 You can find rainforests all over the world. You can find them, apparently, I've just discovered, on every single continent in the world, apart from Antarctica. So you can find them in places like the United States, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, China, and even the UK. And sort of bonus points to anyone out there who can tell us where we have rainforests in this country. And so there are different kinds of rainforests. You can find rainforests in mountains, these are sometimes called cloud forests. You can find temperate rainforests, which you find in countries where there are different seasons. But I think the most important and the largest rainforest that you tend to find in the world are what we call tropical rainforest. And these are rainforests that you find in areas all around the equator, so that sort of imaginary line that goes around the middle of the planet, in very, very warm regions like Southeast Asia, South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Pacific. And so tropical rainforests are quite interesting because they're rainforests that are both wet and hot all year round, which means that trees and plants can grow really, really well in them. Trees and plants really like these sorts of conditions. And by this, I don't just mean a few species of trees and plants. I mean hundreds of species of trees and plants, as well as hundreds of animals and insects and other life forms that exist within them. So in that sense, tropical rainforests, but rainforests in general, are really special because they're incredibly biodiverse, which means they've got lots of different species of life forms living together in the same space. And so I guess in that sense, we could also think about rainforests as being sort of treasured tropes of life. So what's it like being in the rainforest in Borneo? It's very hot. It's very sticky. It's very, very damp because there's a sort of downpour pretty much every day. It's quite dark because there's not much sunlight that gets through the canopy. And you don't necessarily see lots of creatures, but you can hear them really, really well. The jungle is a really noisy place. And I think the thing that I enjoy most about doing research in the jungle with people is that I've learned to see the jungle, you know, the rainforest, trees, plants, rivers, mountains and so on, as places that people really live in and use. So you know, I might see a clump of trees and I think, oh, that's a clump of trees. But someone else might say, no, that's actually Peter's mother's farm or, you know, that's where the old village used to be. And so I think, you know, when you start to do this sort of research, you very, very quickly realize that the rainforest is not just about animals and plants. There's also very much about people. The thing about the rainforest is just the sheer number of species that there are there. So you've got invertebrates, you've got butterflies, you've got beetles, you've got loads of reptiles and amphibians. So things like snakes, frogs and toads, then you've got amazing birds and then you've got the mammals as well. So there is absolutely everything in the rainforest. It's the ideal conditions for these animals. So about 50% of the world species that we know of live in the rainforest because it's the perfect place for them. And the animals that live there are amazing because, as Liana said, it is so dark there. You've got animals that are actually really brightly colored so that they can show off to each other perfectly. You've got loads and loads of noises happening as well. So it's a really exciting place to be. So there are deadly animals like the jaguar who's going to pounce on its prey, tigers in some rainforest like the ones I got on my t-shirt here. There are plenty of deadly snakes. So there are vipers, there are rattlesnakes, there are deadly amphibians as well. But I think if you're looking at the ones that are deadliest to humans or kill the most humans, there is the poison dart frog. So I think the deadliest one of those is the golden poison dart frog. And this is what a lot of the indigenous people use on their weapons, so things like arrows so that they can kill things. The poison dart frogs actually eat venomous things or the things which are toxic. And then it makes their skin toxic. So if you were to maybe I don't think you would do. But if you're going to lick a frog, then certainly there is enough venom on that skin. It's been reported to kill 10 adult humans. So just from one poison dart frog. So that is pretty deadly. But the thing that I think kills the most people in the forest is the mosquitos because of the different diseases that it carries. So things like malaria. But in terms of deadly, I think you've got things like the poison dart frog. Pretty cool. They're also really brightly coloured as well. So it's warning colouration to warn you that they are deadly. So things like bees and wasps have got the striped yellow and black warning colouration, the poison dart frogs. You've got ones that are bright blue, maybe red, green and quite often with blacks on them as well. So that is a warning to other animals. Stay away. I'm deadly. We also need to think a little bit about what we define as animals. And I'm going to be a real sort of social anthropologist here and say that humans are animals too. And in some ways we could also think about humans as being extremely powerful animals that are able to shape the rainforest in many, many different ways. But it's also quite important to kind of figure out which humans were talking about here, right? So if we're talking about humans who've lived in the rainforest for a very long time, yeah, they kill animals, they hunt animals, they eat animals, they use trees and other resources from the forest to live. And they've been doing that for many, many years. This is just part of life in the rainforest. And generally speaking, those humans are pretty good at not being too deadly, even though they're pretty good at actually, you know, kind of using what they need from the rainforest to survive. I think where things get a little bit trickier is where you've got other humans who come in and change the rainforest in very big and very quick ways. You know, when, for example, you've got very large areas of rainforest that are very quickly cleared and sort of raised, burnt for huge plantations, for mining, for new dams or new roads. These are pretty massive projects. And very often they are important to the country in various ways. But if they're not done carefully, they can cause a lot of damage not only to the forests themselves, but also to the people who live in them. And so I guess that is one way we could also think about, you know, the influence of one particular animal on the fate of the rainforest. And humans can be pretty deadly. There are so many animals in the rainforest and there's actually so little that we already know about it that animals are being discovered all the time. So just in the past year, there are things like a small lemur, a mouse lemur, so a very small one that was discovered. And I found out earlier today, actually, that there is a new pit viper that's been discovered in the rainforest. And this one's been named after one of the Harry Potter characters. So if you can remember the name of the Slytherin, so Salazar Slytherin. So the new pit viper is called Salazar's Pit Viper, and that was only found last year. So deforestation is basically any sort of activity that involves getting rid of trees from forests by cutting them down, by clearing them, you know, by burning them so that the land can then be used for other things like farming or plantations or building new villages and stuff. And I've probably given you a little bit of a hint in my previous answer, but I would say that deforestation is not necessarily a bad thing. We have to remember that rainforests have always been used by humans for many, many centuries. They've always cut down trees for their tools to build their houses. They've always burned and cleared areas of land for their farming to grow their crops. This is all pretty normal. And generally speaking, you know, most communities that live in the rainforests have a pretty good idea of how to manage their land and to use it sustainably, to use it sustainably. Right. So how to use the forest so that it's still able to grow back and recover rather than being completely destroyed. So, for example, the people I work with in Borneo are rice planters. And what they do is every year they they will clear and burn a piece of land for their rice farms and to grow their vegetables and stuff. And they might cultivate, they might grow rice on that piece of land for one or two years. And then the next year they'll sort of move on to another piece of land and clear that and leave the previous piece of land to kind of grow back and recover. And what you tend to find is that because they've got quite a lot of land in this area, every piece of land gets about seven to 10 years to recover. And so that means that they're able to sort of farm sustainably without actually damaging the environment too much. I think it tends to get a little bit trickier when we start looking at deforestation on a really large scale. You know, when when, as I said, you start clearing these huge tracts of rainforest to create plantations or mines or build dams or roads. And I think it's important to say that these projects are not necessarily bad, you know, in the sense that I think it is reasonable for countries to want to use their forest resources to give their citizens a better life. You know, these are very often important sources of income for people who live in rainforests and people who live in rainforests also want to have roads and electricity and pipe water and, you know, access to clinics and schools and stuff. So we can't really, you know, say that they can't have that just to just to sort of save the rainforest. And I suppose the real challenge here is how to make sure that you're able to use that rainforest carefully and also to ensure that the people who live in it, you know, are sort of being healthy and that they're sort of that they're doing all right without causing the complete destruction of that rainforest. And that's a really, really difficult balance to strike. And many governments and, you know, many, many places are struggling with that question right now. So there will be lots of organisms that you really can barely see because they are so small. So those are going to be the tiniest ones, maybe things like little ticks and tiny, tiny insects that you might have. Some of those really small ones, the frogs are extremely small. The mouse lemur that's just been found. Again, that's really not going to be very big at all. And quite a few chameleons now are maybe just the size of your thumb, the top bit of your thumb, it would be able to sit there. So there are some amazing animals that are extremely small. But obviously we don't know that much about them because they are so small and we have to use special instruments to actually go out and find them.