The Guatemalan jungle is also known as the land of the MayansThey occupied an extensive territory that covered the entire Guatemala, Yucatan, Belize, southeastern Mexico, northern Central America as well as the western portion of Honduras and El Salvador. This tropical jungle has exuberant vegetation among the most common trees we have ceiba, mahogany, Manilkara Zapota, the so-called gum tree, also has abundant rainfall throughout the year, without a doubt an extraordinary biodiversity, there are different plant species, but with few specimens of each species in each surface unit.
According to studies carried out by the National Council of Protected Areas in Guatemala «The Guatemalan rainforest has seven biomes, Guatemala is ranked first in Central America in terms of ecoregional diversity, with 14 ecoregions and second in the total number of described species, which include mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and plants, surpassed only by Costa Rica. Guatemala is home to more than 9,000 species of plants and vertebrate animals and has the greatest diversity of lunged salamanders (family Plethodonitiadae) in the world, with 41 species, of which 19 are endemic. Approximately 20% of the avifauna of Guatemala is made up of migratory species.”
Its humid tropical climate is sometimes quite temperate with an average of 15 °C throughout the year.the intense rainy seasons occur between May and November, in the lower areas of Petén it is hot and dry, while in the highlands and in the Cuchumatanes area the climate is mountainous, sometimes cold, and in the more Orientals is arid and hot.
The gray fox, jaguar, puma, deer, and raccoon are the main mammals found in the jungle, there is also a great diversity of birds, more than 400 species, among the most distinguished the harpy eagle, the ocellated turkey, the red-breasted falcon, as diverse species of hummingbirds, toucans, woodpeckers and countless reptiles and amphibians.
In the middle of the jungle, is the main tourist attraction of the Guatemalan Jungle, the ancient Mayan city of Tikal, thousand years BC several cities competed to govern the lands of the Petén, Among all of them, the one called Tikal stood out, it was the most advanced civilization, the metropolis in commercial, cultural and religious matters, it dominated many centuries due to its privileged location, from the Yucatan peninsula to hondurance as shown by the palaces, temples and dwellings inside, from the ruins that we can still observe abandoned since the 9th century of our era, the decline of Tikal It remains to this day as an unsolved mystery.
To protect the more than two million hectares of wetlands, savannas, and forests of the Guatemalan Jungle, the Maya Biosphere Reserve was created in 1990.is the largest forest in America after the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, it still maintains 70% of primary forest with canopies that rise 50 meters above the ground, a spectacle of natural beauty.