1.
Argali, Palpa
–
Argali is a village development committee in Palpa District in the Lumbini Zone of southern Nepal. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census it had a population of 2729 people living in 511 individual households, Argali is a plain area between the mountain where around more than 2000 people live. Khya village is in the west of argali and kalipar village in the west, historical Rana‘s palace is also there in Argali which have been turned to school now. Argali is a place where there is access of transportation, communication. The famous Rishikesh temple and Ridi Bazaar is only 5 km away from Argali
Argali, Palpa
–
Argali
Argali, Palpa
–
Argali,Palpa
Argali, Palpa
–
Siddababa Temple,Argali-Palpa
2.
Conservation status
–
The conservation status of a group of organisms indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Various systems of conservation status exist and are in use at international, multi-country, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the best known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system. Also included are species that have gone extinct since 500 AD, when discussing the IUCN Red List, the official term threatened is a grouping of three categories, critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category, Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora aims to ensure that trade in specimens of wild animals. Many countries require CITES permits when importing plants and animals listed on CITES, in the European Union, the Birds and Habitats Directives are the legal instruments that evaluate the conservation status within the EU of species and habitats. NatureServe conservation status focuses on Latin America, United States, Canada, and it has been developed by scientists from NatureServe, The Nature Conservancy, and the network of natural heritage programs and data centers. It is increasingly integrated with the IUCN Red List system and its categories for species include, presumed extinct, possibly extinct, critically imperiled, imperiled, vulnerable, apparently secure, and secure. The system also allows ambiguous or uncertain ranks including inexact numeric ranks, NatureServe adds a qualifier for captive or cultivated only, which has a similar meaning to the IUCN Red List extinct in the wild status. The Red Data Book of the Russian Federation is used within the Russian Federation, in Australia, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 describes lists of threatened species, ecological communities and threatening processes. The categories resemble those of the 1994 IUCN Red List Categories & Criteria, prior to the EPBC Act, a simpler classification system was used by the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992. Some state and territory governments also have their own systems for conservation status, in Belgium, the Flemish Research Institute for Nature and Forest publishes an online set of more than 150 nature indicators in Dutch. In Canada, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is a group of experts that assesses and designates which wild species are in danger of disappearing from Canada. Under the Species at Risk Act, it is up to the federal government, in China, the State, provinces and some counties have determined their key protected wildlife species. There is the China red data book, in Finland, a large number of species are protected under the Nature Conservation Act, and through the EU Habitats Directive and EU Birds Directive. In Germany, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation publishes red lists of endangered species, india has the Wild Life Protection Act,1972, Amended 2003 and the Biological Diversity Act,2002. In Japan, the Ministry of Environment publishes a Threatened Wildlife of Japan Red Data Book, in the Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality publishes a list of threatened species, and conservation is enforced by the Nature Conservation Act 1998. Species are also protected through the Wild Birds and Habitats Directives, in New Zealand, the Department of Conservation publishes the New Zealand Threat Classification System lists
Conservation status
–
by
IUCN Red List category
Conservation status
–
IUCN Red List
Conservation status
–
Conservation biology
3.
Near Threatened
–
The IUCN notes the importance of re-evaluating near-threatened taxa at appropriate intervals. The rationale used for near-threatened taxa usually includes the criteria of vulnerable which are plausible or nearly met, additionally, the 402 conservation-dependent taxa may also be considered near-threatened. Prior to 2001, the IUCN used the version 2.3 Categories and Criteria, with this category system, Near Threatened and Conservation Dependent were both subcategories of the category Lower Risk. IUCN Red List near threatened species, ordered by taxonomic rank, category, IUCN Red List near threatened species, ordered alphabetically
Near Threatened
–
by
IUCN Red List category
Near Threatened
–
The near-threatened
European otter
Near Threatened
–
The
maned wolf is near-threatened largely as the result of habitat loss.
Near Threatened
–
IUCN Red List
4.
IUCN Red List
–
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, founded in 1964, is the worlds most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the main authority on the conservation status of species. A series of Regional Red Lists are produced by countries or organizations, the IUCN Red List is set upon precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world, the aim is to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to try to reduce species extinction. Major species assessors include BirdLife International, the Institute of Zoology, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, collectively, assessments by these organizations and groups account for nearly half the species on the Red List. The IUCN aims to have the category of every species re-evaluated every five years if possible, the 1964 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants used the older pre-criteria Red List assessment system. Plants listed may not, therefore, appear in the current Red List, IUCN advise that is best to check both the online Red List and the 1997 plants Red List publication. The 2006 Red List, released on 4 May 2006 evaluated 40,168 species as a whole, plus an additional 2,160 subspecies, varieties, aquatic stocks, on 12 September 2007, the World Conservation Union released the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Russ Mittermeier, chief of Swiss-based IUCNs Primate Specialist Group, stated that 16,306 species are endangered with extinction,188 more than in 2006, the Red List includes the Sumatran orangutan in the Critically Endangered category and the Bornean orangutan in the Endangered category. The study shows at least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth are known to be threatened with extinction, and 836 are listed as Data Deficient. The Red List of 2012 was released 19 July 2012 at Rio+20 Earth Summit, nearly 2,000 species were added, the IUCN assessed a total of 63,837 species which revealed 19,817 are threatened with extinction. With 3,947 described as endangered and 5,766 as endangered. At threat are 41% of amphibian species, 33% of reef-building corals, 30% of conifers, 25% of mammals, the IUCN Red List has listed 132 species of plants and animals from India as Critically Endangered. Extinct – No known individuals remaining, extinct in the wild – Known only to survive in captivity, or as a naturalized population outside its historic range. Critically endangered – Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild, Endangered – High risk of extinction in the wild. Vulnerable – High risk of endangerment in the wild, near threatened – Likely to become endangered in the near future. Does not qualify for a more at-risk category, widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category. Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction, Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria
IUCN Red List
–
by
IUCN Red List category
IUCN Red List
–
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
IUCN Red List
–
IUCN Red List
IUCN Red List
–
By
region
5.
Taxonomy (biology)
–
Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
Taxonomy (biology)
–
Title page of
Systema Naturae, Leiden, 1735
Taxonomy (biology)
–
Evolution of the
vertebrates at class level, width of spindles indicating number of families. Spindle diagrams are typical for
Evolutionary taxonomy
Taxonomy (biology)
–
The same relationship, expressed as a
cladogram typical for
cladistics
Taxonomy (biology)
–
Type specimen for
Nepenthes smilesii, a tropical
pitcher plant.
6.
Animal
–
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
Animal
–
Carl Linnaeus, known as the father of modern
taxonomy
Animal
–
Had'n
Animal
–
The use of
love darts by the land snail
Monachoides vicinus is a form of
sexual selection
Animal
–
A
newt lung cell stained with
fluorescent dyes undergoing the early
anaphase stage of
mitosis
7.
Chordate
–
Chordates are deuterostomes, as during the embryo development stage the anus forms before the mouth. They are also bilaterally symmetric coelomates, in the case of vertebrate chordates, the notochord is usually replaced by a vertebral column during development, and they may have body plans organized via segmentation. There are also additional extinct taxa, the Vertebrata are sometimes considered as a subgroup of the clade Craniata, consisting of chordates with a skull, the Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, the worlds largest and fastest animals, the blue whale and peregrine falcon respectively, are chordates, as are humans. Fossil chordates are known from at least as early as the Cambrian explosion, Hemichordata, which includes the acorn worms, has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but it now is usually treated as a separate phylum. The Hemichordata, along with the Echinodermata, form the Ambulacraria, the Chordata and Ambulacraria form the superphylum Deuterostomia, composed of the deuterostomes. Attempts to work out the relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. All of the earliest chordate fossils have found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial and it has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce family trees shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic. While this has been known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux. Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson, it was already in prevalent use by 1880, ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization, among the vertebrate sub-group of chordates the notochord develops into the spine, and in wholly aquatic species this helps the animal to swim by flexing its tail. In fish and other vertebrates, this develops into the spinal cord, the pharynx is the part of the throat immediately behind the mouth. In fish, the slits are modified to form gills, a muscular tail that extends backwards behind the anus. This is a groove in the wall of the pharynx. In filter-feeding species it produces mucus to gather food particles, which helps in transporting food to the esophagus and it also stores iodine, and may be a precursor of the vertebrate thyroid gland
Chordate
Chordate
–
Craniate:
Hagfish
Chordate
–
Tunicates: sea squirts
Chordate
–
Cephalochordate:
Lancelet
8.
Mammal
–
Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia, a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles by the possession of a neocortex, hair, three middle ear bones and mammary glands. All female mammals nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands, Mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the great whales. The basic body type is a quadruped, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in trees. The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta, Mammals range in size from the 30–40 mm bumblebee bat to the 30-meter blue whale. With the exception of the five species of monotreme, all modern mammals give birth to live young, most mammals, including the six most species-rich orders, belong to the placental group. The largest orders are the rodents, bats and Soricomorpha, the next three biggest orders, depending on the biological classification scheme used, are the Primates, the Cetartiodactyla, and the Carnivora. Living mammals are divided into the Yinotheria and Theriiformes There are around 5450 species of mammal, in some classifications, extant mammals are divided into two subclasses, the Prototheria, that is, the order Monotremata, and the Theria, or the infraclasses Metatheria and Eutheria. The marsupials constitute the group of the Metatheria, and include all living metatherians as well as many extinct ones. Much of the changes reflect the advances of cladistic analysis and molecular genetics, findings from molecular genetics, for example, have prompted adopting new groups, such as the Afrotheria, and abandoning traditional groups, such as the Insectivora. The mammals represent the only living Synapsida, which together with the Sauropsida form the Amniota clade, the early synapsid mammalian ancestors were sphenacodont pelycosaurs, a group that produced the non-mammalian Dimetrodon. At the end of the Carboniferous period, this group diverged from the line that led to todays reptiles. Some mammals are intelligent, with some possessing large brains, self-awareness, Mammals can communicate and vocalize in several different ways, including the production of ultrasound, scent-marking, alarm signals, singing, and echolocation. Mammals can organize themselves into fission-fusion societies, harems, and hierarchies, most mammals are polygynous, but some can be monogamous or polyandrous. They provided, and continue to provide, power for transport and agriculture, as well as commodities such as meat, dairy products, wool. Mammals are hunted or raced for sport, and are used as model organisms in science, Mammals have been depicted in art since Palaeolithic times, and appear in literature, film, mythology, and religion. Defaunation of mammals is primarily driven by anthropogenic factors, such as poaching and habitat destruction, Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is accepted, McKenna & Bell and Wilson & Reader provide useful recent compendiums. Though field work gradually made Simpsons classification outdated, it remains the closest thing to a classification of mammals
Mammal
–
Goat kids will stay with their mother until they are weaned.
Mammal
9.
Even-toed ungulate
–
The even-toed ungulates are ungulates whose weight is borne equally by the third and fourth toes. By contrast, odd-toed ungulates, such as horses, bear their weight primarily on their third toe, the aquatic cetaceans evolved from within even-toed ungulates, and therefore modern taxonomic classification sometimes combines Artiodactyla and Cetacea into Cetartiodactyla. The oldest fossils of even-toed ungulates date back to the early Eocene, since these findings almost simultaneously appeared in Europe, Asia, and North America, it is very difficult to accurately determine the origin of artiodactyls. The fossils are classified as belonging to the family Dichobunidae, their best-known and these were small animals, some as small as a hare, with a slim build, lanky legs, and a long tail. The hind legs were longer than the front legs. The early to middle Eocene saw the emergence of the ancestors of most of todays mammals, two formerly widespread, but now extinct, families of even-toed ungulates were Enteledontidae and Anthracotheriidae. Entelodonts existed from the middle Eocene to the early Miocene in Eurasia and they had a stocky body with short legs and a massive head, which was characterized by two humps on the lower jaw bone. Anthracotheres had a large, porcine build, with short legs and this group appeared in the middle Eocene up until the Pliocene, and spread throughout Eurasia, Africa, and North America. Anthracothereres are thought to be the ancestors of hippos, and, likewise, hippopotamuses appeared in the late Miocene and occupied Africa and Asia – they never got to the Americas. The camels were, during parts of the Cenozoic, limited to North America. Among the North American camels were groups like the stocky, short-legged Merycoidodontidae and they first appeared in the late Eocene and developed a great diversity of species in North America. Only in the late Miocene or early Pliocene did they migrate from North America into Eurasia, the North American varieties became extinct around 10,000 years ago. Suina have been around since the Eocene, in the late Eocene or the Oligocene, two families stayed in Eurasia and Africa, the peccaries, which became extinct in the Old World, exist today only in the Americas. South America was settled by even-toed ungulates only in the Pliocene, with only the peccaries, lamoids, and various species of capreoline deer, South America has comparatively fewer artiodactyl families than other continents. The classification of artiodactyls was hotly debated because the ocean-dwelling cetaceans evolved from the land-dwelling even-toed ungulates, some semiaquatic even-toed ungulates are more closely related to the ocean-dwelling cetaceans than to the other even-toed ungulates. This makes the Artiodactyla as traditionally defined an invalid paraphyletic taxon, since it includes animals descended from a common ancestor, phylogenetic classification only recognizes monophyletic taxa, that is, groups that descend from a common ancestor and include all its descendants. To address this problem, the traditional order Artiodactyla and infraorder Cetacea are sometimes subsumed into the more inclusive Cetartiodactyla taxon, an alternative approach is to include both land-land dwelling even toed ungulates and ocean-dwelling cetaceans in a revised Artiodactyla taxon. Order Artiodactyla/Clade CetartiodactylaSuborder Tylopoda Family †Anoplotheriidae, molecular biology involves sequencing an organisms DNA and RNA and comparing the sequence with that of other living beings – the more similar they are, the more closely they are related
Even-toed ungulate
–
Molecular and morphological studies confirmed that cetaceans are the closest living relatives of hippopotamuses
Even-toed ungulate
Even-toed ungulate
–
Hippos are a geologically young group, which raises questions about their origin
Even-toed ungulate
–
The
mesonychid were long considered ancestors of
whales
10.
Bovidae
–
The Bovidae are the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes bison, African buffalo, water buffalo, antelopes, gazelles, sheep, goats, muskoxen, and domestic cattle. A member of family is called a bovid. With 143 extant species and 300 known extinct species, the family Bovidae consists of eight major subfamilies apart from the disputed Peleinae and Pantholopinae, the family evolved 20 million years ago, in the early Miocene. The bovids show great variation in size and pelage colouration, excepting some domesticated forms, all male bovids have two or more horns, and in many species females possess horns, too. Most bovids bear 30 to 32 teeth, social activity and feeding usually peak during dawn and dusk. Bovids typically rest before dawn, during midday, and after dark and they have various methods of social organisation and social behaviour, which are classified into solitary and gregarious behaviour. Bovids use different forms of vocal, olfactory, and tangible communication, most species alternately feed and ruminate throughout the day. While small bovids forage in dense and closed habitat, larger species feed on vegetation in open grasslands. Mature bovids mate at least once a year and smaller species may even mate twice, the greatest diversities of bovids occur in Africa. The maximum concentration of species is in the savannas of eastern Africa, other bovid species also occur in Europe, Asia, and North America. Bovidae includes three of the five domesticated mammals whose use has spread outside their original ranges, namely cattle, sheep, dairy products such as milk, butter, and cheese are manufactured largely from domestic cattle. Bovids also provide leather, meat, and wool, the name Bovidae was given by the British zoologist John Edward Gray in 1821. The word Bovidae is the combination of the prefix bov- and the suffix -idae, the family Bovidae is placed in the order Artiodactyla. It includes 143 extant species, accounting for nearly 55% of the ungulates, molecular studies have supported monophyly in the family Bovidae. The number of subfamilies in Bovidae is disputed, with suggestions of as many as ten, in addition, three extinct subfamilies are known, Hypsodontinae, Oiocerinae and the subfamily Tethytraginae, which contains Tethytragus. In 1992, Alan W. Boodonts have somewhat primitive teeth, resembling those of oxen, a controversy exists about the recognition of Peleinae and Patholopinae, comprising the genera Pelea and Pantholops respectively, as subfamilies. Pantholops, earlier classified in the Antilopinae, was placed in its own subfamily. However, molecular and morphological analysis supports the inclusion of Pantholops in Caprinae, below is a cladogram based on Gatesy et al. and Gentry et al
Bovidae
Bovidae
–
Skull of Eotragus sansaniensis, a species of the ancient bovid genus Eotragus
Bovidae
–
Bovids display unique unbranched horns.
Bovidae
–
Dental pad of a domestic bovid: Note the absence of upper incisors and canines and the outward projection of the lower teeth.
11.
Caprinae
–
Subfamily Caprinae is part of the ruminant family Bovidae, consisting of mostly medium-sized bovids. A member of this subfamily is called a caprine, within this subfamily Caprinae, a prominent tribe Caprini includes sheep, goat, and ibex. Some earlier taxonomies considered Caprinae a separate family called Capridae, but now it is considered a subfamily within the Bovidae family. The European mouflon is thought to be the ancestor of the domestic sheep. Many species have become extinct since the last ice age, probably largely because of human interaction, of the survivors, Five are classified as endangered, Eight as vulnerable, Seven as of concern and needing conservation measures, but at lower risk, and Seven species are secure. Members of the group vary considerably in size, from just over 1 m long for a full-grown grey goral, to almost 2.5 m long for a musk ox, musk oxen in captivity have reached over 650 kg. The resource-defenders are the primitive group, they tend to be smaller in size, dark in colour, males and females fairly alike, have long, tassellated ears, long manes. They tend to be larger, highly social, and rather than mark territory with scent glands, no sharp line divides the groups, but a continuum varies from the serows at one end of the spectrum to sheep, true goats, and musk oxen at the other. The goat-antelope, or caprid, group is known from as early as the Miocene, when members of the group resembled the modern serow in their general body form
Caprinae
Caprinae
–
Palaeoreas lindermayeri fossil
Caprinae
–
Takin (Budorcas taxicolor)
Caprinae
–
Spanish ibex (Capra pyrenaica)
12.
Ovis
–
This article refers to the sheep genus. For the species referred to as sheep, see sheep. Ovis is a genus of mammals, part of the subfamily of the ruminant family Bovidae. Its five or more highly sociable species are known as sheep, the domestic sheep is one member of the genus, and is thought to be descended from the wild mouflon of central and southwest Asia. Female sheep are called ewes, males are called rams, the adjective applying to sheep is ovine, and the collective term for sheep is flock or mob. The term herd is also used in this sense. Many specialist terms relating to sheep are used. Sheep are usually stockier than most other bovines, and their horns are usually divergent, Sheep have scent glands on their faces and feet. Communication through the scent glands is not well understood, but is thought to be important for sexual signaling, males can smell females that are fertile and ready to mate, and rams mark their territories by rubbing scent on rocks. Like other ruminants, they have four-chambered stomachs, which play a role in digesting food, they eructate. Domestic sheep are used for their wool, milk, and meat, six species and numerous subspecies of sheep are currently recognised, although some subspecies have also been considered full species. These are the ones, Wild sheep are mostly found in hilly or mountainous habitats. They are fairly small compared to other ungulates, in most species and their diets consist mainly of grasses, as well as other plants and lichens. Like other bovids, their digestive systems enable them to digest and live on low-quality, Sheep conserve water well and can live in fairly dry environments. The bodies of wild sheep are covered by a coat of hair to protect them from cold. This coat contains long, stiff hairs, called kemps, over a short, woolly undercoat and this woolly undercoat has been developed in many domestic sheep breeds into a fleece of long wool, with selection against kemp hairs in these breeds. The fleece covers the body and is used for fibre, Sheep are social animals and live in groups, called flocks. This helps them to avoid predators and stay warm in bad weather by huddling together, flocks of sheep need to keep moving to find new grazing areas and more favourable weather as the seasons change
Ovis
–
Sheep
Ovis
–
Ovis ammon
Ovis
–
Ovis aries aries
Ovis
–
Ovis aries orientalis
13.
Binomial nomenclature
–
Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
Binomial nomenclature
–
Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), a Swedish botanist, invented the modern system of binomial nomenclature.
14.
Carl Linnaeus
–
Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the father of modern taxonomy. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus, Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his education at Uppsala University. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands and he then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, at the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message, Tell him I know no man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Swedish author August Strindberg wrote, Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum, The Pliny of the North and he is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany, the abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is L. In older publications, sometimes the abbreviation Linn. is found, Linnæus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia and his siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, and Emerentia Linnæa. One of a line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius, a year after Linnæus birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curates house, even in his early years, Linnæus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus, soon Linnæus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants
Carl Linnaeus
–
Carl von Linné,
Alexander Roslin, 1775. Oil painting in the portrait collection at
Gripsholm Castle
Carl Linnaeus
–
The
coat of arms of Carl von Linné.
Carl Linnaeus
–
Birthplace of Linnæus at
Råshult
Carl Linnaeus
–
Statue of Linnaeus as a University student in
Lund
15.
10th edition of Systema Naturae
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The 10th edition of Systema Naturae is a book written by Carl Linnaeus and published in two volumes in 1758 and 1759, which marks the starting point of zoological nomenclature. In it, Linnaeus introduced binomial nomenclature for animals, something he had already done for plants in his 1753 publication of Species Plantarum, before 1758, most biological catalogues had used polynomial names for the taxa included, including earlier editions of Systema Naturae. The first work to consistently apply binomial nomenclature across the kingdom was the 10th edition of Systema Naturae. Names published before that date are unavailable, even if they would otherwise satisfy the rules, during Linnaeus lifetime, Systema Naturae was under continuous revision. The Animal Kingdom, Animals enjoy sensation by means of an organization, animated by a medullary substance, perception by nerves. They have members for the different purposes of life, organs for their different senses and they all originate from an egg. Their external and internal structure, their anatomy, habits, instincts. The list has been broken down into the six classes Linnaeus described for animals, Mammalia, Aves, Amphibia, Pisces, Insecta. These classes were created by studying the internal anatomy, as seen in his key. Warm, red blood Viviparous, Mammalia Oviparous, Aves Heart with 1 auricle,1 ventricle, cold, red blood Lungs voluntary, Amphibia External gills, Pisces Heart with 1 auricle,0 ventricles. Linnaeus described mammals as, Animals that suckle their young by means of lactiferous teats, in external and internal structure they resemble man, most of them are quadrupeds, and with man, their natural enemy, inhabit the surface of the Earth. The largest, though fewest in number, inhabit the ocean and they are areal, vocal, swift and light, and destitute of external ears, lips, teeth, scrotum, womb, bladder, epiglottis, corpus callosum and its arch, and diaphragm. They breathe by means of gills, which are united by a bony arch, swim by means of radiate fins. Many of them are without a head, and most of them without feet. They are principally distinguished by their tentacles, by the Ancients they were not improperly called imperfect animals, as being destitute of ears, nose, head, eyes and legs, and are therefore totally distinct from Insects. In addition to repeating the species he had listed in his Species Plantarum. The species from Species Plantarum were numbered sequentially, while the new species were labelled with letters, new plant species described in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae include, The original 1758 Systema Naturae Linnaeus 1758 Classification of Animals on the Taxonomicon
10th edition of Systema Naturae
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Title page of the 10th edition of Systema Naturae
10th edition of Systema Naturae
–
An oil-painting of Carl Linnaeus by
Alexander Roslin in 1775
10th edition of Systema Naturae
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The
Barbary macaque was included in the 10th edition as Simia sylvanus.
10th edition of Systema Naturae
–
The
snowy owl was included in the 10th edition as Strix scandiaca.
16.
Central Asia
–
Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also referred to as the -stans as the five countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix -stan. Central Asias five former Soviet republics are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Central Asia has historically been closely tied to its nomadic peoples and the Silk Road. It has acted as a crossroads for the movement of people, goods, the Silk Road connected Muslim lands with the people of Europe, India, and China. This crossroads position has intensified the conflict between tribalism and traditionalism and modernization, in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Central Asia was predominantly Iranian, peopled by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Parthians. Central Asia is sometimes referred to as Turkestan, the idea of Central Asia as a distinct region of the world was introduced in 1843 by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt. The borders of Central Asia are subject to multiple definitions, historically built political geography and geoculture are two significant parameters widely used in the scholarly literature about the definitions of the Central Asia. The most limited definition was the one of the Soviet Union. This definition was also used outside the USSR during this period. However, the Russian culture has two terms, Средняя Азия and Центральная Азия. Since then, this has become the most common definition of Central Asia, the UNESCO general history of Central Asia, written just before the collapse of the USSR, defines the region based on climate and uses far larger borders. An alternative method is to define the region based on ethnicity and these areas include Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Turkic regions of southern Siberia, the five republics, and Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan as a whole, the northern and western areas of Pakistan, the Tibetans and Ladakhi are also included. Insofar, most of the peoples are considered the indigenous peoples of the vast region. Central Asia is a large region of varied geography, including high passes and mountains, vast deserts. The vast steppe areas of Central Asia are considered together with the steppes of Eastern Europe as a geographical zone known as the Eurasian Steppe. Much of the land of Central Asia is too dry or too rugged for farming, the Gobi desert extends from the foot of the Pamirs, 77° E, to the Great Khingan Mountains, 116°–118° E. Central Asia has the following geographic extremes, The worlds northernmost desert, at Buurug Deliin Els, Mongolia, the Northern Hemispheres southernmost permafrost, at Erdenetsogt sum, Mongolia, 46°17′ N
Central Asia
–
On the southern shore of Issyk Kul lake,
Issyk Kul Region.
Central Asia
–
Central Asia
Central Asia
–
Uzbek men from
Khiva, ca. 1861–1880
Central Asia
–
Kazakh man on a horse with golden eagle
17.
Himalaya
–
The Himalayas, or Himalaya, form a mountain range in Asia separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The Himalayan range has the Earths highest peaks, including the highest, the Himalayas include over a hundred mountains exceeding 7,200 metres in elevation. By contrast, the highest peak outside Asia – Aconcagua, in the Andes – is 6,961 metres tall. The Himalayas are spread across five countries, Bhutan, India, Nepal, China, the Himalayan range is bordered on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, and on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Some of the major rivers, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra, rise in the Himalayas. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia, many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism. Lifted by the subduction of the Indian tectonic plate under the Eurasian Plate and its western anchor, Nanga Parbat, lies just south of the northernmost bend of Indus river. Its eastern anchor, Namcha Barwa, is just west of the bend of the Tsangpo river. The range varies in width from 400 kilometres in the west to 150 kilometres in the east, the name of the range derives from the Sanskrit Himā-laya, from himá and ā-laya. They are now known as the Himalaya Mountains, usually shortened to the Himalayas, formerly, they were described in the singular as the Himalaya. This was also previously transcribed Himmaleh, as in Emily Dickinsons poetry and Henry David Thoreaus essays. The mountains are known as the Himālaya in Nepali and Hindi, the Himalaya or The Land of Snow in Tibetan, the Hamaleh Mountain Range in Urdu, the flora and fauna of the Himalayas vary with climate, rainfall, altitude, and soils. The climate ranges from tropical at the base of the mountains to permanent ice, the amount of yearly rainfall increases from west to east along the southern front of the range. This diversity of altitude, rainfall and soil conditions combined with the high snow line supports a variety of distinct plant. The extremes of high altitude combined with extreme cold favor extremophile organisms, the unique floral and faunal wealth of the Himalayas is undergoing structural and compositional changes due to climate change. The increase in temperature is shifting various species to higher elevations, the oak forest is being invaded by pine forests in the Garhwal Himalayan region. There are reports of early flowering and fruiting in some species, especially rhododendron, apple. The highest known tree species in the Himalayas is Juniperus tibetica located at 4,900 metres in Southeastern Tibet, the Himalayan range is one of the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consists mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock
Himalaya
–
The north face of
Mount Everest seen from the path to the base camp in
Tibet Autonomous Region,
China
Himalaya
Himalaya
–
Panoramic view of Langtang Range in
Nepal
Himalaya
–
Indus River
18.
Tibet
–
Tibet is a region on the Tibetan Plateau in Asia, spanning about 2.4 million km2 and nearly a quarter of Chinas territory. Tibet is the highest region on Earth, with an elevation of 4,900 metres. The highest elevation in Tibet is Mount Everest, Earths highest mountain, the Tibetan Empire emerged in the 7th century, but with the fall of the empire the region soon divided into a variety of territories. The current borders of Tibet were generally established in the 18th century, following the Xinhai Revolution against the Qing dynasty in 1912, Qing soldiers were disarmed and escorted out of Tibet Area. The region subsequently declared its independence in 1913 without recognition by the subsequent Chinese Republican government, later, Lhasa took control of the western part of Xikang, China. There are tensions regarding Tibets political status and dissident groups that are active in exile and it is also said that Tibetan activists in Tibet have been arrested or tortured. The economy of Tibet is dominated by agriculture, though tourism has become a growing industry in recent decades. The dominant religion in Tibet is Tibetan Buddhism, in there is Bön, which is similar to Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is an influence on the art, music. Tibetan architecture reflects Chinese and Indian influences, staple foods in Tibet are roasted barley, yak meat, and butter tea. The Tibetan name for their land, Bod བོད་, means Tibet or Tibetan Plateau, although it meant the central region around Lhasa. The Standard Tibetan pronunciation of Bod, is transcribed Bhö in Tournadre Phonetic Transcription, Bö in the THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription and Poi in Tibetan pinyin. Tibetan people, language, and culture, regardless of where they are from, are referred to as Zang although the geographical term Xīzàng is often limited to the Tibet Autonomous Region. The term Xīzàng was coined during the Qing dynasty in the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor through the addition of a prefix meaning west to Zang, the best-known medieval Chinese name for Tibet is Tubo. This name first appears in Chinese characters as 土番 in the 7th century, in the Middle Chinese spoken during that period, as reconstructed by William H. Baxter, 土番 was pronounced thux-phjon and 吐蕃 was pronounced thux-pjon. Other pre-modern Chinese names for Tibet include Wusiguo, Wusizang, Tubote, the English word Tibet or Thibet dates back to the 18th century. Historical linguists generally agree that Tibet names in European languages are loanwords from Semitic Ṭībat orTūbātt, itself deriving from Turkic Töbäd, literally, according to Matthew Kapstein, From the perspective of historical linguistics, Tibetan most closely resembles Burmese among the major languages of Asia. More controversial is the theory that the Tibeto-Burman family is part of a larger language family, called Sino-Tibetan
Tibet
–
"Greater Tibet" as claimed by Tibetan exile groups
Tibet
–
Tibetan family in
Kham attending a horse festival
Tibet
–
King
Songtsän Gampo
Tibet
–
Tibet in 1734. Royaume de Thibet ("Kingdom of Tibet") in la Chine, la Tartarie Chinoise, et le Thibet ("China, Chinese
Tartary, and Tibet") on a 1734 map by
Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, based on earlier Jesuit maps.
19.
Altay Mountains
–
The Altai Mountains are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan come together, and are where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters. The name Altai means Gold Mountain in Mongolian, alt and tai and also in its Chinese name, in Turkic languages altin means gold and dag means mountain. The proposed Altaic language family takes its name from this mountain range and their mean elevation is 1,500 to 1,750 m. The snow-line runs at 2,000 m on the side and at 2,400 m on the southern. Mountain passes across the range are few and difficult, the chief being the Ulan-daban at 2,827 m, and this region is studded with large lakes, e. g. The north western and northern slopes of the Sailughem Mountains are extremely steep, on this side lies the highest summit of the range, the double-headed Belukha, whose summits reach 4,506 and 4,440 m respectively, and give origin to several glaciers. Altaians call it Kadyn Bazhy, but is also called Uch-Sumer, the second highest peak of the range is in Mongolian part named Khüiten Peak. This massive peak reaches 4374 m, numerous spurs, striking in all directions from the Sailughem mountains, fill up the space between that range and the lowlands of Tomsk. The Katun and the Biya together form the Ob, the next valley is that of the Charysh, which has the Korgon and Tigeretsk Alps on one side and the Talitsk and Bashalatsk Alps on the other. The Altai, seen from this valley, presents the most romantic scenes, including the small but deep Kolyvan lake, farther west the valleys of the Uba, the Ulba and the Bukhtarma open south-westwards towards the Irtysh. The lower part of the first, like the valley of the Charysh, is thickly populated, in the valley of the Ulba is the Riddersk mine, at the foot of the Ivanovsk Peak. Its upper parts abound in glaciers, the best known of which is the Berel, on the northern side of the range which separates the upper Bukhtarma from the upper Katun is the Katun glacier, which after two ice-falls widens out to 700 to 900 metres. From a grotto in this glacier bursts tumultuously the Katun river, the high valleys farther north, on the same western face of the Sailughem range, are but little known, their only visitors being Kyrgyz shepherds. Those of Bashkaus, Chulyshman, and Chulcha, all three leading to the lake of Teletskoye, are inhabited by Telengit people. The shores of the lake rise almost sheer to over 1,800 m, from this lake issues the Biya, which joins the Katun at Biysk, and then meanders through the prairies of the north-west of the Altai. Farther north the Altai highlands are continued in the Kuznetsk district, which has a different geological aspect. But the Abakan River, which rises on the shoulder of the Sayan mountains. East of 94° E the range is continued by a series of mountain chains
Altay Mountains
–
Map of the Altai mountain range
Altay Mountains
–
Lake Kucherla in the Altai Mountains
Altay Mountains
–
Belukha mountain
Altay Mountains
–
Belukha —the highest mountain in Altay and
Siberia
20.
Mongolian language
–
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and largest-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 10 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. In Mongolia, the Khalkha dialect, written in Cyrillic, is predominant, while in Inner Mongolia, some classify several other Mongolic languages like Buryat and Oirat as dialects of Mongolian, but this classification is not in line with the current international standard. Mongolian has vowel harmony and a complex structure for a Mongolic language that allows clusters of up to three consonants syllable-finally. It is an agglutinative language that relies on suffix chains in the verbal and nominal domains. While there is a word order, subject–object–predicate, ordering among noun phrases is relatively free. Verbs are marked for voice, aspect, tense, and epistemic modality/evidentiality, in sentence linking, a special role is played by converbs. Modern Mongolian evolved from Middle Mongol, the language spoken in the Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries, in the transition, a major shift in the vowel-harmony paradigm occurred, long vowels developed, the case system changed slightly, and the verbal system was restructured. Mongolian is distantly related to the Khitan language and it belongs to the Northern Asian linguistic area, including the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean and Japonic languages. These languages have been grouped under the still-debated Altaic language family, Mongolian literature is well attested in written form from the 13th century but has earlier Mongolic precursors in the literature of the Khitan and other Xianbei peoples. The use of Mongolian in Inner Mongolia, has witnessed periods of decline, the multilingual situation in Inner Mongolia does not appear to obstruct efforts by ethnic Mongols to preserve their language. The children of inter-ethnic Mongol-Chinese marriages also claim to be and are registered as ethnic Mongols, Mongolian belongs to the Mongolic languages. Such data might account for the development of the Mongolian dialect continuum. The status of certain varieties in the Mongolic group—whether they are distinct from Mongolian or just dialects of it—is disputed. There are at least three varieties, Oirat and Buryat, both of which are spoken in Russia, Mongolia, and China, and Ordos, spoken around Inner Mongolias Ordos City. There is no disagreement that the Khalkha dialect of the Mongolian state is Mongolian, beyond this one point, however, agreement ends. On the other hand, Luvsanvandan proposed a much broader Mongolian language consisting of a Central dialect, an Eastern dialect, a Western dialect, some Western scholars propose that the relatively well researched Ordos variety is an independent language due to its conservative syllable structure and phoneme inventory. On the other hand, the split between the past tense verbal suffixes -sŋ in the Central varieties vs. -dʒɛː in the Eastern varieties is usually seen as a stochastic difference
Mongolian language
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Mongolian script and
Mongolian Cyrillic on
Sukhbaatar's statue in
Ulan Bator.
Mongolian language
–
Geographic distribution of Mongolic peoples (red)
Mongolian language
–
Nova N 176 found in Kyrgyzstan. The manuscript (dating to the 12th century
Western Liao) is written in the Mongolic
Khitan language using cursive
Khitan large script. It has 127 leaves and 15,000 characters.
Mongolian language
–
Edict of
Yesün Temür Khan, Emperor Taiding of Yuan (1328). Only the
'Phags-pa script retains the complete
Middle Mongol vowel system.
21.
Bighorn sheep
–
The bighorn sheep is a species of sheep native to North America named for its large horns. These horns can weigh up to 14 kilograms, while the sheep themselves weigh up to 140 kg, recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspecies of Ovis canadensis, one of which is endangered, O. c. sierrae. By 1900, the population had crashed to several thousand, due to diseases introduced through European livestock, divergence from their closest Asian ancestor occurred about 600,000 years ago. In North America, wild sheep diverged into two extant species—Dall sheep, which occupy Alaska and northwestern Canada, and bighorn sheep, which range from southern Canada to Mexico. However, the status of species is questionable given that hybridization has occurred between them in their recent evolutionary history. This subspecies has been extinct since 1925, California bighorn sheep, O. c. californiana, are found from British Columbia south to California and east to North Dakota. The definition of this subspecies has been updated, nelsons bighorn sheep, O. c. nelsoni, the most common desert bighorn sheep, ranges from California through Arizona. Mexican bighorn sheep, O. c. mexicana, range from Arizona and New Mexico south to Sonora and Chihuahua. Peninsular bighorn sheep O. c. cremnobates, occur in the Peninsular Ranges of California and Baja California Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, weems bighorn sheep, O. c. weemsi, also are found in Baja California. However, starting in 1993, Ramey and colleagues, using DNA testing, have shown this division into seven subspecies is largely illusory, most scientists currently recognize three subspecies of bighorn. Thus the three subspecies of Ovis canadensis, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep – occupying the U. S. and Canadian Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep – formerly California bighorn sheep, a genetically distinct subspecies that only occurs in the Sierra Nevada in California. However, historic observer records suggest that bighorn sheep may have ranged as far west as the California Coastal Ranges which are contiguous to the Sierra Nevada via the Transverse Ranges. An account of sheep in the vicinity of the Mission San Antonio near Jolon, California. Desert bighorn sheep – occurring throughout the regions of the Southwestern United States. The 2016 genetics study suggested more modest divergence of this desert bighorn sheep into three lineages consistent with the work of Cowan, Nelson, Mexican, and Peninsular. These three lineages occupy desert biomes that vary significantly in climate, suggesting exposure to different selection regimes, Bighorn sheep are named for the large, curved horns borne by the rams. Ewes also have horns, but they are shorter with less curvature and they range in color from light brown to grayish or dark, chocolate brown, with a white rump and lining on the backs of all four legs. Males typically weigh 58–143 kg, are 90–105 cm tall at the shoulder, females are typically 34–91 kg, 75–90 cm tall, and 1. 28–1.58 m long
Bighorn sheep
Bighorn sheep
Bighorn sheep
–
A juvenile
Bighorn sheep
–
Bighorn rams
22.
Pamir Mountains
–
The Pamir Mountains, or the Pamirs, are a mountain range in Central Asia at the junction of the Himalayas with the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and Hindu Raj ranges. They are among the world’s highest mountains, the precise extent of the Pamir Mountains is debatable. They lie mostly in Gorno-Badakhshan province of Tajikistan, to the north they join the Tian Shan mountains along the Alay Valley of Kyrgyzstan. To the south border the Hindu Kush mountains along Afghanistans Wakhan Corridor. Since Victorian times, they have known as the Roof of the World. The name Pamir is used commonly in Modern Chinese and loaned as simplified Chinese, 帕米尔, traditional Chinese, 帕米爾, pinyin. The three highest mountains in the Pamirs core are Ismoil Somoni Peak,7,495 m, Ibn Sina Peak,7,134 m, in the Eastern Pamirs, Chinas Kongur Tagh is the highest at 7,649 m. There are many glaciers in the Pamir Mountains, including the 77 km long Fedchenko Glacier, the longest in the former USSR, covered in snow throughout the year, the Pamirs have long and bitterly cold winters, and short, cool summers. Annual precipitation is about 130 mm, which supports grasslands but few trees, the East-Pamir, in the centre of which the massifs of Mustagh Ata and Kongur Tagh are situated, shows from the W-margin of the Tarim Basin an East-West extension of c.200 km. Its North-South extension from King Ata Tagh up to the North-West Kunlun foothills amounts to c.170 km. From this glacier area an outlet glacier has flowed down to the north-east through the Gez valley up to c.1850 m asl and this outlet glacier received inflow from the Kaiayayilak glacier from the Kongur-north-flank. From the north-adjacent Kara Bak Tor -massif the Oytag valley glacier in the same exposition flowed also down up to c.1850 m asl. At glacial times the glacier snowline as altitude limit between glacier nourishing area and ablation zone, was lowered about 820 to 1250 altitude metres against today. Under the condition of comparable proportions of precipitation there results from this a depression of temperature of at least 5 to 7.5 °C. Coal is mined in the west, though sheep herding in upper meadowlands are the source of income for the region. This section is based on the book by R. Middleton, about 138 BC Zhang Qian reached the Fergana Valley northwest of the Pamirs. Ptolemy vaguely describes a route through the area. From about 600 AD, Buddhist pilgrims travelled on both sides of the Pamirs to reach India from China, in 747 a Tang army was on the Wakhan River
Pamir Mountains
–
Pamir Mountains from an airplane, June 2008
Pamir Mountains
Pamir Mountains
–
Pamir Mountains on map showing
Sakastan about 100BC
Pamir Mountains
–
Part of the Pamir Mountain range in springtime.
23.
Marco Polo sheep
–
The Marco Polo sheep is a subspecies of argali sheep, named after Marco Polo. Their habitat is the regions of Central Asia. Marco Polo sheep are mostly by their large size and spiraling horns. Their conservation status is threatened and efforts have been made to protect their numbers. It has also suggested that crossing them with domestic sheep could have agricultural benefits. The binomial name of the species as a whole is Ovis ammon, described by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758, the Marco Polo subspecies Ovis ammon polii was first described scientifically by zoologist Edward Blyth in 1841. These sheep are commonly called Marco Polos Argali or the Pamir Argali. The sheep are named after the 13th century explorer Marco Polo because they were described in The Travels of Marco Polo, the 1914 Historical and Political Gazetteer of Afghanistan, Badakhshan notes that in Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan the sheep are known locally as nakhjipar. They are called ra-ma-poy in Wakhi, the language of natives of the Khunzerav region round the high Khunjerab Pass between Pakistan and China, the sheep is particularly known for its long, spiraling horns which have been measured having a span up to 140 cm. The horns have long been an attraction for trophy hunters. They begin growing 15–20 days after the sheep are born, thickness growth is most noticeable during the first two years. Ovis ammon sheep are colored a dark brown, with white underparts, there is a white patch on the rump as well, which is not so clearly defined on most subspecies except O. a. polii. As winter approaches, the hair on males grows longer, until it becomes a prominent ruff. Females coats are lighter than the males, and do not have such a seasonal change. The Marco Polo sheeps face is lighter colored than the body, most argali have a round tail approximately 6 to 10 centimetres long, ending in a tuft of hair, O. a. poliis tail is a little bit longer, around 12 to 16 centimetres. Mature rams on average weigh 126 kg, at the withers, rams grow to approximately 113 cm in height and ewes to 100 cm. Gestation lasts about 160 days, with births being normal. A captive ewe once gave birth to five lambs at once, Marco Polo sheep have an average life span of 13 years
Marco Polo sheep
–
Marco Polo Sheep
Marco Polo sheep
–
Skull of an old male with large horns
Marco Polo sheep
–
A Marco Polo sheep head as a
hunting trophy, mounted on a wall
Marco Polo sheep
–
Mountains in the
Khunjerab National Park
24.
Gobi argali
–
The argali, or the mountain sheep is a wild sheep that roams the highlands of Central Asia. It is the largest species of wild sheep, the North American bighorn sheep may approach comparable weights but is normally considerably outsized by the argali. Argali stand 85 to 135 cm high at the shoulder and measure 136 to 200 cm long from the head to the base of the tail. The female, or ewe is the sex by a considerable margin, sometimes weighing less than half as much as the male. The ewes can weigh from 43.2 to 100 kg and the rams typically from 97 to 328 kg, with a maximum reported mass of 356 kg. The Pamir argali, O. a. polii, is the largest race on average, regularly measuring more than 180 cm long without the tail, the argali has relatively the shortest tail of any wild goat-antelope or sheep, with reported tail lengths of 9. 5–17 cm. The general coloration varies between each animal, from a yellow to a reddish-brown to a dark grey-brown. Argali or nyan from the Himalayas are usually dark, whereas those from Russian ranges are often relatively pale. In summertime, the coat is often spotted with a salt-and-pepper pattern. The back is darker than the sides, which gradually lighten in color, the face, tail and the buttocks are yellowish-white. The male has a neck ruff and a dorsal crest and is usually slightly darker in color than the female. Males have two large horns, some measuring 190 cm in total length and weighing up to 23 kg. Males use their horns for competing with one another, females also carry horns, but they are much smaller, usually measuring less than 50 cm in total length. Argali range from central Kazakhstan in the west to the Shanxi Province in China in the east and they are a species of mountainous areas, living from elevations of 300 to 5,800 m. In areas where they are hunted, they are more likely to be found in forested areas. In parts of China and Russia where they compete for resources with numerous domestic stock, argali more regularly take up residence in precipitous, Argali may search for regions in the mountains where snow cover is not heavy during the winter, following winds that blow snow off the earth. Rams are generally found at elevations more regularly than females. Argalis live in herds numbering between two and 150 animals, segregated by sex, except during breeding season
Gobi argali
–
Argali
Gobi argali
–
Edmund Geer during the
1938–1939 German expedition to Tibet
25.
Mouflon
–
The mouflon is a subspecies group of the wild sheep. Populations of O. orientalis can be partitioned into the mouflons, the mouflon is thought to be one of the two ancestors for all modern domestic sheep breeds. The wild sheep of Corsica was locally called mufro and mufra, the naturalist Buffon rendered this in French as moufflon. Mouflon have red-brown, short-haired coats with dark back-stripes and light-colored saddle patches, the males are horned, some females are horned, while others are polled. The horns of mature rams are curved in almost one full revolution, mouflon have shoulder heights of about 0.9 m and body weights of 50 kg and 35 kg. Today, mouflon inhabit the Caucasus, Anatolia, northern and eastern Iraq, the range originally stretched further to the Crimean peninsula and the Balkans, where they had already disappeared 3,000 years ago and came back to Bulgaria. On the island of Cyprus, the mouflon or agrino became a different, the Cyprus mouflon population contains only about 3,000 animals. They are now rare on the islands, but are classified as feral animals by the IUCN, a small colony exists in the remote Kerguelen Islands in the southern Indian Ocean, and on the Veliki Brijun Island in the Brijuni Archipelago of the Istrian Peninsula in Croatia. In South America, mouflon have been introduced into central Chile, mouflon have been introduced as game animals into Spieden Island in Washington state, and into the Hawaiian islands of Lanai and Hawaii where they have become a problematic invasive species. A small population escaped from an animal enclosure owned by Thomas Watson, Jr. on the island of North Haven, Maine in the 1990s and their normal habitats are steep mountainous woods near tree lines. In winter, they migrate to lower altitudes, the scientific classification of the mouflon is disputed. Five subspecies of mouflon are distinguished by MSW3, Armenian mouflon, Ovis orientalis gmelini, northwestern Iran, Armenia and it has been introduced in Texas, US. European mouflon, O. o. musimon was introduced about 7,000 years ago in Corsica and it has since been introduced in many parts of Europe. Cypriot mouflon, O. o. ophion, also called agrino, in 1997, about 1,200 of this subspecies were counted. The television show Born to Explore with Richard Wiese reported 3,000 are now on Cyprus, esfahan mouflon, O. o. isphahanica, is from the Zagros Mountains, Iran. Laristan mouflon, O. o. laristanica, is a small subspecies, the eastern and the European mouflon often appear in scientific literature as separate species, Ovis musimon and Ovis orientalis. The mouflons are also treated as a subspecies of the domestic sheep, Ovis aries, named with the same subspecific epithet as above, O. a. musimon, O. a. ophion. However, a comparison of the mitochondrial DNA control region found that two subspecies of urial, Ovis vignei arkal and O. v. /o. bochariensis, the ancestral sheep is presumed to have had 60 chromosomes, as in goats
Mouflon
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Mouflon
Mouflon
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A European mouflon male in the German forest
Mouflon
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Mouflon ram
Mouflon
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Ewe
26.
MtDNA
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Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate. Mitochondrial DNA is only a portion of the DNA in a eukaryotic cell, most of the DNA can be found in the cell nucleus and, in plants and algae. In humans, the 16,569 base pairs of mitochondrial DNA encode for only 37 genes, human mitochondrial DNA was the first significant part of the human genome to be sequenced. In most species, including humans, mtDNA is inherited solely from the mother, since animal mtDNA evolves faster than nuclear genetic markers, it represents a mainstay of phylogenetics and evolutionary biology. It also permits an examination of the relatedness of populations, and so has become important in anthropology and this theory is called the endosymbiotic theory. Each mitochondrion is estimated to contain 2–10 mtDNA copies, the reasons why mitochondria have retained some genes are debated. Recent analysis of a range of mtDNA genomes suggests that both these features may dictate mitochondrial gene retention. In most multicellular organisms, mtDNA is inherited from the mother, mechanisms for this include simple dilution, degradation of sperm mtDNA in the male genital tract, in the fertilized egg, and, at least in a few organisms, failure of sperm mtDNA to enter the egg. Whatever the mechanism, this single parent pattern of inheritance is found in most animals, most plants. In sexual reproduction, mitochondria are inherited exclusively from the mother. Also, most mitochondria are present at the base of the sperms tail, in 1999 it was reported that paternal sperm mitochondria are marked with ubiquitin to select them for later destruction inside the embryo. Some in vitro techniques, particularly injecting a sperm into an oocyte. The fact that mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited enables researchers to trace maternal lineage far back in time. This is usually accomplished on human mitochondrial DNA by sequencing the hypervariable control regions, hVR1, for example, consists of about 440 base pairs. These 440 base pairs are then compared to the regions of other individuals to determine maternal lineage. Most often, the comparison is made to the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence, vilà et al. have published studies tracing the matrilineal descent of domestic dogs to wolves. The concept of the Mitochondrial Eve is based on the type of analysis. MtDNA is highly conserved, and its relatively slow mutation rates make it useful for studying the evolutionary relationships—phylogeny—of organisms, biologists can determine and then compare mtDNA sequences among different species and use the comparisons to build an evolutionary tree for the species examined
MtDNA
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Electron microscopy reveals mitochondrial DNA in discrete foci. Bars: 200 nm. (A) Cytoplasmic section after immunogold labelling with anti-DNA; gold particles marking mtDNA are found near the mitochondrial membrane. (B) Whole mount view of cytoplasm after extraction with CSK buffer and immunogold labelling with anti-DNA; mtDNA (marked by gold particles) resists extraction. From Iborra et al., 2004.
MtDNA
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Human mitochondrial DNA.
27.
Urial
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The urial, also known as the arkars or shapo, is a subspecies group of the wild sheep Ovis orientalis. Noticeable features are the long fur that fades during winter, males are characterized by a black ruff stretching from the neck to the chest. It is found in western central Asia, the other subspecies group of O. orientalis is the mouflon. The two groups have often considered separate species. Urial males have horns, curling outwards from the top of the head turning in to end somewhere behind the head, females have shorter. The horns of the males may be up to 100 cm long, the shoulder height of an adult male urial is between 80 and 90 cm. The urial is found in western central Asia from northeastern Iran and western Kazakhstan to Pakistans Balochistan, to the east it is replaced by the bigger argali and to the southwest by the Asiatic mouflon. Its habitat consists of grassy slopes below the timberline, urials rarely move to the rocky areas of the mountains. For example, in northern Iran they produce hybrids with Asiatic mouflon under natural conditions, urials feed mainly on grass but are able to eat leaves of trees and bushes if needed. The conservation status of the urial is threatened as their habitat is suitable for human development. The Afghan urial found in Musakhel district in Surghar and Torghar, a 2005-2006 survey by WWF Pakistan shows 145 urials found in Surghar, Srakhowa District Musakhe. Yahay Musakhel et al. 2006) The mating season begins in September, rams select four or five ewes, which will each give birth to a lamb after a gestation of five months. M. Walkers Mammals of the World, Sixth Edition, the Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, London,1999. Lingen, H. Großes Lexikon der Tiere, the Book of Indian Animals, Oxford University Press,1971. A Field Guide to Indian Mammals, Dorling Kindersley, India,2003 CITES Instruktion für den grenztierärztlichen Dienst Proposal about subspecies of Urial Yahya M. Musakhel et al,2006, Identification of Biodiversity Hot Spots in Musakhel District balochistan Pakistan. Images of asiatic wild sheep subspecies
Urial
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Urial
Urial
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Transcaspian arkals (O. o. arkal) at
Pretoria Zoo
28.
Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in northern Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan is the worlds largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the regions GDP, primarily through its oil/gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources, Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18 million people as of 2014, Given its large area, its population density is among the lowest. The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic tribes. This changed in the 13th century, when Genghis Khan occupied the country as part of the Mongolian Empire, following internal struggles among the conquerors, power eventually reverted to the nomads. By the 16th century, the Kazakh emerged as a distinct group, the Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times, in 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has worked to develop its economy, especially its dominant hydrocarbon industry. Kazakhstans 131 ethnicities include Kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, the Kazakh language is the state language, and Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, to wander, the name Cossack is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means land or place of, so Kazakhstan can be translated as land of the wanderers. Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, the regions climate, archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the regions vast steppes. Central Asia was originally inhabited by the Scythians, the Cuman entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. Under the Mongol Empire, the largest in history, administrative districts were established. These eventually came under the rule of the emergent Kazakh Khanate, throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south, at its height the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania
Kazakhstan
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Artistic depiction of medieval
Taraz situated along the Silk Road
Kazakhstan
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Flag
Kazakhstan
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Ablai Khan served as khan of the
Middle jüz from 1771 to 1781
Kazakhstan
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Inside a Kazakh
yurt
29.
Shanxi
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Shanxi is a province of China, located in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is 晋, after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring, the name Shanxi means West of the Mountains, a reference to the provinces location west of the Taihang Mountains. Shanxi borders Hebei to the east, Henan to the south, Shaanxi to the west, the capital of the province is Taiyuan. In the Spring and Autumn period, the state of Jin was located in what is now Shanxi and it underwent a three-way split into the states of Han, Zhao and Wei in 403 BC, the traditional date taken as the start of the Warring States period. By 221 BC, all of states had fallen to the state of Qin. The Han Dynasty ruled Shanxi as the province of Bingzhou, during the invasion of northern nomads in the Sixteen Kingdoms period, several regimes including the Later Zhao, Former Yan, Former Qin, and Later Yan continuously controlled Shanxi. They were followed by Northern Wei, a Xianbei kingdom, which had one of its earlier capitals at present-day Datong in northern Shanxi, the Tang Dynasty originated in Taiyuan. During the Tang Dynasty and after, present day Shanxi was called Hédōng, empress Wu Zetian, Chinas only female ruler, was born in Shanxi. Shanxi was initially home to the jiedushi of Hedong, Li Cunxu, shi Jingtang, founder of the Later Jin, the third of the Five Dynasties, ceded a piece of northern China to the Khitans in return for military assistance. This territory, called The Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, included a part of northern Shanxi, the ceded territory became a major problem for Chinas defense against the Khitans for the next 100 years, because it lay south of the Great Wall. He founded his dynasty by launching a coup against the Turkic Later Han Emperor. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the sixteen ceded prefectures continued to be an area of contention between Song China and the Liao Dynasty. Later the Southern Song Dynasty abandoned all of North China, including Shanxi, the Mongol Yuan Dynasty divided China into provinces but did not establish Shanxi as a province. Shanxi only gained its present name and approximate borders during the Ming Dynasty which were of the same landarea, with the collapse of the Qing dynasty, Shanxi became part of the newly established Republic of China. During most of the Republic of Chinas period of rule over mainland China, Yan Xishan devoted himself to modernizing Shanxi and developing its resources during his reign over the province. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japan occupied much of the province after winning the Battle of Taiyuan, Shanxi was also a major battlefield between the Japanese and the Chinese communist guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army during the war. The soldiers of Shanxi province under Yan Xishan viciously fought against the invading Japanese, right after the defeat of Japan, much of the Shanxi countryside became important bases for the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the ensuing Chinese Civil War. Shanxi was eventually conquered by the communists, resulting in the warlord Yan Xishans retreat to Taiwan Island, for centuries, Shanxi served as the center of trade and banking, the Shanxi merchants were once synonymous with wealth
Shanxi
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Temple of
Guandi in
Datong.
Shanxi
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Map showing the location of Shanxi Province
Shanxi
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Chenghuangshen (City God) Temple of
Pingyao.
Shanxi
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Western gate of a Temple of Heshen (River God) in
Hequ,
Xinzhou.
. PMID 12028771. doi:10.1098/rspb.2002.1975.
