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Daintree Rainforest Facts

Daintree Rainforest Facts
The Daintree Rainforest is a 1,200 square mile tropical rainforest located on the east coast of Australia's Queensland. It was named after Richard Daintree who was a 19th century photographer and geologist from Australia. Daintree Rainforest encompasses Daintree National Park, some State Forest, and land owned privately. The ecosystem in Daintree Rainforest is considered to be one of the world's most complex, and is Australia's longest continuous tropical rainforest. Daintree Rainforest is included as part of the UNESCO-designated Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Site, which was recognized as such in 2015.
Interesting Daintree Rainforest Facts:
To travel to Daintree Rainforest visitors can leave from Port Douglas, Cairns, Cape Tribulation, or Cooktown.
Daintree Rainforest is estimated to be at least 180 million years old. This would make Daintree the world's oldest tropical rainforest.
Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef are both UNESCO World Heritage Sites and are the only two of these UNESCO sites in the world that meet.
The Bull Kauri species of tropical trees are found in Daintree Rainforest and are some of the biggest in the world.
Despite its protection as a World Heritage Site there are still threats to Daintree Rainforest including climate change, the introduction of feral animals into the rainforest, weed growth, and development of residential areas which brings a whole new set of problems into the ecosystem.
There are more than 3,000 plant species in Daintree Rainforest and more than 395 considered to be rare or threatened species.
Rare species that can be found in Daintree Rainforest include the cassowary, Bennet's tree kangaroo, Ulysses butterfly, and the white lipped tree frog.
Daintree Rainforest is home to more than 12,000 different insect species.
Of all the mammal species found in Australia, 34% can be found in Daintree Rainforest.
40% of the birds, 28% of the frogs, and 65% of the ferns found in Australia can be found in Daintree Rainforest.
The traditional people of Daintree Rainforest were the Kuku Yalanji people.
There are plants able to exist in Daintree Rainforest that cannot exist elsewhere on earth.
In the 1980s Daintree Rainforest was threatened by logging and other activities but protection as created by having it listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Saltwater crocodile watching is a popular activity in Daintree. Visitors can also enjoy day trips, river cruises, and four wheel trips through the forest if they choose.
The Daintree Rainforest is so old that it predates the Amazon Rainforest by tens of millions of years.
It is estimated that at least 400,000 people visit Daintree Rainforest every year.
One of the most famous plants of Daintree Rainforest is the idiot fruit - a rare flowering plant considered to be the most primitive of its kind. It was discovered in 1970 and was further proof of how old the rainforest really is.
The ancient plants growing in Daintree Rainforest are referred to as 'Green Dinosaurs'.
Daintree Rainforest is home to a variety of venomous snakes, colorful birds, frogs, mammals, insects, lizards and many scaly reptiles.


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