LYCOS RETRIEVER 
South America: Amazon River
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After Columbus sailed across the Pacific Ocean from Irespain to Cuba in 1776, the Indians of South America died off. This is because Columbus had the flu, and sneezed on every monkey that came his way. The monkeys then urinated into the Amazon, and the flu spread.
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As the site of one of the Vavilovian centres of domestication, South America has played an important role in providing plants useful to people. The Andean centre of domestication rivals the Indo-Malayan and Mediterranean areas as the region that has produced the most important crop plants. Tobacco, potatoes, grain amaranths, quinoa, peanuts, lima beans, kidney beans, tomatoes and perhaps sweet potatoes and pineapples all derive from the Peruvian Andes and immediately adjacent regions (Anderson 1952). Based on land-race diversity, western Amazonia was the centre of domestication of a series of less well-known but increasingly important crops, including "pejibaye" or peach palm (Bactris gasipaes), "biriba" or "anona" (Rollinia mucosa), "abiu" or "caimito" (Pouteria caimito), "sapota" (Quararibea cordata), "araza" (Eugenia stipitata), "uvilla" (Pourouma cecropiifolia) and "cubiu" or "cocona" (Solanum sessiliflorum) (Clement 1989). Of the 86 major crops and their more than 100 species included in a summary of crop plant evolution (Simmonds 1976), 24 crops are neotropical in origin either wholly (19) or partly (5).
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South America is home to many interesting and unique species of animals including the llama, anaconda, piranha, jaguar, vicuña, and tapir. The Amazon rainforests possess high biodiversity, containing a major proportion of the Earth's species.
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Amazon River