The emergent layer is where the tallest trees can be found, poking high above the dense treetops of the canopy layer just below. The trees that make up the emergent layer can tower as high as 200 feet, with tree trunks that can measure up to 16 feet in diameter. While trees in the emergent layer rely on wind to scatter their seeds, many canopy plants, lacking wind, encase their seeds in fruit. Sweet fruit entices animals, which eat the fruit and deposit seeds on the forest floor as droppings. Fig trees, common throughout most of the world’s tropical rainforests, may be the most familiar fruit tree in the canopy.

The blue morpho butterfly is a beautiful insect found in the Amazon forest. Its beauty goes beyond what meets the eye, though. While the butterfly has a beautiful blue coloring, it doesn’t actually have any pigment to make it look that way. In fact, the blue morpho uses structural color to get its particular shade of blue. Blue is actually an extremely rare color in nature. These butterflies have scales that overlap, refracting light similar to a prism. So, when the light hits the wings, it is refracted against the scales and comes off as blue. Furthermore, the butterflies do not live for that long, their life span being 2 to 3 weeks.