In the popular imagination, the tropical rain forests consist of giant trees towering a tangle of vines and beautiful orchids below, with colourful birds, tree frogs, and monkeys everywhere abundant. Scientists and visitors quickly realise that this image is not animal life, highly diverse, is not necessarily strikingly abundant, and flowers are often very small and hard to find. But beyond the difference between perception and reality, there are tremendous differences among regions.
Biologists working in one area rapidly recognise the special features of the biological community in their area, yet they would find themselves in unfamiliar terrain should they move, for example, from their accustomed study site in Borneo to a seemingly similar location in New Guinea. , even in locations the same overall zone, such as the Amazon and Central American forests, there can be differences both dramatic and subtle from place to place. There are unique plants and animals in every community, and even those organism common to other regions are part of a distinctive of species that interact in ways readily distinguishable other forests.