World Wide Fund for Nature
The World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961, working in the field of the wilderness preservation, the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States. WWF is the world's largest conservation organization with over five million supporters worldwide, working in more than 100 countries, supporting around 1,300 conservation and environmental projects, they have invested over $1 billion in more than 12,000 conservation initiatives since 1995. WWF is a foundation with 55% of funding from individuals and bequests, 19% from government sources and 8% from corporations in 2014. WWF aims to "stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature." The Living Planet Report is published every two years by WWF since 1998. In addition, WWF has launched several notable worldwide campaigns including Earth Hour and Debt-for-Nature Swap, its current work is organized around these six areas: food, freshwater, wildlife and oceans.
WWF has been accused by BuzzFeed News, Kathmandu Post, the Rainforest Foundation Fund and Survival International of protecting paramilitary forces funded by the organization to fight poaching that have engaged in human rights abuses despite an internal report acknowledging them in 2015. They have attacked African and South Asian villages, torturing and killing villagers. Investigators revealed that the WWF engaged in cover ups and lobbied to release rangers when they were arrested; the Conservation Foundation, a precursor to WWF, was founded in 1948 by Fairfield Osborn as an affiliate of the New York Zoological Society with an aim of protecting the world's natural resources. The advisory council included leading scientists such as Charles Sutherland Elton, G. Evelyn Hutchinson, Aldo Leopold, Carl Sauer, Paul Sears, it supported much of the scientific work cited by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, including that of John L. George, Roger Hale, Robert Rudd, George Woodwell; the idea for a fund on behalf of endangered animals was proposed by Victor Stolan to Sir Julian Huxley in response to articles he published in the British newspaper The Observer.
This proposal led Huxley to put Stolan in contact with Max Nicholson, a person who had had thirty years experience of linking progressive intellectuals with big business interests through the Political and Economic Planning think tank. Nicholson thought up the name of the organization. WWF was conceived on 29 April 1961, under the name of World Wildlife Fund, its first office was opened on 11 September that same year in Morges, Switzerland. WWF was conceived to act as a funding institution for existing conservation groups such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and The Conservation Foundation. Godfrey A. Rockefeller played an important role in its creation, assembling the first staff, its establishment was marked with the signing of the "Morges Manifesto", the founding document that sets out the fund's commitment to assisting worthy organizations struggling to save the world's wildlife: They need above all money, to carry out mercy missions and to meet conservation emergencies by buying land where wildlife treasures are threatened, in many other ways.
Money, for example, to pay guardians of wildlife refuges.... Money for education and propaganda among those who would care and help if only they understood. Money to send out experts to danger spots and to train more local wardens and helpers in Africa and elsewhere. Money to maintain a sort of'war room' at the international headquarters of conservation, showing where the danger spots are and making it possible to ensure that their needs are met before it is too late. Dutch Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld helped found the World Wildlife Fund, becoming its first President in 1961. In 1963, the Foundation held a conference and published a major report warning of anthropogenic global warming, written by Noel Eichhorn based on the work of Frank Fraser Darling, Edward Deevey, Erik Eriksson, Charles Keeling, Gilbert Plass, Lionel Walford, William Garnett. In 1970, along with Duke of Edinburgh and a few associates, Prince Bernhard established the WWF's financial endowment The 1001: A Nature Trust to handle the WWF's administration and fund-raising.
1001 members each contributed $10,000 to the trust. Prince Bernhard resigned his post after being involved in the Lockheed Bribery Scandal. WWF has set up operations around the world, it worked by fundraising and providing grants to existing non-governmental organizations, based on the best-available scientific knowledge and with an initial focus on the protection of endangered species. As more resources became available, its operations expanded into other areas such as the preservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of natural resources, the reduction of pollution, climate change; the organization began to run its own conservation projects and campaigns, by the 1980s started to take a more strategic approach to its conservation activities. In 1986, the organization changed its name to World Wide Fund for Nature, while retaining the WWF initials. However, it continued at that time to operate under the original name in the United States and Canada; that year was the 25th anniversary of WWF's foundation, an event marked by a gathering in Assisi, Italy to which the organization's International President HRH Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, invited religi
Clouded leopard
The clouded leopard is a wild cat occurring from the Himalayan foothills through mainland Southeast Asia into China. Since 2008, it is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, its total population is suspected to be fewer than 10,000 mature individuals, with a decreasing population trend, no single population numbering more than 1,000 adults. It is known as the mainland clouded leopard, to distinguish it from the Sunda clouded leopard, it is the state animal of the Indian state of Meghalaya. Felis nebulosa was proposed by Edward Griffith in 1821 who first described a clouded leopard skin from China. Felis macrosceloides proposed by Brian Houghton Hodgson in 1841 was a clouded leopard specimen from Nepal. Felis brachyura proposed by Robert Swinhoe in 1862 was a clouded leopard skin from Taiwan; the generic name Neofelis was proposed by John Edward Gray in 1867 who subordinated all three to this genus. At present, N. nebulosa is considered a monotypic species due to lack of evidence for subspecification.
The clouded leopard is considered to form an evolutionary link between the Pantherinae and the small cats. It represents the smallest of the pantherine cats, but despite its name, it is not related to the leopard. Phylogenetic analysis indicates; the other Neofelis species is the Sunda clouded leopard, considered a subspecies of N. nebulosa until 2006. Genetic analysis of hair samples of the two Neofelis species indicates that they diverged 1.4 million years ago, after having used a now submerged land bridge to reach Borneo and Sumatra from mainland Asia. The clouded leopard's fur is of a dark grey or ochreous ground-color largely obliterated by black and dark dusky-grey blotched pattern. There are black spots on the head, the ears are black. Fused or broken-up stripes run from the corner of the eyes over the cheek, from the corner of the mouth to the neck, along the nape to the shoulders. Elongated blotches form a single median stripe on the loins. Two large blotches of dark dusky-grey hair on the side of the shoulders are each emphasized posteriorly by a dark stripe, which passes on to the foreleg and breaks up into irregular spots.
The flanks are marked by dark dusky-grey irregular blotches bordered behind by long, irregularly curved or looped stripes. These blotches yielding the clouded pattern suggest the English name of the cat; the underparts and legs are spotted, the tail is marked by large, paired spots. Its legs are short and stout, paws broad. Females are smaller than males, its hyoid bone is ossified. Its pupils contract into vertical slits. Irises are brownish yellow to grayish green. Melanistic clouded leopards are uncommon, it has rather short limbs compared to the other big cats. Its hind limbs are longer than its front limbs to allow for increased jumping and leaping capabilities, its ulnae and radii are not fused, which contributes to a greater range of motion when climbing trees and stalking prey. Clouded leopards weigh between 23 kg. Females vary in head-to-body length with a tail 61 to 82 cm long. Males are larger at 81 to 108 cm with a tail 74 to 91 cm long, its shoulder height varies from 50 to 55 cm. Its skull is low with strong occipital and sagittal crests.
The canine teeth are exceptionally long, the upper being about three times as long as the basal width of the socket. The first premolar is absent; the upper pair of canines measure longer. The clouded leopard is referred to as a “modern-day sabre-tooth” because it has the largest canines in proportion to its body size; the clouded leopard occurs from the Himalayan foothills in Nepal and India to Myanmar, southeastern Bangladesh, Peninsular Malaysia, Indochina to south of the Yangtze River in China. It is regionally extinct in Taiwan; the last confirmed record of a Formosan clouded leopard dates to 1989, when the skin of a young individual was found in the Taroko area. It was not recorded during an extensive camera trapping survey conducted from 1997 to 2012 in more than 1,450 sites inside and outside Taiwanese protected areas. In Nepal, the clouded leopard was thought to be extinct since the late 1860s, but in 1987 and 1988, four individuals were found in the central part of the country, close to Chitwan National Park and in the Pokhara Valley.
These findings extended the known range westward, suggesting it is able to survive and breed in degraded woodlands that harboured moist subtropical semideciduous forest. Since individuals have been recorded in the Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park and in the Annapurna Conservation Area. In India, it occurs in Sikkim, northern West Bengal, Meghalaya subtropical forests, Mizoram, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. In Pakke Tiger Reserve, a clouded leopard was photographed for the first time in India. In Sikkim, clouded leopards were camera-trapped at altitudes of 2,500–3,720 m between April 2008 and May 2010 in the Khangchendzonga Biosphere Reserve. In Manas National Park, 16 individuals were recorded during a survey in November 2010 to February 2011. Between January 2013 and March 2018, clouded leopards were recorded in Dampa Tiger Reserve, Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary and Singchung-Bugun Village Community Reserve, in Meghalaya's Nongkhyllem National Park and Balpakram-Baghmara landscape. In Bhutan, it was recorded in Royal Manas National Park, Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park, Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary, Jigme Dorji National Park, Phrumsengla National Park, Bumdelin
Carnivore
A carnivore, meaning "meat eater", is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting or of animal tissue, whether through predation or scavenging. Animals that depend on animal flesh for their nutrient requirements are called obligate carnivores while those that consume non-animal food are called facultative carnivores. Omnivores consume both animal and non-animal food, apart from the more general definition, there is no defined ratio of plant to animal material that would distinguish a facultative carnivore from an omnivore. A carnivore at the top of the food chain, not preyed upon by other animals, is termed an apex predator. "Carnivore" may refer to the mammalian order Carnivora, but this is somewhat misleading: many, but not all, Carnivora are meat eaters, fewer are true obligate carnivores. For example, while the Arctic polar bear eats meat most species of bears are omnivorous, the giant panda is herbivorous. There are many carnivorous species that are not members of Carnivora.
Outside the animal kingdom, there are several genera containing carnivorous plants and several phyla containing carnivorous fungi. Carnivores are sometimes characterized by their type of prey. For example, animals that eat insects and similar invertebrates are called insectivores, while those that eat fish are called piscivores; the first tetrapods, or land-dwelling vertebrates, were piscivorous amphibians known as labyrinthodonts. They gave rise to insectivorous vertebrates and to predators of other tetrapods. Carnivores may alternatively be classified according to the percentage of meat in their diet; the diet of a hypercarnivore consists of more than 70% meat, that of a mesocarnivore 30–70%, that of a hypocarnivore less than 30%, with the balance consisting of non-animal foods such as fruits, other plant material, or fungi. Obligate or "true" carnivores are those. While obligate carnivores might be able to ingest small amounts of plant matter, they lack the necessary physiology required to digest it.
In fact, some obligate carnivorous mammals will only ingest vegetation for the sole purpose of its use as an emetic, to self-induce vomiting of the vegetation along with the other food it had ingested that upset its stomach. Obligate carnivores include the axolotl, which consumes worms and larvae in its environment, but if necessary will consume algae, as well as all felids which require a diet of animal flesh and organs. Cats have high protein requirements and their metabolisms appear unable to synthesize essential nutrients such as retinol, arginine and arachidonic acid. Characteristics associated with carnivores include strength and keen senses for hunting, as well as teeth and claws for capturing and tearing prey. However, some carnivores do not hunt and are scavengers, lacking the physical characteristics to bring down prey. Carnivores have comparatively short digestive systems, as they are not required to break down the tough cellulose found in plants. Many hunting animals have evolved eyes facing forward.
This is universal among mammalian predators, while most reptile and amphibian predators have eyes facing sideways. Predation predates the rise of recognized carnivores by hundreds of millions of years; the earliest predators were microbial organisms, which grazed on others. Because the fossil record is poor, these first predators could date back anywhere between 1 and over 2.7 Gya. The rise of eukaryotic cells at around 2.7 Gya, the rise of multicellular organisms at about 2 Gya, the rise of mobile predators have all been attributed to early predatory behavior, many early remains show evidence of boreholes or other markings attributed to small predator species. Among more familiar species, the first vertebrate carnivores were fish, amphibians that moved on to land. Early tetrapods were large amphibious piscivores; some scientists assert that Dimetrodon "was the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop the curved, serrated teeth that enable a predator to eat prey much larger than itself." While amphibians continued to feed on fish and insects, reptiles began exploring two new food types: tetrapods and plants.
Carnivory was a natural transition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods, requiring minimal adaptation. In the Mesozoic, some theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex were obligate carnivores. Though the theropods were the larger carnivores, several carnivorous mammal groups were present. Most notable are the gobiconodontids, the triconodontid Jugulator, the deltatheroideans and Cimolestes. Many of these, such as Repenomamus and Cimolestes, were among the largest mammals in their faunal assemblages, capable of attacking dinosaurs. In the early-to-mid-Cenozoic, the dominant predator forms were mammals: hyaenodonts, entelodonts, ptolemaiidans and mesonychians, representing a great diversity of eutherian carnivores
Serengeti National Park
The Serengeti National Park is a Tanzanian national park in the Serengeti ecosystem in the Mara and Simiyu regions. It is famous for its annual migration of over 1.5 million white-bearded wildebeest and 250,000 zebra and for its numerous Nile crocodile and honey badger. The Maasai people had been grazing their livestock in the open plains of eastern Mara Region, which they named "endless plains," for around 200 years when the first European explorer, Austrian Oscar Baumann, visited the area in 1892; the name "Serengeti" is an approximation of the word used by the Maasai to describe the area, which means "the place where the land runs on forever". The first American to enter the Serengeti, Stewart Edward White, recorded his explorations in the northern Serengeti in 1913, he camped in the area around Seronera for three months. During this time, he and his companions shot 50 lions; because the hunting of lions made them scarce, the British colonial administration made a partial game reserve of 800 acres in the area in 1921 and a full one in 1929.
These actions were the basis for Serengeti National Park, established in 1951. The Serengeti gained more fame after the initial work of Bernhard Grzimek and his son Michael in the 1950s. Together, they produced the book and film Serengeti Shall Not Die recognized as one of the most important early pieces of nature conservation documentary. To preserve wildlife, the British evicted the resident Maasai from the park in 1959 and moved them to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. There is still considerable controversy surrounding this move, with claims made of coercion and deceit on the part of the colonial authorities; the park is Tanzania's oldest national park and remains the flagship of the country's tourism industry, providing a major draw to the Northern Safari Circuit encompassing Lake Manyara National Park, Tarangire National Park, Arusha National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It has more than 1 million wildebeest; the park covers 14,750 square kilometres of grassland plains, riverine forest, woodlands.
The park lies in northwestern Tanzania, bordered to the north by the Kenyan border, where it is continuous with the Maasai Mara National Reserve. To the southeast of the park is the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, to the southwest lies Maswa Game Reserve, to the west are the Ikorongo and Grumeti Game Reserves, to the northeast and east lies the Loliondo Game Control Area. Together, these areas form the larger Serengeti ecosystem; the park is described as divided into three regions- Serengeti plains: the treeless grassland of the south is the most emblematic scenery of the park. This is as they remain in the plains from December to May. Other hoofed animals - zebra, impala, topi, waterbuck - occur in huge numbers during the wet season. "Kopjes" are granite florations that are common in the region, they are great observation posts for predators, as well as a refuge for hyrax and pythons. Western corridor: the black clay soil covers the savannah of this region; the Grumeti River and its gallery forests is home to Nile crocodiles, patas monkeys and martial eagles.
The migration passes through from May to July. Northern Serengeti: the landscape is dominated by open woodlands and hills, ranging from Seronera in the south to the Mara River on the Kenyan border. Apart from the migratory wildebeest and zebra, this is the best place to find elephant and dik dik. Human habitation is forbidden in the park with the exception of staff for the Tanzania National Parks Authority and staff of the Frankfurt Zoological Society, staff of the various lodges and hotels; the main settlement is Seronera, which houses the majority of research staff and the park's main headquarters, including its primary airstrip. The park is worldwide known for its abundance of wildlife and high biodiversity; the migratory -and some resident- wildebeest, which number over 2 million individuals, constitute the largest population of big mammals that still roam the planet. They are joined in their journey through the Serengeti - Mara ecosystem by 250,000 plains zebra, half a million Thomson's and Grant's gazelle, tens of thousands of topi and Coke's hartebeest.
Masai giraffe, impala and hippo are aboundant. Some seen species of antelope are present in Serengeti National Park, such as common eland, roan antelope, lesser kudu, fringe-eared oryx and dik dik Perhaps the most popular animals among tourists are the Big Five, which include: Lion: the Serengeti is believed to hold the largest population of lions in Africa due in part to the abundance of prey species. More than 3,000 lions live in this ecosystem. African leopard: these reclusive predators are seen in the Seronera region but are present throughout the national park with the population at around 1,000. African bush elephant: the herds have recovered from population lows in the 1980s caused by poaching, numbering over 5,000 individuals, are numerous in the northern region of the park. Eastern black rhinoceros: found around the kopjes in the centre of the park few individuals remain due to rampant poaching. Individuals from the Masai Mara Reserve cross the park border and enter Serengeti from the northern section at times.
There's a small but stable population of 31 individuals left in the park. African buffalo: the most numerous of the Big Five, with around 53,000 individuals inside the park. Carnivores -aside from the Big Five- include the cheeta
African leopard
The African leopard is the leopard nominate subspecies native to many countries in Africa. It is distributed in most of sub-Saharan Africa, but the historical range has been fragmented in the course of habitat conversion. Leopards have been recorded in North Africa as well. Felis pardus was the scientific name used by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, his description was based on earlier descriptions by earlier naturalists such as Conrad Gessner. He assumed. In the 18th and 19th centuries, several naturalists described leopard skins and skulls from Africa, including: Felis leopardus var. melanotica by Albert Günther, 1885 from the Cape of Good Hope, Southern Africa Felis leopardus suahelicus by Oscar Neumann, 1900 from Tanganyika territory Felis leopardus nanopardus by Oldfield Thomas, 1904 from Italian Somaliland Felis pardus ruwenzori by Lorenzo Camerano, 1906 from Ruwenzori and Virunga Mountains Felis pardus chui by Edmund Heller, 1913 from Uganda Felis pardus iturensis by Joel Asaph Allen, 1924 from Belgian Congo Felis pardus reichenovi by Ángel Cabrera, 1927 from Cameroon Panthera pardus adusta by Reginald Innes Pocock, 1927 from the Ethiopian Highlands Panthera pardus adersi by Pocock, 1932 from Unguja Island, Zanzibar Panthera pardus brockmani by Pocock, 1932 from SomalilandResults of genetic analysis indicate that all African leopard populations are related and represent only one subspecies.
The African leopard exhibits great variation in coat color, depending on habitat. Coat colour varies from pale yellow to deep gold or tawny, sometimes black, is patterned with black rosettes while the head, lower limbs and belly are spotted with solid black. Male leopards are larger. Females weigh about 35 to 40 kg on average; the African leopard is sexually dimorphic. Between 1996 and 2000, 11 adult leopards were radio-collared on Namibian farmlands. Males weighed 37.5 to 52.3 kg only, females 24 to 33.5 kg. The heaviest known leopard weighed about 96 kg, was recorded in South West Africa. According to Alfred Edward Pease, black leopards in North Africa were similar in size to lions. An Algerian leopard killed in 1913 was reported to have measured 8 ft 10 in, before being skinned. Leopards inhabiting the mountains of the Cape Provinces appear physically different from leopards further north, their average weight may be only half that of the more northerly populations, apart from that of Somalia in East Africa.
The African leopards inhabited a wide range of habitats within Africa, from mountainous forests to grasslands and savannahs, excluding only sandy desert. It is most at risk in areas of semi-desert, where scarce resources result in conflict with nomadic farmers and their livestock, it used occupying both rainforest and arid desert habitats. It lived in all habitats with annual rainfall above 50 mm, can penetrate areas with less than this amount of rainfall along river courses, it ranges up to 5,700 m, has been sighted on high slopes of the Ruwenzori and Virunga volcanoes, observed when drinking thermal water 37 °C in the Virunga National Park. It appears to be successful at adapting to altered natural habitat and settled environments in the absence of intense persecution, it has been recorded close to major cities. But in the 1980s, it has become rare throughout much of West Africa. Now, it remains patchily distributed within historical limits. During surveys in 2013, it was recorded in Gbarpolu County and Bong County in Upper Guinean forests of Liberia.
Leopards are rare in northern Africa. A relict population persists in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, in forest and mountain steppe in elevations of 300 to 2,500 m, where the climate is temperate to cold. In 2014, a leopard was killed in the Elba Protected Area in southeastern Egypt; this was the first sighting of a leopard in the country since the 1950s. In 2016, a leopard was recorded for the first time in a semi-arid area of Yechilay in northern Ethiopia. Leopards are most active between sunset and sunrise, kill more prey at this time. In Kruger National Park, male leopards and female leopards with cubs were more active at night than solitary females; the highest rates of daytime activity were recorded for leopards using thorn thickets during the wet season, when impala used them. The leopard has an exceptional ability to adapt to changes in prey availability, has a broad diet. Small prey are taken; the known prey of leopards ranges from dung beetles to adult elands. In sub-Saharan Africa, at least 92 prey species have been documented in leopard scat including rodents, birds and large antelopes and hares, arthropods.
They focus their hunting activity on locally abundant medium-sized ungulates in the 20 to 80 kg range, while opportunistically taking other prey. Average intervals between ungulate kills range from seven to 12–13 days. Leopards hide large kills in trees, a behavior for which great strength is required. There have been several observations of leopards hauling carcasses of young giraffe, estimated to weigh up to 125 kg, i.e. 2–3 times the weight of the leopard, up to 5.7 m into trees. In the Serengeti National Park, leopards were radio-collared for the first time in the early 1970s, their hunting at night was difficult to watch. Of their 64 daytime hunts only three were
Argentina
Argentina the Argentine Republic, is a country located in the southern half of South America. Sharing the bulk of the Southern Cone with Chile to the west, the country is bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Drake Passage to the south. With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2, Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the fourth largest in the Americas, the largest Spanish-speaking nation; the sovereign state is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires, the federal capital of the nation as decided by Congress. The provinces and the capital exist under a federal system. Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; the earliest recorded human presence in modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. The Inca Empire expanded to the northwest of the country in Pre-Columbian times; the country has its roots in Spanish colonization of the region during the 16th century.
Argentina rose as the successor state of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776. The declaration and fight for independence was followed by an extended civil war that lasted until 1861, culminating in the country's reorganization as a federation of provinces with Buenos Aires as its capital city; the country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with several waves of European immigration radically reshaping its cultural and demographic outlook. The almost-unparalleled increase in prosperity led to Argentina becoming the seventh wealthiest nation in the world by the early 20th century. Following the Great Depression in the 1930s, Argentina descended into political instability and economic decline that pushed it back into underdevelopment, though it remained among the fifteen richest countries for several decades. Following the death of President Juan Perón in 1974, his widow, Isabel Martínez de Perón, ascended to the presidency, she was overthrown in 1976 by a U.
S.-backed coup which installed a right-wing military dictatorship. The military government persecuted and murdered numerous political critics and leftists in the Dirty War, a period of state terrorism that lasted until the election of Raúl Alfonsín as President in 1983. Several of the junta's leaders were convicted of their crimes and sentenced to imprisonment. Argentina is a prominent regional power in the Southern Cone and Latin America, retains its historic status as a middle power in international affairs. Argentina has the second largest economy in South America, the third-largest in Latin America, membership in the G-15 and G-20 major economies, it is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, World Trade Organization, Union of South American Nations, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the Organization of Ibero-American States. Despite its history of economic instability, it ranks second highest in the Human Development Index in Latin America; the description of the country by the word Argentina has been found on a Venetian map in 1536.
In English the name "Argentina" comes from the Spanish language, however the naming itself is not Spanish, but Italian. Argentina means in Italian " of silver, silver coloured" borrowed from the Old French adjective argentine " of silver" > "silver coloured" mentioned in the 12th century. The French word argentine is the feminine form of argentin and derives from argent "silver" with the suffix -in; the Italian naming "Argentina" for the country implies Terra Argentina "land of silver" or Costa Argentina "coast of silver". In Italian, the adjective or the proper noun is used in an autonomous way as a substantive and replaces it and it is said l'Argentina; the name Argentina was first given by the Venetian and Genoese navigators, such as Giovanni Caboto. In Spanish and Portuguese, the words for "silver" are plata and prata and " of silver" is said plateado and prateado. Argentina was first associated with the silver mountains legend, widespread among the first European explorers of the La Plata Basin.
The first written use of the name in Spanish can be traced to La Argentina, a 1602 poem by Martín del Barco Centenera describing the region. Although "Argentina" was in common usage by the 18th century, the country was formally named "Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata" by the Spanish Empire, "United Provinces of the Río de la Plata" after independence; the 1826 constitution included the first use of the name "Argentine Republic" in legal documents. The name "Argentine Confederation" was commonly used and was formalized in the Argentine Constitution of 1853. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the country's name as "Argentine Republic", that year's constitutional amendment ruled all the names since 1810 as valid. In the English language the country was traditionally called "the Argentine", mimicking the typical Spanish usage la Argentina and resulting from a mistaken shortening of the fuller name'Argentine Republic'.'The Argentine' fell out of fashion during the mid-to-late 20th century, now the country is referred to as "Argentina".
In the Spanish language "Argentina" is feminine, taking the feminine article "La" as the i
