1.
Oligocene
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The Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present. As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the exact dates of the start. The name Oligocene comes from the Ancient Greek ὀλίγος and καινός, the Oligocene is preceded by the Eocene Epoch and is followed by the Miocene Epoch. The Oligocene is the third and final epoch of the Paleogene Period, the Oligocene is often considered an important time of transition, a link between the archaic world of the tropical Eocene and the more modern ecosystems of the Miocene. Major changes during the Oligocene included an expansion of grasslands. By contrast, the Oligocene–Miocene boundary is not set at an easily identified worldwide event, Oligocene faunal stages from youngest to oldest are, The Paleogene Period general temperature decline is interrupted by an Oligocene 7-million-year stepwise climate change. A deeper 8.2 °C,400, 000-year temperature depression leads the 2 °C, the stepwise climate change began 32.5 Ma and lasted through to 25.5 Ma, as depicted in the PaleoTemps chart. The Oligocene climate change was a increase in ice volume. The 7-million-year depression abruptly terminated within 1–2 million years of the La Garita Caldera eruption at 28–26 Ma, a deep 400, 000-year glaciated Oligocene Miocene boundary event is recorded at McMurdo Sound and King George Island. During this epoch, the continued to drift toward their present positions. Antarctica became more isolated and finally developed an ice cap, a brief marine incursion marks the early Oligocene in Europe. Marine fossils from the Oligocene are rare in North America, there appears to have been a land bridge in the early Oligocene between North America and Europe, since the faunas of the two regions are very similar. Sometime during the Oligocene, South America was finally detached from Antarctica and it also allowed the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to flow, rapidly cooling the Antarctic continent. Angiosperms continued their expansion throughout the world as tropical and sub-tropical forests were replaced by deciduous forests. Open plains and deserts became more common and grasses expanded from their habitat in the Eocene moving out into open tracts. However, even at the end of the period, grass was not quite enough for modern savannas. In North America, subtropical species dominated with cashews and lychee trees present, and temperate trees such as roses, beeches, the legumes spread, while sedges, bulrushes, and ferns continued their ascent. Even more open landscapes allowed animals to grow to larger sizes than they had earlier in the Paleocene epoch 30 million years earlier, marine faunas became fairly modern, as did terrestrial vertebrate fauna on the northern continents
2.
Yellow-knobbed curassow
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The yellow-knobbed curassow is a large species of bird found in forest and woodland in Colombia and Venezuela. It feeds mainly on the ground, but flies up into trees if threatened and its most striking features are its crest, made of feathers that curl forward, and the fleshy yellow knob at the base of its bill. Females lack this fleshy yellow knob, but otherwise resemble the male in the plumage, the adult is 84-92.5 cm and weighs about 2–3 kg. It eats fruits, leaves, seeds, and small animals, unlike most other gamebirds, curassows nest off the ground, with both sexes helping in the construction. The female lays just 2 eggs - a tiny clutch compared to those of many ground-nesting gamebirds
3.
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
4.
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
5.
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
6.
Bird
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Birds, a subgroup of Reptiles, are the last living examples of Dinosaurs. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at ten thousand. Birds are the closest living relatives of crocodilians, the fossil record indicates that birds evolved from feathered ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. True birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago, Birds, especially those in the southern continents, survived this event and then migrated to other parts of the world while diversifying during periods of global cooling. Primitive bird-like dinosaurs that lie outside class Aves proper, in the broader group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period, around 170 million years ago. Birds have wings which are more or less developed depending on the species, the digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have evolved for swimming. Many species annually migrate great distances, Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and bird songs, and participating in such social behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of species are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous or, rarely, Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction. They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents, most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Some birds, such as hens, lay eggs even when not fertilised, songbirds, parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano is harvested for use as a fertiliser, Birds prominently figure throughout human culture. About 120–130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry, the first classification of birds was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae. Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system currently in use, Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy. Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the dinosaur clade Theropoda, Aves and a sister group, the clade Crocodilia, contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria
7.
Galliformes
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The name derives from gallus, Latin for cock or rooster. Common names are gamefowl or gamebirds, landfowl, gallinaceous birds, wildfowl or just fowl are also often used for the Galliformes, but usually these terms also refer to waterfowl, and occasionally to other commonly hunted birds. This group has about 290 species, one or more of which are found in every part of the worlds continents. They are rarer on islands, and in contrast to the closely related waterfowl, are absent from oceanic islands—unless introduced there by humans. Several species have been domesticated during their long and extensive relationships with humans and this order contains five families, Phasianidae, Odontophoridae, Numididae, Cracidae, and Megapodiidae. They are important as seed dispersers and predators in the ecosystems they inhabit, many gallinaceous species are skilled runners and escape predators by running rather than flying. Males of most species are more colorful than the females, males often have elaborate courtship behaviors that include strutting, fluffing of tail or head feathers, and vocal sounds. The living Galliformes were once divided into seven or more families, despite their distinctive appearance, grouse and turkeys probably do not warrant separation as families due to their recent origin from partridge- or pheasant-like birds. The turkeys became larger after their ancestors colonized temperate and subtropical North America, the ancestors of grouse, though, adapted to harsh climates and could thereby colonize subarctic regions. Consequently, the Phasianidae are expanded in current taxonomy to include the former Tetraonidae and Meleagrididae as subfamilies, the Anseriformes and the Galliformes together make up the Galloanserae. They are basal among the living birds, and normally follow the Paleognathae in modern bird classification systems. This was first proposed in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy and has been the one major change of that proposed scheme that was almost universally adopted. However, the Galliformes as they were traditionally delimited are called Gallomorphae in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy and this is not a natural group, however, but rather an erroneous result of the now-obsolete phenetic methodology employed in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy. Phenetic studies do not distinguish between plesiomorphic and apomorphic characters, which leads to basal lineages appearing as monophyletic groups, historically, the buttonquails, mesites and the hoatzin were placed in the Galliformes, too. The former are now known to be adapted to an inland lifestyle, whereas the mesites are probably closely related to pigeons. The relationships of the hoatzin are entirely obscure, and it is treated as a monotypic order Opisthocomiformes to signify this. The earliest galliform-like fossils hail from the Late Cretaceous, most notably those of Austinornis lentus and its partial left tarsometatarsus was found in the Austin Chalk near Fort McKinney, Texas, dating to about 85 million years ago. This bird was quite closely related to Galliformes, but whether it was a part of these or belongs elsewhere in the little-known galliform branch of Galloanserae is not clear
8.
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque
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Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz, as he is known in Europe, was a nineteenth-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a man in the United States, ultimately settling in Ohio in 1815, where he made notable contributions to botany, zoology. He also contributed to the study of ancient Mesoamerican linguistics, in addition to work he had completed in Europe. Rafinesque was eccentric, and is portrayed as an erratic genius. He was an autodidact who excelled in fields of knowledge, as a zoologist, botanist, writer. He wrote prolifically on such topics as anthropology, biology, geology, and linguistics. Today, scholars agree that he was far ahead of his time in many areas, among his theories was that ancestors of Native Americans had migrated by the Bering Sea from Asia to North America. Rafinesque was born on October 22,1783 in Galata, a suburb of Constantinople and his father F. G. Rafinesque was a French merchant from Marseilles, his mother M. Schmaltz was of German descent and born in Constantinople. His father died in Philadelphia about 1793, Rafinesque spent his youth in Marseilles, and was mostly self-educated, he never attended university. By the age of twelve, he had begun collecting plants for a herbarium, by fourteen, he taught himself perfect Greek and Latin because he needed to follow footnotes in the books he was reading in his paternal grandmothers libraries. In 1802, at the age of nineteen, Rafinesque sailed to Philadelphia in the United States with his younger brother and they traveled through Pennsylvania and Delaware, where he made the acquaintance of most of the young nations few botanists. In 1805 Rafinesque returned to Europe with his collection of specimens, and settled in Palermo, Sicily. He became so successful in trade that he retired by age twenty-five, for a time Rafinesque also worked as secretary to the American consul. During his stay in Sicily, he studied plants and fishes and he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1808. After their son died in 1815, he left her and returned to the United States, when his ship Union foundered near the coast of Connecticut, he lost all his books and all his specimens. Settling in New York, Rafinesque became a member of the newly established Lyceum of Natural History. In 1817 his book Florula Ludoviciana or A Flora of the State of Louisiana was strongly criticized by fellow botanists, by 1818, he had collected and named more than 250 new species of plants and animals. Slowly he was rebuilding his collection of objects from nature, in 1819 Rafinesque became professor of botany at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where he also gave private lessons in French, Italian and Spanish
9.
Curassow
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Curassows are one of the three major groups of cracid birds. Three of the four genera are restricted to tropical South America and they form a distinct clade which is usually classified as the subfamily Cracinae. 35–20 mya. This data must be considered preliminary until corroborated by material evidence however. The position of the peculiar nocturnal curassow is not well resolved, it might be closer to the latter, but in any case, it diverged around the same time as the split between the two major lineages. All curassow genera appear to have diverged, in fact, during the Tortonian, the split took place some 10–9 mya. In the two genera, vicariant speciation seems to have played a major role. Pereira, Sérgio Luiz & Baker, Allan J. Vicariant speciation of curassows, a hypothesis based on mitochondrial DNA phylogeny
10.
Guan (bird)
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The guans are a number of bird genera which make up the largest group in the family Cracidae. They are found mainly in northern South America, southern Central America, there is also the peculiar horned guan which is not a true guan, but a very distinct and ancient cracid with no close living relatives. The evolution of the group is fairly well resolved due to comprehensive analyses of morphology, biogeography and their distribution is fairly far northwards, with 2 of their 3 species living in Central America. The two basal lineages diverged during the Burdigalian, around 20–15 mya, the two larger genera diverged around the same time, spreading mainly southwards all over tropical South America in the process. It appears as if the distribution of the piping-guans is much relictual. Genus Penelopina Highland guan, Penelopina nigra Genus Oreophasis Horned guan, a guide to the birds of Trinidad and Tobago. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 35, 637–645, doi,10. 1016/j. ympev.2004.12.004 PDF fulltext Pereira, Sérgio Luiz, Baker, Allan J. & Wajntal, Anita, Combined nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences resolve generic relationships within the Cracidae
11.
Family (biology)
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In biological classification, family is one of the eight major taxonomic ranks, it is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks above the rank of genus. In vernacular usage, a family may be named one of its common members, for example, walnuts and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae. What does or does not belong to a family—or whether a family should be recognized at all—are proposed and determined by practicing taxonomists. There are no rules for describing or recognizing a family. Taxonomists often take different positions about descriptions of taxa, and there may be no broad consensus across the community for some time. Some described taxa are accepted broadly and quickly, but others only rarely, if at all, the naming of families is codified by various international codes. In zoological nomenclature, the names of animals end with the suffix -idae. The concept of rank at time was not yet settled, and in the preface to the Prodromus Magnol spoke of uniting his families into larger genera. Carolus Linnaeus used the word familia in his Philosophia botanica to denote groups of plants, trees, herbs, ferns, palms. He used this term only in the section of the book. In zoology, the family as an intermediate between order and genus was introduced by Pierre André Latreille in his Précis des caractères génériques des insectes. He used families in some but not in all his orders of insects, families can be used for evolutionary, palaeontological and generic studies because they are more stable than lower taxonomic levels such as genera and species
12.
Central America
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Central America is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. Central America is bordered by Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the east, Central America consists of seven countries, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The combined population of Central America is between 41,739,000 and 42,688,190, Central America is a part of the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from northern Guatemala through to central Panama. Due to the presence of several active faults and the Central America Volcanic Arc. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur frequently, these disasters have resulted in the loss of many lives. In the Pre-Columbian era, Central America was inhabited by the peoples of Mesoamerica to the north and west. Soon after Christopher Columbuss voyages to the Americas, the Spanish began to colonize the Americas, the seven states finally became independent autonomous states, beginning with Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, followed by El Salvador, then Panama, and finally Belize. Middle America is usually thought to comprise Mexico to the north of the 7 states of Central America as well as Colombia, usually the whole of the Caribbean to the north-east and sometimes the Guyanas are also included. According to one source, the term Central America was used as a synonym for Middle America as recently as 1962, in Brazil, Central America comprises all countries between Mexico and Colombia, including those in the Caribbean. Mexico, in whole or in part, is included by British people. For the people living in the 5 countries formerly part of the Federal Republic of Central America there is a distinction between the Spanish language terms América Central and Centroamérica, in the Pre-Columbian era, the northern areas of Central America were inhabited by the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. Most notable among these were the Mayans, who had built numerous cities throughout the region, and the Aztecs, following Christopher Columbuss voyages to the Americas, the Spanish sent many expeditions to the region, and they began their conquest of Maya territory in 1523. Soon after the conquest of the Aztec Empire, Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado commenced the conquest of northern Central America for the Spanish Empire. Beginning with his arrival in Soconusco in 1523, Alvarados forces systematically conquered and subjugated most of the major Maya kingdoms, including the Kiche, Tzutujil, Pipil, and the Kaqchikel. By 1528, the conquest of Guatemala was nearly complete, with only the Petén Basin remaining outside the Spanish sphere of influence, the last independent Maya kingdoms – the Kowoj and the Itza people – were finally defeated in 1697, as part of the Spanish conquest of Petén. In 1538, Spain established the Real Audiencia of Panama, which had jurisdiction over all land from the Strait of Magellan to the Gulf of Fonseca. This entity was dissolved in 1543, and most of the territory within Central America then fell under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia Real de Guatemala. This area included the current territories of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Mexican state of Chiapas, the president of the Audiencia, which had its seat in Antigua Guatemala, was the governor of the entire area
13.
South America
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South America is a continent located in the western hemisphere, mostly in the southern hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the northern hemisphere. It may also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas, which is the used in nations that speak Romance languages. The reference to South America instead of other regions has increased in the last decades due to changing geopolitical dynamics. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean, North America and it includes twelve sovereign states, a part of France, and a non-sovereign area. In addition to this, the ABC islands of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Trinidad and Tobago, South America has an area of 17,840,000 square kilometers. Its population as of 2005 has been estimated at more than 371,090,000, South America ranks fourth in area and fifth in population. Brazil is by far the most populous South American country, with more than half of the population, followed by Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela. In recent decades Brazil has also concentrated half of the regions GDP and has become a first regional power, most of the population lives near the continents western or eastern coasts while the interior and the far south are sparsely populated. Most of the continent lies in the tropics, the continents cultural and ethnic outlook has its origin with the interaction of indigenous peoples with European conquerors and immigrants and, more locally, with African slaves. Given a long history of colonialism, the majority of South Americans speak Portuguese or Spanish. South America occupies the portion of the Americas. The continent is delimited on the northwest by the Darién watershed along the Colombia–Panama border. Almost all of mainland South America sits on the South American Plate, South Americas major mineral resources are gold, silver, copper, iron ore, tin, and petroleum. These resources found in South America have brought high income to its countries especially in times of war or of rapid growth by industrialized countries elsewhere. However, the concentration in producing one major export commodity often has hindered the development of diversified economies and this is leading to efforts to diversify production to drive away from staying as economies dedicated to one major export. South America is one of the most biodiverse continents on earth, South America is home to many interesting and unique species of animals including the llama, anaconda, piranha, jaguar, vicuña, and tapir. The Amazon rainforests possess high biodiversity, containing a proportion of the Earths species. Brazil is the largest country in South America, encompassing around half of the land area
14.
Plain chachalaca
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The plain chachalaca is a large bird in the chachalaca, guan and curassow family Cracidae. It breeds in tropical and subtropical environments from mezquital thickets in the Rio Grande Valley in southernmost Texas and this species frequents dry and moist forests, especially where interspersed with scrub and savanna. Usually found in groups of up to 15 birds, the plain chachalaca is furtive and wary, the plain chachalaca feeds in trees or on the ground on fruit, seeds, leaves, and flowers. It is sometimes a pest of crops such as tomatoes and cucumbers, the call is a loud, raucous RAW-pa-haw or cha-cha-LAW-ka, often by several birds in a rhythmical chorus, especially in early morning and evening, usually from well up in trees. It also produces peeping whistles and cackles, others describe chachalaca calls as irritating noises mimicking a bunch of arguing women. The plain chachalaca typically breeds in the wet season. The nest is a saucer of twigs and plant fibers, lined with leaves. The clutch is 2–4 rough-shelled white to cream eggs, the plain chachalaca is related to the West Mexican chachalaca and the white-bellied chachalaca, and both of these were formerly considered a subspecies of the plain chachalaca. Today all major authorities recognize them as separate species. Their ranges slightly overlap in Mexico, the white-bellied chachalaca may be more closely related to the little chachalaca than the plain chachalaca. The plain chachalaca is a medium sized galliform, around the size of a common pheasant and it is long-necked with a small head and bare throat patch which becomes deep red in both sexes during the breeding season. Adults have a head and neck with a dull olive-brown body. The underbelly is pale to ochraceous and the tail is blackish with green gloss, the iris is brown and bill is black, orbital skin and the feet are dull grey. The species has also introduced and established to San Patricio County in Texas. The plain chachalaca occupies a range of habitats, including primary forest, secondary forest, forest edge and riverine forest, thorny bush-scrub. It is also found in modified habitats such as orchards, suburban parks and gardens. Unlike other cracids, it is able to adapt to the scrubland that arises after the clearing of tropical rainforest and it can be found from sea-level to 1,850 m The plain chachalaca is mostly diurnal and is most active in cool mornings and in the evening. It is mostly inactive during the heat of the day, pairs or family groups roost communally in trees, usually on a branch, often touching, and facing the same way. Hunting of the plain chachalaca is restricted to subsistence hunting, for example by the Mayan people in southern Mexico, the plain chachalaca population is 500, 000–5,000,000
15.
Texas
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Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Other major cities include Austin, the second most populous state capital in the U. S. Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify its former status as an independent republic, and as a reminder of the states struggle for independence from Mexico. The Lone Star can be found on the Texan state flag, the origin of Texass name is from the word Tejas, which means friends in the Caddo language. Due to its size and geologic features such as the Balcones Fault, although Texas is popularly associated with the U. S. southwestern deserts, less than 10 percent of Texas land area is desert. Most of the centers are located in areas of former prairies, grasslands, forests. Traveling from east to west, one can observe terrain that ranges from coastal swamps and piney woods, to rolling plains and rugged hills, the term six flags over Texas refers to several nations that have ruled over the territory. Spain was the first European country to claim the area of Texas, Mexico controlled the territory until 1836 when Texas won its independence, becoming an independent Republic. In 1845, Texas joined the United States as the 28th state, the states annexation set off a chain of events that caused the Mexican–American War in 1846. A slave state before the American Civil War, Texas declared its secession from the U. S. in early 1861, after the Civil War and the restoration of its representation in the federal government, Texas entered a long period of economic stagnation. One Texan industry that thrived after the Civil War was cattle, due to its long history as a center of the industry, Texas is associated with the image of the cowboy. The states economic fortunes changed in the early 20th century, when oil discoveries initiated a boom in the state. With strong investments in universities, Texas developed a diversified economy, as of 2010 it shares the top of the list of the most Fortune 500 companies with California at 57. With a growing base of industry, the leads in many industries, including agriculture, petrochemicals, energy, computers and electronics, aerospace. Texas has led the nation in export revenue since 2002 and has the second-highest gross state product. The name Texas, based on the Caddo word tejas meaning friends or allies, was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves, during Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas, La Provincia de Texas. Texas is the second largest U. S. state, behind Alaska, though 10 percent larger than France and almost twice as large as Germany or Japan, it ranks only 27th worldwide amongst country subdivisions by size. If it were an independent country, Texas would be the 40th largest behind Chile, Texas is in the south central part of the United States of America. Three of its borders are defined by rivers, the Rio Grande forms a natural border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south
16.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
17.
Rufous-vented chachalaca
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The rufous-vented chachalaca is a member of an ancient group of birds of the Cracidae family, which are related to the Australasian mound builders. It is also found on Bequia and Union Island in the Grenadines where it may have been introduced, Rufous-vented chachalaca is a largely arboreal species found in forest and woodland, but it is also found in more open dry scrubby areas. This combined with low hunting pressure, make it far less vulnerable than larger members of the family, notably curassows. These are medium-sized birds, similar in appearance to turkeys, with small heads, long strong legs. They are typically 53–58 cm long, the female weighs 540g and they have fairly dull plumage, dark brown above and paler below. The head is grey, and the tail is tipped rufous or white depending on race. As other chachalacas, the rufous-vented chachalaca is a noisy species. The males call is a loud low ka-ka-rooki-rooki-ka, answered by the females high-pitched watch-a-lak, the species is a social bird, often seen in family groups. It walks along branches seeking the fruit and seeds on which it feeds and it is an able flyer that can even take off and fly vertically, but does not usually fly long distances. The twig nest is built low in a tree, and three or four white eggs are laid. This species is one of the birds of Trinidad and Tobago and is featured on that countrys coat of arms along with the scarlet ibis, the ibis representing Trinidad. A Guide to the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, Birds of Venezuela by Hilty, ISBN 0-7136-6418-5 Stamps Rufous-vented Chachalaca videos on the Internet Bird Collection Rufous-vented Chachalaca photo gallery VIREO
18.
Trinidad and Tobago
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During the same period, the island of Tobago changed hands among Spanish, British, French, Dutch and Courlander colonizers, more times than any other island in the Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago were ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens, the country Trinidad and Tobago obtained independence in 1962, becoming a republic in 1976. Trinidad and Tobago is the third richest country by GDP per capita in the Americas after the United States, furthermore, it is recognised as a high-income economy by the World Bank. Unlike most of the English-speaking Caribbean, the economy is primarily industrial, with an emphasis on petroleum. The countrys wealth is attributed to its reserves and exploitation of oil. Historian E. L. Joseph claimed that Trinidads Amerindian name was Iere or Land of the Humming Bird, derived from the Arawak name for hummingbird, however, Boomert claims that neither cairi nor caeri means hummingbird and tukusi or tucuchi does. Others have reported that kairi and iere simply mean island, christopher Columbus renamed it La Isla de la Trinidad, fulfilling a vow made before setting out on his third voyage of exploration. Trinidad and Tobago are islands situated between 10°2 and 11°12 N latitude and 60°30 and 61°56 W longitude, at the closest point, Trinidad is just 11 kilometres from Venezuelan territory. Trinidad is 4,768 km2 in area with a length of 80 km. Tobago has an area of about 300 km2, or 5. 8% of the area, is 41 km long and 12 km at its greatest width. Trinidad and Tobago lie on the shelf of South America. The terrain of the islands is a mixture of mountains and plains, the highest point in the country is found on the Northern Range at El Cerro del Aripo, which is 940 metres above sea level. As the majority of the live in the island of Trinidad. There are four municipalities in Trinidad, Port of Spain. The main town in Tobago is Scarborough, Trinidad is made up of a variety of soil types, the majority being fine sands and heavy clays. The alluvial valleys of the Northern Range and the soils of the East-West Corridor are the most fertile, the Northern Range consists mainly of Upper Jurassic and Cretaceous metamorphic rocks. The Northern Lowlands consist of shallow marine clastic sediments. South of this, the Central Range fold and thrust belt consists of Cretaceous and Eocene sedimentary rocks, the Naparima Plains and the Nariva Swamp form the southern shoulder of this uplift
19.
Polymath
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A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas, such a person is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. The term was first used in the 17th century, the related term, the term is often used to describe great thinkers of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment who excelled at several fields in science and the arts. In the Italian Renaissance, the idea of the polymath was expressed by Leon Battista Alberti and this term entered the lexicon during the twentieth century and has now been applied to great thinkers living before and after the Renaissance. Renaissance man was first recorded in written English in the early 20th century and it is now used to refer to great thinkers living before, during, or after the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci has often described as the archetype of the Renaissance man. These polymaths had an approach to education that reflected the ideals of the humanists of the time. A gentleman or courtier of that era was expected to speak several languages, play an instrument, write poetry. The idea of an education was essential to achieving polymath ability. At this time, universities did not specialize in specific areas but rather trained students in an array of science, philosophy. This universal education gave them a grounding from which they could continue into apprenticeship toward becoming a master of a specific field, aside from Renaissance man as mentioned above, similar terms in use are Homo Universalis and Uomo Universale, which translate to universal person or universal man. The related term generalist—contrasted with a used to describe a person with a general approach to knowledge. The term Universal Genius or Versatile Genius is also used, with Leonardo da Vinci as the prime example again. The term seems to be used especially when a person has made lasting contributions in at least one of the fields in which he was involved. When a person is described as having knowledge, they exhibit a vast scope of knowledge. This designation may be anachronistic, however, in the case of such as Eratosthenes whose reputation for having encyclopedic knowledge predates the existence of any encyclopedic object. One whose accomplishments are limited to athletics would not be considered a polymath in the sense of the word. An example is Howard Baker, who was called a sporting polymath by the Encyclopedia of British Football for winning high jump titles and playing cricket, football, many polymaths from across the centuries have their roots in medical applications. One of the well known polymaths, Leonardo da Vinci, was known for his immense interest in human anatomical structure
20.
Australasia
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Australasia, a region of Oceania, comprises Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. Charles de Brosses coined the term in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes and he derived it from the Latin for south of Asia and differentiated the area from Polynesia and the southeast Pacific. The bulk of Australasia sits on the Indo-Australian Plate, together with India, physiographically, Australasia includes New Zealand, Australia, and Melanesia, New Guinea and neighbouring islands north and east of Australia in the Pacific Ocean. The designation is applied to all the lands and islands of the Pacific Ocean lying between the equator and latitude 47° south. Most of Australasia lies on the portion of the Indo-Australian Plate, flanked by the Indian Ocean to the west. Sometimes the term encompasses the island of New Guinea. Many organisations whose names include the prefix Australasian Society of, limit their scope of operation to just Australia and New Zealand. In the past, Australasia has been used as a name for combined Australia/New Zealand sporting teams, examples include tennis between 1905 and 1915, when New Zealand and Australia combined to compete in the Davis Cup international tournament, and at the Olympic Games of 1908 and 1912. From an ecological perspective the Australasia ecozone forms a region with a common geologic and evolutionary history. In this context, Australasia is limited to Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, New Caledonia, the Wallace Line marks the biological divide from the Indomalaya ecozone of tropical Asia – Borneo and Bali lie on the western, Asian side. These three land masses have been separated from other continents, and from one another, for millions of years, all of Australasia shares the Antarctic flora, although the northern, tropical islands also share many plants with Southeast Asia. Mainland Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania are separated from one another by shallow continental shelves and they share a similar fauna which includes marsupial and monotreme mammals and ratite birds. Eucalypts are the predominant trees in much of Australia and New Guinea, New Zealand has no extant native land mammals aside from bats, but also had ratite birds, including the kiwi and the extinct moa. Media related to Australasia at Wikimedia Commons
21.
Megapode
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The megapodes, also known as incubator birds or mound-builders, are stocky, medium-large chicken-like birds with small heads and large feet in the family Megapodiidae. Their name literally means large foot, and is a reference to the heavy legs, all are browsers, and all but the malleefowl occupy wooded habitats. Most are brown or black colored, megapodes are superprecocial, hatching from their eggs in the most mature condition of any birds. They hatch with open eyes, bodily coordination and strength, full wing feathers and downy body feathers, and are able to run, pursue prey, megapodes are medium-sized to large terrestrial birds with large legs and feet with sharp claws. They range from 28 to 70 cm, the largest members of the clade are the species of Alectura and Talegalla. The smallest are the Micronesian scrubfowl and the Moluccan scrubfowl and they have small heads, short beaks, and rounded and large wings. Their flying abilities vary within the clade and they present the hallux at the same level of the other toes just like the species of the clade Cracidae. The other Galliformes have their halluces raised above the level of the front toes. The distribution of the family has contracted in the Pacific with the arrival of humans, and a number of groups such as Fiji, Tonga. Megapodes are mainly solitary birds that do not incubate their eggs with their body heat as other birds do and their eggs are unusual in having a large yolk, making up 50–70% of the egg weight. The birds are best known for building massive nest-mounds of decaying vegetation, however, some bury their eggs in other ways, there are burrow-nesters which use geothermal heat, and others which simply rely on the heat of the sun warming sand. Some species vary their incubation strategy depending on the local environment, recent research suggests an instinctive visual recognition of specific movement patterns is made by the individual species of megapode. Similar to other birds, they hatch fully feathered and active, already able to fly. Eggs previously assigned to Genyornis have been reassigned to giant megapode species, a lot of the dietary and chronological data previously assigned to dromornithids may instead be consigned to the giant megapodes. The more than 20 living species are in seven genera, although the evolutionary relationships between the Megapodiidae are especially uncertain, the morphological groups are clear, Living Megapodiidae based on the work by John Boyd. Andamanensis Walter 1980 nomen dubium †M. burnabyi Gray 1861 nomen dubium †Raoul Island scrubfowl, †New Ireland scrubfowl, M. sp. tenimberensis from the Oriental Bird Club
22.
Order (biology)
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In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized by the nomenclature codes. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, an immediately higher rank, superorder, may be added directly above order, while suborder would be a lower rank. A taxonomic unit, a taxon, in that rank, in that case the plural is orders. Example, The Juglans and Hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, what does and does not belong to each order is determined by a taxonomist, as is whether a particular order should be recognized at all. Often there is no agreement, with different taxonomists each taking a different position. There are no rules that a taxonomist needs to follow in describing or recognizing an order. Some taxa are accepted almost universally, while others are recognised only rarely, for some groups of organisms, consistent suffixes are used to denote that the rank is an order. The Latin suffix -formes meaning having the form of is used for the name of orders of birds and fishes. The suffix -ales is for the name of orders of plants, fungi, for some clades covered by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a number of additional classifications are sometimes used, although not all of these are officially recognised. In their 1997 classification of mammals, McKenna and Bell used two levels between superorder and order, grandorder and mirorder. Michael Novacek inserted them at the same position, michael Benton inserted them between superorder and magnorder instead. This position was adopted by Systema Naturae 2000 and others, in botany, the ranks of subclass and suborder are secondary ranks pre-defined as respectively above and below the rank of order. Any number of further ranks can be used as long as they are clearly defined, the superorder rank is commonly used, with the ending -anae that was initiated by Armen Takhtajans publications from 1966 onwards. Carl Linnaeus was the first to apply it consistently to the division of all three kingdoms of nature in his Systema Naturae, for plants, Linnaeus orders in the Systema Naturae and the Species Plantarum were strictly artificial, introduced to subdivide the artificial classes into more comprehensible smaller groups. In French botanical publications, from Michel Adansons Familles naturelles des plantes and until the end of the 19th century, some of the plant families still retain the names of Linnaean natural orders or even the names of pre-Linnaean natural groups recognised by Linnaeus as orders in his natural classification. Such names are known as family names. In zoology, the Linnaean orders were used more consistently and that is, the orders in the zoology part of the Systema Naturae refer to natural groups. Some of his names are still in use
23.
Basal (phylogenetics)
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In phylogenetics, basal is the direction of the base of a rooted phylogenetic tree or cladogram. Clade C may be described as basal within a larger clade D if its root is linked to the root of D. If C is a clade within D that has the lowest taxonomic rank of all basal clades within D, C may be described as the basal taxon of that rank within D. While there must always be two or more equally basal clades sprouting from the root of every cladogram, those clades may differ widely in rank or species diversity. In general, clade A is more basal than clade B if B is a subgroup of the group of A. Within large groups, basal may be used loosely to mean closer to the root than the great majority of. A core clade is a clade representing all but the clade of lowest rank within a larger clade. While basal applies to clades, characters or traits are considered derived if they are absent in a basal group. This assumption only holds if the basal group is a good analogy for the last common ancestor of the group. Ancestral or plesiomorphic are preferred to primitive, which may carry false connotations of inferiority or a lack of complexity, within the primate family Hominidae, gorillas are a sister group to common chimpanzees, bonobos and humans. These five species form a clade, the subfamily Homininae, of which Gorilla is the basal genus, however, if the analysis is not restricted to genera, the Homo plus Pan clade is also basal. This semantic ambiguity is discussed in the Criticism section, moreover, orangutans are a sister group to Homininae and are the basal genus in the family as a whole. Subfamilies Homininae and Ponginae are both basal within Hominidae, but given that there are no subfamilies in the cladogram it is unlikely the term would be applied to either. In general, a statement to the effect that one group is basal, or branches off first, if that level cannot be specified a more detailed description of the relevant sister groups may be needed. In this example, orangutans differ from the genera in their Eurasian range. This fact plus their basal status provides a hint that the most recent common ancestor of extant great apes may have been Eurasian, despite the ubiquity of the usage of the term, some systematists believe its application to extant groups is unnecessary and misleading. This is because a pair of branches of a phylogenetic tree are equally ranked. The term tends to be applied when one branch is less diverse than another branch and this situation raises an equivocal usage for the term basal in that it also refers to the direction of the root of the tree
24.
Highland guan
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The highland guan is a species of bird in the family Cracidae. It is found in the highlands of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, southern Mexico and its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forest. The highland guan grows to a length of 590 to 650 millimetres, the plumage of the male is black, the upper parts glossed with green or blue, the underparts rather duller. The iris of the eye is reddish-brown and there is reddish-brown or purplish bare skin around and behind the eye, the beak, the bare skin on the throat, the large wattle, the legs and feet are reddish-orange. The female, by contrast, is black, heavily mottled and barred with reddish-brown and cinnamon, with a red beak and bare skin round the beak, the highland guan is found on either side of the mountain ranges in Central America. In Mexico it is uncommon, but it is present in numbers in the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve. It is also common in some localities in Guatemala, but rather rarer in Honduras, north-central Nicaragua and El Salvador and its habitat is humid broad-leaved mountain forests, mainly cloud forests and pine-oak forests, but it has also been observed in secondary forests and plantations. The bird forages for fruit, in the trees and on the leaf litter, the highland guan is thought to be decreasing in numbers. The main threats it faces are the destruction of its forest habitat, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as vulnerable. BirdLife International, Highland Guan - BirdLife Species Factsheet
25.
Wattled guan
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The wattled guan is a species of bird in the Cracidae family. It is a large black cracid with blue-based, black-tipped beak. It is found in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela and its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. The wattled guan is a shy species that is mostly seen when it perches on the outer edge of the canopy from a distance. Like many tropical forest birds, it is more often than seen. It is threatened by destruction and the IUCN has assessed its conservation status as being near threatened. The wattled guan is recognisable by the red and yellow fleshy wattle that dangles from its throat. It is a bird with a long tail, about 75 centimetres long and weighing between 1,200 and 1,550 grams. The plumage is black, the beak is blue and the feet are flesh-coloured, the wattled guan is endemic to the foothills of the Andes in South America. Its range extends from northwestern Venezuela through Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia to southern Peru and it used to be found on the western slopes of the Andes but this is believed no longer to be the case. On the eastern slopes it is rare in Venezuela but slightly more common in Colombia and its natural habitat is wet mountain forest and woodland verges, and it also occurs in secondary forest. Its altitudinal range is 500 to 2,500 metres, & Rafael F. AGUILAR H.2012. - Redescripción del Gualí Aburria aburri, con notas sobre el nido y el huevo Rev. Ecol
26.
Penelope (genus)
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Penelope is a bird genus in the Cracidae family consisting of a number of large turkey-like arboreal species, the typical guans. The range of species is in forests from southern Mexico to tropical South America. These large birds have brown plumage and have relatively small heads in comparison with body size. Body lengths are typically 65 to 95 centimeters, most of the genus members have a typically raucous honking call. A number of the members are endangered species and at least one is critically endangered, usually due to tropical deforestation. In the case of species the estimated populations are as low as a few 1000 mature birds. Nests are typically built of twigs in trees and this genus seems to have originated as part of the southward expansion of guans through the Andes and across tropical South America. Its closest relatives are probably the piping-guans, Aburria
27.
Chachalaca
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Chachalacas are mainly brown galliform birds from the genus Ortalis. These birds are found in wooded habitats in far southern United States, Mexico and they are social, can be very noisy and often remain fairly common even near humans, as their relatively small size makes them less desirable to hunters than their larger relatives. They somewhat resemble the guans, and the two have commonly been placed in a subfamily together, though the chachalacas are probably closer to the curassows, the generic name is derived from the Greek word όρταλις, meaning pullet or domestic hen. The common name is an onomatopoeia for the four-noted cackle of the plain chachalaca, media related to Ortalis at Wikimedia Commons Data related to Ortalis at Wikispecies
28.
Horned guan
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The horned guan is a large, approximately 85 cm long, turkey-like bird with glossed black upperparts plumage, red legs, white iris, yellow bill and a red horn on top of head. The breast and upper belly are white, and its tail feathers are black with white band near base. The young is duller with smaller horn, and has brown tail, the only member in monotypic genus Oreophasis, the horned guan is distributed in humid mountain forests of southeast Mexico- and Guatemala of Central America. It is found in altitude up to 3,350 metres and its diet consists mainly of fruits, green leaves and invertebrates. The female usually lays up to two eggs, the horned guan is not a true guan, but merely resembles these birds most in overall shape and color, whereas the horn is more reminiscent of the helmeted curassows. Although it does not have any close relatives among living cracids. Given that the relationships of the living cracids are not well resolved, the horned guan is often placed into a distinct subfamily. It is listed on Appendix I of CITES, pereira, Sérgio Luiz, Baker, Allan J. & Wajntal, Anita, Combined nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences resolve generic relationships within the Cracidae
29.
Pauxi
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The genus Pauxi consists of the three species of helmeted curassows, terrestrial black fowl with ornamental casque on their heads. All are found in South America.4 mya, how the present distribution in 4 small areas quite distant from each other came to be is not known. Pereira & Baker reported an interesting find, in the phylogeny, Pauxi was paraphyletic. This, of course, does not automatically imply that they are related or that the genera are invalid. According to their data, there must have some extent of gene flow between Mitu tuberosa and P. unicornis around 2 mya. Unfortunately, the authors do not provide subspecific identification of their single P. unicornis specimen, in any case, they took care to exclude captive hybridization in their choice of samples, as it is frequently known to occur in curassows and would have confounded the analysis. Pereira, Sérgio Luiz & Baker, Allan J. Vicariant speciation of curassows, a hypothesis based on mitochondrial DNA phylogeny
30.
Mitu (bird)
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Mitu is a genus of curassows, large birds in the family Cracidae. They are found in tropical forests in South America. Their plumage is iridescent black with a white or rufous crissum and tail-tip, crestless curassow, Mitu tomentosum Alagoas curassow, Mitu mitu - extinct in the wild Salvins curassow, Mitu salvini Razor-billed curassow, Mitu tuberosum Hilty, Steven L
31.
Crax
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Crax is a genus of curassows in the order Galliformes, a clade of large, heavy-bodied, ground-feeding birds. They are known from tropical South America with one species, the great curassow, the currasows in this genus are noted for their sexual dimorphism, males are more boldly coloured than females and have facial ornamentation such as knobs and wattles. They are also characterised by curly crests and contrastingly-coloured crissums, Crax curassows probably originated as a distinct lineage during the Late Miocene. During the Messinian, the ancestral Crax split into two separated by the Colombian Andes and the Cordillera de Mérida which uplifted at that time. The northern lineage radiated into the great, blue-billed, and yellow-knobbed curassows, the variety of male bill ornament shapes and colors is typical for this genus, as is a curly crest and a contrasting white or rufous crissum. It is distinguishable from its relatives by its obvious sexual dimorphism, which is by size only in Mitu, the evolution of the 4 southern species was somewhat more complex. In the Messinian, about 6-5.5 mya, the ancestors of the wattled curassow became isolated in the western Amazonas basin. 5-4 mya, the divergence between the bare-faced and black curassow lineages apparently took place around the Uquian–Ensenadan boundary, some 1.5 mya. This which coincides with one or several period of elevated sea levels during which the lower Amazonas basin was a lagoon which offered little curassow habitat. Their present ranges are still separated by the Amazonas river. Pereira, Sérgio Luiz & Baker, Allan J. Vicariant speciation of curassows, a hypothesis based on mitochondrial DNA phylogeny
32.
Piping guan
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The piping guans are a bird genus, Pipile, in the Cracidae family. A recent study, evaluating mtDNA, osteology and biogeography data concluding that the wattled guan belongs in the genus as these and is a hypermelanistic piping guan. Thus, Pipile became a synonym of Aburria, though this conclusion was not accepted by the South American Checklist Committee, or evaluated by the IOC. The same results also showed that the light-faced taxa pipile, cumanensis and cujubi are not, as was sometimes suggested, conspecific. However, free interbreeding between A. cujubi and A. cumanensis grayi in eastern Bolivia, creating a hybrid swarm and it was possible to confidently resolve that the white-faced species form a clade, whereas the more basal black-faced forms are of less certain relationship. Possibly, the black-fronted piping guan is the basalmost taxon, blue wattles evolved only once, in a lineage which seems to have originated north of the Amazon River. The piping guans radiation began in the half of the Early Pliocene. Due to not being calibrated by material evidence such as fossils, the origin of the genus was possibly in the general area of eastern Bolivia, at the very margin of its current range. From the phylogeny outlined above, the piping guans would be expected to have originated in the southern Brazilian lowlands, secondly, it is notable that in the Late Pliocene, rising sea levels transformed much of the South American lowlands into brackish lagoon habitat unsuitable for piping guans. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 35, 637-645, doi,10. 1016/j. ympev.2004.12.004 PDF fulltext Pereira, Sérgio Luiz, Baker, Allan J. & Wajntal, Anita, Combined nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences resolve generic relationships within the Cracidae. Doi,10. 1080/10635150290102519 PDF fulltext Remsen, J. V. Jr. C. D. Cadena, A. Jaramillo, M. Nores, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, T. S. Schulenberg, F. G. Stiles, D. F. Stotz, a classification of the bird species of South America
33.
Black-fronted piping guan
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The black-fronted piping guan is a bird in the chachalaca, guan and curassow family Cracidae. This species occurs in Atlantic Forests in south-eastern Brazil and adjacent Argentina and it has become quite rare in recent decades due to hunting and habitat destruction. It is a bird, some 63–74 cm in length. Pipile jacutinga is mainly black with a gloss, it has a conspicuous white wing patch bearing 3 neat rows of tiny black dots. The large crest is whitish, and it has a red throat wattle with a blue patch at the front. Its naked whitish eye-ring and black-feathered face and forehead are unique in its genus, the legs and feet are red. No other piping guan is found in its range, though the Grays piping guan approaches it in Paraguay and this bird has a pale bluish pendulous wattle, a smaller wing patch, and an entirely naked white face and white forehead. ARKive, Images and movies of the Black-fronted Piping-guan
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Blue-throated piping guan
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The blue-throated piping guan is a South American bird of the family Cracidae that is somewhat similar in appearance to the turkey. C. cumanensis and P. c. grayi, P. c. cumanensis is found from the Guyanas, the Orinoco river in Venezuela, and southeastern Colombia south to northwestern Brazil and southeastern Peru. There and possibly in northern Bolivia it intergrades with the bigger P. c. grayi, which continues through northern and central Bolivia, Mato Grosso, and northern and eastern Paraguay. This species occurs locally in forests, in Colombia and Venezuela, humid lowland forests whether seasonally flooded or not and it especially favors the edges where the forest meets open land or a river. The blue-throated piping guan is described as oddly prehistoric but handsome and it averages 69 cm long, including its neck and tail, both long, the neck and head disproportionately thin and small, the tail disproportionately big. Most of the plumage is black with a greenish gloss—blue-green in cumanensis and it has a large white patch on each wing, white flecks on the wing coverts and chest, a white patch over the eye, and a white or buffy-white nape. Both subspecies have a white or buffy-white crest, in cumanensis it is shaggy and nearly solid-colored, in grayi it is hairier. The bill is baby-blue at the base and cobalt-blue at the tip, both subspecies have blue bare flesh on the throat with a wattle in cumanensis and a hanging caruncle in grayi. During the breeding season it is noisy, at dawn it gives a piping call of 6 or so slow high-pitched, clear whistles, slightly ascending in pitch, püüeee, püüeee, püüeee, …, reminiscent of the scale-backed antbird. Its flight display, at dawn or in the daytime, includes 2 quick wing-claps, then 2 whirring rattles with wings, at other seasons it is usually silent. This species occurs in pairs during the season and bigger groups, as many as 12. It walks nimbly or hops with help from its wings in the canopy or sub-canopy of the forest, to cross clearings it sets off with fast wingbeats and then glides, giving another flurry of wingbeats if needed to maintain its height. Where not hunted it is common and easy to see. Little is known about its reproduction, in Colombia it has been observed in breeding condition in February and laying eggs in May. One nest was built of twigs in thick vegetation in the canopy, instead of a species, the blue-throated piping guan is sometimes considered to be two subspecies of Pipile pipile, a name that is here restricted to the Trinidad piping guan. Authorities disagree, as does recent evidence, a genetic study suggests a split, but free interbreeding between this species and the red-throated piping guan in eastern Bolivia, creating a hybrid swarm, suggests a lump. A video and another from the Internet Bird Collection
35.
Black guan
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The black guan is a species of bird in the Cracidae family. It is found in Costa Rica and Panama, the black guan is 61 cm long. Its plumage is all black with contrasting bright blue skin around a red eye. The legs and feet are pinkish-red, the black guan is frugivorous, eating fruit and berries while travelling through the tree canopy. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests and it is threatened by habitat loss. This species is listed as Near Threatened because it occupies a range, in which it is threatened by hunting and limited habitat loss. BirdLife species factsheet for Chamaepetes unicolor Black Guan media, Black Guan photo gallery at VIREO Black Guan species account at NeotropicalBirds Interactive range map of Chamaepetes unicolor at IUCN Red List maps
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Bearded guan
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The bearded guan is a species of bird in the Cracidae family, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows. It is found in Ecuador and Peru and its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. It is threatened by habitat loss, the bird also has white feathers edging its neck and breast, red legs, and a rufous tail. The bearded guan lives at an altitude of 1200–3000 m in an environment located in northwest Peru. The greatest threat to the guan is deforestation for agriculture. No information is known about the habits of the bearded guan, however guans in general eat various fruits and berries and well as leaves, flowers. Bearded guan are a monogamous, territorial species that mate at the beginning of the rain season, most species of Guan reach sexual maturity at two years and can reproduce until they reach the age of twenty. A pair of guan will produce a clutch of three eggs which the female will incubate for 24–28 days
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Andean guan
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The Andean guan is a gamefowl species of the family Cracidae, in which it belongs to the guan subfamily Penelopinae. This bird occurs in the highlands of the Andes, from Venezuela and Colombia through Ecuador and Peru south to Bolivia and these are medium-sized birds, measuring about 40–58 centimetres in length and weighing about 500-840 grams. They are long-bodied with thin necks and small heads, and similar in shape to turkeys but more slender, the plumage is overall brown with whitish edging to the feathers of the head, neck and chest. It has a red dewlap and reddish legs, in the Conover Collection of the Field Museum, there is a hypopigmented female specimen of the subspecies atrogularis taken December 20,1929 at Pucará. The forehead, chin and upper throat retain the normal color, the iris color was not recorded, making it tough to determine whether this is a case of albinism or leucism. Leucism is more seen in birds – particularly in such pronounced cases –. This particular bird has abraded feathers, prior to its death it seems to have held in a cage for some time. They are inhabitants of cloud forest, the sightings of this cracid are often associated to the migrations of army ants which the bird usually follows, the nest is built in a tree, with single egg each mating season. Two adults with a young were observed in Ecuador in late June, three of four birds of the nominate subspecies, collected on May 29 at the Balcones River near Guasca, were molting their tails. The tail molt starts at the outside and progresses inward, with the old rectrices being shed in alternating pairs and it is affected by habitat destruction, apparently unable to cope with deforestation, and also hunted for food. However, the Andean guan has a vast range and is not globally threatened. Given its altitudinal range, it might be affected by fragmentation in the long term. There is little data on its population, but it occurs in several protected areas in its range. For example, it can be found in the Cocora valley in Quindío Department and the Quimbaya protected forest in Risaralda Department of Colombia, a collection of Colombian game birds. Fulltext at the Internet Archive Cisneros-Heredia, Diego F, notes on breeding, behaviour and distribution of some birds in Ecuador. & National Audubon Society, The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds
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Crested guan
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The crested guan is a member of an ancient group of birds of the Cracidae family, which are related to the Australasian mound builders. It is found in the Neotropics, in forests ranging from south Mexico. The sexes are similar in appearance, the plumage is dark brown with white spotting, an area of bare skin round the eye, bright red wattles, a bushy crest. It is a bird, often seen in pairs or small family groups. It feeds in trees, mainly on fruit, and builds a nest of twigs on a branch, the two or three white eggs are incubated by the female. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated this birds conservation status as least concern and this is a large gamebird, with a length varying from 84 to 91.5 cm. These birds commonly weigh around 1,750 g, though can weigh as little as 1,361 g in P. p. brunnescens, the smallest race on average. Among standard measurements, the chord is 33 to 42.8 cm, the tail is 34 to 41.5 cm. It is similar in appearance to a turkey, with a small head, long strong red legs. It is mainly brown, with white spotting on the neck. The rump and belly are rufous, the head sports a bushy crest, from which the species gets its name, blue-grey bare skin around the eye, and a bare red dewlap or wattle. The sexes are similar, but young birds have black vermiculations, the crested guan is a noisy bird with a loud plee or quonk call, a whistled contact call and a powerful keLEEEErrrr. The crested guan breeds in lowlands from south Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula to western Ecuador, the crested guan is an arboreal forest species. The substantial twig nest is built in a tree or stump, the female lays two or three large rough-shelled white eggs and incubates them alone. This is a bird, often seen in pairs or family groups of 6–12. It walks along branches seeking the fruit and foliage on which it feeds, or flies off with a heavy ani-like flap, hilty, Birds of Venezuela, ISBN 0-7136-6418-5 Stiles and Skutch, A guide to the birds of Costa Rica ISBN 0-8014-9600-4 Crested Guan media. Stamps shows Range Map at bird-stamps. org Crested Guan photo gallery at VIREO Crested Guan species account at NeotropicalBirds Interactive range map of Penelope purpurascens at IUCN Red List maps
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