In the hottest and driest biome in northeastern Brazil, there is a distinctive region of shrubland and thorn forest known as “Caatinga,” a Tupi word meaning “white forest” or “white vegetation.” This is the 2.4 million-acre Araripe Plateau, which lay beneath an ocean many millions of years ago. Clinging to life in the tall, closed canopy, one of the world’s rarest birds, with a population estimated at only about 800 individuals, survives on remnants of its rare habitat. The Critically Endangered Araripe Manakin.