1.
Common ostrich
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The ostrich or common ostrich is either one or two species of large flightless birds native to Africa, the only living member of the genus Struthio, which is in the ratite family. In 2014, the Somali ostrich was recognized as a distinct species, the common ostrich shares the order Struthioniformes with the kiwis, emus, rheas, and cassowaries. However, phylogenetic studies have shown that it is the group to all other members of Palaeognathae. It is distinctive in its appearance, with a neck and legs, and can run at up to about 70 km/h. The common ostrich is the largest living species of bird and lays the largest eggs of any living bird, the common ostrichs diet consists mainly of plant matter, though it also eats invertebrates. It lives in groups of 5 to 50 birds. When threatened, the ostrich will either hide itself by lying flat against the ground, if cornered, it can attack with a kick of its powerful legs. Mating patterns differ by region, but territorial males fight for a harem of two to seven females. The common ostrich is farmed around the world, particularly for its feathers and its skin is used for leather products and its meat is marketed commercially, with its leanness a common marketing point. Common ostriches usually weigh from 63 to 145 kilograms, or as much as two adult humans, ostriches of the East African race averaged 115 kg in males and 100 kg in females, while the nominate subspecies was found to average 111 kg in unsexed adults. Exceptional male ostriches can weigh up to 156.8 kg, at sexual maturity, male common ostriches can be from 2.1 to 2.8 m in height, while female common ostriches range from 1.7 to 2.0 m tall. New chicks are fawn in colour, with brown spots. During the first year of life, chicks grow at about 25 cm per month, at one year of age, common ostriches weigh approximately 45 kilograms. Their lifespan is up to 40–45 years, the feathers of adult males are mostly black, with white primaries and a white tail. However, the tail of one subspecies is buff, females and young males are greyish-brown and white. The head and neck of both male and female ostriches is nearly bare, with a layer of down. The skin of the neck and thighs is pinkish gray. The eyes are shaded from sunlight from above, However, the head and bill are relatively small for the birds huge size, with the bill measuring 12 to 14.3 cm
2.
Moonlight
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Moonlight is the light that reaches Earth from the Moon, consisting mostly of sunlight, with some starlight and earthlight reflected from those portions of its surface which the Suns light strikes. The intensity of moonlight varies greatly depending on the lunar cycle, when the Moon is nearest to Earth and viewed at high altitude at tropical latitudes, the illuminance can reach 0.32 lux. The full Moon is about 1,000,000 times fainter than the Sun, the color of moonlight, particularly near full Moon, appears bluish to the human eye compared to most artificial light sources. This is because of the Purkinje effect - the light is not actually tinted blue, the Moons albedo is 0.136, meaning only 13. 6% of sunlight incident on the Moon is reflected. Moonlight generally hampers astronomical viewing, so astronomers usually avoid making observations near full Moon and it takes approximately 1.26 seconds for the moonlight to hit the Earths surface. In folklore, moonlight sometimes has a harmful influence, for example, sleeping in the light of a full Moon on certain nights was said to transform a person into a werewolf. The light of the Moon was thought to worsen the symptoms of lunatics, nyctalopia was thought to be caused by sleeping in moonlight in the tropics. Moon blindness is a name for equine recurrent uveitis and it is no longer thought to be caused by moonlight. In the 16th century, moonmilk, a white limestone precipitate found in caves, was thought to be caused by the rays of the moon. Airglow Daylight Diffuse reflection Earthlight Scotobiology Starlight Phases of the Moon at USNO Strange Moonlight at Science@NASA Moonlight Brightness at LunarLight Photography
3.
Ethology
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Ethology is the scientific and objective study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Many naturalists have studied aspects of animal behaviour throughout history, Ethology is a combination of laboratory and field science, with a strong relation to some other disciplines such as neuroanatomy, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Ethologists are typically interested in a process rather than in a particular animal group. Ethology is a growing field. New fields, such as neuroethology, have developed, understanding ethology or animal behaviour can be important in animal training. Considering the natural behaviours of different species or breeds enables the trainer to select the individuals best suited to perform the required task and it also enables the trainer to encourage the performance of naturally occurring behaviours and also the discontinuance of undesirable behaviours. The term ethology derives from the Greek language, ἦθος, ethos meaning character and -λογία, the term was first popularized by American myrmecologist William Morton Wheeler in 1902. An earlier, slightly different sense of the term was proposed by John Stuart Mill in his 1843 System of Logic. He recommended the development of a new science, ethology, the purpose of which would be explanation of individual and national differences in character and this use of the word was never adopted. Comparative psychology also studies animal behaviour, but, as opposed to ethology, is construed as a sub-topic of psychology rather than as one of biology. The two approaches are complementary rather than competitive, but they do result in different perspectives, in addition, for most of the twentieth century, comparative psychology developed most strongly in North America, while ethology was stronger in Europe. From a practical standpoint, early comparative psychologists concentrated on gaining extensive knowledge of the behaviour of very few species, ethologists were more interested in understanding behaviour across a wide range of species to facilitate principled comparisons across taxonomic groups. Ethologists have made more use of such cross-species comparisons than comparative psychologists have. See also, Great Chain of Being Until the 19th century, jean-Baptiste Lamarck was the first biologist to describe a complex theory of evolution. The second statement is that living organism, humans included. When Charles Darwin went to the Galapagos Islands, he was aware of Lamarcks theories and was influenced by them. In one sense, the first modern ethologist was Charles Darwin, whose book The Expression of the Emotions in Man, other early ethologists, such as Charles O. Their beginning for studying the behaviour of a new species was to construct an ethogram and this provided an objective, cumulative data-base of behaviour, which subsequent researchers could check and supplement
4.
Night
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Night or nighttime is the period of time between the sunset and the sunrise when the Sun is below the horizon. Complete darkness or astronomical night is the period of time between astronomical dusk and astronomical dawn when the sun is between 18 and 90 degrees below the horizon and the sky is totally dark, at latitudes between 48.5 and 66. The opposite of night is day, the start and end points of time for a night vary, based on factors such as season, latitude, longitude and timezone. Twilight is the time of night when the sky is illuminated by the sun but the sun is below the horizon. At any given time, one side of the planet Earth is bathed in light from the Sun and this shadow is called the umbra. Natural illumination is provided by a combination of moonlight, planetary light, starlight, diffuse zodiacal light, gegenschein. In some circumstances, bioluminescence, aurorae, and lightning can provide some illumination, the glow provided by artificial illumination is sometimes referred to as light pollution because it can interfere with observational astronomy and ecosystems. Nights are shorter than days on average due to two factors, firstly, the sun is not a point, but has an apparent size of about 32 arc minutes. Secondly, the atmosphere refracts sunlight so that some of it reaches the ground when the sun is below the horizon by about 34 arc minutes. The combination of two factors means that light reaches the ground when the center of the sun is below the horizon by about 50 arc minutes. Without these effects, day and night would be the length at the autumnal and vernal equinoxes. In reality, around the equinoxes the day is almost 14 minutes longer than the night at the equator, the summer and winter solstices mark the shortest and the longest night, respectively. The closer a location is to either the North Pole or the South Pole, in the Northern Hemisphere, Denmark has shorter nights in June than India. In the Southern Hemisphere, Antarctica has longer nights in June than Chile, the phenomenon of day and night is due to the rotation of a celestial body about its axis, creating an illusion of the sun rising and setting. Different bodies spin at different rates, however. Some may spin much faster than Earth, while others spin extremely slowly, leading to long days. The planet Venus rotates once every 224.7 days – by far the slowest rotation period of any of the major planets, in contrast, the gas giant Jupiters sidereal day is only 9 hours and 56 minutes. Mercury has the longest day-night cycle as a result of its 3,2 resonance between its orbital period and rotation period - this resonance gives it a day-night cycle 176 days long
5.
Twilight
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Twilight is the illumination of the Earths lower atmosphere when the Sun itself is not directly visible because it is below the horizon. Twilight is produced by scattering in the upper atmosphere, illuminating the lower atmosphere so that the surface of the Earth is neither completely lit nor completely dark. The word twilight is also used to denote the periods of time when this illumination occurs, the further the Sun is below the horizon, the dimmer the twilight. When the Sun reaches 18 degrees below the horizon, the brightness is nearly zero. When the Sun again reaches 18 degrees below the horizon, nighttime becomes morning twilight, Twilight should not be confused with auroras, which can have a similar appearance in the night sky at high latitudes. By analogy with evening twilight, the word twilight is also used metaphorically, to imply that something is losing strength. For example, very old people may be said to be in the twilight of their lives, the collateral adjective for twilight is crepuscular which is sometimes applied to insects, fish, and mammals that are most active during that time. Twilight is defined according to the elevation angle θs, which is the position of the geometric center of the sun relative to the horizon. There are three established and widely accepted subcategories of twilight, civil twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight. Morning civil twilight begins when the center of the sun is 6° below the horizon. Evening civil twilight begins at sunset or when the center of the sun is 0°50′ below the horizon. In the United States military, the initialisms BMCT and EECT are used to refer to these periods, morning nautical twilight begins and evening nautical twilight ends when the geometric center of the sun reaches 12° below the horizon. Morning astronomical twilight begins and Evening astronomical twilight ends when the center of the Sun reaches 18° below the horizon. There are three established and widely accepted subcategories of twilight, civil twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight, under clear weather conditions, civil twilight approximates the limit at which solar illumination suffices for the human eye to clearly distinguish terrestrial objects. Enough sunlight renders artificial sources unnecessary for most outdoor activities, at civil dawn, the beginning of morning civil twilight, and at civil dusk, the end of evening civil twilight, sunlight clearly defines the horizon while the brightest stars and planets can appear. As observed from the Earth, sky-gazers know Venus, the brightest planet, law-makers have enshrined the concept of civil twilight. Such statutes typically use a period after sunset or before sunrise. The period may affect when pilots require a rating to fly aircraft
6.
Pollinator
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A pollinator is an animal that moves pollen from the male anther of a flower to the female stigma of a flower. This helps to bring about fertilization of the ovules in the flower by the gametes from the pollen grains. Insect pollinators include bees, pollen wasps, ants, flies including bee flies and hoverflies, lepidopterans, vertebrates, mainly bats and birds, but also some non-bat mammals and some lizards pollinate certain plants. Among the pollinating birds are hummingbirds, honeyeaters and sunbirds with long beaks, cycads, which are not flowering plants, are also pollinated by insects. A pollinator is different from a pollenizer, a plant that is a source of pollen for the pollination process, plants fall into pollination syndromes that reflect the type of pollinator being attracted. These are characteristics such as, overall size, the depth and width of the corolla, the color. When these characteristics are experimentally modified, pollinator visitation may decline and it has recently been discovered that cycads, which are not flowering plants, are also pollinated by insects. The most recognized pollinators are the species of bees, which are plainly adapted to pollination. Bees typically are fuzzy and carry an electrostatic charge, Honey bees, bumblebees, and their relatives do not have a scopa, but the hind leg is modified into a structure called the corbicula. Most bees gather nectar, an energy source, and pollen, which is high protein food, to nurture their young. Euglossine bees pollinate orchids, but these are male bees collecting floral scents rather than females gathering nectar or pollen, female orchid bees act as pollinators, but of flowers other than orchids. Eusocial bees such as honey bees need an abundant and steady pollen source to multiply, Honey bees travel from flower to flower, collecting nectar, and pollen grains. The bee collects the pollen by rubbing against the anthers, the pollen collects on the hind legs, in a structure referred to as a pollen basket. As the bee flies from flower to flower, some of the grains are transferred onto the stigma of other flowers. Nectar provides the energy for bee nutrition, pollen provides the protein, when bees are rearing large quantities of brood, bees deliberately gather pollen to meet the nutritional needs of the brood. Good pollination management seeks to have bees in a state during the bloom period of the crop, thus requiring them to gather pollen. Thus, the management techniques of a beekeeper providing pollination services are different from, and to some extent in tension with, many insects other than bees accomplish pollination by visiting flowers for nectar or pollen, or commonly both. Many do so adventitiously, but the most important pollinators are specialists for at least parts of their lifecycles for at least certain functions
7.
Night-blooming cereus
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Night-blooming cereus is the common name referring to a large number of flowering ceroid cacti that bloom at night. The flowers are short lived, and some of species, such as Selenicereus grandiflorus, bloom only once a year. Other names for one or more cacti with this habit are princess of the night, Honolulu queen, Christ in the Manger, Dama de Noche and queen of the night. While many cacti referred to as night-blooming cereus belong to the tribe Cereeae, most of the flowers open after nightfall, and by dawn, most are in the process of wilting. Plants in the geographical area tend to bloom on the same night. Also for healthy plants there can sometimes be as many as three separate blooming events spread out over the warmest months, the plants that bear such flowers can be tall, columnar, and sometimes extremely large and tree-like, but more frequently are thin-stemmed climbers. The dried flowers of the night-blooming cereus are an ingredient used in Cantonese slow-simmered soup. Some night-blooming cereus plants produce fruits which are enough for people to consume. These include some of the members of the genus Cereus, Hylocereus fruit have the advantage of lacking exterior spines, in contrast to the fruit of cacti such as the Selenicereus fruit, being brightly colored, and having a pleasant taste. Since the late 1990s, Hylocereus fruit have been grown and sold in tropical locations like Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan. In the 18th century, Dr. Robert John Thornton commissioned the creation of lavishly illustrated portfolio of flora called Temple of Flora, plate #14 is of a Night Blowing Cereus. In Hawaii, night-blooming cereus crown the lava rocks that border Punahou School and they are so associated with the school that their Hawaiian name is panini o kapunahou. Dorothy Gilmans character Mrs. Emily Pollifax grows a night-blooming cereus for her club in The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax. The Night-Blooming Cereus is a poem as well as a volume of poetry by Robert Hayden, the Night-Blooming Cereus is a 1986 novel by Joan Hess under the name Joan Hadley. In Barbara Kingsolvers book The Bean Trees one of the main characters neighbors owns a night-blooming cereus, in Bride of the Water God by Yun Mi-kyung, a night-blooming cereus is referred to as the Loneliness of the Night and refers most specifically to Epiphyllum oxypetalum. The flowers are described as being paired, so if one flower is plucked, therefore, they are also given the nickname short-lived love. Shani Mootoos novel refers to the flower in the title, Cereus Blooms at Night, a night-blooming cereus was featured in Jerry Spinellis 2007 novel, Love, Stargirl. John Wesley, John Wesleys Journal, Mon.24 July 1780, describes the blooming and fading of the Nightly Cereus which had a 125mm dia. white centre, and 225mm dia. yellow ray petals
8.
Sphingidae
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The Sphingidae are a family of moths, commonly known as hawk moths, sphinx moths, and hornworms, it includes about 1,450 species. It is best represented in the tropics, but species are found in every region and they are moderate to large in size and are distinguished among moths for their rapid, sustained flying ability. Their narrow wings and streamlined abdomens are adaptations for rapid flight, some hawk moths, such as the hummingbird hawk-moth or the white-lined sphinx, hover in midair while they feed on nectar from flowers, so are sometimes mistaken for hummingbirds. This hovering capability is known to have evolved four times in nectar feeders, in hummingbirds, certain bats, hoverflies. Sphingids have been studied for their flying ability, especially their ability to move rapidly from side to side while hovering. This is thought to have evolved to deal with predators that lie in wait in flowers. Sphingids are some of the flying insects, some are capable of flying at over 5.3 m/s. They have wingspans from 4 to over 10 cm, most species are multivoltine, capable of producing several generations a year if weather conditions permit. Females lay translucent, greenish, flattened, smooth eggs, usually singly on the host plants, egg development time varies highly, from three to 21 days. Sphingid caterpillars are medium to large in size, with stout bodies and they have five pairs of prolegs. Usually, their bodies lack any hairs or tubercules, but most species have a horn at the posterior end, many are cryptic greens and browns, and have countershading patterns to conceal them. Others are more conspicuously coloured, typically with white spots on a black or yellow background along the length of the body, a pattern of diagonal slashes along the side is a common feature. When resting, the larva usually holds its legs off the surface and tucks its head underneath, some tropical larvae are thought to mimic snakes. Larvae are quick to regurgitate their sticky, often toxic, foregut contents on attackers such as ants, development rate depends on temperature, and to speed development, some northern and high-altitude species sunbathe. Larvae burrow into soil to pupate, where they remain for 2–3 weeks before they emerge as adults, in some Sphingidae, the pupa has a free proboscis, rather than being fused to the pupal case as is most common in the Macrolepidoptera. They have a cremaster at the tip of the abdomen, usually, they pupate off the host plant, in an underground chamber, among rocks, or in a loose cocoon. In most species, the pupa is the overwintering stage, antennae are generally not very feathery, even in the males. They lack tympanal organs, but members of the group Choerocampini have hearing organs on their heads and they have a frenulum and retinaculum to join hind wings and fore wings
9.
Mammal
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Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia, a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles by the possession of a neocortex, hair, three middle ear bones and mammary glands. All female mammals nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands, Mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the great whales. The basic body type is a quadruped, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in trees. The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta, Mammals range in size from the 30–40 mm bumblebee bat to the 30-meter blue whale. With the exception of the five species of monotreme, all modern mammals give birth to live young, most mammals, including the six most species-rich orders, belong to the placental group. The largest orders are the rodents, bats and Soricomorpha, the next three biggest orders, depending on the biological classification scheme used, are the Primates, the Cetartiodactyla, and the Carnivora. Living mammals are divided into the Yinotheria and Theriiformes There are around 5450 species of mammal, in some classifications, extant mammals are divided into two subclasses, the Prototheria, that is, the order Monotremata, and the Theria, or the infraclasses Metatheria and Eutheria. The marsupials constitute the group of the Metatheria, and include all living metatherians as well as many extinct ones. Much of the changes reflect the advances of cladistic analysis and molecular genetics, findings from molecular genetics, for example, have prompted adopting new groups, such as the Afrotheria, and abandoning traditional groups, such as the Insectivora. The mammals represent the only living Synapsida, which together with the Sauropsida form the Amniota clade, the early synapsid mammalian ancestors were sphenacodont pelycosaurs, a group that produced the non-mammalian Dimetrodon. At the end of the Carboniferous period, this group diverged from the line that led to todays reptiles. Some mammals are intelligent, with some possessing large brains, self-awareness, Mammals can communicate and vocalize in several different ways, including the production of ultrasound, scent-marking, alarm signals, singing, and echolocation. Mammals can organize themselves into fission-fusion societies, harems, and hierarchies, most mammals are polygynous, but some can be monogamous or polyandrous. They provided, and continue to provide, power for transport and agriculture, as well as commodities such as meat, dairy products, wool. Mammals are hunted or raced for sport, and are used as model organisms in science, Mammals have been depicted in art since Palaeolithic times, and appear in literature, film, mythology, and religion. Defaunation of mammals is primarily driven by anthropogenic factors, such as poaching and habitat destruction, Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is accepted, McKenna & Bell and Wilson & Reader provide useful recent compendiums. Though field work gradually made Simpsons classification outdated, it remains the closest thing to a classification of mammals
10.
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
11.
Reptile
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Reptiles are tetrapod animals in the class Reptilia, comprising todays turtles, crocodilians, snakes, amphisbaenians, lizards, tuatara, and their extinct relatives. The study of these traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of amphibians, is called herpetology. Because some reptiles are more related to birds than they are to other reptiles. For this reason, many scientists prefer to consider the birds part of Reptilia as well. Some early examples include the lizard-like Hylonomus and Casineria, in addition to the living reptiles, there are many diverse groups that are now extinct, in some cases due to mass extinction events. In particular, the K–Pg extinction wiped out the pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, ornithischians, and sauropods, as well as species of theropods, crocodyliforms. Modern non-avian reptiles inhabit every continent with the exception of Antarctica, several living subgroups are recognized, Testudines, approximately 400 species, Sphenodontia,1 species, Squamata, over 9,600 species, Crocodilia,25 species, and Aves,10,000 species. Reptiles are tetrapod vertebrates, creatures that either have four limbs or, unlike amphibians, reptiles do not have an aquatic larval stage. As amniotes, reptile eggs are surrounded by membranes for protection and transport, many of the viviparous species feed their fetuses through various forms of placenta analogous to those of mammals, with some providing initial care for their hatchlings. In the 18th century, the reptiles were, from the outset of classification, the terms reptile and amphibian were largely interchangeable, reptile being preferred by the French. Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti was the first to use the term Reptilia for an expanded selection of reptiles. Today, the two groups are commonly treated under the same heading as herptiles. He subsequently proposed the names of Sauropsida and Ichthyopsida for the two groups. In 1866, Haeckel demonstrated that vertebrates could be divided based on their strategies, and that reptiles, birds. The terms Sauropsida and Theropsida were used again in 1916 by E. S, Goodrich to distinguish between lizards, birds, and their relatives on the one hand and mammals and their extinct relatives on the other. Goodrich supported this division by the nature of the hearts and blood vessels in each group, according to Goodrich, both lineages evolved from an earlier stem group, Protosauria in which he included some animals today considered reptile-like amphibians, as well as early reptiles. Watson observed that the first two groups diverged very early in history, so he divided Goodrichs Protosauria between them. He also reinterpreted Sauropsida and Theropsida to exclude birds and mammals, thus his Sauropsida included Procolophonia, Eosuchia, Millerosauria, Chelonia, Squamata, Rhynchocephalia, Crocodilia, thecodonts, non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and sauropterygians
12.
Gran Chaco
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This land is sometimes called the Chaco Plain. The Gran Chaco is about 647,500 km² in size and it is located west of the Paraguay River and east of the Andes, and is mostly an alluvial sedimentary plain shared among Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina. It stretches from about 17° to 33° South latitude and between 65° and 60° West longitude, though estimates differ, locals sometimes divide it today by the political borders, giving rise to the terms Argentinian Chaco, Paraguayan Chaco and Bolivian Chaco. The Chaco Boreal may be divided in two, closer to the mountains in the west, the Alto Chaco, sometimes known as Chaco Seco, is very dry and sparsely vegetated. It has an open savanna vegetation consisting of palm trees, quebracho trees and tropical high-grass areas. The landscape is flat and slopes at a 0.004 degree gradient to the east. This area is one of the distinct physiographic provinces of the Parana-Paraguay Plain division. The areas more hospitable to development are along the Paraguay, Bermejo and it is a great source of timber and tannin, which is derived from the native quebracho tree. Special tannin factories have been constructed there, the wood of the palo santo from the Central Chaco is the source of oil of guaiac. Paraguay also cultivates mate in the part of the Chaco. Large tracts of the central and northern Chaco have high fertility, sandy alluvial soils with elevated levels of phosphorus. Soils are generally erosion prone once the forest has been cleared, in the central and northern Paraguay Chaco, occasional dust storms have caused major top soil loss. Prior to national independence of the nations that compose the Chaco, the Gran Chaco had been a disputed territory since 1810. Officially, it was supposed to be part of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, Argentina claimed territories south of the Bermejo River until Paraguays defeat in the War of the Triple Alliance in 1870 established its current border with Argentina. Over the next few decades, Bolivia began to push the natives out and settle in the Gran Chaco, Bolivia sought the Paraguay River for shipping oil out into the sea, and Paraguay claimed ownership of the land. This became the backdrop to The Gran Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia over supposed oil in the Chaco Boreal, in the end, no oil was found in the region. Mennonites immigrated into the Paraguayan part of the region from Canada in the 1920s, more came from the USSR in the 1930s and these immigrants created some of the largest and most prosperous municipalities in the deep Gran Chaco. The region is home to nine million people, divided about evenly among Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil
