the.com/jungle
the place where everything is trying to eat, climb, or strangle everything else, gorgeously
means A dense, wild expanse of tangled tropical vegetation teeming with plant and animal life — or, by extension, any chaotic, fiercely competitive environment.
from From Hindi and Urdu 'jangal,' meaning wasteland, uncultivated ground, or forest, which traces back to Sanskrit 'jangala' — curiously, originally describing dry, arid, sparsely wooded land rather than the lush green chaos we now picture. English picked it up during the days of British rule in India, and the word drifted toward 'wet and overgrown,' likely shaped by the actual rainforests colonial travelers encountered.
- oxygen factory
- Rainforests produce roughly 20 percent of Earth's oxygen
- crowded house
- Half of all species live in tropical forests
- silent killer
- Strangler figs slowly murder their host trees
- loud at noon
- Howler monkeys are audible three miles away
- word origin
- From Sanskrit jangala, meaning dry wasteland, ironically
amazon rainforest — largest rainforest, 5.5 million km² across south america
congo rainforest — second largest, 2 million km² in central africa
daintree rainforest — oldest tropical rainforest, 180 million years old in queensland australia