Crustacean
Crustaceans form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such familiar animals as crabs, crayfish, krill and barnacles. The crustacean group is treated as a subphylum, because of recent molecular studies it is now well accepted that the crustacean group is paraphyletic, comprises all animals in the Pancrustacea clade other than hexapods; some crustaceans are more related to insects and other hexapods than they are to certain other crustaceans. The 67,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at 0.1 mm, to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span of up to 3.8 m and a mass of 20 kg. Like other arthropods, crustaceans have an exoskeleton, they are distinguished from other groups of arthropods, such as insects and chelicerates, by the possession of biramous limbs, by their larval forms, such as the nauplius stage of branchiopods and copepods. Most crustaceans are free-living aquatic animals, but some are terrestrial, some are parasitic and some are sessile; the group has an extensive fossil record, reaching back to the Cambrian, includes living fossils such as Triops cancriformis, which has existed unchanged since the Triassic period.
More than 10 million tons of crustaceans are produced by fishery or farming for human consumption, the majority of it being shrimp and prawns. Krill and copepods are not as fished, but may be the animals with the greatest biomass on the planet, form a vital part of the food chain; the scientific study of crustaceans is known as carcinology, a scientist who works in carcinology is a carcinologist. The body of a crustacean is composed of segments, which are grouped into three regions: the cephalon or head, the pereon or thorax, the pleon or abdomen; the head and thorax may be fused together to form a cephalothorax, which may be covered by a single large carapace. The crustacean body is protected by the hard exoskeleton, which must be moulted for the animal to grow; the shell around each somite can be divided into a dorsal tergum, ventral sternum and a lateral pleuron. Various parts of the exoskeleton may be fused together; each somite, or body segment can bear a pair of appendages: on the segments of the head, these include two pairs of antennae, the mandibles and maxillae.
The abdomen bears pleopods, ends in a telson, which bears the anus, is flanked by uropods to form a tail fan. The number and variety of appendages in different crustaceans may be responsible for the group's success. Crustacean appendages are biramous, meaning they are divided into two parts, it is unclear whether the biramous condition is a derived state which evolved in crustaceans, or whether the second branch of the limb has been lost in all other groups. Trilobites, for instance possessed biramous appendages; the main body cavity is an open circulatory system, where blood is pumped into the haemocoel by a heart located near the dorsum. Malacostraca have haemocyanin as the oxygen-carrying pigment, while copepods, ostracods and branchiopods have haemoglobins; the alimentary canal consists of a straight tube that has a gizzard-like "gastric mill" for grinding food and a pair of digestive glands that absorb food. Structures that function as kidneys are located near the antennae. A brain exists in the form of ganglia close to the antennae, a collection of major ganglia is found below the gut.
In many decapods, the first pair of pleopods are specialised in the male for sperm transfer. Many terrestrial crustaceans return to the sea to release the eggs. Others, such as woodlice, lay their eggs on land, albeit in damp conditions. In most decapods, the females retain the eggs; the majority of crustaceans are aquatic, living in either marine or freshwater environments, but a few groups have adapted to life on land, such as terrestrial crabs, terrestrial hermit crabs, woodlice. Marine crustaceans are as ubiquitous in the oceans; the majority of crustaceans are motile, moving about independently, although a few taxonomic units are parasitic and live attached to their hosts, adult barnacles live a sessile life – they are attached headfirst to the substrate and cannot move independently. Some branchiurans are able to withstand rapid changes of salinity and will switch hosts from marine to non-marine species. Krill are the bottom layer and the most important part of the food chain in Antarctic animal communities.
Some crustaceans are significant invasive species, such as the Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis, the Asian shore crab, Hemigrapsus sanguineus. The majority of crustaceans have separate sexes, reproduce sexually. A small number are hermaphrodites, including barnacles and Cephalocarida; some may change sex during the course of their life. Parthenogenesis is widespread among crustaceans, where viable eggs are produced by a female without needing fertilisation by a male; this occurs in many branchiopods, some os
Type (biology)
In biology, a type is a particular specimen of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralize the defining features of that particular taxon. In older usage, a type was a taxon rather than a specimen. A taxon is a scientifically named grouping of organisms with other like organisms, a set that includes some organisms and excludes others, based on a detailed published description and on the provision of type material, available to scientists for examination in a major museum research collection, or similar institution. According to a precise set of rules laid down in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and the International Code of Nomenclature for algae and plants, the scientific name of every taxon is always based on one particular specimen, or in some cases specimens. Types are of great significance to biologists to taxonomists. Types are physical specimens that are kept in a museum or herbarium research collection, but failing that, an image of an individual of that taxon has sometimes been designated as a type.
Describing species and appointing type specimens is part of scientific nomenclature and alpha taxonomy. When identifying material, a scientist attempts to apply a taxon name to a specimen or group of specimens based on his or her understanding of the relevant taxa, based on having read the type description, preferably based on an examination of all the type material of all of the relevant taxa. If there is more than one named type that all appear to be the same taxon the oldest name takes precedence, is considered to be the correct name of the material in hand. If on the other hand the taxon appears never to have been named at all the scientist or another qualified expert picks a type specimen and publishes a new name and an official description; this process is crucial to the science of biological taxonomy. People's ideas of how living things should be grouped shift over time. How do we know that what we call "Canis lupus" is the same thing, or the same thing, as what they will be calling "Canis lupus" in 200 years' time?
It is possible to check this because there is a particular wolf specimen preserved in Sweden and everyone who uses that name – no matter what else they may mean by it – will include that particular specimen. Depending on the nomenclature code applied to the organism in question, a type can be a specimen, a culture, an illustration, or a description; some codes consider a subordinate taxon to be the type, but under the botanical code the type is always a specimen or illustration. For example, in the research collection of the Natural History Museum in London, there is a bird specimen numbered 1886.6.24.20. This is a specimen of a kind of bird known as the spotted harrier, which bears the scientific name Circus assimilis; this particular specimen is the holotype for that species. That species was named and described by Jardine and Selby in 1828, the holotype was placed in the museum collection so that other scientists might refer to it as necessary. Note that at least for type specimens there is no requirement for a "typical" individual to be used.
Genera and families those established by early taxonomists, tend to be named after species that are more "typical" for them, but here too this is not always the case and due to changes in systematics cannot be. Hence, the term name-bearing type or onomatophore is sometimes used, to denote the fact that biological types do not define "typical" individuals or taxa, but rather fix a scientific name to a specific operational taxonomic unit. Type specimens are theoretically allowed to be aberrant or deformed individuals or color variations, though this is chosen to be the case, as it makes it hard to determine to which population the individual belonged; the usage of the term type is somewhat complicated by different uses in botany and zoology. In the PhyloCode, type-based definitions are replaced by phylogenetic definitions. In some older taxonomic works the word "type" has sometimes been used differently; the meaning was similar in the first Laws of Botanical Nomenclature, but has a meaning closer to the term taxon in some other works: Ce seul caractère permet de distinguer ce type de toutes les autres espèces de la section.
… Après avoir étudié ces diverses formes, j'en arrivai à les considérer comme appartenant à un seul et même type spécifique. Translation: This single character permits distinguish this type from all other species of the section... After studying the diverse forms, I came to consider them as belonging to the one and the same specific type. In botanical nomenclature, a type, "is that element to which the name of a taxon is permanently attached." In botany a type is either an illustration. A specimen is a real plant and kept safe, "curated", in a herbarium. Examples of where an illustration may serve as a type include: A detailed drawing, etc. depicting the plant, from the early days of plant taxonomy. A dried plant was difficult to transport and hard to keep safe for the future. Skilled botanical artists were sometimes employed by a botanist to make a faithful and detailed illustration; some such illustrations have become the best record a
Introduced species
An introduced species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there by human activity, either deliberate or accidental. Non-native species can have various effects on the local ecosystem. Introduced species that become established and spread beyond the place of introduction are called invasive species; the impact of introduced species is variable. Some have a negative effect on a local ecosystem, while other introduced species may have no negative effect or only minor impact; some species have been introduced intentionally to combat pests. They are called biocontrols and may be regarded as beneficial as an alternative to pesticides in agriculture for example. In some instances the potential for being beneficial or detrimental in the long run remains unknown; the effects of introduced species on natural environments have gained much scrutiny from scientists, governments and others. The formal definition of an introduced species, from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, is A species, intentionally or inadvertently brought into a region or area.
Called an exotic or non-native species. There are many terms associated with introduced species that represent subsets of introduced species, the terminology associated with introduced species is now in flux for various reasons. Examples of these terms are acclimatized, adventive and immigrant species but those terms refer to a subset of introduced species; the term "invasive" is used to describe introduced species when the introduced species causes substantial damage to the area in which it was introduced. Subset descriptions: Acclimatized species: Introduced species that have changed physically and/or behaviorally in order to adjust to their new environment. Acclimatized species are not optimally adjusted to their new environment and may just be physically/behaviorally sufficient for the new environment. Adventive speciesNaturalized species: A naturalized plant species refers to a non-native plant that does not need human help to reproduce and maintain its population in an area that it is not native to.
General description of introduced species: In the broadest and most used sense, an introduced species is synonymous with non-native and therefore applies as well to most garden and farm organisms. However, some sources add to that basic definition "and are now reproducing in the wild", which removes from consideration as introduced species that were raised or grown in gardens or farms that do not survive without tending by people. With respect to plants, these latter are in this case defined as either ornamental or cultivated plants. Introduction of a species outside its native range is all, required to be qualified as an "introduced species" such that one can distinguish between introduced species that may not occur except in cultivation, under domestication or captivity whereas others become established outside their native range and reproduce without human assistance; such species might be termed "naturalized", "established", "wild non-native species". If they further spread beyond the place of introduction and cause damage to nearby species, they are called "invasive".
The transition from introduction, to establishment and to invasion has been described in the context of plants. Introduced species are "non-native" species. Invasive species are those introduced species that spreadwidely or and cause harm, be that to the environment, human health, other valued resources or the economy. There have been calls from scientists to consider a species "invasive" only in terms of their spread and reproduction rather than the harm they may cause. According to a practical definition, an invasive species is one, introduced and become a pest in its new location, spreading by natural means; the term is used to imply both a sense of actual or potential harm. For example, U. S. Executive Order 13112 defines "invasive species" as "an alien species whose introduction does or is to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health"; the biological definition of invasive species, on the other hand, makes no reference to the harm they may cause, only to the fact that they spread beyond the area of original introduction.
Although some argue that "invasive" is a loaded word and harm is difficult to define, the fact of the matter is that organisms have and continue to be introduced to areas in which they are not native, sometimes with but without much regard to the harm that could result. From a regulatory perspective, it is neither desirable nor practical to list as undesirable or outright ban all non-native species. Regulations require a definitional distinction between non-natives that are deemed onerous and all others. Introduced pest species that are listed as invasive, best fit the definition of an invasive species. Early detection and rapid response is the most effective strategy for regulating a pest species and reducing economic and environmental impacts of an introduction In Great Britain, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 prevents the introduction of any animal not occurring in the wild or any of a list of both animals or plants introduced and proved to be invasive. By definition, a species is considered "introduced" when its transport into an area outside of its native range is human mediated.
Introductions by humans can be described as either accidental. Intentional introductions have been motivated by individuals or groups who either believe that the
Oxbow lake
An oxbow lake is a U-shaped lake that forms when a wide meander from the main stem of a river is cut off, creating a free-standing body of water. This landform is so named for its distinctive curved shape. In Australia, an oxbow lake is called a billabong, from the indigenous Wiradjuri language. In south Texas, oxbows left by the Rio Grande are called resacas; the word "oxbow" can refer to a U-shaped bend in a river or stream, whether or not it is cut off from the main stream. An oxbow lake forms. After a long period of time, the meander becomes curved, the neck of the meander becomes narrower and the river cuts through the neck during a flood, cutting off the meander and forming an oxbow lake; when a river reaches a low-lying plain in its final course to the sea or a lake, it meanders widely. In the vicinity of a river bend, deposition occurs on the convex bank. In contrast, both lateral erosion and undercutting occur on the cut bank or concave bank Continuous deposition on the convex bank and erosion of the concave bank of a meandering river cause the formation of a pronounced meander with two concave banks getting closer.
The narrow neck of land between the two neighboring concave banks is cut through, either by lateral erosion of the two concave banks or by the strong currents of a flood. When this happens a new, straighter river channel develops—and an abandoned meander loop, called a cutoff, forms; when deposition seals off the cutoff from the river channel, an oxbow lake forms. This process can occur over a time from a few years to several decades, may sometimes become static. Gathering of erosion products near the concave bank and transporting them to the convex bank is the work of the secondary flow across the floor of the river in the vicinity of a river bend; the process of deposition of silt and gravel on the convex bank is illustrated in point bars. River flood plains that contain rivers with a sinuous platform are populated by longer oxbow lakes than those with low sinuosity; this is because rivers with high sinuosity have larger meanders, greater opportunity for longer lakes to form. Rivers with lower sinuosity are characterized by fewer cutoffs and shorter oxbow lakes due to the shorter distance of their meanders.
The effect of the secondary flow can be demonstrated using a circular bowl. Fill the bowl with water and sprinkle dense particles such as sand or rice into the bowl. Set the water into circular motion with one hand or a spoon; the dense particles sweep into a neat pile in the center of the bowl. This is the mechanism that leads to the formation of point bars and contributes to the formation of oxbow lakes; the primary flow of water in the bowl is circular and the streamlines are concentric with the side of the bowl. However, the secondary flow of the boundary layer across the floor of the bowl is inward toward the center; the primary flow might be expected to fling the dense particles to the perimeter of the bowl, but instead the secondary flow sweeps the particles toward the center. The curved path of a river around a bend makes the water's surface higher on the outside of the bend than on the inside; as a result, at any elevation within the river, water pressure is greater near the outside of the bend than on the inside.
A pressure gradient toward the convex bank provides the centripetal force necessary for each parcel of water to follow its curved path. The boundary layer that flows along the river floor does not move fast enough to balance the pressure gradient laterally across the river, it responds to this pressure gradient, its velocity is downstream and across the river toward the convex bank. As it flows along the floor of the river, it sweeps loose material toward the convex bank; this flow of the boundary layer is different from the speed and direction of the primary flow of the river, is part of the river's secondary flow. When a fluid follows a curved path, such as around a circular bowl, around a bend in a river or in a tropical cyclone, the flow is described as vortex flow: the fastest speed occurs where the radius is smallest, the slowest speed occurs where the radius is greatest; the higher fluid pressure and slower speed where the radius is greater, the lower pressure and faster speed where the radius is smaller, are all consistent with Bernoulli's principle.
Notable examples Bole and Burton Round in West Burton, England are a good example of previous lakes in a close proximity to one another. Carter Lake, Iowa was created after severe flooding in 1877 led to the river shifting 1.25 mi to the southeast. Cuckmere Haven in Sussex, England contains a meandering river with many oxbow lakes referred to in physical geography textbooks. Half Moon Lake in downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin was formed due to a shift in the course of the Chippewa River, which now flows to the south. Kanwar Lake Bird Sanctuary, India contains rare and endangered migratory birds and is one of Asia's largest oxbow lakes; the Oxbow, a 2.5-mile bend in the Connecticut River, is disconnected at one end. There are many oxbow lakes alongside its tributaries; the largest oxbow lake in North America, Lake Chicot, was part of the Mississippi River, as was Horseshoe Lake, the namesake for the town of Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas. Reelfoot Lake in west Tennessee is another notable oxbow lake. Oxbow lake
Aquarium
An aquarium is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, amphibians, aquatic reptiles such as turtles, aquatic plants; the term "aquarium", coined by English naturalist Philip Henry Gosse, combines the Latin root aqua, meaning water, with the suffix -arium, meaning "a place for relating to". The aquarium principle was developed in 1850 by the chemist Robert Warington, who explained that plants added to water in a container would give off enough oxygen to support animals, so long as the numbers of animals did not grow too large; the aquarium craze was launched in early Victorian England by Gosse, who created and stocked the first public aquarium at the London Zoo in 1853, published the first manual, The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea in 1854. An aquarium is a water-filled tank. Small aquariums are kept in the home by hobbyists. There are larger public aquariums in many cities.
This kind of aquarium is other aquatic animals in large tanks. A large aquarium may have otters, turtles and other sea animals. Most aquarium tanks have plants. An aquarist owns fish or maintains an aquarium constructed of glass or high-strength acrylic. Cuboid aquaria are known as fish tanks or tanks, while bowl-shaped aquaria are known as fish bowls. Size can range from a small glass bowl, under a gallon in volume, to immense public aquaria of several thousand gallons. Specialized equipment maintains appropriate water quality and other characteristics suitable for the aquarium's residents. In 1369, the Hongwu Emperor of China established a porcelain company that produced large porcelain tubs for maintaining goldfish. Leonhard Baldner, who wrote Vogel-, Fisch- und Tierbuch in 1666, maintained weather loaches and newts, it is sometimes held that the aquarium was invented by the Romans, who are said to have kept sea barbels in marble-and-glass tanks, but this is unlikely to be true. In 1832, Jeanne Villepreux-Power, a pioneering French marine biologist, became the first person to create aquaria for experimenting with aquatic organisms.
In 1836, soon after his invention of the Wardian case, Dr. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward proposed to use his tanks for tropical animals. In 1841 he did so, though only with toy fish. However, he soon housed real animals. In 1838, Félix Dujardin noted owning a saltwater aquarium. In 1846, Anne Thynne maintained stony corals and seaweed for three years, was credited as the creator of the first balanced marine aquarium in London. English chemist Robert Warington experimented with a 13-gallon container, which contained goldfish and snails, creating one of the first stable aquaria; the aquarium principle was developed by Warington, explaining that plants added to water in a container would give off enough oxygen to support animals, so long as their numbers do not grow too large. He published his findings in 1850 in the Chemical Society's journal; the keeping of fish in an aquarium spread quickly. In the United Kingdom, it became popular after ornate aquaria in cast-iron frames were featured at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
In 1853, the aquarium craze was launched in England by Philip Henry Gosse who created and stocked the first public aquarium in the London Zoo which came to be known as the Fish House. Gosse coined the word "aquarium", opting for this term in 1854 in his book The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea. In this book, Gosse discussed saltwater aquaria. In the 1850s, the aquarium became a fad in the United Kingdom. Tank designs and techniques for maintaining water quality were developed by Warington cooperating with Gosse until his critical review of the tank water composition. Edward Edwards developed these glass-fronted aquaria in his 1858 patent for a "dark-water-chamber slope-back tank", with water circulating to a reservoir beneath. Germans soon rivaled the British in their interest. In 1854, an anonymous author had two articles published about the saltwater aquaria of the United Kingdom: Die Gartenlaube entitled Der Ocean auf dem Tische. However, in 1856, Der See im Glase was published, discussing freshwater aquaria, which were much easier to maintain in landlocked areas.
In 1862 William Alford Lloyd bankrupt because of the craze in England being over, moved to Grindel Dammthor, Hamburg, to supervise the installation of the circulating system and tanks at the Hamburg Aquarium. During the 1870s, some of the first aquarist societies were appearing in Germany; the United States soon followed. Published in 1858, Henry D. Butler's The Family Aquarium was one of the first books written in the United States about the aquarium. According to the July issue of The North American Review of the same year, William Stimson may have owned some of the first functional aquaria, had as many as seven or eight; the first aquarist society in the United States was founded in New York City in 1893, followed by others. The New York Aquarium Journal, first published in October 1876, is considered to be the world's first aquarium magazine. In the Victorian era in the United Kingdom, a common design for the home aquarium was a glass front with the other sides made of wood; the bottom would be heated from below.
More advanced systems soon began to be introduced, along with tanks of
Species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. While these definitions may seem adequate, when looked at more they represent problematic species concepts. For example, the boundaries between related species become unclear with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, in a ring species. Among organisms that reproduce only asexually, the concept of a reproductive species breaks down, each clone is a microspecies. All species are given a two-part name, a "binomial"; the first part of a binomial is the genus.
The second part is called the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the genus Boa. None of these is satisfactory definitions, but scientists and conservationists need a species definition which allows them to work, regardless of the theoretical difficulties. If species were fixed and distinct from one another, there would be no problem, but evolutionary processes cause species to change continually, to grade into one another. Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped. Charles Darwin's 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection; that understanding was extended in the 20th century through genetics and population ecology. Genetic variability arises from mutations and recombination, while organisms themselves are mobile, leading to geographical isolation and genetic drift with varying selection pressures.
Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal gene transfer. Viruses are a special case, driven by a balance of mutation and selection, can be treated as quasispecies. Biologists and taxonomists have made many attempts to define species, beginning from morphology and moving towards genetics. Early taxonomists such as Linnaeus had no option but to describe what they saw: this was formalised as the typological or morphological species concept. Ernst Mayr emphasised reproductive isolation, but this, like other species concepts, is hard or impossible to test. Biologists have tried to refine Mayr's definition with the recognition and cohesion concepts, among others. Many of the concepts are quite similar or overlap, so they are not easy to count: the biologist R. L. Mayden recorded about 24 concepts, the philosopher of science John Wilkins counted 26. Wilkins further grouped the species concepts into seven basic kinds of concepts: agamospecies for asexual organisms biospecies for reproductively isolated sexual organisms ecospecies based on ecological niches evolutionary species based on lineage genetic species based on gene pool morphospecies based on form or phenotype and taxonomic species, a species as determined by a taxonomist.
A typological species is a group of organisms in which individuals conform to certain fixed properties, so that pre-literate people recognise the same taxon as do modern taxonomists. The clusters of variations or phenotypes within specimens would differentiate the species; this method was used as a "classical" method of determining species, such as with Linnaeus early in evolutionary theory. However, different phenotypes are not different species. Species named in this manner are called morphospecies. In the 1970s, Robert R. Sokal, Theodore J. Crovello and Peter Sneath proposed a variation on this, a phenetic species, defined as a set of organisms with a similar phenotype to each other, but a different phenotype from other sets of organisms, it differs from the morphological species concept in including a numerical measure of distance or similarity to cluster entities based on multivariate comparisons of a reasonably large number of phenotypic traits. A mate-recognition species is a group of sexually reproducing organisms that recognize one another as potential mates.
Expanding on this to allow for post-mating isolation, a cohesion species is the most inclusive population of individuals having the potential for phenotypic cohesion through intrinsic cohesion mechanisms. A further development of the recognition concept is provided by the biosemiotic concept of species. In microbiology, genes can move even between distantly related bacteria extending to the whole bacterial domain; as a rule of thumb, microbiologists have assumed that kinds of Bacteria or Archaea with 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequences more similar than 97% to each other need to be checked by DNA-DNA hybridisation to decide if they belong to the same species or not. This concept was narrowed in 2006 to a similarity of 98.7%. DNA-DNA hybri
Torpedo
A modern torpedo is a self-propelled weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, designed to detonate either on contact with its target or in proximity to it. It was called an automotive, locomotive or fish torpedo; the term torpedo was employed for a variety of devices, most of which would today be called mines. From about 1900, torpedo has been used to designate an underwater self-propelled weapon. While the battleship had evolved around engagements between armoured ships with large-calibre guns, the torpedo allowed torpedo boats and other lighter surface ships, submersibles ordinary fishing boats or frogmen, aircraft, to destroy large armoured ships without the need of large guns, though sometimes at the risk of being hit by longer-range shellfire. Modern torpedoes can be divided into heavyweight classes, they can be launched from a variety of platforms. The word torpedo comes from the name of a genus of electric rays in the order Torpediniformes, which in turn comes from the Latin "torpere".
In naval usage, the American Robert Fulton introduced the name to refer to a towed gunpowder charge used by his French submarine Nautilus to demonstrate that it could sink warships. The concept of a torpedo existed many centuries before it was successfully developed. In 1275, Hasan al-Rammah described "...an egg which moves itself and burns". In modern language, a'torpedo' is an underwater self-propelled explosive, but the term applied to primitive naval mines; these were used on an ad hoc basis during the early modern period up to the late 19th century. Early spar torpedoes were created by the Dutchman Cornelius Drebbel in the employ of King James I of England. An early submarine, attempted to lay a bomb with a timed fuse on the hull of HMS Eagle during the American Revolutionary War, but failed in the attempt. In the early 1800s, the American inventor Robert Fulton, while in France, "conceived the idea of destroying ships by introducing floating mines under their bottoms in submarine boats".
He coined the term "torpedo" in reference to the explosive charges with which he outfitted his submarine Nautilus. However, both the French and the Dutch governments were uninterested in the submarine. Fulton concentrated on developing the torpedo independent of a submarine deployment. On 15 October 1805, while in England, Fulton put on a public display of his "infernal machine", sinking the brig Dorothea with a submerged bomb filled with 180 lb of gunpowder and a clock set to explode in 18 minutes. However, the British government refused to purchase the invention, stating they did not wish to "introduce into naval warfare a system that would give great advantage to weaker maritime nations". Fulton carried out a similar demonstration for the US government on 20 July 1807, destroying a vessel in New York's harbor. Further development languished as Fulton focused on his "steam-boat matters". During the War of 1812, torpedoes were employed in attempts to destroy British vessels and protect American harbors.
In fact a submarine-deployed torpedo was used in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy HMS Ramillies while in New London's harbor. This prompted the British Captain Hardy to warn the Americans to cease efforts with the use of any "torpedo boat" in this "cruel and unheard-of warfare", or he would "order every house near the shore to be destroyed". Torpedoes were used by the Russian Empire during the Crimean War in 1855 against British warships in the Gulf of Finland, they used an early form of chemical detonator. During the American Civil War, the term torpedo was used for what is today called a contact mine, floating on or below the water surface using an air-filled demijohn or similar flotation device; these devices were primitive and apt to prematurely explode. They would be detonated on contact with the ship or after a set time, although electrical detonators were occasionally used. USS Cairo was the first warship to be sunk in 1862 by an electrically-detonated mine. Spar torpedoes were used; these were used by the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley to sink USS Housatonic although the weapon was apt to cause as much harm to its user as to its target.
Rear Admiral David Farragut's famous/apocryphal command during the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" Refers to a minefield laid at Alabama. On 26 May 1877, during the Romanian War of Independence, the Romanian spar torpedo boat Rândunica attacked and sank the Ottoman river monitor Seyfi; this was the first instance in history when a torpedo craft sank its targets without sinking. In 1866 British engineer Robert Whitehead invented the first effective self-propelled torpedo, the eponymous Whitehead torpedo. French and German inventions followed and the term torpedo came to describe self-propelled projectiles that traveled under or on water. By 1900, the term no longer included mines and booby-traps as the navies of the world added submarines, torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers to their fleets. A prototype self-propelled torpedo was created by a commission placed by Giovanni Luppis, an Austro-Hungarian naval officer from Fiume, a port city of the
