1.
Feces
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Feces or faeces are the solid or semisolid metabolic waste from an animals digestive tract, discharged through the anus or cloaca during a process called defecation. Urine and feces together are called excreta, collected feces has various uses, namely as fertilizer or soil conditioner in agriculture, as a fuel source, or for medicinal purposes. After an animal has digested eaten material, the remains of material are discharged from its body as waste. Although it is lower in energy than the food from which it is derived, feces may retain a large amount of energy and this means that of all food eaten, a significant amount of energy remains for the decomposers of ecosystems. Many organisms feed on feces, from bacteria to fungi to insects such as dung beetles, some may specialize in feces, while others may eat other foods as well. Feces serve not only as a food, but also as a supplement to the usual diet of some animals. Feces and urine, which reflect light, are important to raptors such as kestrels. Seeds also may be found in feces, animals who eat fruit are known as frugivores. An advantage for a plant in having fruit is that animals will eat the fruit and this mode of seed dispersal is highly successful, as seeds dispersed around the base of a plant are unlikely to succeed and often are subject to heavy predation. Provided the seed can withstand the pathway through the system, it is not only likely to be far away from the parent plant. This cycling of matter is known as the biogeochemical cycle, the distinctive odor of feces is due to bacterial action. Gut flora produce compounds such as indole, skatole, and thiols and these are the same compounds that are responsible for the odor of flatulence. Consumption of foods prepared with spices may result in the spices being undigested, the perceived bad odor of feces has been hypothesized to be a deterrent for humans, as consuming or touching it may result in sickness or infection. Human perception of the odor may be contrasted by an animals perception of it, for example. In humans and depending on the individual and the circumstances, defecation may occur daily, extensive hardening of the feces may cause prolonged interruption in the routine and is called constipation. Human fecal matter varies significantly in appearance, depending on diet, normally it is semisolid, with a mucus coating. The brown coloration comes from a combination of bile and bilirubin, in newborn babies, initially fecal matter is yellow-green after the meconium. This coloration comes from the presence of bile alone, throughout the life of an ordinary human, one may experience many types of feces
2.
Species
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In biology, a species is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, looked at more closely it is problematic, for example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear. Other ways of defining species include similarity of DNA, morphology, all species are given a two-part name, a binomial. The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs, the second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the Boa genus, Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped that species could evolve given sufficient time, Charles Darwins 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection. Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal transfer, and species may become extinct for a variety of reasons. In his biology, Aristotle used the term γένος to mean a kind, such as a bird or fish, a kind was distinguished by its attributes, for instance, a bird has feathers, a beak, wings, a hard-shelled egg, and warm blood. A form was distinguished by being shared by all its members, Aristotle believed all kinds and forms to be distinct and unchanging. His approach remained influential until the Renaissance, when observers in the Early Modern period began to develop systems of organization for living things, they placed each kind of animal or plant into a context. Many of these early delineation schemes would now be considered whimsical, animals likewise that differ specifically preserve their distinct species permanently, one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa. In the 18th century, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified organisms according to shared physical characteristics and he established the idea of a taxonomic hierarchy of classification based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships. At the time, however, it was widely believed that there was no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appeared. However, whether or not it was supposed to be fixed, by the 19th century, naturalists understood that species could change form over time, and that the history of the planet provided enough time for major changes. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in his 1809 Zoological Philosophy, described the transmutation of species, proposing that a species could change over time, in 1859, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided a compelling account of evolution and the formation of new species. Darwin argued that it was populations that evolved, not individuals and this required a new definition of species. Darwin concluded that species are what appear to be, ideas
3.
Adonis blue
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The Adonis blue is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. It is found in the Palearctic ecozone and it may be found in chalk downland, in warm sheltered spots, flying low over vegetation, seeking females that are rich chocolate brown in color. The male has brilliantly-colored wings that give it its name, the males are blue in color with a white border. Females are brown in colour becoming blue towards the body, with orange crescents towards the edges of the wings, both males and females have pale brown undersides with black spots and orange crescents. The caterpillar reaches 1.6 centimetres in length, has a green body with dark spines. Found across Europe, in Britain, the Adonis Blue is at the extreme of its range and has always been restricted to the warmer dry calcareous grasslands of southern England. It has suffered a decline in the past 200 years, and has been lost from Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk. The strongholds are Dorset, Wiltshire, Sussex and the Isle of Wight, over the whole of Britain there has been a decline of over 90% in numbers of this species since 1950. German entomologist S. A. von Rottemburg described the Adonis blue in 1775 as Papilio bellargus, noting it was very rare locally, the male has the upper side wings a brilliant sky blue, with a fine black line round the edge and a white margin. The female is brown with a few blue scales near the base. Look for the fringes in both sexes. The underside is grey with black and orange spots. The wingspan is about 3 cm, the Adonis blue is found across Europe from Eastern and Central Europe across to southeast England and the Iberian Peninsula. The preferred habitat of the Adonis blue is calcareous grasslands with hot and this is because the larva feeds on horseshoe vetch which is largely restricted to these habitats. This plant flourishes on sheep-grazed pastures and disappears after a few years when cattle graze, the Adonis blue is at the most northerly edge of its range in Britain and has always been restricted to chalk grassland in the south. It has been declining over the last fifty years because its habitat has been disappearing through changing agricultural practices, there are efforts from conservation organisations and local Biodiversity Action Plans to encourage the populations of chalk-grassland butterflies through managed grazing programs. The recent hot and dry weather associated with climate change seems to be beneficial for this species by making more habitats suitable, in 2006 it had returned to a site in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, where it had vanished 40 years previously. org
4.
Butterfly
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Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, the group comprises the large superfamily Papilionoidea, which contains at least one former group, the skippers and the most recent analyses suggest it also contains the moth-butterflies. Butterfly fossils date to the Paleocene, which was about 56 million years ago, Butterflies have the typical four-stage insect life cycle. Winged adults lay eggs on the plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars. The caterpillars grow, sometimes rapidly, and when fully developed. When metamorphosis is complete, the skin splits, the adult insect climbs out. Butterflies are often polymorphic, and many species use of camouflage, mimicry. Some, like the monarch and the lady, migrate over long distances. Many butterflies are attacked by parasites or parasitoids, including wasps, protozoans, flies, some species are pests because in their larval stages they can damage domestic crops or trees, other species are agents of pollination of some plants. Larvae of a few butterflies eat harmful insects, and a few are predators of ants, culturally, butterflies are a popular motif in the visual and literary arts. The Oxford English Dictionary derives the word straightforwardly from Old English butorflēoge, butter-fly, similar names in Old Dutch, the earliest Lepidoptera fossils are of a small moth, Archaeolepis mane, of Jurassic age, around 190 million years ago. Butterflies evolved from moths, so while the butterflies are monophyletic, the oldest butterflies are from the Palaeocene MoClay or Fur Formation of Denmark. The oldest American butterfly is the Late Eocene Prodryas persephone from the Florissant Fossil Beds, traditionally, the butterflies have been divided into the superfamily Papilionoidea excluding the smaller groups of the Hesperiidae and the more moth-like Hedylidae of America. Butterfly adults are characterized by their four scale-covered wings, which give the Lepidoptera their name, as in all insects, the body is divided into three sections, the head, thorax, and abdomen. The thorax is composed of three segments, each with a pair of legs, in most families of butterfly the antennae are clubbed, unlike those of moths which may be threadlike or feathery. The long proboscis can be coiled when not in use for sipping nectar from flowers, some day-flying moths, such as the hummingbird hawk-moth, are exceptions to these rules. Butterfly larvae, caterpillars, have a head with strong mandibles used for cutting their food. They have cylindrical bodies, with ten segments to the abdomen, generally with short prolegs on segments 3–6 and 10, many are well camouflaged, others are aposematic with bright colours and bristly projections containing toxic chemicals obtained from their food plants
5.
Digestion
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Digestion is the breakdown of large insoluble food molecules into small water-soluble food molecules so that they can be absorbed into the watery blood plasma. In certain organisms, these substances are absorbed through the small intestine into the blood stream. Digestion is a form of catabolism that is divided into two processes based on how food is broken down, mechanical and chemical digestion. The term mechanical digestion refers to the breakdown of large pieces of food into smaller pieces which can subsequently be accessed by digestive enzymes. In chemical digestion, enzymes break down food into the small molecules the body can use. In the human system, food enters the mouth and mechanical digestion of the food starts by the action of mastication, a form of mechanical digestion. After undergoing mastication and starch digestion, the food will be in the form of a small and it will then travel down the esophagus and into the stomach by the action of peristalsis. Gastric juice in the stomach starts protein digestion, gastric juice mainly contains hydrochloric acid and pepsin. As these two chemicals may damage the stomach wall, mucus is secreted by the stomach, providing a slimy layer that acts as a shield against the effects of the chemicals. At the same time protein digestion is occurring, mechanical mixing occurs by peristalsis and this allows the mass of food to further mix with the digestive enzymes. After some time, the resulting liquid is called chyme. When the chyme is fully digested, it is absorbed into the blood, 95% of absorption of nutrients occurs in the small intestine. Water and minerals are reabsorbed back into the blood in the colon where the pH is slightly acidic about 5.6 ~6.9, some vitamins, such as biotin and vitamin K produced by bacteria in the colon are also absorbed into the blood in the colon. Waste material is eliminated from the rectum during defecation, there is a fundamental distinction between internal and external digestion. External digestion developed earlier in history, and most fungi still rely on it. In this process, enzymes are secreted into the environment surrounding the organism, where they break down an organic material, some organisms, including nearly all spiders, simply secrete biotoxins and digestive chemicals into the extracellular environment prior to ingestion of the consequent soup. Bacteria use several systems to obtain nutrients from other organisms in the environments, in a channel transupport system, several proteins form a contiguous channel traversing the inner and outer membranes of the bacteria. It is a system, which consists of only three protein subunits, the ABC protein, membrane fusion protein, and outer membrane protein
6.
Herbivore
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A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthparts adapted to rasping or grinding, horses and other herbivores have wide flat teeth that are adapted to grinding grass, tree bark, and other tough plant material. A large percentage of herbivores have mutualistic gut flora that help them digest plant matter and this gut flora is made up of cellulose-digesting protozoans or bacteria living in the herbivores intestines. Herbivore is the form of a modern Latin coinage, herbivora. Richard Owen employed the term in an 1854 work on fossil teeth. Herbivora is derived from the Latin herba meaning a small plant or herb, Herbivory is a form of consumption in which an organism principally eats autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria. More generally, organisms feed on autotrophs in general are known as primary consumers. Herbivory usually refers to eating plants, fungi, bacteria and protists that feed on living plants are usually termed plant pathogens. Flowering plants that obtain nutrition from other living plants are usually termed parasitic plants, there is however no single exclusive and definitive ecological classification of consumption patterns, each textbook has its own variations on the theme. Insects fed on the spores of early Devonian plants, and the Rhynie chert also provides evidence that organisms fed on plants using a pierce, during the next 75 million years, plants evolved a range of more complex organs, such as roots and seeds. There is no evidence of any organism being fed upon until the middle-late Mississippian,330.9 million years ago, further than their arthropod status, the identity of these early herbivores is uncertain. Hole feeding and skeletonisation are recorded in the early Permian, with surface fluid feeding evolving by the end of that period, Herbivory among four-limbed terrestrial vertebrates, the tetrapods developed in the Late Carboniferous. Early tetrapods were large amphibious piscivores, while amphibians continued to feed on fish and insects, some reptiles began exploring two new food types, tetrapods and plants. The entire dinosaur order ornithischia was composed with herbivores dinosaurs, carnivory was a natural transition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods, requiring minimal adaptation. In contrast, a set of adaptations was necessary for feeding on highly fibrous plant materials. Arthropods evolved herbivory in four phases, changing their approach to it in response to changing plant communities, tetrapod herbivores made their first appearance in the fossil record of their jaws near the Permio-Carboniferous boundary, approximately 300 million years ago. The earliest evidence of their herbivory has been attributed to dental occlusion, the evolution of dental occlusion led to a drastic increase in plant food processing and provides evidence about feeding strategies based on tooth wear patterns. Examination of phylogenetic frameworks of tooth and jaw morphologes has revealed that dental occlusion developed independently in several lineages tetrapod herbivores and this suggests that evolution and spread occurred simultaneously within various lineages
7.
Fly
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True flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek di = two, and ptera = wings. Insects of this use only a single pair of wings to fly. Diptera is an order containing an estimated 1,000,000 species including horse-flies, crane flies, hoverflies and others. Flies have a head, with a pair of large compound eyes. Their wing arrangement gives them great manoeuvrability in flight, and claws, Flies undergo complete metamorphosis, the eggs are laid on the larval food-source and the larvae, which lack true limbs, develop in a protected environment, often inside their source of their food. The pupa is a capsule from which the adult emerges when ready to do so. Diptera is one of the insect orders and are of considerable ecological. Flies are important pollinators, second only to the bees and their Hymenopteran relatives, Flies may have been among the evolutionarily earliest pollinators responsible for early plant pollination. Flies can be annoyances especially in parts of the world where they can occur in large numbers. Larger flies such as flies and screwworms cause significant economic harm to cattle. Blowfly larvae, known as gentles, and other larvae, known more generally as maggots, are used as fishing bait. They are also used in medicine in debridement to clean wounds, dipterans are endopterygotes, insects that undergo radical metamorphosis. They belong to the Mecopterida, alongside the Mecoptera, Siphonaptera, Lepidoptera and Trichoptera, the possession of a single pair of wings distinguishes most true flies from other insects with fly in their names. However, some true flies such as Hippoboscidae have become secondarily wingless and this cladogram represents the current consensus view. The first true dipterans known are from the Middle Triassic, and they became widespread during the Middle, modern flowering plants did not appear until the Cretaceous, so the original dipterans must have had a different source of nutrition other than nectar. The basal clades in the Diptera include the Deuterophlebiidae and the enigmatic Nymphomyiidae, three episodes of evolutionary radiation are thought to have occurred based on the fossil record. Many new species of lower Diptera developed in the Triassic, about 220 million years ago, many lower Brachycera appeared in the Jurassic, some 180 million years ago. A third radiation took place among the Schizophora at the start of the Paleogene,66 million years ago, the phylogenetic position of Diptera has been controversial
8.
Dung beetle
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Dung beetles are beetles that feed partly or exclusively on dung. A dung beetle can bury dung 250 times heavier than itself in one night, many dung beetles, known as rollers, roll dung into round balls, which are used as a food source or breeding chambers. Others, known as tunnelers, bury the dung wherever they find it, a third group, the dwellers, neither roll nor burrow, they simply live in manure. They are often attracted by the dung collected by burrowing owls, Dung Beetles can grow to 3 cm long and 2 cm wide. All the species belong to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea, most of them to the subfamilies Scarabaeinae and Aphodiinae of the family Scarabaeidae, as most species of Scarabaeinae feed exclusively on feces, that subfamily is often dubbed true dung beetles. There are dung-feeding beetles which belong to families, such as the Geotrupidae. The Scarabaeinae alone comprises more than 5,000 species, Dung beetles are currently the only known non-human animal to navigate and orient themselves using the Milky Way. Dung beetles are not a taxonomic group, dung feeding is found in a number of families of beetles. They do not prefer extremely cold or dry weather and they are found on all continents except Antarctica. They eat the dung of herbivores and omnivores, and prefer that produced by the latter, many of them also feed on mushrooms and decaying leaves and fruits. One type living in Central America, Deltochilum valgum, is a carnivore preying upon millipedes and those that eat dung do not need to eat or drink anything else, because the dung provides all the necessary nutrients. Most dung beetles search for dung using their sense of smell. Some smaller species simply attach themselves to the dung-providers to wait for the dung, after capturing the dung, a dung beetle rolls it, following a straight line despite all obstacles. Dung beetles can roll up to 10 times their weight, male Onthophagus taurus beetles can pull 1,141 times their own body weight, the equivalent of an average person pulling six double-decker buses full of people. A species of dung beetle navigates by polarization patterns in moonlight, Dung beetles can also navigate when only the Milky Way or clusters of bright stars are visible, making them the only insects known to orient themselves by the galaxy. The rollers roll and bury a dung ball either for storage or for making a brooding ball. In the latter case, two beetles, one male and one female, stay around the ball during the rolling process. Usually it is the male that rolls the ball, while the female hitch-hikes or simply follows behind, in some cases, the male and the female roll together
9.
Termite
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Termites are eusocial insects that are classified at the taxonomic rank of infraorder Isoptera, or as epifamily Termitoidae within the cockroach order Blattodea. Termites were once classified in an order from cockroaches. However, the first termites emerged during the Permian or even the Carboniferous. About 3,106 species are described, with a few hundred more left to be described. Although these insects are called white ants, they are not ants. Like ants and some bees and wasps from the separate order Hymenoptera, all colonies have fertile males called kings and one or more fertile females called queens. Termites mostly feed on plant material and cellulose, generally in the form of wood, leaf litter, soil. Termites are major detritivores, particularly in the subtropical and tropical regions, Termites are among the most successful groups of insects on Earth, colonising most landmasses except for Antarctica. Their colonies range in size from a few hundred individuals to enormous societies with several million individuals, Termite queens have the longest lifespan of any insect in the world, with some queens reportedly living up to 30 to 50 years. Unlike ants, which undergo a metamorphosis, each individual termite goes through an incomplete metamorphosis that proceeds through egg, nymph. Colonies are described as superorganisms because the termites form part of a self-regulating entity, Termites are a delicacy in the diet of some human cultures and are used in many traditional medicines. Several hundred species are significant as pests that can cause serious damage to buildings, crops. Some species, such as the West Indian drywood termite, are regarded as invasive species, the infraorder name Isoptera is derived from the Greek words iso and ptera, which refers to the nearly equal size of the fore and hind wings. Termite derives from the Latin and Late Latin word termes, altered by the influence of Latin terere from the earlier word tarmes, Termite nests were commonly known as terminarium or termitaria. In early English, termites were known as wood ants or white ants, the modern term was first used in 1781. DNA analysis from 16S rRNA sequences has supported a hypothesis, originally suggested by Cleveland and colleagues in 1934 and this earlier conclusion had been based on the similarity of the symbiotic gut flagellates in the wood-eating cockroaches to those in certain species of termites regarded as living fossils. In the 1960s additional evidence supporting that hypothesis emerged when F. A. McKittrick noted similar morphological characteristics between some termites and Cryptocercus nymphs. These similarities have led some authors to propose that termites be reclassified as a family, the Termitidae, within the order Blattodea
10.
Symbiosis
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Symbiosis is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different species, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasitic. In 1879, Heinrich Anton de Bary defined it as the living together of unlike organisms, Symbiosis can be obligatory, which means that one or both of the symbionts entirely depend on each other for survival, or facultative when they can generally live independently. When one organism lives on another such as mistletoe, it is called ectosymbiosis, or endosymbiosis when one partner lives inside the tissues of another, as in Symbiodinium in corals. In 1877, Albert Bernhard Frank used the term symbiosis which previously had used to depict people living together in community to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens. In 1879, the German mycologist Heinrich Anton de Bary defined it as the living together of unlike organisms, symbiotic relationships can be obligate, meaning that one or both of the symbionts entirely depend on each other for survival. For example, in lichens, which consist of fungal and photosynthetic symbionts, the algal or cyanobacterial symbionts in lichens, such as Trentepohlia, can generally live independently, and their symbiosis is, therefore, facultative. Endosymbiosis is any relationship in which one symbiont lives within the tissues of the other, either within the cells or extracellularly. Mutualism or interspecies reciprocal altruism is a relationship between individuals of different species where both individuals benefit, in general, only lifelong interactions involving close physical and biochemical contact can properly be considered symbiotic. Mutualistic relationships may be either obligate for both species, obligate for one but facultative for the other, or facultative for both, a large percentage of herbivores have mutualistic gut flora to help them digest plant matter, which is more difficult to digest than animal prey. This gut flora is made up of cellulose-digesting protozoans or bacteria living in the herbivores intestines, coral reefs are the result of mutualisms between coral organisms and various types of algae which live inside them. Most land plants and land ecosystems rely on mutualisms between the plants, which fix carbon from the air, and mycorrhyzal fungi, which help in extracting water, an example of mutual symbiosis is the relationship between the ocellaris clownfish that dwell among the tentacles of Ritteri sea anemones. The territorial fish protects the anemone from anemone-eating fish, and in turn the stinging tentacles of the anemone protect the clownfish from its predators, a special mucus on the clownfish protects it from the stinging tentacles. A further example is the fish, which sometimes lives together with a shrimp. The shrimp digs and cleans up a burrow in the sand in which both the shrimp and the fish live. The shrimp is almost blind, leaving it vulnerable to predators when outside its burrow, in case of danger the goby fish touches the shrimp with its tail to warn it. When that happens both the shrimp and goby fish quickly retreat into the burrow, different species of gobies also exhibit mutualistic behavior through cleaning up ectoparasites in other fish. Another non-obligate symbiosis is known from encrusting bryozoans and hermit crabs, the bryozoan colony develops a cirumrotatory growth and offers the crab a helicospiral-tubular extension of its living chamber that initially was situated within a gastropod shell. A spectacular examples of mutualism is between the siboglinid tube worms and symbiotic bacteria that live at hydrothermal vents and cold seeps
11.
Rabbit
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Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world. There are eight different genera in the classified as rabbits, including the European rabbit, cottontail rabbits. There are many species of rabbit, and these, along with pikas and hares. The male is called a buck and the female is a doe, Rabbit habitats include meadows, woods, forests, grasslands, deserts and wetlands. Rabbits live in groups, and the best known species, the European rabbit, lives in underground burrows, a group of burrows is called a warren. More than half the worlds rabbit population resides in North America and they are also native to southwestern Europe, Southeast Asia, Sumatra, some islands of Japan, and in parts of Africa and South America. They are not naturally found in most of Eurasia, where a number of species of hares are present, rabbits first entered South America relatively recently, as part of the Great American Interchange. Much of the continent has just one species of rabbit, the tapeti, the European rabbit has been introduced to many places around the world. Male rabbits are called bucks, females are called does, an older term for an adult rabbit is coney, while rabbit once referred only to the young animals. Another term for a rabbit is bunny, though this term is often applied informally to rabbits generally, especially domestic ones. More recently, the kit or kitten has been used to refer to a young rabbit. A young hare is called a leveret, this term is sometimes applied to a young rabbit as well. A group of rabbits is known as a colony, or nest, a group of young rabbits with the same parentage is referred to as a litter, and a group of domestic rabbits is sometimes called a herd. Because the rabbits epiglottis is engaged over the soft palate except when swallowing, rabbits have two sets of incisor teeth, one behind the other. This way they can be distinguished from rodents, with which they are often confused, the rabbits long ears, which can be more than 10 cm long, are probably an adaptation for detecting predators. They have large, powerful hind legs, the two front paws have 5 toes, the extra called the dewclaw. The hind feet have 4 toes and they are plantigrade animals while at rest, however, they move around on their toes while running, assuming a more digitigrade form. Unlike some other paw structures of quadruped mammals, especially those of domesticated pets and their nails are strong and are used for digging, along with their teeth, they are also used for defense
12.
Hare
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Hares and jackrabbits are leporids belonging to the genus Lepus. Hares are classified into the family as rabbits. They are similar in size and form to rabbits and eat the same diet and they are generally herbivorous and long-eared, they are fast runners, and they typically live solitarily or in pairs. Hare species are native to Africa, Eurasia, North America, five leporid species with hare in their common names are not considered true hares, the hispid hare, and four species known as red rock hares. Meanwhile, jackrabbits are hares rather than rabbits, a hare less than one year old is called a leveret. The collective noun for a group of hares is a drove, Hares are swift animals, The European hare can run up to 56 km/h. The five species of jackrabbits found in central and western North America are able to run at 64 km/h, and can leap up to 3 m at a time. Normally a shy animal, the European brown hare changes its behavior in spring, when hares can be seen in daytime chasing one another, during this spring frenzy, hares can be seen boxing, one hare striking another with its paws. For a long time, this had been thought to be only intermale competition, Hares do not bear their young below ground in a burrow as do other leporids, but rather in a shallow depression or flattened nest of grass called a form. Young hares are adapted to the lack of protection, relative to that afforded by a burrow, by being born fully furred. They are hence precocial, and are able to fend for themselves soon after birth, by contrast, the related rabbits and cottontail rabbits are altricial, having young that are born blind and hairless. All rabbits live underground in burrows or warrens, while hares live in simple nests above the ground, Hares are generally larger than rabbits, with longer ears, and have black markings on their fur. Hares have not been domesticated, while rabbits are raised for food, the domestic pet known as the Belgian Hare is a rabbit that has been selectively bred to resemble a hare. Hares have jointed, or kinetic, skulls, unique among mammals and they have 48 chromosomes while rabbits have 44. In rural areas of North America and particularly in pioneer times, because of their extremely low fat content, they are a poor choice as a survival food. Hares can be prepared in the manner as rabbits — commonly roasted or taken apart for breading and frying. Hasenpfeffer is a traditional German stew made from marinated rabbit or hare, pfeffer is not only the name of a spice, but also of a dish where the animals blood is used as a thickening agent for the sauce. Wine or vinegar is also a prominent ingredient, to lend a sourness to the recipe
Media related to Coprophagia at Wikimedia Commons
