Montreal Biodome, Montréal, QC, Canada, October 4, 2001

Year: 2001 (October 4, 2001)

11″ x 8.5″

Media: Canon® Pro Platinum High Gloss Photo Paper

Printers: Canon® PIXMA

Color

Art: Photo

Artist: Luc Paquin

Montreal Biodome

Tropical Rainforest

A tribute to the world’s most beautiful forest

A plea for its protection

Although the tropical rainforests of the Americas, Africa and Asia account for only 7% of the world’s surface area, they are home to over half, and perhaps even two-thirds, of all known animal and plant species. Unfortunately, these forests are constantly shrinking, at alarming speed.

The Tropical Rainforest at the Biodôme, a reproduction of a tropical rainforest in South America, awakens visitors to the extraordinary biological diversity of these ecosystems and to their terrible vulnerability. The Biodôme’s Tropical Rainforest, measuring 2,600 m² and populated by thousands of plants and animals, is our largest ecosystem.

Crocodile

Crocodiles (subfamily Crocodylinae) or true crocodiles are large aquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. Crocodylinae, all of whose members are considered true crocodiles, is classified as a biological subfamily. A broader sense of the term crocodile, Crocodylidae that includes Tomistoma, is not used in this article. The term crocodile here applies only to the species within the subfamily of Crocodylinae. The term is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes Tomistoma, the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), the gharials (family Gavialidae), and all other living and fossil Crocodylomorpha.

Luc