along the rivers, graze like small cattle, and can stay submerged for several minutes with only their eyes and nostrils above the surface, which sit high on the head for exactly that reason.
They are calm enough that almost every other animal seems to tolerate them, and birds, monkeys and even caiman are regularly photographed sitting on or beside them.
8. Sloth
The slowest mammal alive, and in no hurry to change. A sloth moves so little that algae grows in its fur, turning it green and hiding it in plain sight among the leaves. Its whole body is built around spending almost nothing: a slow gut, a low body temperature, and a diet of leaves that takes weeks to digest.
It climbs down from the trees about once a week to relieve itself, and that short trip to the forest floor is the most dangerous thing it ever does. Most sloths that are killed are killed on the ground.
9. Pink River Dolphin
The boto, a freshwater dolphin that turns rosy pink with age and swims through the flooded forest itself in the wet season, weaving between the trunks where there was dry ground a few months before. Its neck vertebrae are unfused, so unlike a sea dolphin it can turn its head, which is exactly what you need in a forest full of obstacles.
It runs deep in Amazon legend, most famously as the encantado, the dolphin that comes ashore at night as a man in a white hat. It is also endangered, caught in nets and poisoned by the same mercury that is reaching the otters.
10. Green Anaconda
The heaviest snake in the world, a swimmer that lies in the shallows and the slow water where its weight stops mattering. Large females can pass 5 metres and weigh more than a person. It gives birth to live young rather than laying eggs, and it can go weeks or months between meals.
It is not the monster of the movies, but it is a reminder that the Amazon is still genuinely wild.
The four layers of the rainforest
One reason the Amazon holds so many species is that it is not one habitat but four stacked on top of each other, and most animals spend their lives in only one.
- Emergent layer. The scattered giants that break through the roof of the forest, up to 60 metres. Harpy eagles and macaws own this.
- Canopy. The dense green ceiling where most of the fruit, most of the light, and most of the animals are. Toucans, sloths and monkeys live here and many never touch the ground.
- Understory. Shaded, still, and humid, full of insects, frogs and the young of everything above.
- Forest floor. Dark, and surprisingly open. Almost no light reaches it. This is the jaguar's country.
Frequently asked questions
What animals live in the Amazon rainforest?
Jaguars, harpy eagles, toucans, macaws, giant river otters, poison dart frogs, capybaras, sloths, pink river dolphins and anacondas are among the best known, alongside monkeys, caiman, piranha and tens of thousands of insect species. The Amazon holds more than ten percent of all known species on Earth.
How many species live in the Amazon?
Nobody knows exactly, and new ones are described constantly. Current estimates run to roughly 40,000 plant species, around 1,300 birds, more than 400 mammals, around 3,000 freshwater fish and millions of insects, many still unnamed.
What is the apex predator of the Amazon?
The jaguar on land and along the rivers. In the water the black caiman is the largest predator, and the harpy eagle sits at the top of the canopy food chain. The Amazon has several apex predators because it has several separate worlds stacked on top of each other.
What is the most dangerous animal in the rainforest?
Statistically, mosquitoes, because of the diseases they carry. Among the animals people actually picture, poison dart frogs are the most toxic, though they are only dangerous if handled, and the jaguar and anaconda almost never trouble people.
Which rainforest animals are endangered?
Of the ten here, the giant river otter and the pink river dolphin are Endangered, the harpy eagle is Vulnerable, and the jaguar is Near Threatened. Several sloth and poison dart frog species are also at risk. Habitat loss is the common thread.
What are the four layers of the rainforest?
The emergent layer, the canopy, the understory and the forest floor. Each holds different animals, and many species spend their entire lives in only one of them.
The forest that feeds them
None of these animals exist without the forest, and the forest does not exist without what grows in it, like the açaí palm whose berries feed birds, fish, and people alike. It is all one system.
This is the forest our Selva collection is born from, the jaguar, the harpy eagle, the toucan, designed as field-guide engravings. Five percent of every order goes to protect the wild it comes from. That is the whole reason we make any of it.
Wear your roots.