1.
Eocene
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The Eocene Epoch, lasting from 56 to 33.9 million years ago, is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope 12C. As with other periods, the strata that define the start and end of the epoch are well identified. The name Eocene comes from the Ancient Greek ἠώς and καινός, the Eocene epoch is conventionally divided into early, middle, and late subdivisions. The corresponding rocks are referred to as lower, middle, the Ypresian stage constitutes the lower, the Priabonian stage the upper, and the Lutetian and Bartonian stages are united as the middle Eocene. The Eocene Epoch contained a variety of different climate conditions that includes the warmest climate in the Cenozoic Era. During this period of time, little to no ice was present on Earth with a difference in temperature from the equator to the poles. Following the maximum was a descent into an icehouse climate from the Eocene Optimum to the Eocene-Oligocene transition at 34 million years ago. During this decrease ice began to reappear at the poles, greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide and methane, played a significant role during the Eocene in controlling the surface temperature. For the early Eocene there is discussion on how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere. This is due to numerous proxies representing different atmospheric carbon dioxide content, for contrast, today the carbon dioxide levels are at 400 ppm or 0. 04%. At about the beginning of the Eocene Epoch the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere more or less doubled. During the early Eocene, methane was another gas that had a drastic effect on the climate. In comparison to carbon dioxide, methane has much effect on temperature as methane is ~34 times more effective per molecule than carbon dioxide on a 100-year scale. Most of the methane released to the atmosphere during this period of time would have been from wetlands, swamps, the atmospheric methane concentration today is 0. 000179% or 1.79 ppmv. Due to the climate and sea level rise associated with the early Eocene, more wetlands, more forests. Comparing the early Eocene production of methane to current levels of atmospheric methane, biogenic production of methane produces carbon dioxide and water vapor along with the methane, as well as yielding infrared radiation
2.
Precambrian
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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
3.
Cambrian
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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
4.
Ordovician
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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
5.
Silurian
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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
6.
Devonian
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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
7.
Carboniferous
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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
8.
Permian
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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
9.
Triassic
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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
10.
Jurassic
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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
11.
Cretaceous
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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
12.
Paleogene
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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
13.
Neogene
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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
14.
Dromedary
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The dromedary, also called the Arabian camel, is a large, even-toed ungulate with one hump on its back. The dromedary is the smallest of the three species of camel, adult males stand 1. 8–2 m at the shoulder, while females are 1. 7–1.9 m tall, males typically weigh between 400 and 600 kg, and females weigh between 300 and 540 kg. The species distinctive features include its long, curved neck, narrow chest, a single hump, the coat is generally a shade of brown. The hump,20 cm tall or more, is made of fat bound together by fibrous tissue, dromedaries are mainly active during daylight hours. They form herds of about 20 individuals, which are led by a dominant male. This camel feeds on foliage and desert vegetation, several adaptations, such as the ability to tolerate losing more than 30% of its water content. Mating occurs annually and peaks in the season, females bear a single calf after a gestation of 15 months. The dromedary has not occurred naturally in the wild for nearly 2,000 years and it was probably first domesticated in Somalia or the Arabian Peninsula about 4,000 years ago. In the wild, the dromedary inhabited arid regions, including the Sahara Desert, the domesticated dromedary is generally found in the semi-arid to arid regions of the Old World, mainly in Africa, and a significant feral population occurs in Australia. Products of the dromedary, including its meat and milk, support several north Arabian tribes, it is commonly used for riding. The common name comes from the Old French dromedaire or the Late Latin dromedarius. These originated from the Greek word dromas, δρομάς, meaning running or runner, used in Greek in the combination δρομάς κάμηλος, literally running camel, the first recorded use in English of the name dromedary occurred in the 14th century. The dromedary possibly originated in Arabia and is sometimes referred to as the Arabian camel. The dromedary shares the genus Camelus with the Bactrian camel and the wild Bactrian camel, the dromedary belongs to the family Camelidae. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to describe the species of Camelus and he named two species in his History of Animals, the one-humped Arabian camel and the two-humped Bactrian camel. The dromedary was given its current binomial name Camelus dromedarius by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 publication Systema Naturae, the study showed the two tribes had diverged 25 million years ago, earlier than previously estimated from North American fossils. The dromedary and the Bactrian camel often interbreed to produce fertile offspring, where the ranges of the species overlap, such as in northern Punjab, Persia and Afghanistan, the phenotypic differences between them tend to decrease as a result of extensive crossbreeding. The fertility of their hybrid has given rise to speculation that the dromedary, however, a 1994 analysis of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene showed the species display 10. 3% divergence in their sequences
15.
Bactrian camel
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The Bactrian camel is a large, even-toed ungulate native to the steppes of Central Asia. The Bactrian camel has two humps on its back, in contrast to the dromedary camel. Its population of two million exists mainly in the domesticated form and their name comes from the ancient historical region of Bactria. The domesticated Bactrian camel has served as an animal in inner Asia since ancient times. With its tolerance for cold, drought, and high altitudes, a small number of feral Bactrian camels still roam the Mangystau Province of southwest Kazakhstan and the Kashmir Valley in India. The Bactrian camel shares the genus Camelus with the dromedary and the wild Bactrian camel, the Bactrian camel belongs to the family Camelidae. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to describe the species of Camelus and he named two species in his History of Animals, the one-humped Arabian camel and the two-humped Bactrian camel. The Bactrian camel was given its current binomial name Camelus bactrianus by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 publication Systema Naturae, the study revealed that the two tribes had diverged 25 million years ago, notably earlier than what had been previously estimated from North American fossils. Speciation began first in Lamini as the alpaca came into existence 10 million years ago, nearly two million years later, the Bactrian camel and the dromedary emerged as two independent species. The Bactrian camel and the dromedary often interbreed to produce fertile offspring, the fertility of their hybrid has given rise to speculation that the Bactrian camel and the dromedary should be merged into a single species with two varieties. However, a 1994 analysis of the cytochrome b gene revealed that the species display 10. 3% divergence in their sequences. The wild Bactrian camel was first described by Nikolay Przhevalsky in the late 19th century and has now established as a distinct species from the Bactrian camel. In particular, a population of wild Bactrian camel has been discovered to live within a part of the Gashun Gobi region of the Gobi Desert and this population is distinct from domesticated herds both in genetic makeup and in behavior. As many as three regions in the genetic makeup are different from Bactrian camels, with up to a 3% difference in the base genetic code. However, with so few wild camels, what the genetic diversity within a population would have been is not clear. Another difference is the ability of wild camels to drink saltwater slush. Domesticated camels are unable to drink such salty water, the Bactrian camel is the largest mammal in its native range and is the largest living camel. Shoulder height is from 180 to 230 cm, head-and-body length is 225–350 cm, at the top of the humps, the average height is 213 cm
16.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
17.
Animal
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Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
18.
Chordate
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Chordates are deuterostomes, as during the embryo development stage the anus forms before the mouth. They are also bilaterally symmetric coelomates, in the case of vertebrate chordates, the notochord is usually replaced by a vertebral column during development, and they may have body plans organized via segmentation. There are also additional extinct taxa, the Vertebrata are sometimes considered as a subgroup of the clade Craniata, consisting of chordates with a skull, the Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, the worlds largest and fastest animals, the blue whale and peregrine falcon respectively, are chordates, as are humans. Fossil chordates are known from at least as early as the Cambrian explosion, Hemichordata, which includes the acorn worms, has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but it now is usually treated as a separate phylum. The Hemichordata, along with the Echinodermata, form the Ambulacraria, the Chordata and Ambulacraria form the superphylum Deuterostomia, composed of the deuterostomes. Attempts to work out the relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. All of the earliest chordate fossils have found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial and it has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce family trees shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic. While this has been known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux. Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson, it was already in prevalent use by 1880, ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization, among the vertebrate sub-group of chordates the notochord develops into the spine, and in wholly aquatic species this helps the animal to swim by flexing its tail. In fish and other vertebrates, this develops into the spinal cord, the pharynx is the part of the throat immediately behind the mouth. In fish, the slits are modified to form gills, a muscular tail that extends backwards behind the anus. This is a groove in the wall of the pharynx. In filter-feeding species it produces mucus to gather food particles, which helps in transporting food to the esophagus and it also stores iodine, and may be a precursor of the vertebrate thyroid gland
19.
Mammal
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Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia, a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles by the possession of a neocortex, hair, three middle ear bones and mammary glands. All female mammals nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands, Mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the great whales. The basic body type is a quadruped, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in trees. The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta, Mammals range in size from the 30–40 mm bumblebee bat to the 30-meter blue whale. With the exception of the five species of monotreme, all modern mammals give birth to live young, most mammals, including the six most species-rich orders, belong to the placental group. The largest orders are the rodents, bats and Soricomorpha, the next three biggest orders, depending on the biological classification scheme used, are the Primates, the Cetartiodactyla, and the Carnivora. Living mammals are divided into the Yinotheria and Theriiformes There are around 5450 species of mammal, in some classifications, extant mammals are divided into two subclasses, the Prototheria, that is, the order Monotremata, and the Theria, or the infraclasses Metatheria and Eutheria. The marsupials constitute the group of the Metatheria, and include all living metatherians as well as many extinct ones. Much of the changes reflect the advances of cladistic analysis and molecular genetics, findings from molecular genetics, for example, have prompted adopting new groups, such as the Afrotheria, and abandoning traditional groups, such as the Insectivora. The mammals represent the only living Synapsida, which together with the Sauropsida form the Amniota clade, the early synapsid mammalian ancestors were sphenacodont pelycosaurs, a group that produced the non-mammalian Dimetrodon. At the end of the Carboniferous period, this group diverged from the line that led to todays reptiles. Some mammals are intelligent, with some possessing large brains, self-awareness, Mammals can communicate and vocalize in several different ways, including the production of ultrasound, scent-marking, alarm signals, singing, and echolocation. Mammals can organize themselves into fission-fusion societies, harems, and hierarchies, most mammals are polygynous, but some can be monogamous or polyandrous. They provided, and continue to provide, power for transport and agriculture, as well as commodities such as meat, dairy products, wool. Mammals are hunted or raced for sport, and are used as model organisms in science, Mammals have been depicted in art since Palaeolithic times, and appear in literature, film, mythology, and religion. Defaunation of mammals is primarily driven by anthropogenic factors, such as poaching and habitat destruction, Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is accepted, McKenna & Bell and Wilson & Reader provide useful recent compendiums. Though field work gradually made Simpsons classification outdated, it remains the closest thing to a classification of mammals
20.
Even-toed ungulate
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The even-toed ungulates are ungulates whose weight is borne equally by the third and fourth toes. By contrast, odd-toed ungulates, such as horses, bear their weight primarily on their third toe, the aquatic cetaceans evolved from within even-toed ungulates, and therefore modern taxonomic classification sometimes combines Artiodactyla and Cetacea into Cetartiodactyla. The oldest fossils of even-toed ungulates date back to the early Eocene, since these findings almost simultaneously appeared in Europe, Asia, and North America, it is very difficult to accurately determine the origin of artiodactyls. The fossils are classified as belonging to the family Dichobunidae, their best-known and these were small animals, some as small as a hare, with a slim build, lanky legs, and a long tail. The hind legs were longer than the front legs. The early to middle Eocene saw the emergence of the ancestors of most of todays mammals, two formerly widespread, but now extinct, families of even-toed ungulates were Enteledontidae and Anthracotheriidae. Entelodonts existed from the middle Eocene to the early Miocene in Eurasia and they had a stocky body with short legs and a massive head, which was characterized by two humps on the lower jaw bone. Anthracotheres had a large, porcine build, with short legs and this group appeared in the middle Eocene up until the Pliocene, and spread throughout Eurasia, Africa, and North America. Anthracothereres are thought to be the ancestors of hippos, and, likewise, hippopotamuses appeared in the late Miocene and occupied Africa and Asia – they never got to the Americas. The camels were, during parts of the Cenozoic, limited to North America. Among the North American camels were groups like the stocky, short-legged Merycoidodontidae and they first appeared in the late Eocene and developed a great diversity of species in North America. Only in the late Miocene or early Pliocene did they migrate from North America into Eurasia, the North American varieties became extinct around 10,000 years ago. Suina have been around since the Eocene, in the late Eocene or the Oligocene, two families stayed in Eurasia and Africa, the peccaries, which became extinct in the Old World, exist today only in the Americas. South America was settled by even-toed ungulates only in the Pliocene, with only the peccaries, lamoids, and various species of capreoline deer, South America has comparatively fewer artiodactyl families than other continents. The classification of artiodactyls was hotly debated because the ocean-dwelling cetaceans evolved from the land-dwelling even-toed ungulates, some semiaquatic even-toed ungulates are more closely related to the ocean-dwelling cetaceans than to the other even-toed ungulates. This makes the Artiodactyla as traditionally defined an invalid paraphyletic taxon, since it includes animals descended from a common ancestor, phylogenetic classification only recognizes monophyletic taxa, that is, groups that descend from a common ancestor and include all its descendants. To address this problem, the traditional order Artiodactyla and infraorder Cetacea are sometimes subsumed into the more inclusive Cetartiodactyla taxon, an alternative approach is to include both land-land dwelling even toed ungulates and ocean-dwelling cetaceans in a revised Artiodactyla taxon. Order Artiodactyla/Clade CetartiodactylaSuborder Tylopoda Family †Anoplotheriidae, molecular biology involves sequencing an organisms DNA and RNA and comparing the sequence with that of other living beings – the more similar they are, the more closely they are related
21.
Camelid
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Camelids are members of the biological family Camelidae, the only currently living family in the suborder Tylopoda. The extant members of group are, dromedary camels, Bactrian camels, wild Bactrian camels, llamas, alpacas, vicuñas. Camelids are even-toed ungulates classified in the order Cetartiodactyla, along with pigs, hippopotamuses, whales, deer, giraffes, cattle, goats, antelope, Camelids are large, strictly herbivorous animals with slender necks and long legs. They differ from ruminants in a number of ways and their dentition show traces of vestigial central incisors in the upper jaw, and the third incisors have developed into canine-like tusks. Camelids also have canine teeth and tusk-like premolars, which are separated from the molars by a gap. Because of this, camelids have to lie down by resting on their knees with their legs tucked underneath their bodies and they also have a unique type of antibodies which lack the light chain, in addition to the normal antibodies found in other mammals. These so-called heavy-chain antibodies are being used to develop single-domain antibodies with potential pharmaceutical applications, Camelids do not have hooves, rather they have two-toed feet with toenails and soft foot pads. Most of the weight of the animal rests on these tough, the South American camelids, adapted to steep and rocky terrain, can move the pads on their toes to maintain grip. Many fossil camelids were unguligrade and probably hooved, in contrast to all living species, Camelids are behaviorally similar in many ways, including their walking gait, in which both legs on the same side are moved simultaneously. Consequently, camelids large enough for human beings to ride have a typical swaying motion, dromedary camels, bactrian camels, llamas and alpacas are all induced ovulators. The three Afro-Asian camel species have developed adaptations to their lives in harsh, near-waterless environments. Wild populations of the Bactrian camel are even able to drink brackish water, comparative table of the seven extant species in the family Camelidae, Camelids are unusual in that their modern distribution is almost the inverse of their area of origin. Camelids first appeared early in the evolution of the even-toed ungulates, around 45 million years ago during the middle Eocene. Among the earliest camelids was the rabbit-sized Protylopus, which still had four toes on each foot, by the late Eocene, around 35 million years ago, camelids such as Poebrotherium had lost the two lateral toes, and were about the size of a modern goat. The family diversified and prospered, but remained confined to the North American continent until only two or three million years ago, when representatives arrived in Asia, and South America. A high arctic camel from this period has been documented in the far northern reaches of Canada. Fossil camelids show a wider variety than their modern counterparts, one North American genus, Titanotylopus, stood 3.5 m at the shoulder, compared with the about 2 m of the largest modern camelids. Other extinct camelids included small, gazelle-like animals, such as Stenomylus, finally, a number of very tall, giraffe-like camelids were adapted to feeding on leaves from high trees, including such genera as Aepycamelus, and Oxydactylus
22.
Carl Linnaeus
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Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the father of modern taxonomy. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus, Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his education at Uppsala University. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands and he then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, at the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message, Tell him I know no man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Swedish author August Strindberg wrote, Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum, The Pliny of the North and he is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany, the abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is L. In older publications, sometimes the abbreviation Linn. is found, Linnæus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia and his siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, and Emerentia Linnæa. One of a line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius, a year after Linnæus birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curates house, even in his early years, Linnæus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus, soon Linnæus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants
23.
10th edition of Systema Naturae
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The 10th edition of Systema Naturae is a book written by Carl Linnaeus and published in two volumes in 1758 and 1759, which marks the starting point of zoological nomenclature. In it, Linnaeus introduced binomial nomenclature for animals, something he had already done for plants in his 1753 publication of Species Plantarum, before 1758, most biological catalogues had used polynomial names for the taxa included, including earlier editions of Systema Naturae. The first work to consistently apply binomial nomenclature across the kingdom was the 10th edition of Systema Naturae. Names published before that date are unavailable, even if they would otherwise satisfy the rules, during Linnaeus lifetime, Systema Naturae was under continuous revision. The Animal Kingdom, Animals enjoy sensation by means of an organization, animated by a medullary substance, perception by nerves. They have members for the different purposes of life, organs for their different senses and they all originate from an egg. Their external and internal structure, their anatomy, habits, instincts. The list has been broken down into the six classes Linnaeus described for animals, Mammalia, Aves, Amphibia, Pisces, Insecta. These classes were created by studying the internal anatomy, as seen in his key. Warm, red blood Viviparous, Mammalia Oviparous, Aves Heart with 1 auricle,1 ventricle, cold, red blood Lungs voluntary, Amphibia External gills, Pisces Heart with 1 auricle,0 ventricles. Linnaeus described mammals as, Animals that suckle their young by means of lactiferous teats, in external and internal structure they resemble man, most of them are quadrupeds, and with man, their natural enemy, inhabit the surface of the Earth. The largest, though fewest in number, inhabit the ocean and they are areal, vocal, swift and light, and destitute of external ears, lips, teeth, scrotum, womb, bladder, epiglottis, corpus callosum and its arch, and diaphragm. They breathe by means of gills, which are united by a bony arch, swim by means of radiate fins. Many of them are without a head, and most of them without feet. They are principally distinguished by their tentacles, by the Ancients they were not improperly called imperfect animals, as being destitute of ears, nose, head, eyes and legs, and are therefore totally distinct from Insects. In addition to repeating the species he had listed in his Species Plantarum. The species from Species Plantarum were numbered sequentially, while the new species were labelled with letters, new plant species described in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae include, The original 1758 Systema Naturae Linnaeus 1758 Classification of Animals on the Taxonomicon
24.
Camelus dromedarius
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The dromedary, also called the Arabian camel, is a large, even-toed ungulate with one hump on its back. The dromedary is the smallest of the three species of camel, adult males stand 1. 8–2 m at the shoulder, while females are 1. 7–1.9 m tall, males typically weigh between 400 and 600 kg, and females weigh between 300 and 540 kg. The species distinctive features include its long, curved neck, narrow chest, a single hump, the coat is generally a shade of brown. The hump,20 cm tall or more, is made of fat bound together by fibrous tissue, dromedaries are mainly active during daylight hours. They form herds of about 20 individuals, which are led by a dominant male. This camel feeds on foliage and desert vegetation, several adaptations, such as the ability to tolerate losing more than 30% of its water content. Mating occurs annually and peaks in the season, females bear a single calf after a gestation of 15 months. The dromedary has not occurred naturally in the wild for nearly 2,000 years and it was probably first domesticated in Somalia or the Arabian Peninsula about 4,000 years ago. In the wild, the dromedary inhabited arid regions, including the Sahara Desert, the domesticated dromedary is generally found in the semi-arid to arid regions of the Old World, mainly in Africa, and a significant feral population occurs in Australia. Products of the dromedary, including its meat and milk, support several north Arabian tribes, it is commonly used for riding. The common name comes from the Old French dromedaire or the Late Latin dromedarius. These originated from the Greek word dromas, δρομάς, meaning running or runner, used in Greek in the combination δρομάς κάμηλος, literally running camel, the first recorded use in English of the name dromedary occurred in the 14th century. The dromedary possibly originated in Arabia and is sometimes referred to as the Arabian camel. The dromedary shares the genus Camelus with the Bactrian camel and the wild Bactrian camel, the dromedary belongs to the family Camelidae. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to describe the species of Camelus and he named two species in his History of Animals, the one-humped Arabian camel and the two-humped Bactrian camel. The dromedary was given its current binomial name Camelus dromedarius by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 publication Systema Naturae, the study showed the two tribes had diverged 25 million years ago, earlier than previously estimated from North American fossils. The dromedary and the Bactrian camel often interbreed to produce fertile offspring, where the ranges of the species overlap, such as in northern Punjab, Persia and Afghanistan, the phenotypic differences between them tend to decrease as a result of extensive crossbreeding. The fertility of their hybrid has given rise to speculation that the dromedary, however, a 1994 analysis of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene showed the species display 10. 3% divergence in their sequences
25.
Wild Bactrian camel
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The wild Bactrian camel is called havtgai in Mongolian. It is closely related to the domesticated Bactrian camel and they are both large, even-toed ungulates native to the steppes of central Asia, with a double hump. Until recently, wild Bactrian camels were considered to have descended from domesticated Bactrian camels that became feral after escaping from captivity or being returned to the wild. However, a 1. 9% difference in mitochondrial DNA suggests a date of 0.7 to 1.5 million years ago. It is restricted in the wild to remote regions of the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts of Mongolia, the wool of C. ferus is shorter and sparser than that of domestic animals and its colour is always sandy. And most notably, C. ferus has low, pointed, cone-shaped humps—usually about half the size of those of the camel in fair condition”. It can also survive on water even saltier than seawater – which no other large mammal in the world, including the domestic Bactrian camel, can tolerate. The wild Bactrian camel differs from the domestic Bactrian in a number of ways – smaller, more conical humps, flatter skull and their habitat is in arid plains and hills where water sources are scarce and very little vegetation exists with shrubs as their main food source. Wild Bactrian camels travel over long distances, seeking water in close to mountains where springs are found. The size of a herd may vary up to 100 camels but generally of 2-15 members in a group, the wild Bactrian camels are limited to three pockets in Mongolia and China, about 600 in the Gobi desert in northwest China and 800 in the Mongolian desert. In ancient times, wild Bactrian camels were seen from the bend of the Yellow River extending west to the Southern Mongolia deserts and further to Northwest China. In the 1800s, due to hunting for its meat and hide, its presence was noted in remote areas of the Gobi and Taklimakan deserts in Mongolia, in the 1920s, only remnant populations were recorded in Mongolia and China. The habitats of the wild Bactrian camel have widely varying temperatures and their long, narrow slit-like nostrils and thick eyelashes, and the ears with hairs provide protection against desert sandstorms. They have tough undivided soles with two large toes that spread apart, and a horny layer which enables them to walk on rough. Their body hair, thick and shaggy, changes colour to brown or beige during winter. The legend that camels storing water in their stomachs is a misconception, like its close relative, the domesticated Bactrian camel, it is one of the few mammals able to eat snow to provide itself with liquids in the winter. Wild Bactrian camels generally move in groups of up to 30 individuals and they are fully migratory and widely scattered with a population density as low as 5 per 100 km2. They travel with an adult male in the lead and assemble near water points where larger groups can also be seen
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Synonym (taxonomy)
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For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies. This name is no longer in use, it is now a synonym of the current scientific name which is Picea abies, unlike synonyms in other contexts, in taxonomy a synonym is not interchangeable with the name of which it is a synonym. In taxonomy, synonyms are not equals, but have a different status, for any taxon with a particular circumscription, position, and rank, only one scientific name is considered to be the correct one at any given time. A synonym cannot exist in isolation, it is always an alternative to a different scientific name, given that the correct name of a taxon depends on the taxonomic viewpoint used a name that is one taxonomists synonym may be another taxonomists correct name. Synonyms may arise whenever the same taxon is described and named more than once, independently. They may also arise when existing taxa are changed, as when two taxa are joined to one, a species is moved to a different genus. To the general user of scientific names, in such as agriculture, horticulture, ecology, general science. A synonym is a name that was used as the correct scientific name but which has been displaced by another scientific name. Thus Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the term as a name which has the same application as another. In handbooks and general texts, it is useful to have mentioned as such after the current scientific name. Synonyms used in this way may not always meet the strict definitions of the synonym in the formal rules of nomenclature which govern scientific names. Changes of scientific name have two causes, they may be taxonomic or nomenclatural, a name change may be caused by changes in the circumscription, position or rank of a taxon, representing a change in taxonomic, scientific insight. A name change may be due to purely nomenclatural reasons, that is, based on the rules of nomenclature, the earliest such name is called the senior synonym, while the later name is the junior synonym. One basic principle of zoological nomenclature is that the earliest correctly published name, synonyms are important because if the earliest name cannot be used, then the next available junior synonym must be used for the taxon. Objective synonyms refer to taxa with the type and same rank. For example, John Edward Gray published the name Antilocapra anteflexa in 1855 for a species of pronghorn, however, it is now commonly accepted that his specimen was an unusual individual of the species Antilocapra americana published by George Ord in 1815. Ords name thus takes precedence, with Antilocapra anteflexa being a subjective synonym. Objective synonyms are common at the level of genera, because for various reasons two genera may contain the type species, these are objective synonyms
27.
Juan Ignacio Molina
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Juan Ignacio Molina was a Spanish later Chilean Jesuit priest, naturalist, historian, botanist, ornithologist and geographer. He is usually referred to as Abate Molina, and is sometimes known by the Italian form of his name. Molina was born at Guaraculén, a big farm located near Villa Alegre, in the current province of Linares and his parents were Agustín Molina and Francisca González Bruna. He was educated at Talca and the Jesuit College at Concepción and he was forced to leave Chile in 1768 when the Jesuits were expelled from the Spanish Empire. He settled in Bologna and became professor of natural sciences there and he wrote Saggio sulla Storia Naturale del Chili, which was the first account of the natural history of that country, and described many species to science for the first time. Ruiz and Pavón dedicated to him the plant genus Molina, later considered a subgenus of Baccharis by Wilhelm Heering, other authors dedicated Moliniopsis, a genus of Gramineae, as a synonym of Molinia Schrank nomen illegitimum. Molina has also linked to the naming of the genus Maytenus. A species of Chilean lizard, Liolaemus molinai, is named in his honor, polymath Virtual Library, Fundación Ignacio Larramendi
28.
C. L. Gloger
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Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger was a German zoologist and ornithologist. Gloger was the first person to recognise the structural differences between swallows and swifts, and also the first to put up artificial bat boxes. He was the originator of what is now known as Glogers rule and he put forward this theory in his Das Abändern der Vögel durch Einfluss des Klimas. His other works include Gemeinnütziges Hand-und Hilfsbuch der Naturgeschichte, Das Abändern der Vögel durch Einfluss des Klimas Interspecific variation in primate coat colour supports Gloger’s rule, Kamilar and Bradley, J Biogeography,2011
29.
Livestock
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Livestock are domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber, and labor. The term is used to refer solely to those raised for food. In recent years, some organizations have also raised livestock to promote the survival of rare breeds, animal husbandry practices have varied widely across cultures and time periods. Originally, livestock were not confined by fences or enclosures, but these practices have largely shifted to intensive animal farming and these practices increase yield of the various commercial outputs, but have led to increased concerns about animal welfare and environmental impact. Livestock production continues to play an economic and cultural role in numerous rural communities. Livestock as a word was first used between 1650 and 1660, as a merger between the live and stock. Older English sources, such as the King James Version of the Bible, the word cattle is derived from Old North French catel, which meant all kinds of movable personal property, including livestock, which was differentiated from immovable real estate. In later English, sometimes smaller livestock such as chickens and pigs were referred to as small cattle, today, the modern meaning of cattle, without a modifier, usually refers to domesticated bovines, but sometimes livestock refers only to this subgroup. Legal definition United States federal legislation sometimes more narrowly defines the term to make specified agricultural commodities either eligible or ineligible for a program or activity, for example, the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act of 1999 defines livestock only as cattle, swine, and sheep. Animal-rearing originated during the transition to settled farming communities from hunter-gatherer lifestyles. Animals are domesticated when their breeding and living conditions are controlled by humans, over time, the collective behaviour, lifecycle and physiology of livestock have changed radically. Many modern farm animals are unsuited to life in the wild, dogs were domesticated in East Asia about 15,000 years ago. Goats and sheep were domesticated around 8000 BC in Asia, swine or pigs were domesticated by 7000 BC in the Middle East and China. The earliest evidence of horse domestication dates to around 4000 BC, the term livestock is nebulous and may be defined narrowly or broadly. Broadly, livestock refers to any breed or population of animal kept by humans for a useful and this can mean domestic animals, semidomestic animals, or captive wild animals. Semidomesticated refers to animals which are only lightly domesticated or of disputed status and these populations may also be in the process of domestication. Some people may use the term livestock to refer to only used for red meat. Livestock are used by humans for a variety of purposes, many of which have an economic value, Livestock products include, Meat A useful form of dietary protein and energy, meat is the edible tissue of the animal carcass
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Camel milk
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Camels milk has supported Bedouin, nomad and pastoral cultures since the domestication of camels millennia ago. Herders may for periods survive solely on the milk when taking the camels on long distances to graze in desert, Camel farming, by utilising a native species well-adapted to arid regions, able to eat salty desert plants, has been linked to de-desertification by UNESCO. Camel milk can be found in supermarkets in the UAE, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Camel milk is a rich source of proteins with potential antimicrobial and protective activities, these proteins are not found in cow milk or found only in minor amount. Camel milk has enough nutrients to sustain a person through the day, in many countries, camel milk is given to babies suffering from malnutrition. Compared to cow, buffalo and ewe milk fat, camel milk fat contains fewer short-chained fatty acids, some researchers claim that the value of camel milk is to be found in the high concentrations of linoleic acid among other polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are essential for human nutrition. Camel milk has more fat and protein than cows milk, cholesterol in camel milk is lower than cow or goat milk. Camel milk has a vitamin and mineral content and immunoglobin content. Camel milk is three times higher in vitamin C than cows milk and 10 times higher in iron and it is also high in unsaturated fatty acids and B vitamins but lower in vitamin A and B2. The composition of camel milk depends on its feed and species, Camel milk is lower in lactose than cows milk. However, levels of potassium, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, sodium, Camel milk is still largely a subsistence product, but production in camel milk dairies is a growing industry. Camel milk in India has been used by raika and other desert communities, aadvik Foods is the first Indian company which markets and sells camel milk and products like Milk powder, soaps, Chocolates at Pan India level. Its products are available on its website, Amazon, and other E commerce platforms, the USA has an imported population of 5,000 camels. Laws in the United States allow an individual who owns an animal to consume that animals milk, Milk sold in the U. S. must be tested for antibiotic residue if it crosses state lines or is sold commercially in stores. As the law stands in most states, the dairies are allowed to sell the milk directly from the farms to customers who buy it directly from the farm, each state is different with regulations governing the sale of the milk. Milk is allowed to be sold, depending on the state, in raw form, pasteurized, the current market for the milk in the US is for medical purposes and as a food for ethnic populations. There is also a large demand for the colostrum, which is in very limited amounts and is quite expensive. The cost of producing a quart of milk is considerably higher than that of producing a quart of cows milk. In the United States, female camels are very rare, they mature slowly and their thirteen-month gestation period must conclude in a live birth followed by suckling, else the female camel will stop producing milk
31.
Camel hair
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Camel hair of cloth made from pure camel hair or a blend of camel hair and another fiber. The outer protective fur is coarse and inflexible and can be woven into haircloth, guard hair can be made soft and plush by blending it, especially with wool. The camels pure undercoat is soft, gathered when camels molt. Camel hair is collected from the Bactrian camel, which is found across Asia from eastern Turkey, significant supplier countries of camel hair include Mongolia, Tibet, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, China, New Zealand and Australia. Each camel can produce around five pounds of hair a year, hair may be collected by shearing, combing or by collecting fiber shed naturally during the six to eight-week molting season in late spring. Fallen hair is gathered by hand. After collection, coarse and fine hairs are separated, Fibres are then washed to remove any dirt or debris and then spun into yarn suitable for weaving or knitting. The wearing of camel hair clothing is mentioned in the Bible and it was used for tents, carpets and cloaks by the Berbers. Its high thermostatic properties provide insulation, pure camel hair is recorded as being used for western garments from the 17th century onwards, and from the 19th century a mixture of wool and camel hair was used. The first fashion brand to popularise camel hair in clothing was Jaeger and it became popular in the U. S. in the 1920s and 1930s, having been introduced through the sport of polo, where a casual camel hair coat was worn by players in between matches. Camel hair may be blended to create fabrics suitable for coats, sweaters outer, the long coarser hair may be used as a backing for carpets. Although most camel hair is left as its tone of golden tan. Cameline International Year of Natural Fibres
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Working animal
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A working animal is an animal, usually domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks. They may be members of the family, such as guide dogs or other assistance dogs, or they may be animals trained to provide tractive force. The latter types of animals are called animals or beasts of burden. Most working animals are either service animals or draft animals and they may also be used for milking or herding, jobs that require human training to encourage the animal to cooperate. Some, at the end of their lives, may also be used for meat or other products such as leather. The history of working animals may predate agriculture, with used by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Around the world, millions of animals work in relationship with their owners, domesticated species are often bred to be suitable for different uses and conditions, especially horses and working dogs. Working animals are raised on farms, though some are still captured from the wild, such as dolphins. People have found uses for a variety of abilities found in animals. The strength of horses, elephants and oxen is used in pulling carts, the keen sense of smell of dogs is used to search for drugs and explosives as well helping to find game while hunting and to search for missing or trapped people. Several animals including camels, donkeys, horses and dogs are used for transport, either riding or to pull wagons, other animals including dogs and monkeys provide assistance to blind or disabled people. Conversely, not all domesticated animals are working animals, for example, while cats may perform work catching mice, it is an instinctive behavior, not one that can be trained by human intervention. Other domesticated animals, such as sheep, or rabbits, may have uses for meat, hides and wool. Finally, small pets such as most birds or hamsters are generally incapable of performing work other than that of providing simple companionship. Some animals are used due to physical strength in tasks such as ploughing or logging. Such animals are grouped as a draught or draft animal, others may be used as pack animals, for animal-powered transport, the movement of people and goods. People ride some animals directly as mounts, Alternatively, one or more animals in harness may be used to pull vehicles and they include equines such as horses, ponies, donkeys, and mules, elephants, yaks, and camels. Dromedary camels in arid areas of Australia, North Africa and the Middle East, on occasion, reindeer, though usually driven, may be ridden
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Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
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Llama
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The llama is a domesticated South American camelid, widely used as a meat and pack animal by Andean cultures since the Pre-Columbian era. The height of a full-grown, full-size llama is 1.7 to 1.8 m tall at the top of the head, at birth, a baby llama can weigh between 9 and 14 kg. Llamas typically live for 15 to 25 years, with some individuals surviving 30 years or more and they are very social animals and live with other llamas as a herd. The wool produced by a llama is very soft and lanolin-free, llamas are intelligent and can learn simple tasks after a few repetitions. When using a pack, they can carry about 25 to 30% of their weight for 8 to 13 km. The name llama was adopted by European settlers from native Peruvians, llamas appear to have originated from the central plains of North America about 40 million years ago. They migrated to South America about three years ago. By the end of the last ice age, camelids were extinct in North America, lamoids, or llamas, consist of the vicuña, guanaco, Suri alpaca, and Huacaya alpaca, and the domestic llama. Guanacos and vicuñas live in the wild, while alpacas – as well as llamas – exist only as domesticated animals, although early writers compared llamas to sheep, their similarity to the camel was soon recognized. They were included in the genus Camelus along with alpaca in the Systema Naturae of Linnaeus and they were, however, separated by Cuvier in 1800 under the name of lama along with the guanaco. Alpacas and vicuñas are in genus Vicugna, the Tylopoda consist of a single family, the Camelidae, and shares the order Artiodactyla with the Suina, the Tragulina, the Pecora, and the Whippomorpha. Llamas were not always confined to South America, abundant llama-like remains were found in Pleistocene deposits in the Rocky Mountains, some of the fossil llamas were much larger than current forms. Some species remained in North America during the last ice ages, North American llamas are categorized as a single extinct genus, Hemiauchenia. Llama-like animals would have been a common sight 25,000 years ago, in modern-day California, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Missouri, the camelid lineage has a good fossil record. Camel-like animals have been traced from the thoroughly differentiated, modern species back through early Miocene forms and their characteristics became more general, and they lost those that distinguished them as camelids, hence, they were classified as ancestral artiodactyls. No fossils of these forms have been found in the Old World, indicating that North America was the original home of camelids. The formation of the Isthmus of Panama three million years ago allowed camelids to spread to South America as part of the Great American Interchange, meanwhile, North American camelids died out at the end of the Pleistocene. The following characteristics apply especially to llamas, dentition of adults, -incisors 1/3 canines 1/1, premolars 2/2, molars 3/2, total 32
35.
Alpaca
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An alpaca is a domesticated species of South American camelid. It resembles a small llama in appearance, there are two breeds of alpaca, the Suri alpaca and the Huacaya alpaca. Alpacas are considerably smaller than llamas, and unlike llamas, they were not bred to be beasts of burden, Alpaca fiber is used for making knitted and woven items, similar to wool. These items include blankets, sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves, a variety of textiles and ponchos in South America. The fiber comes in more than 52 natural colors as classified in Peru,12 as classified in Australia and 16 as classified in the United States, in trade, distinctions are made between alpacas and the several styles of mohair and luster. An adult alpaca generally is between 81–99 centimetres in height at the shoulders, alpacas have been domesticated for thousands of years. The Moche people of northern Peru often used images in their art. There are no known wild alpacas, and its closest living relative, the alpaca is larger than the vicuña, but smaller than the other camelid species. Along with camels and llamas, alpacas are classified as camelids, alpacas are too small to be used as pack animals. Instead, they are bred exclusively for their fiber and meat, Alpaca meat was once considered a delicacy by Andean inhabitants. Because of the high price commanded by alpaca on the growing North American alpaca market, in 2014, a company was formed claiming to be the first to export US-derived alpaca products to China. Alpacas and llamas can successfully cross-breed, the resulting offspring are called huarizo, which are valued for their unique fleece and gentle dispositions. Alpacas are social animals that live in family groups consisting of a territorial alpha male, females. Alpacas warn the herd about intruders by making sharp, noisy inhalations that sound like a high-pitched bray, the herd may attack smaller predators with their front feet, and can spit and kick. Their aggression towards members of the family is exploited when alpacas are used as guard llamas for guarding sheep. Not all alpacas spit, but all are capable of doing so, spit is somewhat euphemistic, occasionally the projectile contains only air and a little saliva, although alpacas commonly bring up acidic stomach contents and project it onto their chosen targets. Spitting is mostly reserved for other alpacas, but an alpaca will occasionally spit at a human, for alpacas, spitting results in what is called sour mouth. Sour mouth is characterized by a lower lip and a gaping mouth
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Guanaco
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The guanaco, a camelid native to South America, stands between 1.0 and 1.2 m at the shoulder and weighs 90 to 140 kg. Its color varies very little, ranging from a brown to dark cinnamon. Guanacos have grey faces and small, straight ears, the name guanaco comes from the South American Quechua word huanaco. The guanaco is a native to the mountainous regions of South America. They are found in the altiplano of Peru, Bolivia and Chile, in Argentina and Chile, they are more numerous in Patagonian regions, as well as in places such as the Torres del Paine National Park, and Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. In these areas, they have more robust populations, since grazing competition from livestock is limited, estimates, as of 2011, place their numbers at 400,000 to 600,000. A small introduced population exists on Staats Island in the Falkland Islands, guanacos live in herds composed of females, their young, and a dominant male. While reproductive groups tend to remain small, often containing no more than 10 adults, when they feel threatened, guanacos alert the herd to flee with a high-pitched, bleating call. The male usually runs behind the herd to defend them and they can run at 56 km per hour, often over steep and rocky terrain. A guanacos typical lifespan is 20 to 25 years, guanacos are one of the largest wild mammal species found in South America. Natural predators include cougars, jaguars, and foxes, the guanaco has thicker skin on its neck, a trait also found in its domestic counterpart, the llama and in its relatives, the wild vicuña and domesticated alpaca. This protects its neck from predator attacks, bolivians use the neck-skin of these animals to make shoes, flattening and pounding the skin to be used for the soles. In Chile, hunting is allowed only in Tierra del Fuego, between 2007 and 2012,13,200 guanacos were legally hunted in Tierra del Fuego. Mating season occurs between November and February, during which males often fight violently to establish dominance and breeding rights, eleven-and-a-half months later, a single chulengo is born. Chulengos are able to immediately after birth. Male chulengos are chased off from the herd by the dominant male around one year of age, although the species is still considered wild, around 300 guanacos are in US zoos and around 200 are registered in private herds. Guanacos are the parent species of the domesticated llama, guanacos are often found at high altitudes, up to 4,000 meters above sea level, except in Patagonia, where the southerly latitude means ice covers the vegetation at these altitudes. For guanacos to survive in the low oxygen levels found at high altitudes
37.
Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
38.
Horn of Africa
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The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in Northeast Africa. It juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, the area is the easternmost projection of the African continent. The Horn of Africa denotes the region containing the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and it covers approximately 2,000,000 km2 and is inhabited by roughly 115 million people. Regional studies on the Horn of Africa are carried out, among others, shell middens 125,000 years old have been found in Eritrea, indicating the diet of early humans included seafood obtained by beachcombing. According to both genetic and fossil evidence, archaic Homo sapiens evolved to modern humans solely in Africa between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago. Evidence to support the theory that recent modern humans originated in East Africa is not conclusive, today at the Bab-el-Mandeb straits, the Red Sea is about 12 miles wide, but 50,000 years ago it was much narrower and sea levels were 70 meters lower. Though the straits were never closed, there may have been islands in between which could be reached using simple rafts. It has been estimated that from a population of 2,000 to 5,000 individuals in Africa, according to linguists, the first Afro-Asiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during the ensuing Neolithic era from the familys proposed urheimat in the Nile Valley, or the Near East. Other scholars propose that the Afro-Asiatic family developed in situ in the Horn, genetic analysis also indicates that, beginning in the pre-agricultural period, settlers from the Near East founded communities in Northeast Africa. These early settlements eventually gave rise to the Afro-Asiatic-speaking populations in the Horn, dʿmt was a kingdom located in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, which existed during the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. With its capital at Yeha, the kingdom developed irrigation schemes, used plows, grew millet, the Kingdom of Aksum was an ancient state located in the highlands of present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, which thrived between the 1st and 7th centuries CE. A major player in the commerce between the Roman Empire and Ancient India, Aksums rulers facilitated trade by minting their own currency. Under Ezana, the kingdom of Aksum became the first major empire to adopt Christianity, northern Somalia was an important link in the Horn, connecting the regions commerce with the rest of the ancient world. Somali sailors and merchants were the suppliers of frankincense, myrrh and spices. The Romans consequently began to refer to the region as Regio Aromatica, in the classical era, several flourishing Somali city-states such as Opone, Mosylon and Malao also competed with the Sabaeans, Parthians and Axumites for the rich Indo-Greco-Roman trade. The city of Mogadishu came to be known as the City of Islam, the Sultanate of Showa, established in 896, was one of the oldest local Muslim states. It was centered in the former Shewa province in central Ethiopia, the polity was succeeded by the Sultanate of Ifat around 1285. Ifat was governed from its capital at Zeila in northern Somalia and was the easternmost district of the former Shewa Sultanate, the Adal Sultanate was a medieval multi-ethnic Muslim state centered in the Horn region
39.
Central Asia
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Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also referred to as the -stans as the five countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix -stan. Central Asias five former Soviet republics are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Central Asia has historically been closely tied to its nomadic peoples and the Silk Road. It has acted as a crossroads for the movement of people, goods, the Silk Road connected Muslim lands with the people of Europe, India, and China. This crossroads position has intensified the conflict between tribalism and traditionalism and modernization, in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Central Asia was predominantly Iranian, peopled by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Parthians. Central Asia is sometimes referred to as Turkestan, the idea of Central Asia as a distinct region of the world was introduced in 1843 by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt. The borders of Central Asia are subject to multiple definitions, historically built political geography and geoculture are two significant parameters widely used in the scholarly literature about the definitions of the Central Asia. The most limited definition was the one of the Soviet Union. This definition was also used outside the USSR during this period. However, the Russian culture has two terms, Средняя Азия and Центральная Азия. Since then, this has become the most common definition of Central Asia, the UNESCO general history of Central Asia, written just before the collapse of the USSR, defines the region based on climate and uses far larger borders. An alternative method is to define the region based on ethnicity and these areas include Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Turkic regions of southern Siberia, the five republics, and Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan as a whole, the northern and western areas of Pakistan, the Tibetans and Ladakhi are also included. Insofar, most of the peoples are considered the indigenous peoples of the vast region. Central Asia is a large region of varied geography, including high passes and mountains, vast deserts. The vast steppe areas of Central Asia are considered together with the steppes of Eastern Europe as a geographical zone known as the Eurasian Steppe. Much of the land of Central Asia is too dry or too rugged for farming, the Gobi desert extends from the foot of the Pamirs, 77° E, to the Great Khingan Mountains, 116°–118° E. Central Asia has the following geographic extremes, The worlds northernmost desert, at Buurug Deliin Els, Mongolia, the Northern Hemispheres southernmost permafrost, at Erdenetsogt sum, Mongolia, 46°17′ N
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Bactria
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Bactria or Bactriana was the name of a historical region in Central Asia. Bactria was located between the Hindu Kush mountain range and the Amu Darya river, covering the region that straddles modern-day Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The English name Bactria is derived from the Ancient Greek, Βακτριανή, analogous names include the Pashto and Persian, باختر, translit. Bākhtar, Uzbek, Балх, Tajik, Бохтар, Chinese, 大夏, pinyin, Dàxià and this region played a major role in Central Asian history. At certain times the political limits of Bactria stretched far beyond the frame of the Bactrian plain. The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex is the modern designation for a Bronze Age culture of Central Asia. 2200–1700 BC, located in present-day eastern Turkmenistan, northern Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan, centred on the upper Amu Darya and its sites were discovered and named by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi. The early Greek historian Ctesias, c.400 BC, alleged that the legendary Assyrian king Ninus had defeated a Bactrian king named Oxyartes in ca.2140 BC, or some 1000 years before the Trojan War. Since the decipherment of cuneiform in the 19th century, however, according to some writers, Bactria was the homeland of Indo-Iranian tribes who moved south-west into Iran and into north-western India around 2500–2000 BC. Later, it became the province of the Persian Empire in Central Asia. It was in these regions, where the soil of the mountainous country is surrounded by the Turanian desert. After Darius III had been defeated by Alexander the Great, the satrap of Bactria, Bessus attempted to organise a resistance but was captured by other warlords. He was then tortured and killed, however, in the south, beyond the Oxus, he met strong resistance. After two years of war and an insurgency campaign, Alexander managed to establish little control over Bactria. After Alexanders death, Diodorus Siculus tells us that Philip received dominion over Bactria, at the Treaty of Triparadisus, both Diodorus Siculus and Arrian agree that the satrap Stasanor gained control over Bactria. Eventually, Alexanders empire was divided up among the generals in Alexanders army, Bactria became a part of the Seleucid Empire, named after its founder, Seleucus I. The Macedonians, especially Seleucus I and his son Antiochus I, established the Seleucid Empire, the Greek language became dominant for some time there. The paradox that Greek presence was more prominent in Bactria than in areas far closer to Greece can possibly be explained by past deportations of Greeks to Bactria
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Mongolia
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Mongolia /mɒŋˈɡoʊliə/ is a landlocked unitary sovereign state in East Asia. Its area is equivalent with the historical territory of Outer Mongolia. It is sandwiched between China to the south and Russia to the north, while it does not share a border with Kazakhstan, Mongolia is separated from it by only 36.76 kilometers. At 1,564,116 square kilometers, Mongolia is the 18th largest and it is also the worlds second-largest landlocked country behind Kazakhstan and the largest landlocked country that does not border a closed sea. The country contains very little land, as much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to about 45% of the countrys population, approximately 30% of the population is nomadic or semi-nomadic, horse culture is still integral. The majority of its population are Buddhists, the non-religious population is the second largest group. Islam is the dominant religion among ethnic Kazakhs, the majority of the states citizens are of Mongol ethnicity, although Kazakhs, Tuvans, and other minorities also live in the country, especially in the west. Mongolia joined the World Trade Organization in 1997 and seeks to expand its participation in regional economic, the area of what is now Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the Turkic Khaganate, and others. In 1206, Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history. His grandson Kublai Khan conquered China to establish the Yuan dynasty, after the collapse of the Yuan, the Mongols retreated to Mongolia and resumed their earlier pattern of factional conflict, except during the era of Dayan Khan and Tumen Zasagt Khan. In the 16th century, Tibetan Buddhism began to spread in Mongolia, being led by the Manchu-founded Qing dynasty. By the early 1900s, almost one-third of the male population were Buddhist monks. After the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Mongolia declared independence from the Qing dynasty, shortly thereafter, the country came under the control of the Soviet Union, which had aided its independence from China. In 1924, the Mongolian Peoples Republic was declared as a Soviet satellite state, after the anti-Communist revolutions of 1989, Mongolia conducted its own peaceful democratic revolution in early 1990. This led to a multi-party system, a new constitution of 1992, homo erectus inhabited Mongolia from 850,000 years ago. Modern humans reached Mongolia approximately 40,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic, the Khoit Tsenkher Cave in Khovd Province shows lively pink, brown, and red ochre paintings of mammoths, lynx, bactrian camels, and ostriches, earning it the nickname the Lascaux of Mongolia. The venus figurines of Malta testify to the level of Upper Paleolithic art in northern Mongolia, the wheeled vehicles found in the burials of the Afanasevans have been dated to before 2200 BC
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Camelops
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Camelops is an extinct genus of camel that once roamed western North America, where it disappeared at the end of the Pleistocene about 10,000 years ago. It was very closely related to the Old World Dromedary and Bactrian camel in anatomical form and its name is derived from the Greek κάμελος + ὀψ, thus camel-face. The genus Camelops first appeared during the Late Pliocene period and became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, the camel and horse families originated in the Americas and migrated into Asia via the Bering Strait. The skull of a Camelops was found above the Glenns Ferry Formation, above this layer of gravel is another layer of fine river channel sands, where the skull was found. This indicates that the Camelops is perhaps as young as 2 million years old and this can be inferred because it is younger than the other fossils found at the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument. This rich diversity decreased until only a few species, such as Camelops hesternus, remained in North America, Camelops extinction was part of a larger North American die-off in which native horses, camelids and mastodons also died out. This megafaunal extinction coincided roughly with the appearance of the big game hunting Clovis culture, because soft tissues are generally not preserved in the fossil record, it is not certain if Camelops possessed a hump, like modern camels, or lacked one, like its modern llama relatives. Camelops hesternus was 2.2 m tall at the shoulder and it was slightly heavier also, weighing about 800 kg. Plant remains found in its teeth exhibit little grass, suggesting that the camel was an opportunistic herbivore, Camelops probably could travel long distances, similar to the living camel. The last species of Camelops are hypothesized to have disappeared as a result of the Blitzkrieg model and this model presents the hypothesis that Camelops, along with other North American megafauna, disappeared as the result of North American hunters moving southeastward. The result of movement of humans and the growth of the population was the reduction in prey ranges for the megafauna. Of the many Camelops specimens recovered in North America, mostly in the Wisconsin region, however some have been interpreted as having been killed by humans based on spirally fractured bone fragments. None of the reported Camelops sites have associated with stone tools. At many of these Camelops sites, there were no fossils of carcasses that were evidently processed, the Walmart camel is the fossil of a prehistoric mammal, originally thought to be a camel, found at a Walmart construction site in Mesa, Arizona in 2007. Workers digging a hole for a citrus tree found the bones of two animals that may have lived about 10,000 years ago. Arizona State University Geology Museum curator Brad Archer called it an important, other fossils, positively identified as camel bones, were found in Gilbert, Arizona in May 2008. Aepycamelus Oxydactylus Pleistocene megafauna Poebrotherium Procamelus Protylopus Snowmastodon Project Stenomylus Syrian camel, an extinct species that reached at least 9 feet tall at the shoulder
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North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
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Pleistocene
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The Pleistocene is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the worlds most recent period of repeated glaciations. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period, the Pleistocene is the first epoch of the Quaternary Period or sixth epoch of the Cenozoic Era. In the ICS timescale, the Pleistocene is divided into four stages or ages, all of these stages were defined in southern Europe. In addition to this subdivision, various regional subdivisions are often used. Charles Lyell introduced the term pleistocene in 1839 to describe strata in Sicily that had at least 70% of their molluscan fauna still living today and this distinguished it from the older Pliocene Epoch, which Lyell had originally thought to be the youngest fossil rock layer. The Pleistocene has been dated from 2.588 million to 11,700 years before present and it covers most of the latest period of repeated glaciation, up to and including the Younger Dryas cold spell. The end of the Younger Dryas has been dated to about 9640 BC, the IUGS has yet to approve a type section, Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point, for the upper Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. The proposed section is the North Greenland Ice Core Project ice core 75°06 N 42°18 W, the lower boundary of the Pleistocene Series is formally defined magnetostratigraphically as the base of the Matuyama chronozone, isotopic stage 103. Above this point there are notable extinctions of the calcareous nanofossils, Discoaster pentaradiatus, the Pleistocene covers the recent period of repeated glaciations. The name Plio-Pleistocene has, in the past, been used to mean the last ice age. The revised definition of the Quaternary, by pushing back the date of the Pleistocene to 2.58 Ma. Pleistocene climate was marked by repeated glacial cycles in which continental glaciers pushed to the 40th parallel in some places and it is estimated that, at maximum glacial extent, 30% of the Earths surface was covered by ice. In addition, a zone of permafrost stretched southward from the edge of the sheet, a few hundred kilometres in North America. The mean annual temperature at the edge of the ice was −6 °C, during interglacial times, such as at present, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions. The effects of glaciation were global, antarctica was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene as well as the preceding Pliocene. The Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap, there were glaciers in New Zealand and Tasmania. The current decaying glaciers of Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro, glaciers existed in the mountains of Ethiopia and to the west in the Atlas mountains. In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one, the Cordilleran ice sheet covered the North American northwest, the east was covered by the Laurentide
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