1.
Conservation status
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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
2.
Least Concern
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A least concern species is one which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as evaluated but not qualified for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, near threatened, species cannot be assigned the Least Concern category unless they have had their population status evaluated. That is, adequate information is needed to make a direct, or indirect, since 2001 the category has had the abbreviation LC, following the IUCN2001 Categories & Criteria. However, around 20% of least concern taxa in the IUCN database use the code LR/lc, prior to 2001 least concern was a subcategory of the Lower Risk category and assigned the code LR/lc or. While least concern is not considered a red listed category by the IUCN, the number of animal species listed in this category totals 14033. There are also 101 animal subspecies listed and 1500 plant taxa, there are also two animal subpopulations listed, the Australasian and Southern African subpopulations of spiny dogfish. No fungi or protista have the classification, though only four species in those kingdoms have been evaluated by the IUCN, humans qualify for this category, and in 2008 were formally assessed as such by the IUCN
3.
IUCN Red List
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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
4.
Taxonomy (biology)
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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
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Animal
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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
6.
Chordate
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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
7.
Bird
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Birds, a subgroup of Reptiles, are the last living examples of Dinosaurs. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at ten thousand. Birds are the closest living relatives of crocodilians, the fossil record indicates that birds evolved from feathered ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. True birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago, Birds, especially those in the southern continents, survived this event and then migrated to other parts of the world while diversifying during periods of global cooling. Primitive bird-like dinosaurs that lie outside class Aves proper, in the broader group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period, around 170 million years ago. Birds have wings which are more or less developed depending on the species, the digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have evolved for swimming. Many species annually migrate great distances, Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and bird songs, and participating in such social behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of species are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous or, rarely, Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction. They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents, most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Some birds, such as hens, lay eggs even when not fertilised, songbirds, parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano is harvested for use as a fertiliser, Birds prominently figure throughout human culture. About 120–130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry, the first classification of birds was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae. Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system currently in use, Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy. Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the dinosaur clade Theropoda, Aves and a sister group, the clade Crocodilia, contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria
8.
Pelecaniformes
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The Pelecaniformes is an order of medium-sized and large waterbirds found worldwide. As traditionally—but erroneously—defined, they encompass all birds that have feet with all four toes webbed, hence, they were formerly also known by such names as totipalmates or steganopodes. Most have a bare patch, and the nostrils have evolved into dysfunctional slits. They feed on fish, squid or similar marine life, nesting is colonial, but individual birds are monogamous. The young are altricial, hatching from the egg helpless and naked in most and they have been placed in their own orders, Phaethontiformes and Suliformes, respectively. Classically, bird relationships were based solely on morphological characteristics, the Pelecaniformes were traditionally—but erroneously—defined as birds that have feet with all four toes webbed, as opposed to all other birds with webbed feet where only three of four were webbed. Hence, they were also known by such names as totipalmates or steganopodes. The group included frigatebirds, gannets, cormorants, anhingas and tropicbirds, mounting evidence pointed to the shoebill as a close relative of pelicans. This also included analysis of eggshell structure by Konstantin Mikhailov in 1995. Reviewing genetic evidence to date, Cracraft and colleagues surmised that pelicans were sister to the shoebill with the hamerkop as the next earlier offshoot. Ericson and colleagues sampled five nuclear genes in a 2006 study spanning the breadth of bird lineages, the current International Ornithological Committee classification has pelicans grouped with the shoebill, hamerkop, ibises and spoonbills and herons, egrets and bitterns. All families in the traditional or revised Pelecaniformes except the Phalacrocoracidae have only a few handfuls of species at most and this is Sula ronzoni from Early Oligocene rocks at Ronzon, France, which was initially believed to be a sea-duck and possibly is an ancestral Pelecaniform. The Pelecaniform lineages appear to have originated around the end of the Cretaceous, monophyletic or not, they appear to belong to a close-knit group of higher waterbirds which also includes groups such as penguins and Procellariiformes. This is of only to be expected, if the theory that most if not all of these higher waterbird lineages originated around that time is correct. Bourdon, Estelle, Bouya, Baâdi & Iarochene, Mohamed, Earliest African neornithine bird, DOI,10. 1671/0272-46340252.0. CO,2 HTML abstract Mayr, Gerald, The phylogenetic affinities of the Shoebill. HTML abstract Mortimer, Michael, The Theropod Database, Phylogeny of taxa
9.
Heron
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The herons are the long-legged freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 64 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Egrets are not a distinct group from the herons. Although egrets have the build as herons, they tend to be smaller. Herons, by evolutionary adaptation, have long beaks, similarly, the relationship of the genera in the family is not completely resolved. However, one species formerly considered to constitute a monotypic family Cochlearidae. Although herons resemble birds in other families, such as the storks, ibises, spoonbills and cranes, they differ from these in flying with their necks retracted. They are also one of the groups that have powder down. Some members of this group nest colonially in trees, while others, notably the bitterns, the herons are medium to large sized birds with long legs and necks. They exhibit very little sexual dimorphism in size, the smallest species is usually considered the little bittern, which can measure under 30 cm in length, although all the species in the Ixobrychus genus are small and many broadly overlap in size. The largest species of heron is the Goliath heron, which stand up to 152 cm tall, the necks are able to kink in an S-shape, due to the modified shape of the sixth vertebrae of which they have 20-21. The neck is able to retract and extend, and is retracted during flight, the neck is longer in the day herons than the night herons and bitterns. The legs are long and strong and in almost every species are unfeathered from the part of the tibia. In flight the legs and feet are held backward, the feet of herons have long thin toes, with three forward pointing ones and one going backward. The bill is long and harpoon like. It can vary from fine, as in the agami heron. The most atypical bill is owned by the boat-billed heron, which has a thick bill. The bill, as well as other parts of the body, is usually yellow, black or brown coloured. The wings are broad and long, exhibiting 10–11 primaries feathers, the feathers of the herons are soft and the plumage is usually blue, black, brown, grey or white, and can often be strikingly complex
10.
Nycticorax
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Nycticorax is a genus of night herons. The name Nycticorax means night raven and derives from the Ancient Greek nuktos night and korax and it refers to the largely nocturnal feeding habits of this group of birds, and the croaking crow-like call of the best known species, the black-crowned night heron. These are medium-sized herons which often are migratory in the parts of their ranges. Young birds are brown, flecked with white and grey, and are similar to each other in the extant species. At least some of the extinct Mascarenes taxa appear to have retained this juvenile plumage in adult birds, night herons nest in colonies on platforms of sticks in a group of trees, or on the ground in protected locations such as islands or reed beds. Three to eight eggs are laid and they stand at the waters edge, and wait to ambush prey, mainly at night. They primarily eat small fish, crustaceans, frogs, aquatic insects, during the day they rest in trees or bushes. In addition to the species listed below, the herons of the genera Nyctanassa and Gorsachius were formerly placed in Nycticorax
11.
Binomial nomenclature
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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
12.
Carl Linnaeus
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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
13.
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
14.
Nankeen night heron
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The nankeen night heron also commonly referred to as the rufous night heron, and in Melanesia as Melabaob, is a medium-sized heron. It is found in Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, a small colony has also established near Wanganui, New Zealand The nankeen night heron stands about 60 cm tall with a stooped appearance. It often feeds during the day, especially during wet weather, the bird is dependent on a diet of small fish, reptiles, insects and sometimes eggs. It can be seen around freshwater rivers, lakes, bulrushes, estuaries, harbors, the species breeds in the period from September to April, building a nest platform out of sticks. Two to five green eggs are laid, with a 22-day incubation followed by a 42- to 49-day fledging period. Widespread throughout its range, the nankeen night heron is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. BirdLife Species Factsheet Birds of Perth
15.
Hybrid (biology)
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In biology, a hybrid, also known as a cross breed, is the result of combining, through sexual reproduction, the qualities of two animals or plants of different breeds, varieties, species or genera. Hybrids are not always intermediate between their parents, but can show heterosis or hybrid vigour, often growing larger or taller than either parent, some act before fertilization, others after it. A few animal species and many plant species, however, are the result of hybrid speciation, doubling the number of chromosomes to create polyploids is important in hybrid speciation, because homoploid hybrids are rarely fertile, the polyploid hybrids are allopolyploids. Human impact on the environment has greatly increased the mixing of species, with introduced species worldwide, the genetic mixing may threaten many species with extinction, while genetic erosion in crop plants may be damaging the gene pools of many species for future breeding. Many commercially useful fruits, flowers, garden herbs and trees have been produced by hybridization, one flower, Oenothera lamarckiana, was central to early genetics research into polyploidy. The term hybrid is derived from Latin hybrida, used for such as of a tame sow and a wild boar, or the child of a freeman. The term came into use in English in the 19th century. Conspicuous hybrids are named with portmanteau words, starting in the 1920s with the breeding of tiger-lion hybrids. The cross between two different homozygous lines produces an F1 hybrid that is heterozygous, having two alleles, one contributed by each parent and typically one is dominant and the other recessive. Typically, the F1 generation is also phenotypically homogeneous, producing offspring that are all similar to each other, double cross hybrids result from the cross between two different F1 hybrids. Three-way cross hybrids result from the cross between an F1 hybrid and an inbred line, triple cross hybrids result from the crossing of two different three-way cross hybrids. Top cross hybrids result from the crossing of a top quality or pure-bred male, population hybrids result from the crossing of plants or animals in a population with those of another population. These include interspecific hybrids or crosses between different breeds. e, from the point of view of genetics, different kinds of hybrid can be distinguished as follows, A genetic hybrid carries two different alleles of the same gene. A structural hybrid results from the fusion of gametes that have differing structure in at least one chromosome, a numerical hybrid results from the fusion of gametes having different haploid numbers of chromosomes. A permanent hybrid results when only the heterozygous genotype occurs, as in Oenothera lamarckiana, from the point of view of taxonomy, hybrids differ according to their parentage, Hybrids between different subspecies are called intra-specific hybrids. Offspring resulting from interspecies mating, are called interspecific hybrids, these result in hybrid speciation. Intergeneric hybrids result from matings between different genera, such as sheep and goats. Interfamilial hybrids such as chickens and guineafowl or pheasants are reliably described but extremely rare
16.
Wetland
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A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants. Wetlands play a number of roles in the environment, principally water purification, flood control, carbon sink, Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Wetlands occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica, the largest including the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain, the water found in wetlands can be freshwater, brackish, or saltwater. The main wetland types include swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens, and sub-types include mangrove, carr, pocosin, the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment determined that environmental degradation is more prominent within wetland systems than any other ecosystem on Earth. International conservation efforts are being used in conjunction with the development of rapid assessment tools to people about wetland issues. Constructed wetlands can be used to treat municipal and industrial wastewater as well as stormwater runoff and they may also play a role in water-sensitive urban design. A patch of land that develops pools of water after a storm would not be considered a wetland. Wetlands have unique characteristics, they are distinguished from other water bodies or landforms based on their water level. Specifically, wetlands are characterized as having a table that stands at or near the land surface for a long enough period each year to support aquatic plants. A more concise definition is a community composed of hydric soil, Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies. In environmental decision-making, there are subsets of definitions that are agreed upon to make regulatory and policy decisions. A wetland is an ecosystem that arises when inundation by water produces soils dominated by anaerobic processes, There are four main kinds of wetlands – marsh, swamp, bog and fen. Some experts also recognize wet meadows and aquatic ecosystems as additional wetland types, the largest wetlands in the world include the swamp forests of the Amazon and the peatlands of Siberia. Under the Ramsar international wetland conservation treaty, wetlands are defined as follows, Article 2.1, may incorporate riparian and coastal zones adjacent to the wetlands, and islands or bodies of marine water deeper than six metres at low tide lying within the wetlands. Although the general definition given above applies around the world, each county, Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas. This definition has been used in the enforcement of the Clean Water Act, some US states, such as Massachusetts and New York, have separate definitions that may differ from the federal governments. It is not uncommon for a wetland to be dry for long portions of the growing season, the most important factor producing wetlands is flooding
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Argentina
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Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a federal republic in the southern half of South America. With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2, Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the second largest in Latin America, and the largest Spanish-speaking one. The country is subdivided into provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system, Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The earliest recorded presence in the area of modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. 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 country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with waves of European immigration radically reshaping its cultural. The almost-unparalleled increase in prosperity led to Argentina becoming the seventh wealthiest developed nation in the world by the early 20th century, Argentina retains its historic status as a middle power in international affairs, and is a prominent regional power in the Southern Cone and Latin America. Argentina has the second largest economy in South America, the third-largest in Latin America and is a member of the G-15 and it is the country with the second highest Human Development Index in Latin America with a rating of very high. Because of its stability, market size and growing high-tech sector, the description of the country by the word Argentina has to be found on a Venice map in 1536. In English the name Argentina probably comes from the Spanish language, however the naming itself is not Spanish, Argentina means in Italian of silver, silver coloured, probably borrowed from the Old French adjective argentine of silver > silver coloured already mentioned in the 12th century. The French word argentine is the form of argentin and derives of argent silver with the suffix -in. The Italian naming Argentina for the country implies Argentina Terra land of silver or Argentina costa coast of silver, in Italian, the adjective or the proper noun is often used in an autonomous way as a substantive and replaces it and it is said lArgentina. The name Argentina was probably first given by the Venitian and Genoese navigators, in Spanish and Portuguese, the words for silver are respectively 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, the 1826 constitution included the first use of the name Argentine Republic in legal documents. The name Argentine Confederation was also used and was formalized in the Argentine Constitution of 1853. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the name as Argentine Republic
18.
Chile
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Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a South American country occupying a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, Chilean territory includes the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island in Oceania. Chile also claims about 1,250,000 square kilometres of Antarctica, the arid Atacama Desert in northern Chile contains great mineral wealth, principally copper. Southern Chile is rich in forests and grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes, the southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands. Spain conquered and colonized Chile in the century, replacing Inca rule in northern and central Chile. After declaring its independence from Spain in 1818, Chile emerged in the 1830s as a relatively stable authoritarian republic, in the 1960s and 1970s the country experienced severe left-right political polarization and turmoil. The regime, headed by Augusto Pinochet, ended in 1990 after it lost a referendum in 1988 and was succeeded by a coalition which ruled through four presidencies until 2010. Chile is today one of South Americas most stable and prosperous nations and it leads Latin American nations in rankings of human development, competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, state of peace, economic freedom, and low perception of corruption. It also ranks high regionally in sustainability of the state, Chile is a founding member of the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. There are various theories about the origin of the word Chile, another theory points to the similarity of the valley of the Aconcagua with that of the Casma Valley in Peru, where there was a town and valley named Chili. Another origin attributed to chilli is the onomatopoeic cheele-cheele—the Mapuche imitation of the warble of a locally known as trile. The Spanish conquistadors heard about this name from the Incas, ultimately, Almagro is credited with the universalization of the name Chile, after naming the Mapocho valley as such. The older spelling Chili was in use in English until at least 1900 before switching over to Chile, stone tool evidence indicates humans sporadically frequented the Monte Verde valley area as long as 18,500 years ago. About 10,000 years ago, migrating Native Americans settled in fertile valleys, settlement sites from very early human habitation include Monte Verde, Cueva del Milodon and the Pali Aike Craters lava tube. They fought against the Sapa Inca Tupac Yupanqui and his army, the result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the Battle of the Maule was that the Inca conquest of the territories of Chile ended at the Maule river. The next Europeans to reach Chile were Diego de Almagro and his band of Spanish conquistadors, the Spanish encountered various cultures that supported themselves principally through slash-and-burn agriculture and hunting. The conquest of Chile began in earnest in 1540 and was carried out by Pedro de Valdivia, one of Francisco Pizarros lieutenants, who founded the city of Santiago on 12 February 1541. Although the Spanish did not find the gold and silver they sought, they recognized the agricultural potential of Chiles central valley
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Falkland Islands
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The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about 300 miles east of South Americas southern Patagonian coast, the archipelago, with an area of 4,700 square miles, comprises East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 smaller islands. As a British overseas territory, the Falklands have internal self-governance, the islands capital is Stanley on East Falkland. Controversy exists over the Falklands discovery and subsequent colonisation by Europeans, at various times, the islands have had French, British, Spanish, and Argentine settlements. Britain reasserted its rule in 1833, although Argentina maintains its claim to the islands, in April 1982, Argentine forces temporarily occupied the islands. British administration was restored two months later at the end of the Falklands War, most Falklanders favour the archipelago remaining a UK overseas territory, but its sovereignty status is part of an ongoing dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom. The population primarily consists of native-born Falkland Islanders, the majority of British descent, other ethnicities include French, Gibraltarian and Scandinavian. Immigration from the United Kingdom, the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, under the British Nationality Act 1983, Falkland Islanders are British citizens. The islands lie on the boundary of the oceanic and tundra climate zones. They are home to bird populations, although many no longer breed on the main islands because of competition from introduced species. Major economic activities include fishing, tourism and sheep farming, with an emphasis on high-quality wool exports, oil exploration, licensed by the Falkland Islands Government, remains controversial as a result of maritime disputes with Argentina. The Falkland Islands take their name from the Falkland Sound, a strait separating the two main islands. The name Falkland was applied to the channel by John Strong, Strong named the strait in honour of Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount of Falkland, the Treasurer of the Navy who sponsored their journey. The name Falklands was not applied to the islands until 1765, the term Falklands is a standard abbreviation used to refer to the islands. The Spanish name for the archipelago, Islas Malvinas, derives from the French Îles Malouines — the name given to the islands by French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville in 1764, Bougainville, who founded the islands first settlement, named the area after the port of Saint-Malo. The port, located in the Brittany region of western France, was in turn named after St. Malo, in Spanish, the territory was designated as Islas Malvinas. The nomenclature used by the United Nations for statistical processing purposes is Falkland Islands, although Fuegians from Patagonia may have visited the Falkland Islands in prehistoric times, the islands were uninhabited at the time of their discovery by Europeans. Claims of discovery date back to the 16th century, but no consensus exists on whether these early explorers discovered the Falklands or other islands in the South Atlantic, whether or not the settlements were aware of each others existence is debated by historians
20.
Bird colony
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A bird colony is a large congregation of individuals of one or more species of bird that nest or roost in proximity at a particular location. Many kinds of birds are known to congregate in groups of varying size, colonial nesting birds include seabirds such as auks and albatrosses, wetland species such as herons, and a few passerines such as weaverbirds, certain blackbirds, and some swallows. A group of birds congregating for rest is called a communal roost, evidence of colonial nesting has been found in non-neornithine birds, in sediments from the Late Cretaceous of Romania. Approximately 13% of all bird species nest colonially, nesting colonies are very common among seabirds on cliffs and islands. Nearly 95% of seabirds are colonial, leading to the usage, seabird colony, many species of terns nest in colonies on the ground. Herons, egrets, storks, and other large waterfowl also nest communally in what are called heronries, colony nesting may be an evolutionary response to a shortage of safe nesting sites and abundance or unpredictable food sources which are far away from the nest sites. What exactly constitutes a colony is a matter of definition, tufted puffins, for example, are pelagic birds that nest on the steep slopes and rocky crevices on coastal cliffs, often on islands. Each pair excavates its own burrow, a congregation of puffin burrows on a marine island is considered a colony. Sand martins are seldom, if ever, observed to nest in solitude, a more extreme example of colonial nesting is found in the weaverbird family. These structures resemble haystacks hanging from trees, and have likened to apartment buildings or beehives. Some seabird colonies host thousands of nesting pairs of various species, triangle Island, for example, the largest seabird colony in British Columbia, Canada, is home to auks, gulls, cormorants, shorebirds, and other birds, as well as some marine mammals. Many seabirds show remarkable site fidelity, returning to the burrow, nest or site for many years. This increases breeding success, provides a place for returning mates to reunite, young adults breeding for the first time usually return to their natal colony, and often nest very close to where they hatched. Individual nesting sites at seabird colonies can be widely spaced, as in an albatross colony, in most seabird colonies several different species will nest on the same colony, often exhibiting some niche separation. Seabirds can nest in trees, on the ground, on cliffs, in burrows under the ground, colony size is a major aspect of the social environment of colonial birds. Some birds are known to nest in colonies when conditions are suitable, the white-winged dove of southwestern North America was known to nest in large colonies when foraging areas could support such numbers. In 1978, in Tamaulipas, Mexico, researchers counted 22 breeding colonies of white-winged doves with a population size of more than eight million birds. But as habitat was transformed through urbanization or agriculture, the doves apparently spread out into smaller, today, these doves are observed to nest singly and colonially in both urban and rural areas
21.
Bird migration
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Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by humans and it occurs mainly in the northern hemisphere, where birds are funnelled on to specific routes by natural barriers such as the Mediterranean Sea or the Caribbean Sea. More recently, Johannes Leche began recording dates of arrivals of spring migrants in Finland in 1749, threats to migratory birds have grown with habitat destruction especially of stopover and wintering sites, as well as structures such as power lines and wind farms. The Arctic tern holds the long-distance migration record for birds, travelling between Arctic breeding grounds and the Antarctic each year, shorter migrations are common, including altitudinal migrations on mountains such as the Andes and Himalayas. The timing of migration seems to be controlled primarily by changes in day length, migrating birds navigate using celestial cues from the sun and stars, the earths magnetic field, and probably also mental maps. Records of bird migration were made as much as 3,000 years ago by the Ancient Greek writers Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus and Aristotle. The Bible also notes migrations, as in the Book of Job, the author of Jeremiah wrote, Even the stork in the heavens knows its seasons, and the turtle dove, the swift and the crane keep the time of their arrival. Aristotle noted that cranes traveled from the steppes of Scythia to marshes at the headwaters of the Nile, pliny the Elder, in his Historia Naturalis, repeats Aristotles observations. Aristotle however suggested that swallows and other birds hibernated and this belief persisted as late as 1878, when Elliott Coues listed the titles of no less than 182 papers dealing with the hibernation of swallows. It was not until the end of the century that migration as an explanation for the winter disappearance of birds from northern climes was accepted. Bewick then describes an experiment which succeeded in keeping alive in Britain for several years. He concludes, These experiments have since been confirmed by. Migration is the seasonal movement, often north and south. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat, sometimes, journeys are not termed true migration because they are irregular or in only one direction. Migration is marked by its annual seasonality, non-migratory birds are said to be resident or sedentary. Approximately 1800 of the worlds 10,000 bird species are long-distance migrants, many bird populations migrate long distances along a flyway. The most common pattern involves flying north in the spring to breed in the temperate or Arctic summer, of course, in the southern hemisphere the directions are reversed, but there is less land area in the far south to support long-distance migration. The primary motivation for migration appears to be food, for example, also, the longer days of the northern summer provide extended time for breeding birds to feed their young
22.
Patagonia
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Patagonia is a sparsely populated region located at the southern end of South America, shared by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the section of the Andes mountains as well as the deserts, steppes. Patagonia has two coasts, a western one towards the Pacific Ocean and an eastern one towards the Atlantic Ocean, the Colorado and Barrancas rivers, which run from the Andes to the Atlantic, are commonly considered the northern limit of Argentine Patagonia. The archipelago of Tierra del Fuego is sometimes included as part of Patagonia, most geographers and historians locate the northern limit of Chilean Patagonia at Reloncaví Estuary. The name Patagonia comes from the word used by Magellan in 1520 to describe the native people that his expedition thought to be giants. It is now believed that the people he called the Patagons were Tehuelches, the hypothesis was accepted and published in the New Review of Spanish Philology in the 2011 article. In the hollows of the plains are ponds or lakes of fresh and brackish water, towards the Andes, the shingle gives place to porphyry, granite, and basalt lavas, animal life becomes more abundant and vegetation more luxuriant. It is characteristic of the flora of the western coast, and consist principally of southern beech and conifers. Among the depressions by which the plateau is intersected transversely, the ones are the Gualichu, south of the Río Negro, the Maquinchao and Valcheta, the Senguerr. There, erosion which is caused principally by the sudden melting, best in evidence where in contact with folded Cretaceous rocks which are uplifted by the Cenozoic granite. It generally separates the plateau from the first lofty hills, the ridges generally called the pre-Cordillera, to the west of these, a similar longitudinal depression extends all along the foot of the snowy Andean Cordillera. This latter depression contains the richest and most fertile land of Patagonia, Lake basins along the Cordillera were also excavated by ice-streams, including Lake Argentino and Lake Fagnano, as well as coastal bays such as Bahía Inútil. There have been discrepancies among geologists on the origin of the Patagonian landmass, víctor Ramos has proposed that the Patagonian landmass originated as an allochtonous terrane that separated from Antarctica and docked in South America 250 to 270 Ma in the Permian era. A2014 study by Robert John Pankhurst and coworkers reject any idea of a far-travelled Patagonia claiming it is likely of parautochtonous origin, the Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits have revealed a most interesting vertebrate fauna. The Patagonian Myolania belongs to the Upper Chalk, having been associated with remains of Dinosauria. In the Cenozoic marine formation, a number of cetaceans has been discovered. At a state level, Patagonia lies inside two countries, Chile and Argentina, both countries have organised their Patagonian territories into non-equivalent administrative subdivisions, Provinces and departments in Argentina, and regions, provinces and communes in Chile. Being a unitary state Chiles first level administrative divisions—the regions—enjoy far less autonomy than Argentine provinces, Argentine provinces have elected governors and parliaments, while Chilean regions have government-appointed intendants
23.
National Zoological Park (United States)
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The National Zoological Park, commonly known as the National Zoo, is one of the oldest zoos in the United States. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution and does not charge for admission, founded in 1889, its mission is to provide engaging experiences with animals and create and share knowledge to save wildlife and habitats. The National Zoo has two campuses, the first is an 163-acre urban park located in Northwest Washington, D. C. that is 20 minutes from the National Mall by Metro. The other campus is the 3, 200-acre Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, on this land, there are 180 species of trees,850 species of woody shrubs and herbaceous plants,40 species of grasses, and 36 different species of bamboo. The SCBI is a facility devoted to training wildlife professionals in conservation biology and to propagating rare species through natural means. The National Zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, altogether, the two facilities host about 1,800 animals of 300 different species. About one-fifth of them are endangered or threatened, most species are on exhibit at the Zoos Rock Creek Park campus. The best known residents are the giant pandas, but the zoo is home to birds, great apes, big cats, Asian elephants, insects, amphibians, reptiles, aquatic animals, small mammals. The SCBI facility houses between 30 and 40 endangered species at any time depending on research needs and recommendations from the zoo. The zoo was one of the first to establish a research program. Because it is a part of the Smithsonian Institution, the National Zoo receives federal appropriations for operating expenses, a new master plan for the park was introduced in 2008 to upgrade the parks exhibits and layout. The National Zoo is open day of the year except for December 25. The zoo first started as the National Museums Department of Living Animals in 1886, by an act of Congress in 1889, for the advancement of science and the instruction and recreation of the people the National Zoo was created. In 1890, it became a part of the Smithsonian Institution, william Temple Hornaday was the curator of all 185 animals when the park was first opened. Together, they designed a new zoo to animals for the public and to serve as a refuge for wildlife, such as bison and beaver. For the first 50 years, the National Zoo, like most zoos around the world, the number of many species in the wild began to decline drastically because of human activities. In 1899, the Kansas frontiersman Charles Buffalo Jones captured a bighorn sheep for the zoo, the fate of animals and plants became a pressing concern. Many of these species were favorite zoo animals, such as elephants and tigers, hence the staff began to concentrate on the long-term management, in the mid-1950s, the zoo hired its first full-time permanent veterinarian, reflecting a priority placed on professional health care for the animals
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Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
25.
Great Britain
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Great Britain, also known as Britain, is a large island in the north Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2, Great Britain is the largest European island, in 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the worlds third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The island of Ireland is situated to the west of it, the island is dominated by a maritime climate with quite narrow temperature differences between seasons. Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, most of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island. The term Great Britain often extends to surrounding islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales. A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the union of the Kingdom of England, the archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years, the term British Isles derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, the oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle, or possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, There are two large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne. The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten, Breten, Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. It is derived from the writings of the Pytheas around 320 BC. Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι. The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland. The latter were later called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans, the Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain and to Ireland as little Britain in his work Almagest. The name Albion appears to have out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain. After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a term only. It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself King of Great Brittaine, France, Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination
26.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
27.
London Wall
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It is now the name of a road in the City of London running along part of the course of the old wall between Wormwood Street and the Rotunda junction where St. Martins Le Grand meets Aldersgate Street. Until the later Middle Ages the wall defined the boundaries of the City of London, although the exact reason for the walls construction is unknown, the wall appears to have been built in the late 2nd or early 3rd century. This was around 80 years after the construction in 120AD of the fort, whose north. It continued to be developed until at least the end of the 4th century, reasons for its construction may have been connected to the invasion of northern Britain by Picts who overran Hadrians Wall in the 180s. After a struggle with his rival, Septimius Severus, Albinus was defeated in 197AD at the Battle of Lugdunum, the economic stimulus provided by the wall and Septimiuss subsequent campaigns in Scotland improved Londiniums financial prosperity in the early 3rd century. The walls gateways coincided with their alignment to the British network of Roman roads, the original gates, clockwise from Ludgate in the west to Aldgate, in the east were, Ludgate, Newgate, Cripplegate, Bishopsgate and Aldgate. Aldersgate, between Newgate and Cripplegate, was added around 350AD, the length and size of the wall made it one of the biggest construction projects in Roman Britain. The completed wall, which had gateways, towers and defensive ditches, was built from Kentish ragstone and it was 2 mi long enclosing an area of about 330 acres. It 2.5 m to 3 m wide and up to 6 m ) high, the ditch or fossa in front of the outer wall was 2 m deep and up to 5 m wide. There were at least 22 towers spaced about 64 m apart on the section of the wall. After Londinium was raided on several occasions by Saxon pirates in the late 3rd century, with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Londinium ceased to be the capital of Britannia although Romano-British culture continued in the St Martin-in-the-Fields area until around 450. From around 500, an Anglo-Saxon settlement known as Lundenwic developed in the area slightly to the west of the old abandoned Roman city. But by about 680, London had revived sufficiently to become a major Saxon port, however, the upkeep of the wall was not maintained and London fell victim to two successful Viking assaults in 851 and 886 AD. Within the eastern and northern part of England with its boundary roughly stretching from London to Chester, in the same year, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that London was refounded by Alfred. Archaeological research shows that this abandonment of Lundenwic and a revival of life. This was part Alberts policy of building an in-depth defence of the Kingdom of Wessex against the Vikings as well as creating a strategy against the Vikings who controlled Mercia. The Burghal Hidage of Southwark was also was created on the southbank of the River Thames during this time, the city walls of London were repaired as the city slowly grew until about 950 when urban activity increased dramatically. A large Viking army that attacked the London burgh was defeated in 994, by the 11th century, London was beyond all comparison the largest town in England
28.
Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive
29.
Greenwich
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Greenwich is an early-established district of todays London, England, centred 5.5 miles east south-east of Charing Cross. The town lends its name to the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Greenwich is generally described as being part of South-east London and sometimes as being part of East London. Greenwich is notable for its history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian. The town became the site of a palace, the Palace of Placentia from the 15th century. The palace fell into disrepair during the English Civil War and was rebuilt as the Royal Naval Hospital for Sailors by Sir Christopher Wren and his assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor. These buildings became the Royal Naval College in 1873, and they remained an establishment for military education until 1998 when they passed into the hands of the Greenwich Foundation. The historic rooms within these buildings remain open to the public, other buildings are used by University of Greenwich and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. The town became a resort in the 18th century and many grand houses were built there, such as Vanbrugh Castle established on Maze Hill. From the Georgian period estates of houses were constructed above the town centre, Greenwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created. The place-name Greenwich is first attested in a Saxon charter of 918 and it is recorded as Grenewic in 964, and as Grenawic in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1013. It is Grenviz in the Domesday Book of 1086, and Grenewych in the Taxatio Ecclesiastica of 1291, the name means green wic or settlement. An article in The Times of 13 October 1967 stated, East Greenwich, gateway to the Blackwall Tunnel, remains solidly working class, the manpower for one eighth of Londons heavy industry. West Greenwich is a hybrid, the spirit of Nelson, the Cutty Sark, the Maritime Museum, an industrial waterfront and a number of elegant houses, ripe for development. Royal charters granted to English colonists in North America, often used the name of the manor of East Greenwich for describing the tenure as that of free socage, New England charters provided that the grantees should hold their lands as of his Majesty’s manor of East Greenwich. Grants named the castle of Windsor, places in North America that have taken the name East Greenwich include a township in Gloucester County, New Jersey, a hamlet in Washington County, New York, and a town in Kent County, Rhode Island. Tumuli to the south-west of Flamsteed House, in Greenwich Park, are thought to be early Bronze Age barrows re-used by the Saxons in the 6th century as burial grounds, to the east between the Vanbrugh and Maze Hill Gates is the site of a Roman villa or temple. A small area of red paving tesserae protected by railings marks the spot and it was excavated in 1902 and 300 coins were found dating from the emperors Claudius and Honorius to the 5th century. This was excavated by the Channel 4 television programme Time Team in 1999, broadcast in 2000, the Roman road from London to Dover, Watling Street crossed the high ground to the south of Greenwich, through Blackheath
30.
Whimbrel
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The whimbrel is a wader in the large family Scolopacidae. It is one of the most widespread of the curlews, breeding across much of subarctic North America, Europe and this is a migratory species wintering on coasts in Africa, South America, south Asia into Australasia and southern North America. It is also a bird during migration. It is fairly gregarious outside the breeding season and this is a fairly large wader though mid-sized as a member of the curlew genus. The English name is imitative of the birds call, the genus name Numenius is from Ancient Greek noumenios, a bird mentioned by Hesychius. It is associated with the curlews because it appears to be derived from neos, new and mene moon, the species name phaeopus is the Medieval Latin name for the bird, from Ancient Greek phaios, dusky and pous, foot. It is 37–47 cm in length, 75–90 cm in wingspan and it is mainly greyish brown, with a white back and rump, and a long curved bill with a kink rather than a smooth curve. The usual call is a whistle, prolonged into a trill for the song. The only similar species over most of this birds range are larger curlews. The whimbrel is smaller, has a shorter, decurved bill and has a crown stripe. There are seven subspecies, N. p. islandicus – Brehm, before migration, berries become an important part of their diet. It has also been observed taking insects, specifically blue tiger butterflies, the nest is a bare scrape on tundra or Arctic moorland. Three to five eggs are laid, adults are very defensive of nesting area and will even attack humans who come too close. Near the end of the 19th century, hunting on their migration routes took a toll on this birds numbers. In the British Isles, it breeds in Scotland, particularly around Shetland, Orkney, the whimbrel is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds applies. Whimbrel Species Account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology Whimbrel – Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds, Whimbrel photo gallery at VIREO Interactive range map of Numenius phaeopus at IUCN Red List maps Audio recordings of Whimbrel on Xeno-canto
31.
Glossy ibis
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The glossy ibis is a wading bird in the ibis family Threskiornithidae. The scientific name derives from Ancient Greek plegados and Latin, falcis and this is the most widespread ibis species, breeding in scattered sites in warm regions of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Atlantic and Caribbean regions of the Americas. It is thought to have originated in the Old World and spread naturally from Africa to northern South America in the 19th century, the glossy ibis was first found in the New World in 1817. Audubon saw the species just once in Florida in 1832 and it expanded its range substantially northwards in the 1940s and to the west in the 1980s. This species is migratory, most European birds winter in Africa, Birds from other populations may disperse widely outside the breeding season. In 2014, an attempted to breed in Lincolnshire, the first such attempt in Britain A few birds now summer in Ireland. Glossy ibises undertake dispersal movements after breeding and are very nomadic, the more northerly populations are fully migratory and travel on a broad front, for example across the Sahara Desert. Populations in temperate regions breed during the spring, while tropical populations nest to coincide with the rainy season. Nesting is often in mixed-species colonies, when not nesting, flocks of over 100 individuals may occur on migration, and during the winter or dry seasons the species is usually found foraging in small flocks. Glossy ibises often roost communally at night in large flocks, with other species, Glossy ibises feed in very shallow water and nest in freshwater or brackish wetlands with tall dense stands of emergent vegetation such as reeds, papyrus or rushes) and low trees or bushes. They show a preference for marshes at the margins of lakes and rivers but can also be found at lagoons, flood-plains, wet meadows, swamps, reservoirs, sewage ponds, paddies and irrigated farmland. It is less commonly found in locations such as estuaries, deltas, salt marshes. Preferred roosting sites are normally in large trees which may be distant from the feeding areas. The nest is usually a platform of twigs and vegetation positioned at least 1 m above water, sometimes up to 7 m in tall, dense stands of emergent vegetation, low trees or bushes. 3 to 4 eggs are laid, and are incubated by male and female birds for between 20 and 23 days. The young can leave the nest after about 7 days, the young fledge in about 28 days. The diet of the ibis is variable according to the season and is very dependent on what is available. This species is a mid-sized ibis and it is 48–66 cm long, averaging around 59.4 cm with an 80–105 cm wingspan
32.
Edinburgh Zoo
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Edinburgh Zoo, formerly the Scottish National Zoological Park, is an 82-acre non-profit zoological park in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The land lies on the facing slopes of Corstorphine Hill. Edinburgh Zoo was the first zoo in the world to house and it is also the only zoo in Britain to house koalas and giant pandas. It has also granted four stars by the Scottish Tourism Board. The zoo gardens boast one of the most diverse collections in the Lothians. The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland was founded as a charity in 1909 by an Edinburgh lawyer. The Corstorphine Hill site was purchased by the Society with help from the Edinburgh Town Council in early 1913, the Scottish National Zoological Park was opened to the public in 1913 and was incorporated by Royal Charter later that year. In 1948, following a visit by His Majesty King George VI and it remains the only zoo with a Royal Charter in the United Kingdom. Edinburgh Zoos long association with penguins began in January 1914, with the arrival of three king penguins from the Christian Salvesen whaling expedition which docked in Leith, the subsequent successful hatching of a king penguin chick in 1919 was the first penguin to be hatched in captivity. These were the first penguins to be seen outside of the South Atlantic anywhere in the world, the now famous daily penguin parade started by accident in 1950 with the escape of several birds. This proved so popular with visitors and the penguins that it is a feature of the zoo today. After Tom Gillespie retired, Gilbert D. Fisher was appointed director-secretary of the zoo in 1956 and he held the post till he retired in 1971. In 1986, the Society acquired the Highland Wildlife Park at Kingussie,30 miles south of Inverness, the zoo and the park work together in providing the most appropriate captive habitat possible in Scotland. Public visitation trips between both sites are organised frequently by the RZSS, the zoo still retains the original charter, which drives its active breeding programme, and biodiversity, conservation and sustainability initiatives. The RZSS provides multiple ways for the public to support its mission, including a membership club, animal adoption, donations, legacies. Named after the Budongo Forest in Uganda, the Budongo Trail facility houses a troop of 18 common chimpanzees,9 males and 9 females. The main building features viewing galleries, a theatre and interactive games and displays designed to teach visitors about the chimpanzees lifestyle. Living Links is built around a station and research centre for the study of primate behaviour
33.
Great Witchingham
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Great Witchingham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk about 11 miles north-west of Norwich. It covers an area of 9.12 km2 and had a population of 564 in 235 households at the 2001 census, including Lenwade, for the purposes of local government, it falls within the district of Broadland. Great Witchingham parish contains the hamlet of Lenwade, the parish church of St Mary is a grade I listed building dating from the 14th century. The Norfolk Wildlife Centre and Country Park, a local attraction also known as the Animal Ark, is in Fakenham Road. Old Witchingham Hall, built in the 16th century, was demolished in the 1980s and it was once the home of John Norris, High Sheriff of Norfolk for 1766. The village is home to Great Witchingham Cricket Club, who play in the East Anglian Premier League. The club is also the home of Norfolk legend Carl Rogers, Great Witchingham Hall is a grade II* listed country house built in the 16th or 17th century but extensively remodelled in the 19th century. It is built in two and three storeys of red brick stone and plastered brick dressings and a steeply pitched slate roof. The south wing was added in 1812 by Timothy Tompson and the north frontage redesigned in 1872 for Charles Kett Tompson, after the latters death it passed to his son-in-law, Viscount Canterbury. It later became the seat of William James Barry J. P, High Sheriff of Norfolk for 1912, and his son Lieutenant-Colonel Gerald Barry. The property was bought in 1950 by Bernard Matthews and after being used for turkey rearing, became the head office of his turkey business. Media related to Great Witchingham at Wikimedia Commons gwvh. org. uk - Great Witchingham Village Hall Project GWPC - Great Witchingham Parish Council Website
34.
Fish
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A fish is any member of a group of animals that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. They form a group to the tunicates, together forming the olfactores. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous, tetrapods emerged within lobe-finned fishes, so cladistically they are fish as well. However, traditionally fish are rendered obsolete or paraphyletic by excluding the tetrapods, because in this manner the term fish is defined negatively as a paraphyletic group, it is not considered a formal taxonomic grouping in systematic biology. The traditional term pisces is considered a typological, but not a phylogenetic classification, the earliest organisms that can be classified as fish were soft-bodied chordates that first appeared during the Cambrian period. Although they lacked a true spine, they possessed notochords which allowed them to be more agile than their invertebrate counterparts, fish would continue to evolve through the Paleozoic era, diversifying into a wide variety of forms. Many fish of the Paleozoic developed external armor that protected them from predators, the first fish with jaws appeared in the Silurian period, after which many became formidable marine predators rather than just the prey of arthropods. Fish are abundant in most bodies of water and they can be found in nearly all aquatic environments, from high mountain streams to the abyssal and even hadal depths of the deepest oceans. With 33,100 described species, fish exhibit greater species diversity than any group of vertebrates. Fish are an important resource for humans worldwide, especially as food, commercial and subsistence fishers hunt fish in wild fisheries or farm them in ponds or in cages in the ocean. They are also caught by fishers, kept as pets, raised by fishkeepers. Fish have had a role in culture through the ages, serving as deities, religious symbols, fish do not represent a monophyletic group, and therefore the evolution of fish is not studied as a single event. Early fish from the record are represented by a group of small, jawless. Jawless fish lineages are mostly extinct, an extant clade, the lampreys may approximate ancient pre-jawed fish. The first jaws are found in Placodermi fossils, the diversity of jawed vertebrates may indicate the evolutionary advantage of a jawed mouth. It is unclear if the advantage of a hinged jaw is greater biting force, improved respiration, fish may have evolved from a creature similar to a coral-like sea squirt, whose larvae resemble primitive fish in important ways. The first ancestors of fish may have kept the form into adulthood. Fish are a group, that is, any clade containing all fish also contains the tetrapods
35.
Crustacean
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Crustaceans form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill, woodlice and barnacles. In other words, some crustaceans are more related to insects. The 67,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at 0.1 mm, to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span of up to 3.8 m, like other arthropods, crustaceans have an exoskeleton, which they moult to grow. Most crustaceans are free-living aquatic animals, but some are terrestrial, some are parasitic, the group has an extensive fossil record, reaching back to the Cambrian, and includes living fossils such as Triops cancriformis, which has existed apparently unchanged since the Triassic period. More than 10 million tons of crustaceans are produced by fishery or farming for human consumption, krill and copepods are not as widely fished, but may be the animals with the greatest biomass on the planet, and form a vital part of the food chain. The scientific study of crustaceans is known as carcinology, and a scientist who works in carcinology is a carcinologist, the body of a crustacean is composed of segments, which are grouped into three regions, the cephalon or head, the thorax, and the pleon or abdomen. The head and thorax may be fused together to form a cephalothorax, the crustacean body is protected by the hard exoskeleton, which must be moulted for the animal to grow. The shell around each somite can be divided into a dorsal tergum, ventral sternum, various parts of the exoskeleton may be fused together. The abdomen bears pleopods, and ends in a telson, which bears the anus, the number and variety of appendages in different crustaceans may be partly responsible for the groups success. It is unclear whether the condition is a derived state which evolved in crustaceans. Trilobites, for instance, also possessed biramous appendages, the main body cavity is an open circulatory system, where blood is pumped into the haemocoel by a heart located near the dorsum. Malacostraca have haemocyanin as the pigment, while copepods, ostracods, barnacles. The alimentary canal consists of a tube that often has a gizzard-like gastric mill for grinding food and a pair of digestive glands that absorb food. Structures that function as kidneys are located near the antennae, a brain exists in the form of ganglia close to the antennae, and a collection of major ganglia is found below the gut. In many decapods, the first pair of pleopods are specialised in the male for sperm transfer, many terrestrial crustaceans mate seasonally and return to the sea to release the eggs. Others, such as woodlice, lay their eggs on land, in most decapods, the females retain the eggs until they hatch into free-swimming larvae. Marine crustaceans are as ubiquitous in the oceans as insects are on land, some branchiurans are able to withstand rapid changes of salinity and will also switch hosts from marine to non-marine species. Krill are the layer and the most important part of the food chain in Antarctic animal communities
36.
Frog
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A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura. The oldest fossil proto-frog appeared in the early Triassic of Madagascar, Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the tropics to subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of species diversity is in tropical rainforests. There are approximately 4,800 recorded species, accounting for over 85% of extant amphibian species and they are also one of the five most diverse vertebrate orders. The body plan of a frog is generally characterized by a stout body, protruding eyes, cleft tongue, limbs folded underneath. Besides living in water and on dry land, the adults of some species are adapted for living underground or in trees. The skin of the frog is glandular, with secretions ranging from distasteful to toxic, Frogs skins vary in colour from well-camouflaged dappled brown, grey and green to vivid patterns of bright red or yellow and black to advertise toxicity and warn off predators. Frogs typically lay their eggs in water, the eggs hatch into aquatic larvae called tadpoles that have tails and internal gills. They have highly specialized rasping mouth parts suitable for herbivorous, omnivorous or planktivorous diets, the life cycle is completed when they metamorphose into adults. A few species deposit eggs on land or bypass the tadpole stage, adult frogs generally have a carnivorous diet consisting of small invertebrates, but omnivorous species exist and a few feed on fruit. Frogs are extremely efficient at converting what they eat into body mass and they are an important food source for predators and part of the food web dynamics of many of the worlds ecosystems. The skin is semi-permeable, making them susceptible to dehydration, so they live in moist places or have special adaptations to deal with dry habitats. Frogs are valued as food by humans and also have many roles in literature, symbolism. Frog populations have declined significantly since the 1950s, more than one third of species are considered to be threatened with extinction and over one hundred and twenty are believed to have become extinct since the 1980s. The number of malformations among frogs is on the rise and a fungal disease. Conservation biologists are working to understand the causes of these problems, the name frog derives from Old English frogga, abbreviated to frox, forsc, and frosc, probably deriving from Proto-Indo-European preu = to jump. About 88% of amphibian species are classified in the order Anura and these include around 4,810 species in 33 families, of which the Leptodactylidae, Hylidae and Ranidae are the richest in species. The use of the common frog and toad has no taxonomic justification. From a classification perspective, all members of the order Anura are frogs, there are numerous exceptions to this rule
37.
Aquatic insect
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Aquatic insects or water insects live some portion of their life cycle in the water. They feed in the ways as other insects. Some diving insects, such as predatory diving beetles, can hunt for food underwater where land-living insects cannot compete, one problem that aquatic insects must overcome is how to get oxygen while they are under water. All animals require a source of oxygen to live, insects draw air into their bodies through spiracles, holes found along the sides of the abdomen. These spiracles are connected to tracheal tubes where oxygen can be absorbed, all aquatic insects have become adapted to their environment with the specialization of these structures. Some insects have densely packed hairs around the spiracles that allow air to remain near, while keeping water away from, the trachea open through spiracles into this air film, allowing access to oxygen. The large proportion of nitrogen in the air dissolves in water slowly and maintains the gas volume, insects of this type only rarely need to replenish their supply of air. Other aquatic insects can remain under water for long due to high concentrations of hemoglobin in their hemolymph circulating freely within their body. Hemoglobin bonds strongly to oxygen molecules, the Water Dwellers INSECTS pg.142. Stanley, D. and Bedick, J. Respiration in aquatic insects, weidenfeld & Nicholson, London Insect stages - Some larvae, nymphs and adult insects that live in freshwater. A UK-based web site with photos of various insects and other microorganisms as well as biological information
38.
Mammal
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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
39.
Tobago
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Tobago /təˈbeɪɡoʊ/ is an autonomous island within the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located northeast of the mainland of Trinidad and southeast of Grenada, the island lies outside the hurricane belt. According to the earliest English-language source cited in the Oxford English Dictionary, the national bird of Tobago is the cocrico. The population was 60,874 at the 2011 census, the capital, Scarborough, has a population of about 25,550. While Trinidad is multiethnic, Tobagos population is primarily of African descent, although with a proportion of Trinidadians of East Indian descent. Between 2000 and 2011, the population of Tobago grew by 12.55 percent, making it one of the areas of Trinidad. Christopher Columbus first sighted Tobago in 1498, subsequently, several powers fought over possession of the island. The original Island Carib population had to defend the island against other Amerindian tribes, from about 1672, during the temporary British rule of 1672-1674, Tobago had a period of stability during which plantation culture began. Sugar, cotton and indigo factories sprang up and Africans were imported to work as slaves, france had abandoned the island to Britain in 1763, and by 1777 Tobago was exporting great quantities of cotton, indigo, rum and sugar. But in 1781, the French re-invaded Tobago, and destroyed the plantations, the islands buoyant economy fell into decline. In 1814, when the island came under British control. But a severe hurricane in 1847, combined with the collapse of plantation underwriters, in 1889 the island became a ward of Trinidad. Without sugar, the islanders had to other crops, planting acres of limes, coconuts and cocoa. In 1963 Hurricane Flora ravaged Tobago, destroying the villages and crops, a restructuring programme followed and attempts were made to diversify the economy. The development of a tourist industry began, local Government and Central Government functions in Tobago are handled by the Tobago House of Assembly. The current Chief Secretary of the THA is Kelvin Charles, the island was most recently featured in the international press in early 2007, for its establishment of a Minister of Mental Health. Minister Ellen Tang was appointed on the first anniversary of the launch of the Happiness Project and her aide, Melody Williams, has been allocated a major proportion of the annual housing funding to revamp government housing projects all over the island. Tobago is divided into seven parishes – three in the Western Region and four in the Eastern Region, Tobago has an area of 300 km² and is approximately 40 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide
40.
Taipei
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Taipei, officially known as Taipei City, is the capital city and a special municipality of the Republic of China. Sitting at the tip of the island, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City. It is about 25 km southwest of the port city Keelung. Since 1949, Taipei has been the capital of the ROC after losing the mainland to the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, the name Taipei can refer either to the whole metropolitan area or the city proper. Taipei is the political, economic, educational, and cultural center of Taiwan, considered to be a global city, Taipei is part of a major high-tech industrial area. Railways, high-speed rail, highways, airports, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island, the city is served by two airports – Taipei Songshan and Taiwan Taoyuan. Its natural features such as Maokong, Yangmingshan, and hot springs are also known to international visitors. As the capital city, Taipei is sometimes used as a synecdoche for Taiwan, prior to the significant influx of Han Chinese immigrants, the region of Taipei Basin was mainly inhabited by the Ketagalan plains aborigines. The number of Han immigrants gradually increased in the early 18th century under Qing Dynasty rule after the government began permitting development in the area, in 1875, the northern part of the island was incorporated into the new Taipeh Prefecture. The Qing dynasty of China made Taipeh the temporary capital of Fujian-Taiwan Province in 1886 when Taiwan was separated from Fujian Province, Taipeh was formally made the provincial capital in 1894. Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895 under the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan became a colony of Imperial Japan with Taihoku as its capital, in which the city was administered under Taihoku Prefecture. Taiwans Japanese rulers embarked on a program of advanced urban planning that featured extensive railroad links. A number of Taipei landmarks and cultural institutions date from this period, following the Japanese surrender of 1945, control of Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China. In 1990 Taipei provided the backdrop for the Wild Lily student rallies that moved Taiwanese society from one-party rule to multi-party democracy, the city is today home to Taiwans democratically elected national government. The region known as the Taipei Basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century, Han Chinese mainly from Fujian Province of Qing dynasty China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In 1875, the part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture. From 1875 until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Tamsui County of Taipeh Prefecture, in 1885, work commenced to create an independent Taiwan Province, and Taipei City was temporarily made the provincial capital. Taipei officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894, all that remains from the Qing era is the north gate
41.
Taiwan
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Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. Neighbours include China to the west, Japan to the northeast, Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations, and the one with the largest economy. The island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, was inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before the 17th century. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty, following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROCs loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, in the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage, Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, the PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refused diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC, the PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible. There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, the former name Formosa dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means beautiful island. The name Formosa eventually replaced all others in European literature and was in use in English in the early 20th century. This name was adopted into the Chinese vernacular as the name of the sandbar. The modern word Taiwan is derived from this usage, which is seen in forms in Chinese historical records. Use of the current Chinese name was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture, through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as Taiwan. The official name of the state is the Republic of China and it was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when it lost its seat to the Peoples Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become known as Taiwan. In some contexts, especially ones from the ROC government
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San Rafael, California
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San Rafael is a city and the county seat of Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, as of the 2010 census the citys population is 57,713. What is now San Rafael was once the site of several Coast Miwok villages, Awani-wi, near downtown San Rafael, Ewu, near Terra Linda,14,1817, four years before Mexico gained independence from Spain. Mission San Rafael Arcángel was located a donkeys day walk to the mission below it, the mission and the city are named after the Archangel Raphael, the Angel of Healing. The mission was planned as a hospital site for Central Valley American Indians who had become ill at the cold San Francisco Mission Dolores. Father Luis Gil, who spoke several Native American languages, was put in charge of the facility, in part because of its ideal weather, San Rafael was later upgraded to full mission status in 1822. The mission had 300 converts within its first year, and 1,140 converts by 1828, the Mexican government took over the California missions in 1834, and Mission San Rafael was abandoned in 1844, eventually falling into ruin. The current mission was built in 1949 in the style of the original, the San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad reached San Rafael in 1879 and was linked to the national rail network in 1888. The United States Navy operated a San Pablo Bay degaussing range from San Rafael through World War II, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 22.4 square miles. 16.5 square miles of it is land and 6.0 square miles of it is water, south of the county is San Francisco. Peacock Gap Golf Course which is open to the public, there are several public parks in the city. The San Rafael shoreline has been filled to a considerable extent to accommodate land development. At certain locations such as Murphys Point, the sandstone or shale rock outcrops through the mud, San Rafael has a wide diversity of natural habitats from forests at the higher elevations to marshland and estuarine settings. Its marshes are home to the endangered species Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse, there are also riparian areas including the San Rafael Creek and Miller Creek corridors. San Rafael has a Mediterranean climate, with winter lows seldom reaching the freezing mark. The National Weather Service reports that August is usually the warmest month with a high of 80. 1°, December, the coldest month, has an average high of 55. 1° and an average low of 41. 0°. The highest temperature on record is 110°, recorded in June 1961, the highest temperature in recent years, 108°, occurred on July 23,2006. The record lowest temperature was 20° on December 22,1990, there are an average of 17.9 days annually with a high of 90° or more and 1.2 days with a high of 100° or more
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California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
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Arches National Park
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Arches National Park is a US National Park in eastern Utah. The park is adjacent to the Colorado River,4 miles north of Moab and it is home to over 2,000 natural sandstone arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch, in addition to a variety of unique geological resources and formations. It contains the highest density of natural arches in the world, the park consists of 76,679 acres of high desert located in the Colorado Plateau. Its highest elevation is 5,653 feet at Elephant Butte, forty-three arches are known to have collapsed since 1977. The park receives on average 10 inches of rain a year, administered by the National Park Service, the area was originally named a National Monument on April 12,1929. It was redesignated as a National Park on November 12,1971, over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with debris eroded from the Uncompahgre Uplift to the northeast. During the Early Jurassic desert conditions prevailed in the region and the vast Navajo Sandstone was deposited, an additional sequence of stream laid and windblown sediments, the Entrada Sandstone, was deposited on top of the Navajo. Over 5,000 feet of sediments were deposited and have been mostly eroded away. Remnants of the cover exist in the area including exposures of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale, the arches of the area are developed mostly within the Entrada formation. The weight of this caused the salt bed below it to liquefy. The evaporites of the area formed more unusual salt anticlines or linear regions of uplift, faulting occurred and whole sections of rock subsided into the areas between the domes. In some places, they turned almost on edge, the result of one such 2, 500-foot displacement, the Moab Fault, is seen from the visitor center. As this subsurface movement of salt shaped the landscape, erosion removed the rock layers from the surface. Except for isolated remnants, the formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone, in which most of the arches form. These are visible in layer cake fashion throughout most of the park, over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits, winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained, wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Others, with the degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections
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Utah
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Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4,1896, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, and 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million, approximately 80% of whom live along the Wasatch Front, Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast, approximately 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS, which greatly influences Utahn culture and daily life. The LDS Churchs world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City, Utah is the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. The state is a center of transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, in 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated that Utah had the second fastest-growing population of any state. St. George was the metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah also has the 14th highest median income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the best state to live in based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, the name Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means people of the mountains in the Ute language, according to other sources Utah is derived from the Apache name Yudah which means Tall. These Native American tribes are subgroups of the Ute-Aztec Native American ethnicity and were sedentary, the Ancestral Pueblo people built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century, in the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived, the southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California, the expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature, in 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California. European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada, the city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, in late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the salinity of its waters, Bridger thought he had found the Pacific Ocean
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Tamil Nadu
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Tamil Nadu is one of the 29 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai, Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Puducherry and the South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. The state shares a border with the nation of Sri Lanka. Tamil Nadu is the eleventh-largest state in India by area and the sixth-most populous, the state was ranked sixth among states in India according to the Human Development Index in 2011, with the second-largest state economy after Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu is the second largest state economy in India with ₹13,842 billion in gross domestic product after Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu was ranked as one of the top seven developed states in India based on a Multidimensional Development Index in a 2013 report published by the Reserve Bank of India and its official language is Tamil, which is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world. Tamil Nadu is home to natural resources. In addition, its people have developed and continue classical arts, classical music, historic buildings and religious sites include Hindu temples of Tamil architecture, hill stations, beach resorts, multi-religious pilgrimage sites, and eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Archaeological evidence points to this area being one of the longest continuous habitations in the Indian peninsula, the ASI archaeologists have proposed that the script used at that site is very rudimentary Tamil Brahmi. Adichanallur has been announced as a site for further excavation. About 60 per cent of the epigraphical inscriptions found by the ASI in India are from Tamil Nadu. A Neolithic stone celt with the Indus script on it was discovered at Sembian-Kandiyur near Mayiladuthurai in Tamil Nadu, according to epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan, this was the first datable artefact bearing the Indus script to be found in Tamil Nadu. Mahadevan claimed that the find was evidence of the use of the Harappan language, the date of the celt was estimated at between 1500 BCE and 2000 BCE. The early history of the people and rulers of Tamil Nadu is a topic in Tamil literary sources known as Sangam literature, numismatic, archaeological and literary sources corroborate that the Sangam period lasted for about six centuries, from 300 BC to AD300. Three dynasties, namely the Chera, Chola and Pandya, ruled the area of present-day Tamil Nadu, the Chera ruled the whole of present-day Kerala and parts of western Tamil Nadu comprising Coimbatore, Dharmapuri, Karur, Salem and Erode districts from the capital of Vanchi Muthur. The Chola dynasty ruled the northern and central parts of Tamil Nadu from their capital, Uraiyur, All three dynasties had extensive trade relationships with Rome, Greece, Egypt, Ceylon, Phoenicia, Arabia, Mesopotamia and Persia. Trade flourished in commodities such as spices, ivory, pearls, beads, Chera traded extensively from Muziris on the west coast, Chola from Arikamedu and Puhar and Pandya through Korkai port. A Greco-Roman trade and travel document, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea gives a description of the Tamil country, besides these three dynasties, the Sangam era Tamilakam was also divided into various provinces named nadu, meaning country
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Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
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Nocturnal
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Nocturnality is an animal behavior characterized by activity during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is nocturnal, versus diurnal meaning the opposite, nocturnal creatures generally have highly developed senses of hearing, smell, and specially adapted eyesight. Such traits can help such as the Helicoverpa zea moths avoid predators. Some animals, such as cats and ferrets, have eyes that can adapt to both lowlevel and bright day levels of illumination, others, such as bushbabies and bats, can function only at night. Many nocturnal creatures including tarsiers and some owls have large eyes in comparison to their size to compensate for the lower light levels at night. More specifically, they have found to have a larger cornea relative to their eye size than diurnal creatures to increase their visual sensitivity in the low-light conditions. Nocturnality helps wasps, such as Apoica flavissima, avoid hunting in intense sunlight, diurnal animals, including squirrels and songbirds, are active during the daytime. Crepuscular species, such as rabbits, skunks, cats, tigers, cathemeral species, such as fossas and lions, are active both in the day and at night. While most humans are diurnal, for personal and social/cultural reasons some people are temporarily or habitually nocturnal. The most known creatures to be nocturnal include cats, rodents, and owls, while it is difficult to say which came first, nocturnality or diurnality, there is a leading hypothesis out in the evolutionary biology community. A recent study attempts to answer the question as to why so many modern day mammals retain these nocturnal characteristics even though they are not active at night, the anomaly to this theory were anthropoids, who appeared to have the most divergence from nocturnality than all organisms examined. While most mammals didnt exhibit the characteristics expected of a nocturnal creature, reptiles. A larger cornea and pupil correlated well with whether these two classes of organisms were nocturnal or not, being active at night is a form of niche differentiation, where a species niche is partitioned not by the amount of resources but by the amount of time. Hawks and owls can hunt the same field or meadow for the same rodents without conflict because hawks are diurnal and this means they are not in competition for each others prey. Nocturnality is a form of crypsis, an adaptation to avoid or enhance predation, one of the reasons that lions prefer to hunt at night is that many of their prey species have poor night vision. Many species of rodents, such as the Large Japanese Field Mouse, are active at night because most of the dozen or so birds of prey that hunt them are diurnal. There are many species that exhibit some nocturnal behaviors. For example, many seabirds and sea turtles only gather at breeding sites or colonies at night to reduce the risk of predation to themselves and/or their offspring, another reason for nocturnality is avoiding the heat of the day
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Crow
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A crow is a bird of the genus Corvus. The term crow is used both as part of the name of many species, and collectively for all of Corvus
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