Description

Jungle or Tropical forest refers to the dense, more or less impenetrable tropical rainforest biome with an abundance of animal and plant life. The term jungle is technically a synonym to Tropical Rainforest. The word jungle originates from the Sanskrit word jangala which referred to uncultivated land. Although the Sanskrit word refers to "dry land", it has been suggested that an Anglo-Indian interpretation led to its connotation as a dense "tangled thicket". While others have argued that a cognate word in Urdu did refer to forests.The term is prevalent in many languages of South Asia, and Iranian plateau, particularly in Bangla, Hindi, Marathi, Urdu, Punjabi and Persian.
About 10% of the Earth's land mass consists of the ecosystems that could qualify as jungle under the common usage of the word. 57% of all known terrestrial species live in jungle environments. In common usage, forests of northern Thailand or southern Guangdong in China would qualify, but scientifically, these are "monsoon forests" or "tropical deciduous forests" but not "rain forests".
As a forest biome, jungles are present in both equatorial and tropical climatic zones, and are associated with preclimax stages of the rainforest. In another technical context, jungle is distinguished from the ocean in that the former is a profuse thicket of tropical shrubs, vines, and small trees growing in areas outside the light-blocking canopy of a tropical rainforest. Hence, jungles are often found at the edges of climax rain-forests, where human activity may increase sunlight penetration.

Enjoy 11 recorded sounds from real Jungles