1.
Precambrian
–
The Precambrian is the earliest period of Earths history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is a supereon that is subdivided into three eons of the time scale. It spans from the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago, the Precambrian accounts for 89% of geologic time. Relatively little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up roughly seven-eighths of the Earths history, the Precambrian fossil record is poorer than that of the succeeding Phanerozoic, and fossils from that time are of limited biostratigraphic use. This is because many Precambrian rocks have been metamorphosed, obscuring their origins, while others have been destroyed by erosion. A stable crust was apparently in place by 4,412 Ma, the term Precambrian is recognized by the International Commission on Stratigraphy as a general term including the Archean and Proterozoic eons. It is still used by geologists and paleontologists for general discussions not requiring the more specific eon names and it was briefly called the Cryptozoic eon. A specific date for the origin of life has not been determined, carbon found in 3.8 billion year old rocks from islands off western Greenland may be of organic origin. Well-preserved microscopic fossils of bacteria older than 3.46 billion years have found in Western Australia. Probable fossils 100 million years older have been found in the same area, there is a fairly solid record of bacterial life throughout the remainder of the Precambrian. The oldest fossil evidence from that era of such complex life comes from the Lantian formation of the Ediacarian period, a very diverse collection of soft-bodied forms is found in a variety of locations worldwide and date to between 635 and 542 Ma. These are referred to as Ediacaran or Vendian biota, hard-shelled creatures appeared toward the end of that time span, marking the beginning of the Phanerozoic era. By the middle of the following Cambrian period, a diverse fauna is recorded in the Burgess Shale. The explosion in diversity of lifeforms during the early Cambrian is called the Cambrian explosion of life, while land seems to have been devoid of plants and animals, cyanobacteria and other microbes formed prokaryotic mats that covered terrestrial areas. Evidence of the details of plate motions and other activity in the Precambrian has been poorly preserved. It is generally believed that small proto-continents existed prior to 4280 Ma, the supercontinent, known as Rodinia, broke up around 750 Ma. A number of glacial periods have been identified going as far back as the Huronian epoch, one of the best studied is the Sturtian-Varangian glaciation, around 850–635 Ma, which may have brought glacial conditions all the way to the equator, resulting in a Snowball Earth. The atmosphere of the early Earth is not well understood, most geologists believe it was composed primarily of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other relatively inert gases, and was lacking in free oxygen
2.
Cambrian
–
The Cambrian Period was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 55.6 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 541 million years ago to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya and its subdivisions, and its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latinised form of Cymru, the Welsh name for Wales, as a result, our understanding of the Cambrian biology surpasses that of some later periods. The rapid diversification of lifeforms in the Cambrian, known as the Cambrian explosion, most of the continents were probably dry and rocky due to a lack of vegetation. Shallow seas flanked the margins of several continents created during the breakup of the supercontinent Pannotia, the seas were relatively warm, and polar ice was absent for much of the period. The United States Federal Geographic Data Committee uses a barred capital C ⟨Є⟩ character similar to the capital letter Ukrainian Ye ⟨Є⟩ to represent the Cambrian Period, the proper Unicode character is U+A792 Ꞓ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH BAR. Despite the long recognition of its distinction from younger Ordovician Period rocks and older Supereon Precambrian rocks, the base of the Cambrian lies atop a complex assemblage of trace fossils known as the Treptichnus pedum assemblage. Pedum in Namibia, Spain and Newfoundland, and possibly, in the western USA, the stratigraphic range of T. pedum overlaps the range of the Ediacaran fossils in Namibia, and probably in Spain. The Cambrian Period followed the Ediacaran Period and was followed by the Ordovician Period, the Cambrian is divided into four epochs and ten ages. Currently only two series and five stages are named and have a GSSP, because the international stratigraphic subdivision is not yet complete, many local subdivisions are still widely used. In some of these subdivisions the Cambrian is divided into three epochs with locally differing names – the Early Cambrian, Middle Cambrian and Furongian, rocks of these epochs are referred to as belonging to the Lower, Middle, or Upper Cambrian. Trilobite zones allow biostratigraphic correlation in the Cambrian, each of the local epochs is divided into several stages. The International Commission on Stratigraphy list the Cambrian period as beginning at 541 million years ago, the lower boundary of the Cambrian was originally held to represent the first appearance of complex life, represented by trilobites. The recognition of small shelly fossils before the first trilobites, and Ediacara biota substantially earlier and this formal designation allowed radiometric dates to be obtained from samples across the globe that corresponded to the base of the Cambrian. Early dates of 570 million years ago quickly gained favour, though the used to obtain this number are now considered to be unsuitable. A more precise date using modern radiometric dating yield a date of 541 ±0.3 million years ago, most continental land was clustered in the Southern Hemisphere at this time, but was drifting north. Large, high-velocity rotational movement of Gondwana appears to have occurred in the Early Cambrian, the sea levels fluctuated somewhat, suggesting there were ice ages, associated with pulses of expansion and contraction of a south polar ice cap. In Baltoscandia a Lower Cambrian transgression transformed large swathes of the Sub-Cambrian peneplain into a epicontinental sea, the Earth was generally cold during the early Cambrian, probably due to the ancient continent of Gondwana covering the South Pole and cutting off polar ocean currents
3.
Ordovician
–
The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.2 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period 485.4 million years ago to the start of the Silurian Period 443.8 Mya. Lapworth recognized that the fauna in the disputed strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian periods. It received international sanction in 1960, when it was adopted as a period of the Paleozoic Era by the International Geological Congress. Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it did in the earlier Cambrian period, invertebrates, namely molluscs and arthropods, dominated the oceans. The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event considerably increased the diversity of life, fish, the worlds first true vertebrates, continued to evolve, and those with jaws may have first appeared late in the period. Life had yet to diversify on land, about 100 times as many meteorites struck the Earth during the Ordovician compared with today. The Ordovician Period began with a major extinction called the Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event and it lasted for about 42 million years and ended with the Ordovician–Silurian extinction event, about 443.8 Mya which wiped out 60% of marine genera. The dates given are recent radiometric dates and vary slightly from those found in other sources and this second period of the Paleozoic era created abundant fossils that became major petroleum and gas reservoirs. The boundary chosen for the beginning of both the Ordovician Period and the Tremadocian stage is highly significant and it correlates well with the occurrence of widespread graptolite, conodont, and trilobite species. The base of the Tremadocian allows scientists to relate these species not only to each other and this makes it easier to place many more species in time relative to the beginning of the Ordovician Period. A number of terms have been used to subdivide the Ordovician Period. In 2008, the ICS erected an international system of subdivisions. There exist Baltoscandic, British, Siberian, North American, Australian, the Ordovician Period in Britain was traditionally broken into Early, Middle and Late epochs. The corresponding rocks of the Ordovician System are referred to as coming from the Lower, Middle, the Floian corresponds to the lower Arenig, the Arenig continues until the early Darriwilian, subsuming the Dapingian. The Llanvirn occupies the rest of the Darriwilian, and terminates with it at the base of the Late Ordovician. The Sandbian represents the first half of the Caradoc, the Caradoc ends in the mid-Katian, during the Ordovician, the southern continents were collected into Gondwana. Gondwana started the period in equatorial latitudes and, as the period progressed, drifted toward the South Pole, the small continent Avalonia separated from Gondwana and began to move north towards Baltica and Laurentia, opening the Rheic Ocean between Gondwana and Avalonia
4.
Silurian
–
The Silurian is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at 443.8 million years ago, to the beginning of the Devonian Period,419.2 Mya. As with other periods, the rock beds that define the periods start and end are well identified. The base of the Silurian is set at a major Ordovician-Silurian extinction event when 60% of marine species were wiped out, a significant evolutionary milestone during the Silurian was the diversification of jawed and bony fish. However, terrestrial life would not greatly diversify and affect the landscape until the Devonian, the Silurian system was first identified by British geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, who was examining fossil-bearing sedimentary rock strata in south Wales in the early 1830s. He named the sequences for a Celtic tribe of Wales, the Silures, inspired by his friend Adam Sedgwick and this naming does not indicate any correlation between the occurrence of the Silurian rocks and the land inhabited by the Silures. As it was first identified, the Silurian series when traced farther afield quickly came to overlap Sedgwicks Cambrian sequence, however, charles Lapworth resolved the conflict by defining a new Ordovician system including the contested beds. An early alternative name for the Silurian was Gotlandian after the strata of the Baltic island of Gotland, the French geologist Joachim Barrande, building on Murchisons work, used the term Silurian in a more comprehensive sense than was justified by subsequent knowledge. He divided the Silurian rocks of Bohemia into eight stages and his interpretation was questioned in 1854 by Edward Forbes, and the later stages of Barrande, F, G and H, have since been shown to be Devonian. Despite these modifications in the groupings of the strata, it is recognized that Barrande established Bohemia as a classic ground for the study of the earliest fossils. The epoch is named for the town of Llandovery in Carmarthenshire, the Wenlock, which lasted from 433.4 ±1.5 to 427.4 ±2.8 mya, is subdivided into the Sheinwoodian and Homerian ages. It is named after Wenlock Edge in Shropshire, England, during the Wenlock, the oldest known tracheophytes of the genus Cooksonia, appear. The first terrestrial animals also appear in the Wenlock, represented by air-breathing millipedes from Scotland. The Ludlow, lasting from 427.4 ±1.5 to 423 ±2.8 mya, comprises the Gorstian stage, lasting until 425.6 million years ago, and it is named for the town of Ludlow in Shropshire, England. The Pridoli, lasting from 423 ±1.5 to 419.2 ±2.8 mya, is the final and it is named after one locality at the Homolka a Přídolí nature reserve near the Prague suburb Slivenec in the Czech Republic. Přídolí is the old name of a field area. The high sea levels of the Silurian and the flat land resulted in a number of island chains. The southern continents remained united during this period, the melting of icecaps and glaciers contributed to a rise in sea level, recognizable from the fact that Silurian sediments overlie eroded Ordovician sediments, forming an unconformity. The continents of Avalonia, Baltica, and Laurentia drifted together near the equator and this event is the Caledonian orogeny, a spate of mountain building that stretched from New York State through conjoined Europe and Greenland to Norway
5.
Devonian
–
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic, spanning 60 million years from the end of the Silurian,419.2 million years ago, to the beginning of the Carboniferous,358.9 Mya. It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied, the first significant adaptive radiation of life on dry land occurred during the Devonian. Free-sporing vascular plants began to spread across dry land, forming extensive forests which covered the continents, by the middle of the Devonian, several groups of plants had evolved leaves and true roots, and by the end of the period the first seed-bearing plants appeared. Various terrestrial arthropods also became well-established, Fish reached substantial diversity during this time, leading the Devonian to often be dubbed the Age of Fish. The first ray-finned and lobe-finned bony fish appeared, while the placodermi began dominating almost every aquatic environment. The ancestors of all four-limbed vertebrates began adapting to walking on land, as their strong pectoral, in the oceans, primitive sharks became more numerous than in the Silurian and Late Ordovician. The first ammonites, species of molluscs, appeared, trilobites, the mollusk-like brachiopods and the great coral reefs, were still common. The Late Devonian extinction which started about 375 million years ago severely affected marine life, killing off all placodermi, and all trilobites, save for a few species of the order Proetida. The palaeogeography was dominated by the supercontinent of Gondwana to the south, the continent of Siberia to the north, while the rock beds that define the start and end of the Devonian period are well identified, the exact dates are uncertain. According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the Devonian extends from the end of the Silurian 419.2 Mya, another common term is Age of the Fishes, referring to the evolution of several major groups of fish that took place during the period. Older literature on the Anglo-Welsh basin divides it into the Downtonian, Dittonian, Breconian and Farlovian stages, in the Late Devonian, by contrast, arid conditions were less prevalent across the world and temperate climates were more common. The Devonian Period is formally broken into Early, Middle and Late subdivisions, the rocks corresponding to those epochs are referred to as belonging to the Lower, Middle and Upper parts of the Devonian System. Early Devonian The Early Devonian lasted from 419.2 ±2.8 to 393.3 ±2.5 and began with the Lochkovian stage, which lasted until the Pragian. It spanned from 410.8 ±2.8 to 407.6 ±2.5, and was followed by the Emsian, which lasted until the Middle Devonian began,393. 3±2.7 million years ago. Middle Devonian The Middle Devonian comprised two subdivisions, first the Eifelian, which gave way to the Givetian 387. 7±2.7 million years ago. Late Devonian Finally, the Late Devonian started with the Frasnian,382.7 ±2.8 to 372.2 ±2.5, during which the first forests took shape on land. The first tetrapods appeared in the record in the ensuing Famennian subdivision. This lasted until the end of the Devonian,358. 9±2.5 million years ago, the Devonian was a relatively warm period, and probably lacked any glaciers
6.
Carboniferous
–
The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period 358.9 million years ago, to the beginning of the Permian Period,298.9 Mya. The name Carboniferous means coal-bearing and derives from the Latin words carbō and ferō, and was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822. Based on a study of the British rock succession, it was the first of the system names to be employed. The Carboniferous is often treated in North America as two periods, the earlier Mississippian and the later Pennsylvanian. Terrestrial life was established by the Carboniferous period. Amphibians were the dominant land vertebrates, of one branch would eventually evolve into amniotes. Arthropods were also common, and many were much larger than those of today. Vast swaths of forest covered the land, which would eventually be laid down, the atmospheric content of oxygen also reached their highest levels in geological history during the period, 35% compared with 21% today, allowing terrestrial invertebrates to evolve to great size. A major marine and terrestrial extinction event, the Carboniferous rainforest collapse, occurred in the middle of the period, the later half of the period experienced glaciations, low sea level, and mountain building as the continents collided to form Pangaea. In the United States the Carboniferous is usually broken into Mississippian and Pennsylvanian subperiods, the Silesian is roughly contemporaneous with the late Mississippian Serpukhovian plus the Pennsylvanian. In Britain the Dinantian is traditionally known as the Carboniferous Limestone, the Namurian as the Millstone Grit, and the Westphalian as the Coal Measures and Pennant Sandstone. There was also a drop in south polar temperatures, southern Gondwanaland was glaciated throughout the period and these conditions apparently had little effect in the deep tropics, where lush swamps, later to become coal, flourished to within 30 degrees of the northernmost glaciers. Mid-Carboniferous, a drop in sea level precipitated a major extinction, one that hit crinoids. This sea level drop and the unconformity in North America separate the Mississippian subperiod from the Pennsylvanian subperiod. This happened about 323 million years ago, at the onset of the Permo-Carboniferous Glaciation, the Carboniferous was a time of active mountain-building, as the supercontinent Pangaea came together. The southern continents remained tied together in the supercontinent Gondwana, which collided with North America–Europe along the present line of eastern North America, in the same time frame, much of present eastern Eurasian plate welded itself to Europe along the line of the Ural mountains. Most of the Mesozoic supercontinent of Pangea was now assembled, although North China, the Late Carboniferous Pangaea was shaped like an O. There were two major oceans in the Carboniferous—Panthalassa and Paleo-Tethys, which was inside the O in the Carboniferous Pangaea, other minor oceans were shrinking and eventually closed - Rheic Ocean, the small, shallow Ural Ocean and Proto-Tethys Ocean
7.
Permian
–
The Permian is a geologic period and system which spans 46.7 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period 298.9 million years ago, to the beginning of the Triassic Period 252.2 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era, the following Triassic Period belongs to the Mesozoic Era, the concept of the Permian was introduced in 1841 by geologist Sir Roderick Murchison, who named it after the city of Perm. The Permian witnessed the diversification of the early amniotes into the groups of the mammals, turtles, lepidosaurs. The world at the time was dominated by two known as Pangaea and Siberia, surrounded by a global ocean called Panthalassa. The Carboniferous rainforest collapse left behind vast regions of desert within the continental interior, amniotes, who could better cope with these drier conditions, rose to dominance in place of their amphibian ancestors. The Permian ended with the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the largest mass extinction in Earths history, in which nearly 90% of marine species and it would take well into the Triassic for life to recover from this catastrophe. Recovery from the Permian-Triassic extinction event was protracted, on land, the term Permian was introduced into geology in 1841 by Sir R. I. Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, who identified typical strata in extensive Russian explorations undertaken with Edouard de Verneuil, the region now lies in the Perm Krai of Russia. This could have in part caused the extinctions of marine species at the end of the period by severely reducing shallow coastal areas preferred by many marine organisms. During the Permian, all the Earths major landmasses were collected into a supercontinent known as Pangaea. The Cimmeria continent rifted away from Gondwana and drifted north to Laurasia, a new ocean was growing on its southern end, the Tethys Ocean, an ocean that would dominate much of the Mesozoic Era. Large continental landmass interiors experience climates with extreme variations of heat and cold, deserts seem to have been widespread on Pangaea. Such dry conditions favored gymnosperms, plants with seeds enclosed in a cover, over plants such as ferns that disperse spores in a wetter environment. The first modern trees appeared in the Permian, the climate in the Permian was quite varied. At the start of the Permian, the Earth was still in an Ice Age, glaciers receded around the mid-Permian period as the climate gradually warmed, drying the continents interiors. In the late Permian period, the drying continued although the temperature cycled between warm and cool cycles, Permian marine deposits are rich in fossil mollusks, echinoderms, and brachiopods. By the close of the Permian, trilobites and a host of other groups became extinct. Terrestrial life in the Permian included diverse plants, fungi, arthropods, the period saw a massive desert covering the interior of Pangaea
8.
Triassic
–
The Triassic is a geologic period and system which spans 50.9 million years from the end of the Permian Period 252.17 million years ago, to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.3 Mya. The Triassic is the first period of the Mesozoic Era, both the start and end of the period are marked by major extinction events. Therapsids and archosaurs were the terrestrial vertebrates during this time. A specialized subgroup of archosaurs, called dinosaurs, first appeared in the Late Triassic, the vast supercontinent of Pangaea existed until the mid-Triassic, after which it began to gradually rift into two separate landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south. The global climate during the Triassic was mostly hot and dry, however, the climate shifted and became more humid as Pangaea began to drift apart. The end of the period was marked by yet another mass extinction, the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. The Triassic is usually separated into Early, Middle, and Late Triassic Epochs, from the east, along the equator, the Tethys sea penetrated Pangaea, causing the Paleo-Tethys Ocean to be closed. Later in the mid-Triassic a similar sea penetrated along the equator from the west, the remaining shores were surrounded by the world-ocean known as Panthalassa. All the deep-ocean sediments laid down during the Triassic have disappeared through subduction of oceanic plates, thus, the supercontinent Pangaea was rifting during the Triassic—especially late in that period—but had not yet separated. In North America, for example, marine deposits are limited to a few exposures in the west, thus Triassic stratigraphy is mostly based on organisms that lived in lagoons and hypersaline environments, such as Estheria crustaceans. At the beginning of the Mesozoic Era, Africa was joined with Earths other continents in Pangaea, Africa shared the supercontinents relatively uniform fauna which was dominated by theropods, prosauropods and primitive ornithischians by the close of the Triassic period. Late Triassic fossils are found throughout Africa, but are common in the south than north. The time boundary separating the Permian and Triassic marks the advent of an event with global impact. At Paleorrota geopark, located in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in these formations, one of the earliest dinosaurs, Staurikosaurus, as well as the mammal ancestors Brasilitherium and Brasilodon have been discovered. The Triassic continental interior climate was hot and dry, so that typical deposits are red bed sandstones and evaporites. Pangaeas large size limited the effect of the global ocean, its continental climate was highly seasonal, with very hot summers. The strong contrast between the Pangea supercontinent and the global ocean triggered intense cross-equatorial monsoons, the best studied of such episodes of humid climate, and probably the most intense and widespread, was the Carnian Pluvial Event. On land, the vascular plants included the lycophytes, the dominant cycadophytes, ginkgophyta, ferns, horsetails
9.
Jurassic
–
The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that spans 56.3 million years from the end of the Triassic Period 201.3 million years ago to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period 145 Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic Era, also known as the Age of Reptiles, the start of the period is marked by the major Triassic–Jurassic extinction event. The Jurassic is named after the Jura Mountains within the European Alps, by the beginning of the Jurassic, the supercontinent Pangaea had begun rifting into two landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south. This created more coastlines and shifted the continental climate from dry to humid, on land, the fauna transitioned from the Triassic fauna, dominated by both dinosauromorph and crocodylomorph archosaurs, to one dominated by dinosaurs alone. The first birds also appeared during the Jurassic, having evolved from a branch of theropod dinosaurs, other major events include the appearance of the earliest lizards, and the evolution of therian mammals, including primitive placentals. Crocodilians made the transition from a terrestrial to a mode of life. The oceans were inhabited by marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, the chronostratigraphic term Jurassic is directly linked to the Jura Mountains. The name Jura is derived from the Celtic root jor, which was Latinised into juria, the Jurassic period is divided into the Early Jurassic, Middle, and Late Jurassic epochs. The Jurassic System, in stratigraphy, is divided into the Lower Jurassic, Middle, the separation of the term Jurassic into three sections goes back to Leopold von Buch. The Jurassic North Atlantic Ocean was relatively narrow, while the South Atlantic did not open until the following Cretaceous period, the Tethys Sea closed, and the Neotethys basin appeared. Climates were warm, with no evidence of glaciation, as in the Triassic, there was apparently no land over either pole, and no extensive ice caps existed. In contrast, the North American Jurassic record is the poorest of the Mesozoic, the Jurassic was a time of calcite sea geochemistry in which low-magnesium calcite was the primary inorganic marine precipitate of calcium carbonate. Carbonate hardgrounds were thus very common, along with calcitic ooids, calcitic cements, the first of several massive batholiths were emplaced in the northern American cordillera beginning in the mid-Jurassic, marking the Nevadan orogeny. Important Jurassic exposures are found in Russia, India, South America, Japan, Australasia. As the Jurassic proceeded, larger and more groups of dinosaurs like sauropods and ornithopods proliferated in Africa. Middle Jurassic strata are well represented nor well studied in Africa. Late Jurassic strata are also poorly represented apart from the spectacular Tendaguru fauna in Tanzania, the Late Jurassic life of Tendaguru is very similar to that found in western North Americas Morrison Formation. During the Jurassic period, the primary living in the sea were fish
10.
Cretaceous
–
The Cretaceous is a geologic period and system that spans 79 million years from the end of the Jurassic Period 145 million years ago to the beginning of the Paleogene Period 66 Mya. It is the last period of the Mesozoic Era, the Cretaceous Period is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation Kreide. The Cretaceous was a period with a warm climate, resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now-extinct marine reptiles, ammonites and rudists, during this time, new groups of mammals and birds, as well as flowering plants, appeared. The Cretaceous ended with a mass extinction, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, in which many groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs. The end of the Cretaceous is defined by the abrupt Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, the name Cretaceous was derived from Latin creta, meaning chalk. The Cretaceous is divided into Early and Late Cretaceous epochs, or Lower and Upper Cretaceous series, in older literature the Cretaceous is sometimes divided into three series, Neocomian, Gallic and Senonian. A subdivision in eleven stages, all originating from European stratigraphy, is now used worldwide, in many parts of the world, alternative local subdivisions are still in use. As with other geologic periods, the rock beds of the Cretaceous are well identified. No great extinction or burst of diversity separates the Cretaceous from the Jurassic and this layer has been dated at 66.043 Ma. A140 Ma age for the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary instead of the usually accepted 145 Ma was proposed in 2014 based on a study of Vaca Muerta Formation in Neuquén Basin. Víctor Ramos, one of the authors of the study proposing the 140 Ma boundary age sees the study as a first step toward formally changing the age in the International Union of Geological Sciences, due to the high sea level there was extensive space for such sedimentation. Because of the young age and great thickness of the system. Chalk is a type characteristic for the Cretaceous. It consists of coccoliths, microscopically small calcite skeletons of coccolithophores, the group is found in England, northern France, the low countries, northern Germany, Denmark and in the subsurface of the southern part of the North Sea. Chalk is not easily consolidated and the Chalk Group still consists of sediments in many places. The group also has other limestones and arenites, among the fossils it contains are sea urchins, belemnites, ammonites and sea reptiles such as Mosasaurus. In southern Europe, the Cretaceous is usually a marine system consisting of competent limestone beds or incompetent marls
11.
Paleogene
–
The Paleogene is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago to the beginning of the Neogene Period 23.03 Mya. It is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era of the present Phanerozoic Eon and this period consists of the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene epochs. The terms Paleogene System and lower Tertiary System are applied to the rocks deposited during the Paleogene Period. By dividing the Tertiary Period into two periods instead of directly into five epochs, the periods are more comparable to the duration of periods of the preceding Mesozoic and Paleozoic Eras. The trend was caused by the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. During the Paleogene, the continued to drift closer to their current positions. India was in the process of colliding with Asia, subsequently forming the Himalayas, the Atlantic Ocean continued to widen by a few centimeters each year. Africa was moving north to meet with Europe and form the Mediterranean, inland seas retreated from North America early in the period. Australia had also separated from Antarctica and was drifting towards Southeast Asia, mammals began a rapid diversification during this period. Some of these mammals would evolve into forms that would dominate the land, while others would become capable of living in marine, specialized terrestrial. Those that took to the oceans became modern cetaceans, while those that took to the trees became primates, the group to which humans belong. Birds, which were well established by the end of the Cretaceous. In comparison to birds and mammals, most other branches of life remained unchanged during this period. As the Earth cooled, tropical plants became less numerous and were now restricted to equatorial regions, deciduous plants, which could survive through the seasonal climates the world was now experiencing, became more common. The Paleogene is notable in the context of offshore oil drilling, and especially in Gulf of Mexico oil exploration and these rock formations represent the current cutting edge of deep-water oil discovery. Lower Tertiary explorations to date include, Kaskida Oil Field Tiber Oil Field Jack 2 Paleogene Microfossils, 180+ images of Foraminifera
12.
Neogene
–
The Neogene is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period 23.03 million years ago to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period 2.58 Mya. The Neogene is sub-divided into two epochs, the earlier Miocene and the later Pliocene, some geologists assert that the Neogene cannot be clearly delineated from the modern geological period, the Quaternary. During this period, mammals and birds continued to evolve into modern forms. Early hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa near the end of the period, some continental movement took place, the most significant event being the connection of North and South America at the Isthmus of Panama, late in the Pliocene. This cut off the ocean currents from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean. The global climate cooled considerably over the course of the Neogene, the terms Neogene System and upper Tertiary System describe the rocks deposited during the Neogene Period. The continents in the Neogene were very close to their current positions, the Isthmus of Panama formed, connecting North and South America. The Indian subcontinent continued to collide with Asia, forming the Himalayas, sea levels fell, creating land bridges between Africa and Eurasia and between Eurasia and North America. The global climate became seasonal and continued an overall drying and cooling trend which began at the start of the Paleogene. The ice caps on both poles began to grow and thicken, and by the end of the period the first of a series of glaciations of the current Ice Age began, marine and continental flora and fauna have a modern appearance. The reptile group Choristodera became extinct in the part of the period. Mammals and birds continued to be the dominant terrestrial vertebrates, the first hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa and spread into Eurasia. In response to the cooler, seasonal climate, tropical plant species gave way to deciduous ones, grasses therefore greatly diversified, and herbivorous mammals evolved alongside it, creating the many grazing animals of today such as horses, antelope, and bison. The Neogene traditionally ended at the end of the Pliocene Epoch, just before the definition of the beginning of the Quaternary Period. However, there was a movement amongst geologists to also include ongoing geological time in the Neogene, by dividing the Cenozoic Era into three periods instead of seven epochs, the periods are more closely comparable to the duration of periods in the Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras. The International Commission on Stratigraphy once proposed that the Quaternary be considered a sub-era of the Neogene, with a date of 2.58 Ma. In the 2004 proposal of the ICS, the Neogene would have consisted of the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, thus the Neogene Period ends bounding the succeeding Quaternary Period at 2.58 Mya. Digital Atlas of Neogene Life for the Southeastern United States — by San Jose State University via Web Archive
13.
Paleocene
–
The Paleocene or Palaeocene, the old recent, is a geologic epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 million years ago. It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era, as with many geologic periods, the strata that define the epochs beginning and end are well identified, but the exact ages remain uncertain. The Paleocene Epoch brackets two major events in Earths history and it started with the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous, known as the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. This was a marked by the demise of non-avian dinosaurs, giant marine reptiles and much other fauna. The die-off of the dinosaurs left unfilled ecological niches worldwide, the Paleocene ended with the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, a geologically brief interval characterized by extreme changes in climate and carbon cycling. The name Paleocene comes from Ancient Greek and refers to the old new fauna that arose during the epoch. The K–Pg boundary that marks the separation between Cretaceous and Paleocene is visible in the record of much of the Earth by a discontinuity in the fossil fauna. There is also evidence of abrupt changes in flora and fauna. There is some evidence that a substantial but very short-lived climatic change may have happened in the early decades of the Paleocene. The end of the Paleocene was also marked by a time of major change, the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum upset oceanic and atmospheric circulation and led to the extinction of numerous deep-sea benthic foraminifera and a major turnover in mammals on land. The Paleocene is divided into three stages, the Danian, the Selandian and the Thanetian, as shown in the table above, additionally, the Paleocene is divided into six Mammal Paleogene zones. The early Paleocene was cooler and dryer than the preceding Cretaceous, in many ways, the Paleocene continued processes that had begun during the late Cretaceous Period. During the Paleocene, the continued to drift toward their present positions. The Laramide orogeny of the late Cretaceous continued to uplift the Rocky Mountains in the American west, africa was heading north towards Europe, slowly closing the Tethys Ocean, and India began its migration to Asia that would lead to a tectonic collision and the formation of the Himalayas. The inland seas in North America and Europe had receded by the beginning of the Paleocene, making way for new land-based flora, warm seas circulated throughout the world, including the poles. The earliest Paleocene featured a low diversity and abundance of marine life, tropical conditions gave rise to abundant marine life, including coral reefs. With the demise of marine reptiles at the end of the Cretaceous, at the end of the Cretaceous, the ammonites and many species of foraminifera became extinct. Marine fauna also came to resemble modern fauna, with only the marine mammals, terrestrial Paleocene strata immediately overlying the K–Pg boundary is in places marked by a fern spike, a bed especially rich in fern fossils
14.
Conservation status
–
The conservation status of a group of organisms indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Various systems of conservation status exist and are in use at international, multi-country, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the best known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system. Also included are species that have gone extinct since 500 AD, when discussing the IUCN Red List, the official term threatened is a grouping of three categories, critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category, Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora aims to ensure that trade in specimens of wild animals. Many countries require CITES permits when importing plants and animals listed on CITES, in the European Union, the Birds and Habitats Directives are the legal instruments that evaluate the conservation status within the EU of species and habitats. NatureServe conservation status focuses on Latin America, United States, Canada, and it has been developed by scientists from NatureServe, The Nature Conservancy, and the network of natural heritage programs and data centers. It is increasingly integrated with the IUCN Red List system and its categories for species include, presumed extinct, possibly extinct, critically imperiled, imperiled, vulnerable, apparently secure, and secure. The system also allows ambiguous or uncertain ranks including inexact numeric ranks, NatureServe adds a qualifier for captive or cultivated only, which has a similar meaning to the IUCN Red List extinct in the wild status. The Red Data Book of the Russian Federation is used within the Russian Federation, in Australia, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 describes lists of threatened species, ecological communities and threatening processes. The categories resemble those of the 1994 IUCN Red List Categories & Criteria, prior to the EPBC Act, a simpler classification system was used by the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992. Some state and territory governments also have their own systems for conservation status, in Belgium, the Flemish Research Institute for Nature and Forest publishes an online set of more than 150 nature indicators in Dutch. In Canada, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is a group of experts that assesses and designates which wild species are in danger of disappearing from Canada. Under the Species at Risk Act, it is up to the federal government, in China, the State, provinces and some counties have determined their key protected wildlife species. There is the China red data book, in Finland, a large number of species are protected under the Nature Conservation Act, and through the EU Habitats Directive and EU Birds Directive. In Germany, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation publishes red lists of endangered species, india has the Wild Life Protection Act,1972, Amended 2003 and the Biological Diversity Act,2002. In Japan, the Ministry of Environment publishes a Threatened Wildlife of Japan Red Data Book, in the Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality publishes a list of threatened species, and conservation is enforced by the Nature Conservation Act 1998. Species are also protected through the Wild Birds and Habitats Directives, in New Zealand, the Department of Conservation publishes the New Zealand Threat Classification System lists
15.
Least Concern
–
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
16.
IUCN Red List
–
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, founded in 1964, is the worlds most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the main authority on the conservation status of species. A series of Regional Red Lists are produced by countries or organizations, the IUCN Red List is set upon precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world, the aim is to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to try to reduce species extinction. Major species assessors include BirdLife International, the Institute of Zoology, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, collectively, assessments by these organizations and groups account for nearly half the species on the Red List. The IUCN aims to have the category of every species re-evaluated every five years if possible, the 1964 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants used the older pre-criteria Red List assessment system. Plants listed may not, therefore, appear in the current Red List, IUCN advise that is best to check both the online Red List and the 1997 plants Red List publication. The 2006 Red List, released on 4 May 2006 evaluated 40,168 species as a whole, plus an additional 2,160 subspecies, varieties, aquatic stocks, on 12 September 2007, the World Conservation Union released the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Russ Mittermeier, chief of Swiss-based IUCNs Primate Specialist Group, stated that 16,306 species are endangered with extinction,188 more than in 2006, the Red List includes the Sumatran orangutan in the Critically Endangered category and the Bornean orangutan in the Endangered category. The study shows at least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth are known to be threatened with extinction, and 836 are listed as Data Deficient. The Red List of 2012 was released 19 July 2012 at Rio+20 Earth Summit, nearly 2,000 species were added, the IUCN assessed a total of 63,837 species which revealed 19,817 are threatened with extinction. With 3,947 described as endangered and 5,766 as endangered. At threat are 41% of amphibian species, 33% of reef-building corals, 30% of conifers, 25% of mammals, the IUCN Red List has listed 132 species of plants and animals from India as Critically Endangered. Extinct – No known individuals remaining, extinct in the wild – Known only to survive in captivity, or as a naturalized population outside its historic range. Critically endangered – Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild, Endangered – High risk of extinction in the wild. Vulnerable – High risk of endangerment in the wild, near threatened – Likely to become endangered in the near future. Does not qualify for a more at-risk category, widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category. Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction, Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria
17.
Taxonomy (biology)
–
Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
18.
Animal
–
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
19.
Chordate
–
Chordates are deuterostomes, as during the embryo development stage the anus forms before the mouth. They are also bilaterally symmetric coelomates, in the case of vertebrate chordates, the notochord is usually replaced by a vertebral column during development, and they may have body plans organized via segmentation. There are also additional extinct taxa, the Vertebrata are sometimes considered as a subgroup of the clade Craniata, consisting of chordates with a skull, the Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, the worlds largest and fastest animals, the blue whale and peregrine falcon respectively, are chordates, as are humans. Fossil chordates are known from at least as early as the Cambrian explosion, Hemichordata, which includes the acorn worms, has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but it now is usually treated as a separate phylum. The Hemichordata, along with the Echinodermata, form the Ambulacraria, the Chordata and Ambulacraria form the superphylum Deuterostomia, composed of the deuterostomes. Attempts to work out the relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. All of the earliest chordate fossils have found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial and it has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce family trees shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic. While this has been known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux. Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson, it was already in prevalent use by 1880, ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization, among the vertebrate sub-group of chordates the notochord develops into the spine, and in wholly aquatic species this helps the animal to swim by flexing its tail. In fish and other vertebrates, this develops into the spinal cord, the pharynx is the part of the throat immediately behind the mouth. In fish, the slits are modified to form gills, a muscular tail that extends backwards behind the anus. This is a groove in the wall of the pharynx. In filter-feeding species it produces mucus to gather food particles, which helps in transporting food to the esophagus and it also stores iodine, and may be a precursor of the vertebrate thyroid gland
20.
Bird
–
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
21.
Parrot
–
Parrots, also known as psittacines /ˈsɪtəsaɪnz/, are birds of the roughly 393 species in 92 genera that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies, the Psittacoidea, the Cacatuoidea, and the Strigopoidea, Parrots have a generally pantropical distribution with several species inhabiting temperate regions in the Southern Hemisphere, as well. The greatest diversity of parrots is in South America and Australasia, characteristic features of parrots include a strong, curved bill, an upright stance, strong legs, and clawed zygodactyl feet. Many parrots are vividly coloured, and some are multi-coloured, most parrots exhibit little or no sexual dimorphism in the visual spectrum. They form the most variably sized bird order in terms of length, the most important components of most parrots diets are seeds, nuts, fruit, buds, and other plant material. A few species sometimes eat animals and carrion, while the lories and lorikeets are specialised for feeding on floral nectar, almost all parrots nest in tree hollows, and lay white eggs from which hatch altricial young. Parrots, along with ravens, crows, jays, and magpies, are among the most intelligent birds, some parrots are intelligent and talk at the level of a four-to-five year old human. Measures taken to conserve the habitats of some high-profile charismatic species have protected many of the less charismatic species living in the same ecosystems. Psittaciform diversity in South America and Australasia suggests that the order may have evolved in Gondwana, molecular studies suggest that parrots evolved approximately 59 million years ago in Gondwana. The three major clades of Neotropical parrots originated about 50 Mya, likewise, the earliest parrots do not have the specialised crushing bills of modern species. If so, they probably had not evolved their morphological autapomorphies yet, the combined evidence supported the hypothesis of Psittaciformes being near passerines, i. e. the mostly land-living birds that emerged in close proximity to the K-Pg extinction. Europe is the origin of the first undeniable parrot fossils, which date from about 50 Mya, the climate there and then was tropical, consistent with the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. Initially, a neoavian named Mopsitta tanta, uncovered in Denmarks Early Eocene Fur Formation and dated to 54 Mya, was assigned to the Psittaciformes, fossils assignable to Psittaciformes date from slightly later in the Eocene, starting around 50 Mya. Several fairly complete skeletons of birds have been found in England. The fossil record—mainly from Europe—consists of bones clearly recognisable as belonging to parrots of modern type, at this point, however, is found the first unambiguous parrot fossil, an upper jaw that is indistinguishable from that of modern cockatoos. The Psittaciformes comprise three lineages, Strigopoidea, Psittacoidea and Cacatuoidea. Colourful feathers with high levels of psittacofulvin resist the feather-degrading bacterium Bacillus licheniformis better than white ones, lorikeets were previously regarded as a third family, Loriidae, but are now considered a tribe within the subfamily Lorinae, family Cacatuoidea. The two other tribes in the subfamily are the closely related fig parrots and budgerigar, the order Psittaciformes consists of roughly 393 species belonging to 92 genera
22.
John Gould
–
John Gould FRS was an English ornithologist and bird artist. He has been considered the father of study in Australia. His identification of the birds now nicknamed Darwins finches played a role in the inception of Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection, Goulds work is referenced in Charles Darwins book, On the Origin of Species. Gould was born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, the first son of a gardener and he and the boy probably had a scanty education. Shortly afterwards his father obtained a position on an estate near Guildford, Surrey and he was for some time under the care of J. T. Aiton, of the Royal Gardens of Windsor. The young Gould started training as a gardener, being employed under his father at Windsor from 1818 to 1824 and he became an expert in the art of taxidermy. In 1824 he set himself up in business in London as a taxidermist, Goulds position brought him into contact with the countrys leading naturalists. This meant that he was often the first to see new collections of birds given to the Zoological Society of London, in 1830 a collection of birds arrived from the Himalayas, many not previously described. Gould published these birds in A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains, the text was by Nicholas Aylward Vigors and the illustrations were lithographed by Goulds wife Elizabeth, daughter of Nicholas Coxen, of Kent. Most of Goulds work were rough sketches on paper from which artists created the lithographic plates. This work was followed by four more in the seven years. It was completed in 1837, Gould wrote the text, and his clerk, Edwin Prince, some of the illustrations were made by Edward Lear as part of his Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae in 1832. Lear, however, was in difficulty, and he sold the entire set of lithographs to Gould. The books were published in a large size, imperial folio. Eventually 41 of these volumes were published, with about 3000 plates and they appeared in parts at £3 3s. A number, subscribed for in advance, and in spite of the expense of preparing the plates, Gould succeeded in making his ventures pay. This was a period for Gould who also published Icones Avium in two parts containing 18 leaves of bird studies on 54 cm plates as a supplement to his previous works. No further monographs were published as in 1838 he and his moved to Australia to work on the Birds of Australia
23.
Binomial nomenclature
–
Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
24.
George Shaw
–
George Kearsley Shaw was an English botanist and zoologist. Shaw was born at Bierton, Buckinghamshire, and was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford and he took up the profession of medical practitioner. In 1786 he became the assistant lecturer in botany at Oxford University and he was a co-founder of the Linnean Society in 1788, and became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1789. In 1791 Shaw became assistant keeper of the history department at the British Museum. He found that most of the items donated to the museum by Hans Sloane were in bad condition. Medical and anatomical material was sent to the museum at the Royal College of Surgeons and he was succeeded after his death by his assistant Charles Konig. Shaw published one of the first English descriptions with scientific names of several Australian animals in his Zoology of New Holland and he was among the first scientists to examine a platypus and published the first scientific description of it in The Naturalists Miscellany in 1799. In the field of herpetology he described new species of reptiles. General Zoology, or Systematic Natural History The Naturalists Miscellany, Or, Coloured Figures Of Natural Objects, Drawn, the standard botanical author abbreviation G. Shaw is applied to species he described
25.
Australia
–
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
26.
Crest (feathers)
–
The crest is a prominent feature exhibited by several bird and other dinosaur species on their heads. The crest is made up of feathers, a long rachis with barbs on either side. These are plumulaceous feathers, meaning that they are soft and bendable, in birds, these semiplumes are common along the head, neck, and upper back, and may be used for buoyancy and sensing vibrations. Crests on birds are used for display purposes. Cockatoos and cockatiels possess crests which may be raised or lowered at will, crests can be recumbent or recursive, depending on the species. The recumbent crest has feathers that are straight and lie down flat on the head until the bird fans them out to where they stand up. The white cockatoo, for example, possesses a recumbent crest, many recursive crests also feature brilliant colors. The sulphur-crested cockatoo has a recursive crest, and the Major Mitchells cockatoo possesses a prominent recursive crest, some birds, like the galah, or rose-breasted cockatoo, have modified crests, which has features of both recumbent and recursive types. Many domesticated bird species have crest feathers and these structures are known to have two origins, selective breeding or mutations. Crest feathers in birds include a wide range of variations in form across species. The underlying molecular and genetic mechanisms that are responsible for crest feather formation in domesticated species are not well-understood. As such, crest feathers are widely studied in research and other related biological disciplines
27.
Dog
–
The domestic dog is a member of genus Canis that forms part of the wolf-like canids, and is the most widely abundant carnivore. The dog and the extant gray wolf are sister taxa, with modern wolves not closely related to the wolves that were first domesticated, the dog was the first domesticated species and has been selectively bred over millennia for various behaviors, sensory capabilities, and physical attributes. Their long association with humans has led dogs to be attuned to human behavior. Dogs vary widely in shape, size and colours, dogs perform many roles for people, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and military, companionship and, more recently, aiding handicapped individuals. This influence on society has given them the sobriquet mans best friend. The term domestic dog is used for both domesticated and feral varieties. The English word dog comes from Middle English dogge, from Old English docga, the term may possibly derive from Proto-Germanic *dukkōn, represented in Old English finger-docce. The word also shows the familiar petname diminutive -ga also seen in frogga frog, picga pig, stagga stag, wicga beetle, worm, the term dog may ultimately derive from the earliest layer of Proto-Indo-European vocabulary. In 14th-century England, hound was the word for all domestic canines, and dog referred to a subtype of hound. It is believed this dog type was so common, it became the prototype of the category hound. By the 16th century, dog had become the general word, the word hound is ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *kwon-, dog. This semantic shift may be compared with in German, where the corresponding words Dogge, a male canine is referred to as a dog, while a female is called a bitch. The father of a litter is called the sire, and the mother is called the dam, the process of birth is whelping, from the Old English word hwelp, the modern English word whelp is an alternate term for puppy. A litter refers to the offspring at one birth which are called puppies or pups from the French poupée, doll. The term dog typically is applied both to the species as a whole, and any male member of the same. An adult female is a bitch, in some countries, especially in North America, dog is used instead due to the vulgar connotation of bitch. An adult male capable of reproduction is a stud, an adult female capable of reproduction is a brood bitch, or brood mother. Immature males or females are pups or puppies, a group of pups from the same gestation period is a litter
28.
Cat
–
The domestic cat is a small, typically furry, carnivorous mammal. They are often called house cats when kept as pets or simply cats when there is no need to distinguish them from other felids. Cats are often valued by humans for companionship and for their ability to hunt vermin, there are more than 70 cat breeds, though different associations proclaim different numbers according to their standards. Cats are similar in anatomy to the felids, with a strong flexible body, quick reflexes, sharp retractable claws. Cat senses fit a crepuscular and predatory ecological niche, cats can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by mice and other small animals. They can see in near darkness, like most other mammals, cats have poorer color vision and a better sense of smell than humans. Cats, despite being solitary hunters, are a species and cat communication includes the use of a variety of vocalizations. Cats have a high breeding rate, under controlled breeding, they can be bred and shown as registered pedigree pets, a hobby known as cat fancy. Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by neutering, as well as the abandonment of former household pets, has resulted in numbers of feral cats worldwide. In certain areas outside cats native range, this has contributed, along with destruction and other factors. Cats have been known to extirpate a bird species within specific regions, a genetic study in 2007 concluded that domestic cats are descended from Near Eastern wildcats, having diverged around 8,000 BC in the Middle East. As of a 2007 study, cats are the second most popular pet in the US by number of pets owned, in a 2010 study they were ranked the third most popular pet in the UK, after fish and dogs, with around 8 million being owned. The domestic cat is believed to have evolved from the Near Eastern wildcat, the felids are a rapidly evolving family of mammals that share a common ancestor only 10–15 million years ago and include lions, tigers, cougars and many others. Within this family, domestic cats are part of the genus Felis, members of the genus are found worldwide and include the jungle cat of southeast Asia, European wildcat, African wildcat, the Chinese mountain cat, and the Arabian sand cat, among others. The domestic cat was first classified as Felis catus by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae published in 1758, because of modern phylogenetics, domestic cats are usually regarded as another subspecies of the wildcat, F. silvestris. This has resulted in mixed usage of the terms, as the cat can be called by its subspecies name. Wildcats have also referred to as various subspecies of F. catus, but in 2003. The most common name in use for the cat remains F. catus
29.
Lories and lorikeets
–
Lories and lorikeets are small to medium-sized arboreal parrots characterized by their specialized brush-tipped tongues for feeding on nectar of various blossoms and soft fruits, preferably berries. The species form a group within the parrot family Psittacidae. The usage of the terms lory and lorikeet is subjective, like the usage of parrot, species with longer tapering tails are generally referred to as lorikeets, while species with short blunt tails are generally referred to as lories. Traditionally, lories and lorikeets have either been classified as the subfamily, Loriinae, or as a family on their own, Loriidae, neither traditional view is confirmed by molecular studies. Those studies show that the lories and lorikeets form a group, closely related to the budgerigar. Two main groups are recognized within the lories and lorikeets, the first consist of the genus Charmosyna and the closely related Pacific Ocean genera Phigys and Vini. All remaining genera, except Oreopsittacus are in the second group, the position of Oreopsittacus is unknown, although one study suggests it could be a third group next to the other two. They can feed from the flowers of about 5,000 species of plants, the tip of their tongues have tufts of papillae, which collect nectar and pollen. The multi-coloured rainbow lorikeet was one of the species of parrots appearing in the first edition of The Parrots of the World, then and now, lories and lorikeets are described as some of the most beautiful species of parrot. In the wild, lorikeets feed on nectar and pollen from plants, occasionally they have been observed feeding on meat. It is now one of the 50 rarest birds in the world, the blue lorikeet is classified as vulnerable. The introduction of European rats to the small island habitats of birds is a major cause of their endangerment. Various conservation efforts have made to relocate some of these birds to locations free of predation. A Lory famously appears in Chapter III of Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland, alice argues with the Lory about its age. ARKive - images and movies of the blue lorikeet/tahitian lory Texts on Wikisource, Ripley, George, Dana, Charles A. eds
30.
Parakeet
–
A parakeet is any one of a large number of small to medium-sized species of parrot, in multiple genera, that generally have long tail feathers. Older spellings still sometimes encountered are paroquet or paraquet, the name parakeet is derived from the French perroquet. It is however a false cognate as perroquet means parrot in French, the Australian budgerigar, also known as budgie or English parakeet or keet, Melopsittacus undulatus, is probably the most common parakeet. It was first described by zoologists in 1891 and it is the most popular species of parakeet kept as a pet in North America and Europe. The term grass parakeet refers to a number of small Australian parakeets native to grasslands such as the Neophema genus. The Australian rosellas are also parakeets, many of the smaller, long-tailed species of lories may be referred to as lorikeets. The vernacular name ringnecked parakeet refers to a species of the Psittacula genus native to Africa and Asia that is popular as a pet and has become feral in many cities outside its natural range. In aviculture, the term conure is used for small to medium-sized parakeets of the genera Aratinga, Pyrrhura, and a few genera of the tribe Arini. As they are not all from one genus, taxonomists tend to avoid the term, other South American species commonly called parakeets include the genus Brotogeris parakeets, the monk parakeet, and lineolated parakeets, although lineolateds have short tails. A larger species may be referred to as parrot or parakeet interchangeably, for example, Alexandrine parrot and Alexandrine parakeet are two common names for the same species, Psittacula eupatria, which is one of the largest species normally referred to as a parakeet. Many different species of parakeets are bred and sold commercially as pets, budgerigars are great companions for any age and can be easily trained if bonded very closely with pet parent. Parakeets often breed more readily in groups, however, there can be conflicts between breeding pairs and individuals especially if space is limited, parakeets produce about six to eight eggs if the parakeet successfully lays eggs
31.
Fort Worth Zoo
–
The Fort Worth Zoo is a zoo in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, that was founded in 1909 with one lion, two bear cubs, an alligator, a coyote, a peacock and a few rabbits. The Fort Worth Zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos, when the Fort Worth Zoo opened in 1909, it had one African lion, two bear cubs, an alligator, a coyote, a peacock and a few rabbits. From its opening until 1991, the zoo was owned and operated by the City of Fort Worth, although the city collected money from the community to purchase new animals, the Zoological society was formed in 1939 to help raise additional funds. Monkey Island was built in 1937 with funds from the Works Progress Administration, in 1949, this exhibit became a sea lion pool, and by 1970, it had been converted to house small South American mammals. Storks and cranes were housed in this exhibit in the 1980s and it is currently being used as the Parrot Paradise exhibit. The Herpetarium was completed in the summer of 1960 and was an indoor exhibit measuring 117 by 55 feet, boasting the largest exhibit of reptiles and amphibians in the world, the facility also included a zoo hospital and quarantine room. Innovative exhibits such as a display of giant snakes with curved non-reflective glass were especially popular attractions, the main public area included five exhibit halls covering various geographic regions and another area that was devoted exclusively to amphibians. There were also special exhibits teaching the identification of native venomous snakes, in October 1991, the Fort Worth Zoological Association assumed management of the zoo under a contract with the city. In 1992, the zoo opened the first two of a series of exhibits, World of Primates and Asian Falls and this decade also saw the closing of the original Herpetarium in 2009 to be replaced by the Museum of Living Art in 2010. Penguins This indoor exhibit is home to a colony of African penguins and southern rockhopper penguins, and includes a beach, World of Primates Opened in 1992, World of Primates is a 2. 5-acre exhibit that includes both indoor and outdoor habitats. The atrium is a tropical rainforest in which visitors can observe a group of bonobos or black-and-white colobus monkeys, once through the atrium, visitors take a winding boardwalk past other primates including a second gorilla group, orangutans, mandrills, and white-cheeked gibbons. Asian Falls Asian Falls was opened in 1992, and includes the Asian elephant complex, Raptor Canyon Raptor canyon is an aviary that opened in 1993 and that is home to crowned eagles, Andean condor, a milky eagle owl, harpy eagles, and bateleur eagles. Cheetahs The cheetah exhibit was opened in 1994 and is home to the zoos cheetahs, two other enclosures in this exhibit are home to bongos and red river hogs. Flamingo Bay Flamingo Bay is home to the 70 or so flamingos at the zoo, the exhibit includes three species of flamingo, including American flamingo, Chilean flamingos, and lesser flamingos, with the latter two having been successfully bred in captivity here. Meerkat Mounds This exhibit was opened in 1997 and features a colony of the extremely social meerkats. Visitors can view the meerkats through a wall, a bubble window in one of the outer walls. Australian Outback/Great Barrier Reef This exhibit has been renovated and now includes the Great Barrier Reef exhibit in addition to being home to the zoos red kangaroos and wallabies. The Great Barrier Reef exhibit is a collection of Australian aquatic animals in three tanks containing more than 10,000 US gallons of water
32.
Gamilaraay language
–
The Gamilaraay or Kamilaroi language is a Pama–Nyungan language of the Wiradhuric subgroup found mostly in south-east Australia. It was the language of the Kamilaroi people, but is now moribund—according to Ethnologue, there were only 35 speakers left in 2006, all mixing Gamilaraay. However, there are thousands of people of mixed descent both within the populations as well as immigrant populations, who identify themselves as Kamilaroi. Kamilaroi is also taught in some Australian schools, the name Gamilaraay means gamil-having, gamil being the word for no. Other dialects and languages are similarly named after their respective words for no. yaama means hello and they told him that the country there was Coomery Roy and more further a great way, meaning to the north-west, over the Liverpool Ranges. This is probably the first record of the name, a basic wordlist collected by Major Thomas Mitchell in February,1832 is the earliest written record of Gamilaraay. The Presbyterian missionary William Ridley studied the language from 1852 to 1856, initially, /wu/ and /ji/ may be simplified to and. All long vowels in a word get equal stress, if there are no long vowels, stress falls on the first syllable. Secondary stress falls on short vowels which are two syllables to the right or to the left of a stressed syllable, several loanwords have entered Australian English from Gamilaraay, including, Austin, Peter. A Reference Dictionary of Gamilaraay, northern New South Wales, dixon, R. M. W. Australian Languages, Their Nature and Development. Mathews, R. H. Languages of the Kamilaroi and Other Aboriginal Tribes of New South Wales, the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, on the Kamilaroi Tribe of Australians and Their Dialect. Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, Vol.4. The Euahlayi Tribe, A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia, http, //yuwaalaraay. org/ has information about recent Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay language development and links to numerous language resources
33.
Cockatoo
–
A cockatoo is a parrot that is any of the 21 species belonging to the bird family Cacatuidae, the only family in the superfamily Cacatuoidea. Along with the Psittacoidea and the Strigopoidea, they make up the order Psittaciformes, the family has a mainly Australasian distribution, ranging from the Philippines and the eastern Indonesian islands of Wallacea to New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Australia. Cockatoos are recognisable by the crests and curved bills. Their plumage is less colourful than that of other parrots, being mainly white, grey or black and often with coloured features in the crest. On average they are larger than other parrots, however, the cockatiel, the phylogenetic position of the cockatiel remains unresolved, other than that it is one of the earliest offshoots of the cockatoo lineage. The remaining species are in two main clades, the five large black coloured cockatoos of the genus Calyptorhynchus form one branch. Cockatoos prefer to eat seeds, tubers, corms, fruit, flowers and they often feed in large flocks, particularly when ground-feeding. Cockatoos are monogamous and nest in tree hollows, Cockatoos are popular birds in aviculture, but their needs are difficult to meet. The cockatiel is the easiest cockatoo species to maintain and is by far the most frequently kept in captivity, white cockatoos are more commonly found in captivity than black cockatoos. Illegal trade in wild-caught birds contributes to the decline of some species in the wild. The word cockatoo dates from the 17th century and is a derivation from the Indonesian name for these birds, seventeenth-century variants include cacato, cockatoon and crockadore, and cokato, cocatore and cocatoo were used in the eighteenth century. The derivation has also used for the family and generic names Cacatuidae. In Australian slang or vernacular speech, a person who is assigned to watch while others undertake clandestine or illegal activities, particularly gambling. Proprietors of small agricultural undertakings are often jocularly or slightly disparagingly referred to as cocky farmers, the cockatoos were first defined as a subfamily Cacatuinae within the parrot family Psittacidae by the English naturalist George Robert Gray in 1840, with Cacatua the first listed and type genus. This group has alternately been considered as either a full or subfamily by different authorities, the relationships among various cockatoo genera are largely resolved, although the placement of the cockatiel at the base of the cockatoos remains uncertain. The remaining species are two main clades, one consisting of the black species of the genus Calyptorhynchus while the other contains the remaining species. The remaining species are white or slightly pinkish and all belong to the genus Cacatua. The genera Eolophus, Lophochroa and Cacatua are hypomelanistic, the genus Cacatua is further subdivided into the subgenera Licmetis, commonly known as corellas, and Cacatua, referred to as white cockatoos
34.
Australian English
–
Australian English is a major variety of the English language, used throughout Australia. Although English has no status in the Constitution, Australian English is the countrys de facto official language and is the first language of the majority of the population. Australian English began to diverge from British English after the founding of the Colony of New South Wales in 1788 and was recognised as being different from British English by 1820. It arose from the intermingling of early settlers from a variety of mutually intelligible dialectal regions of the British Isles. Australian English differs from other varieties of English in vocabulary, accent, pronunciation, register, grammar, the earliest form of Australian English was first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the colony of New South Wales. This first generation of children created a new dialect that was to become the language of the nation, the Australian-born children in the new colony were exposed to a wide range of dialects from all over the British Isles, in particular from Ireland and South East England. The native-born children of the created the new dialect from the speech they heard around them. Even when new settlers arrived, this new dialect was strong enough to blunt other patterns of speech, a quarter of the convicts were Irish. Many had been arrested in Ireland, and some in Great Britain, many, if not most, of the Irish spoke Irish and either no English at all, or spoke it poorly and rarely. There were other significant populations of convicts from non-English speaking part of Britain, such as the Scottish Highlands, anthony Burgess writes that Australian English may be thought of as a kind of fossilised Cockney of the Dickensian era. According to linguist Bruce Moore, the input of the various sounds that went into constructing the Australian accent was from south-east England. Some elements of Aboriginal languages have adopted by Australian English—mainly as names for places, flora and fauna. Many such are localised, and do not form part of general Australian use, while others, such as kangaroo, boomerang, budgerigar, wallaby, other examples are cooee and hard yakka. The former is used as a call, for attracting attention. Cooee is also a distance, if hes within cooee. Hard yakka means hard work and is derived from yakka, from the Jagera/Yagara language once spoken in the Brisbane region, also of Aboriginal origin is the word bung, from the Sydney pidgin English, meaning dead, with some extension to broken or useless. Many towns or suburbs of Australia have also influenced or named after Aboriginal words. The best-known example is the capital, Canberra, named after a local word meaning meeting place
35.
Liverpool Plains
–
The Liverpool Plains are an extensive agricultural area covering about 1.2 million hectares of the north-western slopes of New South Wales in Australia. These plains are a region of prime agricultural land bounded to the east by the Great Dividing Range, to the south by the Liverpool Range, the area is drained by the Namoi River and its tributaries, the Mooki River and the Peel River. There are many depressions, across the plains, which remain as lakes for long periods after heavy rain and these plains are unusual in that many steep hills arise suddenly from the plains. Towns in the Liverpool Plains include Gunnedah, Narrabri, Quirindi, Werris Creek, smaller villages include Breeza, Carroll, Mullaley and Willow Tree. Most of the region comes under the jurisdiction of Liverpool Plains Shire Council. However substantial parts of the region form part of the Gunnedah. The Liverpool Plains were initially inhabited by Aborigines, John Oxley was the first European to visit the area while exploring the Macquarie River area in 1818. The Plains were subsequently named after the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, nowlands Gap, a pass over the Liverpool Range, was discovered by William Nowland and has been described as the gateway to the Liverpool Plains. In the early 1830s, Henry Dangar surveyed and explored the area, during the 1860s Captain Thunderbolt and two accomplices robbed inns and mail-coaches in the Liverpool Plains district. The Liverpool Plains area is typical of temperate regions in south-east Australia. It has an elevation of approximately 270 metres above sea level, most of the 620 mm of rainfall the area experiences each year is high intensity and occurs in the warmer months, from October through March. Rivers run from the Liverpool Ranges in the south-east to the Namoi River valley in the north-east, soils in the area are distinctly black, have a high fertility rating and store a lot of water. They are well suited to growing crops such as wheat. Agricultural settlement of the Liverpool Plains started in the late 1820s after the pass was discovered, the major land uses of the Liverpool Plains are cropping and grazing. The main crops include barley, chickpeas, faba beans, sorghum, sunflowers, soybeans, maize, wheat and cotton while grazing comprises beef cattle, the more fertile alluvial soils have been cleared, while larger areas of remnant vegetation remain on poorer sandy and ridgetop soils. The Liverpool Plains are currently under threat by the NSW & Australian Governments pushing approval for the Shenhua Watermark coal mine proposed by Chinese mining giant Shenhua Group. The mine was given approval 15 out of a 17-stage approval process by Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt on 9 July 2015, agriculture in Australia Bibliography Cameron, John I. Chapter 2, Case Study 1, Cropping on the Northern Slopes of New South Wales, recovering Ground, A Case Study Approach to Ecologically Sustainable Rural Land Management
36.
New South Wales
–
New South Wales is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south and it has a coast line with the Tasman Sea on its east side. The Australian Capital Territory is an enclave within the state, New South Wales state capital is Sydney, which is also Australias most populous city. In March 2014, the population of New South Wales was 7.5 million. Just under two-thirds of the population,4.67 million. Inhabitants of New South Wales are referred to as New South Welshmen, the Colony of New South Wales was founded as a penal colony in 1788. It originally comprised a more than half of the Australian mainland with its western boundary set at 129th meridian east in 1825, in addition, the colony also included the island territories of New Zealand, Van Diemens Land, Lord Howe Island, and Norfolk Island. During the 19th century, most of the area was detached to form separate British colonies that eventually became New Zealand. However, the Swan River Colony has never administered as part of New South Wales. Lord Howe Island remains part of New South Wales, while Norfolk Island has become a federal Territory, as have the now known as the Australian Capital Territory. The prior inhabitants of New South Wales were the Aboriginal tribes who arrived in Australia about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, before European settlement there were an estimated 250,000 Aboriginal people in the region. The Wodi Wodi people are the custodians of the Illawarra region of South Sydney. The Bundjalung people are the custodians of parts of the northern coastal areas. The European discovery of New South Wales was made by Captain James Cook during his 1770 survey along the eastern coast of the Dutch-named continent of New Holland. In his original journal covering the survey, in triplicate to satisfy Admiralty Orders, Cook first named the land New Wales, however, in the copy held by the Admiralty, he revised the wording to New South Wales. After years of chaos and anarchy after the overthrow of Governor William Bligh, macquaries legacy is still evident today. During the 19th century, large areas were separated to form the British colonies of Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria. Responsible government was granted to the New South Wales colony in 1855, following the Treaty of Waitangi, William Hobson declared British sovereignty over New Zealand in 1840
37.
Ancient Greek
–
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
38.
Lovebird
–
A lovebird is one of nine species of the genus Agapornis. They are a social and affectionate small parrot, eight species are native to the African continent, and the grey-headed lovebird is native to Madagascar. Their name comes from the strong, monogamous pair bonding. Lovebirds live in flocks and eat fruit, vegetables, grasses. Black-winged lovebirds also eat insects and figs, and the black-collared lovebirds have a dietary requirement for native figs. Some species are kept as pets, and several color mutations were selectively bred in aviculture and their average lifespan is 10 to 15 years. Lovebirds are 13 to 17 cm in length and 40 to 60 g in weight and they are among the smallest parrots, characterized by a stocky build, a short blunt tail, and a relatively large, sharp beak. Wildtype lovebirds are green with a variety of colors on their upper body. The Fischers lovebird, black-cheeked lovebird, and the masked lovebird have a prominent white ring around their eyes, many color mutant varieties have been produced by selective breeding of the species that are popular in aviculture. The lovebird genus comprises nine species of which five are monotypic, eight of them are native in the mainland of Africa and the Madagascar lovebird is native to Madagascar. In the wild the different species are separated geographically, species and subspecies, Rosy-faced lovebird, Agapornis roseicollis, —or peach-faced lovebird Agapornis roseicollis catumbella, B. P. L. The peach-faced lovebird tucks nesting material in the feathers of its rump, once the lovebirds start constructing their nest, mating will follow. During this time, the lovebirds will mate repeatedly, the female will spend hours inside her nesting box before eggs are laid. Once the first egg is laid, a new egg will follow every day until the clutch is complete. Even without a nest or a male, lovebirds sometimes produce eggs, feral populations of Fischers lovebirds and masked lovebirds live in cities of East Africa. Also present there are hybrids between these two species. The hybrid has reddish-brown on head and has orange on upper chest, feral lovebirds are also present in warmer cities of the United States. These include Phoenix, Arizona, and Austin, Texas, several species are found as feral populations in San Diego, California
39.
Neophema
–
The genus Neophema is an Australian genus with six or seven species. They are small, basically dull green parrots differentiated by patches of other colours, the genus has some sexual dichromatism, with males having brighter hues. Sometimes the broad-tailed parrots are considered a subfamily, in this case, Neophema and Bourkes parrot are united in the tribe Neophemini. MtDNA sequence data suggests that the former may be correct, rather, it appears, the group would need to include more closely related forms, such as the budgerigar and the Pezoporus ground-parrots. However, while Joseph et al. also found Neophema to be related both Bourkes parrot and ground-parrots and form part of the tribe Pezoporini, theyre not related to the budgerigar. The scarlet-chested parrot, turquoise parrot and elegant parrot are all commonly raised and bred in captivity with a number of colour forms arising. The members of this genus are not altogether easy to keep, being tender birds that may die without apparent cause and this has hampered captive propagation efforts, e. g. in the case of the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot. They are certainly not beginners birds and will not thrive if they are not provided with a spacious aviary where a small flock can be kept in company of a few other small. It is possible to keep a pair or a bird in a cage. Trade in wild-caught specimens is strongly restricted, in any case and it is usually impossible, even for expert aviculturalists, to keep wild-caught birds alive for more than a few months. Captive-bred birds of species are available, and these are far more hardy. Matioli, S. R. Burke, T. & Wajntal, A. Parrot evolution and paleogeographical events, molecular Biology and Evolution 15, 544-551. PDF fulltext Juniper & Parr Parrots, A Guide to Parrots of the World, ISBN 0-300-07453-0
40.
Phylogenetics
–
In biology, phylogenetics /ˌfaɪloʊdʒəˈnɛtɪks, -lə-/ is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among individuals or groups of organisms. These relationships are discovered through phylogenetic inference methods that evaluate observed heritable traits, the result of these analyses is a phylogeny – a diagrammatic hypothesis about the history of the evolutionary relationships of a group of organisms. The tips of a tree can be living organisms or fossils. Phylogenetic analyses have become central to understanding biodiversity, evolution, ecology, taxonomy is the classification, identification and naming of organisms. It is usually richly informed by phylogenetics, but remains a methodologically and logically distinct discipline, usual methods of phylogenetic inference involve computational approaches implementing the optimality criteria and methods of parsimony, maximum likelihood, and MCMC-based Bayesian inference. All these depend upon an implicit or explicit mathematical model describing the evolution of characters observed, prior to 1990, phylogenetic inferences were generally presented as narrative scenarios. Such methods are often ambiguous and lack explicit criteria for evaluating alternative hypotheses, the term phylogeny derives from the German Phylogenie, introduced by Haeckel in 1866, and the Darwinian approach to classification became known as the phyletic approach. During the late 19th century, Ernst Haeckels recapitulation theory, or biogenetic fundamental law, was widely accepted, but this theory has long been rejected. O. See, Huerta-Cepas, Jaime, Dopazo, Joaquín, Gabaldón, ETE, A python Environment for Tree Exploration. PhylomeDB, A public database hosting thousands of gene phylogenies ranging many different species, See, Huerta-Cepas, J. Capella-Gutierrez, S. Pryszcz, L. P. Denisov, I. Kormes, D. Marcet-Houben, M. Gabaldón, T. PhylomeDB v3.0, An expanding repository of genome-wide collections of trees, alignments, lents, N. H. Cifuentes, O. E. Carpi, A. Teaching the Process of Molecular Phylogeny and Systematics, A Multi-Part Inquiry-Based Exercise
Frequent occurrence
Occasional occurrence
. PMID 18653733.
The dictionary definition of budgerigar at Wiktionary
