Cloudforests  

are mountain rainforests reaching from 1000m to 3000m (click to photos) and are extensions of the lower rainforests but as average annual temperatures drop the higher one gets and wind, moisture patterns, rainfall and geology change, so changes the flora. Plants cease to be purely tropical and more temperate plant families invade this ecoystem. Trees become shorter and less diverse due to cooler weather and steeper terrain, which cannot support the huge trees of the lowlands but they grow closer together and support many epiphytes like orchids and bromeliads. They higher you get, the more gnarled they become often covered with mosses and liverworts, which like the cooler and misty conditions. Mountain bamboo often invades more open areas and make this forest a dense and thick vegetation, where it is difficult to move through. This is actually the forest one would call a jungle as it has dense and impenetrable vegetation and one cannot move throughout it freely as one can do in the lower rainforests.

All this changes in the flora has also its effects on the fauna. A large cat like the jaguar will not be found above 1000m anymore but the smaller ocelot still can be found with some other cats like the mountain cat or jaguarundi and the puma, which can be found in any ecosystem. The high edges of the cloudforest is also home to the spectacled bear who lives there and ventures out to the even higher paramo regions. Another interesting but also rare animal is the mountain tapir, the smaller cousin to the Amazon tapir. Many smaller rodents, opposums  and armadillos also can be found there.

The cloudforest regions are especially rich in bird life. One of the most interesting birds are the bright red cock-of-the-rock, only found in South America. Many colourful songbirds like tanagers and cotingas are encountered. Mountain parrots and toucans and hummingbirds abound.
As can be imagined many insects as can be expected  with particular many butterfly, beetle and ant species.

Amphibians and Reptiles are represented by many snakes including some poisonous ones like the fer-de-lance.
 

In Ecuador you can find this rich ecosystem on both flanks of the Andes dropping down to the eastern Amazon or the western coastal plains.

This region is also home to people. In the flatter parts of the region, the forest is cut down and catlle pasture and agricultural crops like coffe or peper are established. Even in places very steep and not very suitable to farming, this region gets increasingly under human pressure. Poorer people invade the land along newly opened roads and cut down the forest to establish pastures and small cornfields. This practice unfortunately often leads to landslides in the rainy season and every year there seems to be an increasing catastrophe with people getting buried underneath the mud.
 

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Amazingly, altogether more than 2000 species of plants and animals call their home in this cold ecosystem.

People, who are not so much interested in explications but like to see and enjoy pictures of animals and plants, should check out the nature section of our visual companion site called Ecuador-Images.net.