1.
German Empire
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The German Empire was the historical German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic. The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, with most being ruled by royal families and this included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. Although Prussia became one of kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory. Its influence also helped define modern German culture, after 1850, the states of Germany had rapidly become industrialized, with particular strengths in coal, iron, chemicals, and railways. In 1871, it had a population of 41 million people, and by 1913, a heavily rural collection of states in 1815, now united Germany became predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological, Germany became a great power, boasting a rapidly growing rail network, the worlds strongest army, and a fast-growing industrial base. In less than a decade, its navy became second only to Britains Royal Navy, after the removal of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck by Wilhelm II, the Empire embarked on a bellicose new course that ultimately led to World War I. When the great crisis of 1914 arrived, the German Empire had two allies, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, however, left the once the First World War started in August 1914. In the First World War, German plans to capture Paris quickly in autumn 1914 failed, the Allied naval blockade caused severe shortages of food. Germany was repeatedly forced to send troops to bolster Austria and Turkey on other fronts, however, Germany had great success on the Eastern Front, it occupied large Eastern territories following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 was designed to strangle the British, it failed, but the declaration—along with the Zimmermann Telegram—did bring the United States into the war. Meanwhile, German civilians and soldiers had become war-weary and radicalised by the Russian Revolution and this failed, and by October the armies were in retreat, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, Bulgaria had surrendered and the German people had lost faith in their political system. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution as the Emperor and all the ruling monarchs abdicated, and a republic took over. The German Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic character in 1848, called Pan-Germanism, to Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarcks pragmatic Realpolitik. He envisioned a conservative, Prussian-dominated Germany, the war resulted in the Confederation being partially replaced by a North German Confederation in 1867, comprising the 22 states north of the Main. The new constitution and the title Emperor came into effect on 1 January 1871, during the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William accepted to be proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The second German Constitution was adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April, the political system remained the same. The empire had a parliament called the Reichstag, which was elected by universal male suffrage, however, the original constituencies drawn in 1871 were never redrawn to reflect the growth of urban areas
2.
Rifling
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In firearms, rifling consists of helical grooves in the internal surface of a guns barrel, which impart a spin to a projectile around its long axis. This spin serves to stabilize the projectile, improving its aerodynamic stability. Rifling is often described by its twist rate, which indicates the distance the rifling takes to complete one revolution, such as 1 turn in 10 inches. A shorter distance indicates a faster twist, meaning that for a given velocity the projectile will be rotating at a spin rate. Barrels intended for long, small-diameter bullets, such as the ultra-low-drag, 80-grain 0.223 inch bullets, extremely long projectiles such as flechettes may require high twist rates, these projectiles must be inherently stable, and are often fired from a smoothbore barrel. Muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle. Consequently, on firing the ball bounced off the sides of the barrel when fired, barrel rifling was invented in Augsburg, Germany in 1498. In 1520 August Kotter, an armourer of Nuremberg, Germany improved upon this work, though true rifling dates from the mid-16th century, it did not become commonplace until the nineteenth century. The most successful weapons using rifling with black powder were breech loaders such as the Queen Anne pistol, the grooves most commonly used in modern rifling have fairly sharp edges. More recently, polygonal rifling, a throwback to the earliest types of rifling, has become popular, polygonal barrels tend to have longer service lives because the reduction of the sharp edges of the land reduces erosion of the barrel. Supporters of polygonal rifling also claim higher velocities and greater accuracy, polygonal rifling is currently seen on pistols from CZ, Heckler & Koch, Glock, Tanfoglio, and Kahr Arms, as well as the Desert Eagle. Such guns have achieved significant increases in velocity and range. Examples include the South African G5 and the German PzH2000, gain-twist rifling begins with very little change in the projectiles angular momentum during the first few inches of bullet travel after ignition during the transition from chamber to throat. This enables the bullet to remain undisturbed and trued to the case mouth. After engaging the rifling the bullet is progressively subjected to accelerated angular momentum as burning powder propels it down the barrel. By only gradually increasing the rate, torque is spread along a much longer section of barrel. Gain-twist rifling was used as early as the American Civil War, colt Army and Navy revolvers both employed gain-twist rifling
3.
.30-06 Springfield
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The.30 refers to the caliber of the bullet, and the 06 refers to the year the cartridge was adopted—1906. It replaced the. 30-03, 6mm Lee Navy, and. 30-40 Krag cartridges and it remains a very popular sporting round, with ammunition produced by all major manufacturers. In the early 1890s, the U. S. military adopted the smokeless powder. 30-40 Krag rimmed cartridge, the 1894 version of that cartridge used a 220-grain round-nose bullet. Around 1901, the U. S. started developing an experimental rimless cartridge for a Mauser action with box magazine and that led to the 1903. 30-03 rimless service round that used the same 220-grain round-nose bullet as the Krag. The. 30-03 achieved a velocity of 2,300 ft/s. Consequently, the round-nosed U. S. 30-03 service cartridge was falling behind. For these reasons, the U. S. military developed a new, lighter, cartridge in 1906, the cartridge was loaded with Military Rifle 21 propellant, and its maximum range was claimed to be 4,700 yd. The M1903 Springfield rifle, which had been introduced alongside the. 30-03 cartridge, was modified to accept the new. 30-06 Springfield cartridge. Modifications to the rifle included shortening the barrel at its breech and resizing the chamber, other changes to the rifle included elimination of the troublesome rod bayonet of the earlier Springfield rifles. The M1906 maximum range was originally overstated, when the M1906 cartridge was developed, the range tests had been done to only 1,800 yards, distances beyond that were estimated, but the estimate for extreme range was wrong by almost 40 percent. The range discrepancy became evident during World War I, before the widespread employment of light mortars and artillery, long-range machine gun barrage or indirect fires were considered important in U. S. infantry tactics. When the US entered World War I, it did not have machine guns, so it acquired British. When those weapons were replaced with US machine guns firing the M1906 round. Firing tests performed around 1918 at Borden Brook Reservoir, Miami, patrone was inroduced in 1914 and used a 197. 5-grain s. S. - schweres Spitzgeschoß boat-tail bullet which had a maximum range of approximately 5,140 yd. Its maximum range was approximately 5,500 yd. Additionally, wartime surplus totaled over 2 billion rounds of ammunition. Army regulations called for training use of the oldest ammunition first, as a result, the older. 30-06 ammunition was expended for training, stocks of.30 M1 Ball ammunition were allowed to slowly grow until all of the older M1906 ammunition had been fired. By 1936, it was discovered that the range of the.30 M1 Ball ammunition with its boat-tailed spitzer bullets was beyond the safety limitations of many ranges. An emergency order was made to manufacture quantities of ammunition that matched the ballistics of the earlier M1906 cartridge as soon as possible
4.
Recoil
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Recoil is the backward movement of a gun when it is discharged. To apply this counter-recoiling force, modern mounted guns may employ recoil buffering comprising springs and hydraulic recoil mechanisms, early cannons used systems of ropes along with rolling or sliding friction to provide forces to slow the recoiling cannon to a stop. Recoil buffering allows the maximum counter-recoil force to be lowered so that strength limitations of the gun mount are not exceeded, however, the same pressures acting on the base of the projectile are acting on the rear face of the gun chamber, accelerating the gun rearward during firing. This results in the required counter-recoiling force being proportionally lower, modern cannons also employ muzzle brakes very effectively to redirect some of the propellant gasses rearward after projectile exit. This provides a force to the barrel, allowing the buffering system. The same physics affecting recoil in mounted guns and cannons applies to hand-held guns, hands, arms and shoulders have considerable strength and elasticity for this purpose, up to certain practical limits. For this reason, establishing recoil safety standards for small arms remains challenging, a change in momentum of a mass requires a force, according to Newtons first law, known as the law of inertia, inertia simply being another term for mass. That force, applied to a mass, creates an acceleration, according to Newtons second law, the law of momentum -- changing the velocity of the mass changes its momentum. It is important to understand at this point that velocity is not simply speed, velocity is the speed of a mass in a particular direction. In a very technical sense, speed is a scalar, a magnitude, in summation, the total momentum of the system equals zero, surprisingly just as it did before the trigger was pulled. There are two conservation laws at work when a gun is fired, conservation of momentum and conservation of energy, recoil is explained by the law of conservation of momentum, and so it is easier to discuss it separately from energy. The nature of the process is determined by the force of the expanding gases in the barrel upon the gun. It is also determined by the force applied to the gun. The recoil force only acts during the time that the ejecta are still in the barrel of the gun, except for the case of zero-recoil, the counter-recoil force is smaller than the recoil force but lasts for a longer time. Since the recoil force and the force are not matched. In the zero-recoil case, the two forces are matched and the gun will not move when fired. In most cases, a gun is very close to a free-recoil condition, an example of near zero-recoil would be a gun securely clamped to a massive or well-anchored table, or supported from behind by a massive wall. For example, placing the butt of a large caliber gun directly against a wall, the recoil of a firearm, whether large or small, is a result of the law of conservation of momentum
5.
Gewehr 98
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The Gewehr 98 replaced the earlier Gewehr 1888 rifle as the German service rifle, first saw combat in the Boxer Rebellion, and was the main German infantry rifle of World War I. The Gewehr 98 saw further use by the Ottoman Empire. Many have been converted to sporting use, the Gewehr 98, named for 1898, the first year of its manufacture, superseded the earlier Gewehr 1888 in German service. The bolt-action design used for the Gewehr 98 was patented by Paul Mauser on 9 September 1895, the Gewehr 98 itself was the latest in a line of Mauser rifles that were introduced in the 1890s. The German Gewehr-Prüfungskommission adopted the Gewehr 98 on 5 April 1898, the action was derived from the experimental Gewehr 96 Rifle. In 1901, the first troop issues of the Gewehr 98 Rifles were made to the East Asian Expeditionary Force, the first combat use of the Gewehr 98 was during the Boxer Rebellion. In 1904, contracts were placed with Waffenfabrik Mauser for 290,000 rifles, at the outbreak of the war in 1914, the German Army had 2.273.080 Mauser 98-rifles of all types, additional 7.000.000 were produced during the war. The ammunition conversion was indicated by a small S stamped above the chamber and this was done since the 1888 pattern M/88 cartridge and 1903 S-bore pattern cartridge are two different non interchangeable chamberings. Since the new IS cartridge had a flatter trajectory the Lange Visier rear sight had to be changed with an S-adapted Lange Visier. The Gewehr 98 or model 98 rifle is a manually operated and it has a 740 mm long rifled barrel and carries 5 rounds of ammunition in an internal magazine. The Gewehr 98 has two sling swivels, open front sights, and a curved tangent-type rear sight, known as the Lange Visier, the controlled-feed bolt-action of the Gewehr 98 is a distinct feature and is regarded as one of the major bolt-action system designs. A drawback of the M98 system is that it cannot be cheaply mass-produced very easily, some other bolt-action designs offer trained operators a faster rate of fire. This third lug is a feature and was not present on previous Mauser bolt action designs. The bolt handle is attached to the bolt and, on the Gewehr 98, is straight. Combined with a slight bolt retraction at the last stage of the bolt opening cycle, caused by the surface on the rear receiver bridge. The M98 bolt-action will cycle correctly, irrespective of the way the rifle is moved or positioned during the bolt cycling action or if the cartridge has been fired or not. Only if the bolt is not brought back far enough, sharply enough, in a controlled round feed bolt-action the cartridge case may not be cleanly ejected and a jam may result. The bolt houses the firing pin mechanism that cocks when the bolt is opened, a cocking shroud lock that was not present on previous Mauser bolt-action designs was added. 92×57mm Mauser cartridge
6.
Gunpowder
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Gunpowder, also known as black powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate, the sulfur and charcoal act as fuels, and the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Black powder firearms are in limited use today in hunting, shooting, Black powder has been replaced for most industrial uses by high explosives such as dynamite. Black powder is assigned the UN number UN0027 and has a class of 1. 1D. It has a point of approximately 427–464 °C. The specific flash point may vary based on the composition of the gunpowder. Gunpowders specific gravity is 1. 70–1.82 or 1. 92–2.08, Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate at subsonic speeds, whereas high explosives detonate, ignition of the powder packed behind a bullet must generate enough pressure to force it from the muzzle at high speed, but not enough to rupture the gun barrel. Gunpowder thus makes a good propellant, but is suitable for shattering rock or fortifications. Gunpowder was widely used to fill artillery shells and in mining and civil engineering to blast rock until the half of the 19th century. Black powder is used as a delay element in various munitions where its slow-burning properties are valuable. The spread of gunpowder across Asia from China is widely attributed to the Mongols, the earliest record of a written formula for gunpowder appears in the 11th century Song dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao. This discovery led to the invention of fireworks and the earliest gunpowder weapons in China, in the centuries following the Chinese discovery, gunpowder weapons began appearing in the Muslim world and Europe. The technology spread from China through the Middle East or Central Asia, the earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century. The most ardent protagonists were Nathaniel Halhad, Johann Backmann, Quintin Craufurd, however, due to lack of sufficient proof, these theories have not been widely accepted. A major problem confronting the study of the history of gunpowder is ready access to sources close to the events described. The translation difficulty has led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence, early writings potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where old words acquired new meanings. For instance, the Arabic word naft transitioned from denoting naphtha to denoting gunpowder, saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and there is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various largely medicinal combinations
7.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
8.
Kynoch
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Kynoch was a manufacturer of ammunition, later incorporated into ICI but remaining as a brand name for sporting cartridges. Kynoch was established in Witton in Birmingham in 1862 by Scottish entrepreneur George Kynoch when he opened a percussion cap factory in Witton, in 1895 he built an explosives factory east of Shell Haven Creek, Essex. This opened in 1897, with an estate for employees called Kynochtown, products included cordite, guncotton, gunpowder, and cartridges. Once Nobel Industries, including Kynoch Ltd, had merged to form ICI, Kynoch, along with names such as Eley, became brands of subsidiaries. Kynoch, established a factory on the north side of Arklow. This factory employed several thousand workers during World War I, but closed shortly after it, seventeen workers were killed in an explosion there on 21 September 1917. IMI became independent of ICI in 1977, still producing rimfire, the more economically viable production of shotgun and rimfire ammunition continued. The Ammunition Division was incorporated separately as Eley Limited in 1983, john Sutton Nettlefold JP - former managing director Eley Brothers Corringham Light Railway Kynamco A History of Kynoch Works
9.
Bison
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Bison are large, even-toed ungulates in the genus Bison within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four species are recognized. Of the four species, three were North American endemics, Bison antiquus, B. latifrons, and B. occidentalis. The fourth, B. priscus, ranged across steppe environments from Western Europe, through Central Asia, East Asia including Japan, of the two surviving species, the American bison, B. bison, found only in North America, is the more numerous. Although sometimes referred to historically as a buffalo, it is distantly related to the true buffalo. The North American species is composed of two subspecies, the Plains bison, B. b. bison, and the Wood bison, B. b. athabascae, which is the namesake of Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada. A third subspecies, the Eastern Woodland Bison is no longer considered a valid taxon, references to Woods Bison or Wood Bison from the eastern United States confusingly refer to this subspecies, not B. b. athabascae, which was not found in the region. The European bison B. bonasus, or wisent, is found in Europe, while all bison species are classified in their own genus, they are sometimes bred with domestic cattle and produce fertile offspring called beefalo or zubron. The American bison and the European bison are the largest surviving terrestrial animals in North America, Bison are good swimmers and can cross rivers over half a mile wide. They are nomadic grazers and travel in herds, the bulls leave the herds of females at two or three years of age, and join a male herd, which are generally smaller than female herds. Towards the end of the summer, for the reproductive season, American bison are known for living in the Great Plains, but formerly had a much larger range including much of the eastern United States and parts of Mexico. The American Plains bison is no longer listed as endangered, genetically pure B. b. bison currently number only ~20,000, separated into fragmented herds - all of which require active conservation measures. Although superficially similar, physical and behavioural differences exist between the American and European bison, the American species has 15 ribs, while the European bison has 14. The American bison has four lumbar vertebrae, while the European has five, adult American bison are less slim in build and have shorter legs. American bison tend to more, and browse less than their European relatives. Their anatomies reflect this difference, the American bisons head hangs lower than the Europeans. The body of the American bison is hairier, though its tail has less hair than that of the European bison. American bison are more easily tamed than their European cousins, the bovine tribe split about 5 to 10 million years ago into the buffalos and a group leading to bison and taurine cattle
10.
Lion
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The lion is one of the big cats in the genus Panthera and a member of the family Felidae. The commonly used term African lion collectively denotes the several subspecies in Africa, with some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in sub-Saharan Africa and in India, in ancient historic times, their range was in most of Africa, including North Africa, and across Eurasia from Greece and southeastern Europe to India. Lion populations are untenable outside designated reserves and national parks, although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are the greatest causes of concern. Within Africa, the West African lion population is particularly endangered, in the wild, males seldom live longer than 10 to 14 years, as injuries sustained from continual fighting with rival males greatly reduce their longevity. In captivity they can more than 20 years. They typically inhabit savanna and grassland, although they may take to bush, Lions are unusually social compared to other cats. A pride of lions consists of related females and offspring and a number of adult males. Groups of female lions typically hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates, Lions are apex and keystone predators, although they are also expert scavengers obtaining over 50 percent of their food by scavenging as opportunity allows. While lions do not typically hunt humans, some have, sleeping mainly during the day, lions are active primarily at night, although sometimes at twilight. Highly distinctive, the lion is easily recognised by its mane. It has been depicted in sculptures, in paintings, on national flags. Lions have been kept in menageries since the time of the Roman Empire, Zoos are cooperating worldwide in breeding programs for the endangered Asiatic subspecies. The lions name, similar in many Romance languages, is derived from the Latin leo, the Hebrew word לָבִיא may also be related. It was one of the originally described by Linnaeus, who gave it the name Felis leo, in his eighteenth-century work. The lions closest relatives are the species of the genus Panthera, the tiger, the snow leopard, the jaguar. P. leo evolved in Africa between 1 million and 800,000 years ago, before spreading throughout the Holarctic region and it appeared in the fossil record in Europe for the first time 700,000 years ago with the subspecies Panthera leo fossilis at Isernia in Italy. From this lion derived the later cave lion, which appeared about 300,000 years ago, Lions died out in northern Eurasia at the end of the last glaciation, about 10,000 years ago, this may have been secondary to the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna
11.
Leopard
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The leopard /ˈlɛpərd/ is one of the five big cats in the genus Panthera. It is a member of the family Felidae with a range in sub-Saharan Africa. Fossil records suggest that in the Late Pleistocene it occurred in Europe, compared to other members of Felidae, the leopard has relatively short legs and a long body with a large skull. It is similar in appearance to the jaguar, but has a smaller, lighter physique. Its fur is marked with similar to those of the jaguar, but the leopards rosettes are smaller and more densely packed. Both leopards and jaguars that are melanistic are known as black panthers, the leopard is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because leopard populations are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, and are declining in large parts of the global range. In Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuwait, Syria, Libya, Tunisia and most likely in Morocco, leopards are hunted illegally, and their body parts are smuggled in the wildlife trade for medicinal practices and decoration. The common name leopard /ˈlɛ. pərd/ is a Greek compound of λέων leōn, the name reflects the fact that in antiquity, a leopard was believed to be a hybrid of a lion and a panther. The Greek word is related to Sanskrit पृदाकु pṛdāku, and probably derives from a Mediterranean language, the name was first used in the 13th century. Other vernacular names for the leopard include graupanther, panther and several names such as tendwa in India. The term black panther refers to leopards with melanistic genes, the scientific name of the leopard is Panthera pardus. The generic name Panthera derives from Latin via Greek πάνθηρ, the term panther, whose first recorded use dates back to the 13th century AD, generally refers to the leopard, and less often to the cougar and the jaguar. Alternative origins suggested for Panthera include an Indo-Iranian word meaning white-yellow or pale, in Sanskrit, this could have been derived from पाण्डर pāṇḍara, which in turn comes from पुण्डरीक puṇḍárīka. The specific name pardus is derived from the Greek πάρδος, the leopard is one of the five extant species of the genus Panthera, which also includes the jaguar, the lion, the snow leopard and the tiger. This genus, along with the genus Neofelis - which consists of the clouded leopard, the leopard was first described by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae. Linnaeus named the leopard as Felis pardus, placing it in the genus Felis along with the cat, the jaguar, the Eurasian lynx, the lion, the ocelot. In the 18th and 19th centuries, most naturalists and taxonomists followed his example, in 1816, Lorenz Oken proposed a definition of the genus Panthera, with a subgenus Panthera using F. pardus as a type species. Okens classification, however, was not widely accepted, and until the early 20th century continued using Felis or Leopardus when describing leopard subspecies, in 1916, British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock accorded Panthera generic rank defining Panthera pardus as species
12.
Gemsbok
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The gemsbok or gemsbuck is a large antelope in the Oryx genus. It is native to the regions of Southern Africa, such as the Kalahari Desert. Some authorities formerly included the East African oryx as a subspecies, the gemsbok is depicted on the coat of arms of Namibia, where the current population of the species is estimated at 373,000 individuals. The name gemsbok in English is derived from Afrikaans gemsbok, which itself is derived from the Dutch name of the male chamois, although some superficial similarities in appearance are noticed, the chamois and the oryx are not closely related. The usual pronunciation in English is /ˈɡɛmzbɒk/, gemsbok are light brownish-grey to tan in colour, with lighter patches toward the bottom rear of the rump. Their tails are long and black in colour, a blackish stripe extends from the chin down the lower edge of the neck, through the juncture of the shoulder and leg along the lower flank of each side to the blackish section of the rear leg. They have muscular necks and shoulders, and their legs have white socks with a patch on the front of both the front legs, and both genders have long, straight horns. Comparably, the East African oryx lacks a dark patch at the base of the tail, has black on the legs. One very rare condition is the Golden Oryx, in which the Gemsboks black markings are muted, gemsbok are the largest species in the Oryx genus. They stand about 1.2 m at the shoulder, the body length can vary from 190 to 240 cm and the tail measures 45 to 90 cm. Male gemsbok can weigh between 180 and 240 kg, while females weigh 100–210 kg, gemsbok are widely hunted for their spectacular horns that average 85 cm in length. From a distance, the only difference between males and females is their horns, and many hunters mistake females for males each year. In males horns tend to be thicker with larger bases, females have slightly longer, thinner horns. Female gemsbok use their horns to defend themselves and their offspring from predators, gemsbok are one of the few antelope species where female trophies are sometimes more desirable than male ones. A gemsbok horn can be fashioned into a trumpet and, according to some authorities. Gemsbok live in herds of about 10–40 animals, which consist of a dominant male, a few nondominant males and they are mainly desert-dwelling and do not depend on drinking water to supply their physiological needs. They can reach running speeds of up to 60 km/h, in 1969, the New Mexico State Department of Game and Fish decided to introduce gemsbok to the Tularosa Basin in the United States. The introduction was a compromise between those who wanted to preserve nature and those who wanted to use it for profit, ninety-three were released from 1969 to 1977, with the current population estimated to be around 3,000 specimens
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