A biome is “a major regional community of plants and animals with similar life forms and environmental conditions.”

Biomes Deciduous Forest Desert Tundra Grassland

DesertGrasslandTaiga Temperate Deciduous Forest Tropical Rainforest Tundra

A desert is an area that receives 10 inches or less of precipitation (rain or snow) each year. Many of the world's deserts are found within 30 degrees latitude of the equator. You may have heard about hot deserts like the Sahara in northern Africa. The only precipitation hot deserts get is a little bit of rain. But there's another kind called a cold desert. The only precipitation cold deserts get is 10 or fewer inches of snow in a year. The Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia is a cold desert and so is the Great Basin Desert that stretches across Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah in the U.S. (Ask Earl - Yahooligans.com) Click on these pictures for websites. Click here to see the movie.

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Click on these pictures for websites. Click here to see the movie. About a quarter of the Earth's land mass is composed of grasslands, which are wide open spaces that have very few trees. Grasslands generally receive 10 to 30 inches of rain a year- -enough to cultivate tall grass, but not enough to sustain forests. In the United States, the grasslands are mainly in the Midwest states. Since grasslands soil is very rich, most of the wild grasslands in the U.S. have been converted to farm land. That's why the Midwest is often referred to as the breadbasket of the United States--most of our wheat, soybean, and corn is grown there. African grasslands are home to some of the most exotic animals in the world: zebras, lions, warthogs, ostriches, and elephants! (Ask Earl - Yahooligans.com)

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Click on these pictures for websites Click here to see the movie. The taiga is the biome of the needleleaf forest. Living in the taiga is cold and lonely. Coldness and food shortages make things very difficult, mostly in the winter. Some of the animals in the taiga hibernate in the winter, some fly south if they can, while some just cooperate with the environment, which is very difficult. (Dillon Bartkus)

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Click on these pictures for websites Click here to see the movie. Temperate deciduous forests are forests in cool, rainy areas; they have trees that lose their leaves in Fall and regrow them in Spring. Temperate deciduous forests are found in the middle latitudes around the globe and have four distinct seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. In the Northern Hemisphere, these forests are found in North America, Europe, and Asia. In the Southern Hemisphere, there are smaller areas of these forests, in South America, Africa, and Australia. The growing season in these forests is about 6 months long.

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Click on these pictures for websites. Click here to see the movie. Rainforests are very dense, warm, wet forests. They are havens for millions of plants and animals. Rainforests are extremely important in the ecology of the Earth. The plants of the rainforest generate much of the Earth's oxygen. (Enchantedlearning.com)

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Click on these pictures for websites. Click here to see the movie. Tundra is the coldest of all the biomes. It is noted for its frost-molded landscapes, extremely low temperatures, little precipitation, poor nutrients, and short growing seasons.

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