1.
Duck as food
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In food terminology, duck or duckling refers to duck meat, the meat of several species of bird in the family Anatidae, found in both fresh and salt water. One species of duck, the mallard, has been domesticated and is a common livestock bird in many cultures. Duck is eaten in various cuisines around the world, magret refers specifically to the breast of a mulard or Muscovy duck that has been force fed to produce foie gras. Duck meat is derived primarily from the breasts and legs of ducks, the meat of the legs is darker and somewhat fattier than the meat of the breasts, although the breast meat is darker than the breast meat of a chicken or a turkey. Being waterfowl, ducks have a layer of heat-insulating subcutaneous fat between the skin and the meat, de-boned duck breast can be grilled like steak, usually leaving the skin and fat on. Internal organs such as heart and kidneys may also be eaten, Duck is particularly predominant in the Chinese cuisine — a popular dish is Peking duck, which is made from the Pekin duck. Duck meat is eaten with scallions, cucumbers and hoisin sauce wrapped in a tortilla-like pancake made of flour and water or a soft. The Pekin duck is also the most common meat consumed in the United States. Because most commercially raised Pekins come from Long Island, New York, Pekins are also sometimes called Long Island ducks, some specialty breeds have become more popular in recent years, notably the Muscovy duck, and the mulard duck. Unlike most other domesticated ducks, Muscovy ducks are not descended from mallards, Duck is used in a variety of dishes around the world, most of which involve roasting for at least part of the cooking process to aid in crisping the skin. Some dishes use parts of the duck as an ingredient along with other ingredients, notable duck dishes include, Ballotine Bebek Betutu – a famous traditional dish from Bali, Indonesia. The duck is first seasoned with pungent roots and various herbs, wrapped with banana leaves, chicken is also used to prepare Betutu. Chicken and duck blood soup Duck blood and vermicelli soup Duck confit – duck legs that have been cured in salt, then marinated and poached in duck fat, typically with garlic and other herbs. The French word confit means preserved, and the French name for duck confit is confit de canard, czernina – a sweet and sour Polish soup made of duck blood and clear poultry broth. It was once considered a symbol of Polish culture until the 19th century, Duck à lorange – a classic French dish in which the duck is roasted and served with an orange sauce. Long Island roast duckling – this is a roasted bird. When done properly, most of the fat melts off during the process, leaving a crispy skin. Some restaurants on Long Island serve this dish with a cherry sauce, lemon duck Nanjing Salted Duck Oritang – a variety of guk, Korean soup made with duck and various vegetables
2.
Bufflehead
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The bufflehead is a small sea duck of the genus Bucephala, the goldeneyes. This species was first described by Linnaeus in his Systema naturae in 1758 as Anas albeola, the genus name is derived from Ancient Greek boukephalos, bullheaded, from bous, bull and kephale, head, a reference to the oddly bulbous head shape of the species. The species name albeola is from Latin albus, white, the English name is a combination of buffalo and head, again referring to the head shape. This is most noticeable when the male puffs out the feathers on the head, the bufflehead ranges from 32–40 cm long and weighs 270–550 g, with the drakes larger than the females. Averaging 35.5 cm and 370 g, it rivals the green-winged teal as the smallest American duck, adult males are striking black and white, with iridescent green and purple heads and a large white patch behind the eye. Females are grey-toned with a white patch behind the eye. They are migratory and most of winter in protected coastal waters, or open inland waters, on the east and west coasts of North America. The bufflehead is a rare vagrant to western Europe. Their breeding habitat is wooded lakes and ponds in Alaska and Canada, Buffleheads have evolved their small size to fit the nesting cavity of their metabiotic host, a woodpecker, the northern flicker. Due to their size, they are highly active, undertaking dives almost continuously while sustained by their high metabolism. They do not tend to collect in large flocks, groups are limited to small numbers. One duck serves as a sentry, watching for predators as the others in the dive in search of food. Buffleheads are amongst the last waterfowl to leave their breeding grounds and one of the worlds most punctual migrants, Buffleheads are monogamous, and the females return to the same breeding site, year after year. They nest in cavities in trees, primarily aspens or poplars, using mostly old flicker nests, nest competitors include mountain bluebird, tree swallow, and European starling. There was one recorded instance of a female Barrows goldeneye killing an adult female. Smaller cavities are preferred because of competition with the larger goldeneyes. Females may be killed on the nest by mammals, such as weasels or mink, average clutch size is nine, and eggs average 50.5 by 36.3 mm. Incubation averages 30 days, and nest success is high compared to ground-nesting species like the teal, a day after the last duckling hatches, the brood leaps from the nest cavity
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.
Anseriformes
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In fact, these living species are all included in Anatidae except for the three screamers and the magpie goose. All species in the order are highly adapted for an aquatic existence at the water surface, the males, except for the screamers, also have a penis, a trait that has disappeared in Neoaves. All are web-footed for efficient swimming, the earliest known Anseriform is the recently discovered Vegavis, which lived during the Cretaceous period. It is thought that the Anseriformes originated when the original Galloanserae split into the two main lineages, the extinct dromornithids may possibly represent early offshoots of the anseriform line, if they arent stem-Galliformes instead, and so maybe Gastornis. The ancestors of the Anseriformes developed the characteristic bill structure that they still share, the prehistoric wading presbyornithids were even more bizarre. The Anseriformes and the Galliformes are the most primitive neognathous birds, Anatidae systematics, especially regarding placement of some odd genera in the dabbling ducks or shelducks, is not fully resolved. See the Anatidae article for information, and for alternate taxonomic approaches. Some unusual groups, such as the extinct Gastornithidae and Dromornithidae, are found to be at the base of the Anseriformes family tree. Anatidae is traditionally divided into subfamilies Anatinae and Anserinae, the Anatinae consists of tribes Anatini, Aythyini, Mergini and Tadornini. The higher-order classification below follows a phylogenetic analysis performed by Angolin,2007, Mikkos Phylogeny Archive, the clade Somaterini has a single genus Somateria. List of Anseriformes by population Agnolin, F. Brontornis burmeisteri Moreno & Mercerat, un Anseriformes gigante del Mioceno Medio de Patagonia, revista del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales. Clarke, J. A. Tambussi, C. P. Noriega, erickson, G. M. & Ketcham, R. A. Definitive fossil evidence for the extant avian radiation in the Cretaceous, & Zusi, R. L. Higher-order phylogeny of modern birds based on comparative anatomy. Zoological Journal of the Linnen Society, murray, P. F. & Vickers-Rich, P. Magnificent Mihirungs, The Colossal Flightless Birds of the Australian Dreamtime
8.
Anatoidea
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In fact, these living species are all included in Anatidae except for the three screamers and the magpie goose. All species in the order are highly adapted for an aquatic existence at the water surface, the males, except for the screamers, also have a penis, a trait that has disappeared in Neoaves. All are web-footed for efficient swimming, the earliest known Anseriform is the recently discovered Vegavis, which lived during the Cretaceous period. It is thought that the Anseriformes originated when the original Galloanserae split into the two main lineages, the extinct dromornithids may possibly represent early offshoots of the anseriform line, if they arent stem-Galliformes instead, and so maybe Gastornis. The ancestors of the Anseriformes developed the characteristic bill structure that they still share, the prehistoric wading presbyornithids were even more bizarre. The Anseriformes and the Galliformes are the most primitive neognathous birds, Anatidae systematics, especially regarding placement of some odd genera in the dabbling ducks or shelducks, is not fully resolved. See the Anatidae article for information, and for alternate taxonomic approaches. Some unusual groups, such as the extinct Gastornithidae and Dromornithidae, are found to be at the base of the Anseriformes family tree. Anatidae is traditionally divided into subfamilies Anatinae and Anserinae, the Anatinae consists of tribes Anatini, Aythyini, Mergini and Tadornini. The higher-order classification below follows a phylogenetic analysis performed by Angolin,2007, Mikkos Phylogeny Archive, the clade Somaterini has a single genus Somateria. List of Anseriformes by population Agnolin, F. Brontornis burmeisteri Moreno & Mercerat, un Anseriformes gigante del Mioceno Medio de Patagonia, revista del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales. Clarke, J. A. Tambussi, C. P. Noriega, erickson, G. M. & Ketcham, R. A. Definitive fossil evidence for the extant avian radiation in the Cretaceous, & Zusi, R. L. Higher-order phylogeny of modern birds based on comparative anatomy. Zoological Journal of the Linnen Society, murray, P. F. & Vickers-Rich, P. Magnificent Mihirungs, The Colossal Flightless Birds of the Australian Dreamtime
9.
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
10.
Anatidae
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The Anatidae are the biological family of birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The family has a distribution, occurring on all the worlds continents. These birds are adapted for swimming, floating on the water surface, the family contains around 146 species in 40 genera. They are generally herbivorous, and are monogamous breeders, a number of species undertake annual migrations. A few species have been domesticated for agriculture, and many others are hunted for food, five species have become extinct since 1600, and many more are threatened with extinction. The ducks, geese, and swans are small- to large-sized birds with a broad, diving species vary from this in being rounder. Extant species range in size from the cotton pygmy goose, at as little as 26.5 cm and 164 g, to the trumpeter swan, the wings are short and pointed, and supported by strong wing muscles that generate rapid beats in flight. They typically have long necks, although varies in degree between species. The legs are short, strong, and set far to the back of the body, combined with their body shape, this can make some species awkward on land, but they are stronger walkers than other marine and water birds such as grebes or petrels. They typically have webbed feet, though a few such as the Nene have secondarily lost their webbing. The bills are made of keratin with a thin and sensitive layer of skin on top. For most species, the shape of the bill tends to be flattened to a greater or lesser extent. These contain serrated lamellae which are well defined in the filter-feeding species. Their feathers are excellent at shedding water due to special oils, many of the ducks display sexual dimorphism, with the males being more brightly coloured than the females. The swans, geese, and whistling-ducks lack sexually dimorphic plumage, anatids are vocal birds, producing a range of quacks, honks, squeaks, and trumpeting sounds, depending on species, the female often has a deeper voice than the male. Anatids are generally herbivorous as adults, feeding on various water-plants, although some also eat fish, molluscs. One group, the mergansers, are primarily piscivorous, and have serrated bills to help catch fish. In a number of species, the young include a proportion of invertebrates in their diets
11.
Swan
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Swans are birds of the family Anatidae within the genus Cygnus. The swans close relatives include the geese and ducks, Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a subfamily, Cygninae. There are six or seven species of swan in the genus Cygnus, in there is another species known as the coscoroba swan. Swans usually mate for life, though divorce does sometimes occur, particularly following nesting failure, and if a mate dies, the number of eggs in each clutch ranges from three to eight. The English word swan, akin to the German Schwan, Dutch zwaan, an adult male is a cob, from Middle English cobbe, an adult female is a pen. Swans are the largest extant members of the waterfowl family Anatidae, the largest species, including the mute swan, trumpeter swan, and whooper swan, can reach a length of over 1.5 m and weigh over 15 kg. Their wingspans can be over 3.1 m, compared to the closely related geese, they are much larger and have proportionally larger feet and necks. Adults also have a patch of unfeathered skin between the eyes and bill, the sexes are alike in plumage, but males are generally bigger and heavier than females. The Northern Hemisphere species of swan have pure white plumage but the Southern Hemisphere species are mixed black, the Australian black swan is completely black except for the white flight feathers on its wings, the chicks of black swans are light grey. The South American black-necked swan has a body with a black neck. The legs of swans are normally a dark grey colour. Bill colour varies, the four species have black bills with varying amounts of yellow. The mute swan and black-necked swan have lumps at the base of their bills on the upper mandible, Swans are generally found in temperate environments, rarely occurring in the tropics. A group of swans is called a bevy or a wedge in flight, four species occur in the Northern Hemisphere, one species is found in Australia and New Zealand and one species is distributed in southern South America. They are absent from tropical Asia, Central America, northern South America, one species, the mute swan, has been introduced to North America, Australia and New Zealand. Several species are migratory, either wholly or partly so, the mute swan is a partial migrant, being resident over areas of Western Europe but wholly migratory in Eastern Europe and Asia. The whooper swan and tundra swan are wholly migratory, and the swans are almost entirely migratory
12.
Goose
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Geese are waterfowl belonging to the tribe Anserini of the family Anatidae. This tribe comprises the genera Anser, Branta and Chen, some other birds, mostly related to the shelducks, have goose as part of their names. More distantly related members of the family Anatidae are swans, most of which are larger than true geese, and ducks, the word goose is a direct descendent of Proto-Indo-European root, *ghans-. In Germanic languages, the root gave Old English gōs with the plural gēs and gandres, Frisian goes, gies and guoske, New High German Gans, Gänse, and Ganter, and Old Norse gās. The term goose applies to the female in particular, while applies to the male in particular. Young birds before fledging are called goslings, the collective noun for a group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, when in flight, they are called a skein, a team, or a wedge, when flying close together, they are called a plump. The three living genera of true geese are, Anser, grey geese, including the goose, and domestic geese, Chen, white geese. Either these or, more probably, the goose-like Coscoroba swan is the closest living relative of the true geese, the aptly named Anser atavus from some 12 million years ago had even more plesiomorphies in common with swans. In addition, some birds are known from subfossil remains found on the Hawaiian Islands. Geese are monogamous, living in permanent pairs throughout the year, however, unlike most other permanently monogamous animals, paired geese are more dominant and feed more, two factors that result in more young. Some mainly Southern Hemisphere birds are called geese, most of which belong to the shelduck subfamily Tadorninae, the blue-winged goose, Cyanochen cyanopterus, and the Cape Barren goose, Cereopsis novaehollandiae, have disputed affinities. They belong to separate ancient lineages that may ally either to the Tadorninae, Anserinae, the three species of small waterfowl in the genus Nettapus are named pygmy geese. They seem to represent another ancient lineage, with affinities to the Cape Barren goose or the spur-winged goose. A genus of prehistorically extinct seaducks, Chendytes, is sometimes called diving-geese due to their large size, the unusual magpie goose is in a family of its own, the Anseranatidae. The northern gannet, a seabird, is known as the Solan goose, although it is a bird unrelated to the true geese. Well-known sayings about geese include, To have a gander is to something in detail. Whats sauce for the goose is sauce for the means that what is appropriate treatment for one person is equally appropriate for someone else. Saying that someones goose is cooked means that they have suffered, or are about to suffer, a wild goose chase is a useless, futile waste of time and effort
13.
Clade
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A clade is a group of organisms that consists of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants, and represents a single branch on the tree of life. The common ancestor may be an individual, a population, a species, clades are nested, one in another, as each branch in turn splits into smaller branches. These splits reflect evolutionary history as populations diverged and evolved independently, over the last few decades, the cladistic approach has revolutionized biological classification and revealed surprising evolutionary relationships among organisms. Increasingly, taxonomists try to avoid naming taxa that are not clades, the term clade was coined in 1957 by the biologist Julian Huxley to refer to the result of cladogenesis, a concept Huxley borrowed from Bernhard Rensch. Many commonly named groups are clades, for example, rodents or insects, because in each case, their name refers to a common ancestor with all its descendant branches. Rodents, for example, are a branch of mammals that split off after the end of the period when the clade Dinosauria stopped being the dominant terrestrial vertebrates 66 million years ago, the original population and all its descendants are a clade. The rodent clade corresponds to the order Rodentia, and insects to the class Insecta and these clades include smaller clades, such as chipmunk or ant, each of which consists of even smaller clades. The clade rodent is in included in the mammal, vertebrate. The phenomenon of convergent evolution is, however, responsible for cases where there are misleading similarities in the morphology of groups that evolved from different lineages. The publication of Darwins theory of evolution in 1859 gave this view increasing weight, thomas Henry Huxley, an early advocate of evolutionary theory, proposed a revised taxonomy based on clades. For example, he grouped birds with reptiles, based on fossil evidence, german biologist Emil Hans Willi Hennig is considered to be the founder of cladistics. Taxonomists have increasingly worked to make the taxonomic system reflect evolution, when it comes to naming, however, this principle is not always compatible with the traditional rank-based nomenclature. For these and other reasons, phylogenetic nomenclature has been developed, a clade is by definition monophyletic, meaning that it contains one ancestor and all its descendants. The ancestor can be known or unknown, any and all members of a clade can be extant or extinct, the science that tries to reconstruct phylogenetic trees and thus discover clades is called phylogenetics or cladistics, the latter term coined by Ernst Mayr, derived from clade. The results of analyses are tree-shaped diagrams called cladograms, they. Three methods of defining clades are featured in phylogenetic nomenclature, node-, stem-, the relationship between clades can be described in several ways, A clade located within a clade is said to be nested within that clade. In the diagram, the clade, i. e. the apes. Two clades are sisters if they have a common ancestor
14.
Form classification
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Form classification is the classification of organisms based on their morphology, which does not necessarily reflect their biological relationships. Form classification, generally restricted to palaeontology, reflects uncertainty, the goal of science is to form taxa to biological taxa whose affinity is known. Form taxa are groupings that are based on common overall forms, early attempts at classification of labyrinthodonts was based on skull shape. The amount of convergent evolution in the groups lead to a number of polyphyletic taxa. Such groups are united by a mode of life, often one that is generalist. Ediacaran biota — whether they are the precursors of the Cambrian explosion of the fossil record, other examples include the seabirds and the Graculavidae. A parataxon, or sciotaxon, is a based on incomplete data, for instance. It reflects a paucity of data that makes biological classification impossible, a later term morphotaxa also allows for differences in preservational state. These three terms have been replaced as of 2011 by provisions for fossil-taxa that are similar to the provisions for other types of plants. Names given to organ genera could only be applied to the organs in question, fossil-taxon names can cover several parts of an organism, or several preservational states, but do not compete for priority with any names for the same organism that are based on a non-fossil type. Well-known form taxa of this kind include ducks, fish, reptiles and worms
15.
Aquatic bird
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The term water bird, waterbird or aquatic bird is used to refer to birds that live on or around water. Some definitions apply the term especially to birds in freshwater habitats, in addition, some water birds are more terrestrial or aquatic than others, and their adaptations will vary depending on their environment. These adaptations include webbed feet, bills and legs adapted to feed in water, the term aquatic bird is sometimes also used in this context. A related term that has a meaning is waterfowl. Some birds of prey, such as ospreys and sea eagles, the term waterbird is also used in the context of conservation to refer to any birds that inhabit or depend on bodies of water or wetland areas. Examples of this use include the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds and the Wallnau Waterbird Reserve
16.
Loon
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The loons or divers are a group of aquatic birds found in many parts of North America and northern Eurasia. All living species of loons are members of the genus Gavia, family Gaviidae, the loon, the size of a large duck or small goose, resembles these birds in shape when swimming. Like ducks and geese but unlike coots and grebes, the toes are connected by webbing. Flying loons resemble plump geese with seagulls wings that are small in proportion to the bulky body. The bird points its head slightly upwards during swimming, but less so than cormorants, in flight the head droops more than in similar aquatic birds. Male and female loons have identical plumage, plumage is largely patterned black-and-white in summer, with grey on the head and neck in some species. All species of divers have a spear-shaped bill, males are larger on average, but relative size is only apparent when the male and female are together. In winter plumage is grey above, with some indistinct lighter mottling on the wings. This trait is found in tubenoses and penguins, both relatives of the loons. Loons are excellent swimmers, using their feet to propel themselves above, however, since their feet are located posteriorly on the body, loons cannot walk. Thus, loons avoid coming to land, except when nesting or severely injured, Loons fly strongly, though they have high wing-loading, which complicates takeoff. Indeed, most species must run upwind across the surface with wings flapping to generate sufficient lift to take flight. Only the red-throated loon can take off from land, once airborne, loons are capable of long flights during migration. North European loons migrate primarily via the South Baltic and directly over land to the Black Sea or Mediterranean, Loons can live as long as 30 years and can hold their breath for as long as 90 seconds while underwater. Loons find their prey by sight and they eat mainly fish, supplemented with amphibians, crustaceans and similar mid-sized aquatic fauna. Specifically, they have noted to feed on crayfish, frogs, snails, salamanders. They prefer clear lakes because they can easily see their prey through the water. The loon uses its pointy bill to stab or grasp prey and they eat vertebrate prey headfirst to facilitate swallowing, and swallow all their prey whole
17.
Grebe
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A grebe is a member of the order Podicipediformes and the only type of bird associated with this order. Grebes are a widely distributed order of freshwater diving birds, some of which visit the sea when migrating and this order contains only a single family, the Podicipedidae, containing 22 species in 6 extant genera. Grebes are small to medium-large in size, have lobed toes, although they can run for a short distance, they are prone to falling over, since they have their feet placed far back on the body. Grebes have narrow wings, and some species are reluctant to fly, indeed and they respond to danger by diving rather than flying, and are in any case much less wary than ducks. Extant species range in size from the least grebe, at 120 grams and 23.5 cm, to the great grebe, at 1.7 kg and 71 cm. The North American and Eurasian species are all, of necessity, migratory over much or all of their ranges, even the small freshwater pied-billed grebe of North America has occurred as a transatlantic vagrant to Europe on more than 30 occasions. Bills vary from short and thick to long and pointed, depending on the diet, the feet are always large, with broad lobes on the toes and small webs connecting the front three toes. The hind toe also has a small lobe, recent experimental work has shown that these lobes work like the hydrofoil blades of a propeller. Curiously, the same mechanism apparently evolved independently in the extinct Cretaceous-age Hesperornithiformes and it is dense and waterproof, and on the underside the feathers are at right-angles to the skin, sticking straight out to begin with and curling at the tip. By pressing their feathers against the body, grebes can adjust their buoyancy, often, they swim low in the water with just the head and neck exposed. In the non-breeding season, grebes are plain-coloured in dark browns, however, most have ornate and distinctive breeding plumages, often developing chestnut markings on the head area, and perform elaborate display rituals. The young, particularly those of the Podiceps genus, are often striped, in the breeding season, they mate at freshwater lakes and ponds, but some species spend their non-breeding season along seacoasts. When preening, grebes eat their own feathers, and feed them to their young, the function of this behaviour is uncertain but it is believed to assist with pellet formation, and to reduce their vulnerability to gastric parasites. Grebes make floating nests of plant material concealed among reeds on the surface of the water, the young are precocial, and able to swim from birth. The grebes are a distinct group of birds as regards their anatomy. Accordingly, they were at first believed to be related to the loons, which are also foot-propelled diving birds, Grebes and loons are now separately classified orders of Podicipediformes and Gaviiformes, respectively. The cladistics vs. phenetics debate of the mid-20th century revived scientific interest in generalizing comparisons, as a consequence, the discredited grebe-loon link was discussed again. This even went as far as proposing monophyly for grebes, loons, still – actually because of this – they do confirm that these birds form a fairly ancient evolutionary lineage, and they support the non-relatedness of loons and grebes
18.
Rail (bird)
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The rails, or Rallidae, are a large cosmopolitan family of small- to medium-sized ground-living birds. The family exhibits considerable diversity and also includes the crakes, coots, many species are associated with wetlands, although the family is found in every terrestrial habitat except dry deserts, polar regions, and alpine areas above the snow line. Members of the Rallidae occur on every continent except Antarctica, the most common rail habitats are marshland or dense forest. They are especially fond of dense vegetation, the rails are a fairly homogeneous family of small to medium-sized, ground-living birds. They vary in length from 12 cm to 63 cm and in weight from 20 g to 3000 g, some species have long necks and in many cases are laterally compressed. The bill is the most variable feature within the family, in some species it is longer than the head, in others it may be short and wide, or massive. A few coots and gallinules have a shield, which is a fleshy. The most complex frontal shield is found in the horned coot, Rails exhibit very little sexual dimorphism in either plumage or size. The wings of all rails are short and rounded, the flight of those Rallidae able to fly, while not powerful, can be sustained for long periods of time, and many species migrate annually. The weakness of their flight, however, means they are blown off course and thus are common vagrants. Furthermore, these birds prefer to run rather than fly, especially in dense habitat. Some are also flightless at some time during their moult period, Flightlessness in rails is one of the best examples of parallel evolution in the animal kingdom. Of the ~150 historically known rail species,31 extant or recently extinct species evolved flightlessness from volant ancestors and this process created the endemic populations of flightless rails that we see on Pacific islands today. Many island rails are flightless because small island habitats without mammalian predators eliminate the need to fly or move long distances, flight makes intense demands, with the keel and flight muscles taking up to a quarter of a birds weight in flying Rallidae species. Reducing the flight muscles, with a lowering of metabolic demands. For this reason, flightlessness makes it easier to survive and colonize an island where resources may be limited and this also allows for the evolution of multiple sizes of flightless rails on the same island as the birds diversify to find niches. In addition to conservation, certain morphological traits also affect rail evolution. Indeed, some argue that it might be possible to measure the evolution of flightlessness in rails in generations rather than millennia and it is paradoxical, since rails appear loath to fly, that the evolution of flightless rails would necessitate high dispersal to isolated islands
19.
Coot
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Coots are small water birds that are members of the Rallidae family. They constitute the genus Fulica, the name being the Latin for coot, coots have predominantly black plumage, and—unlike many rails—they are usually easy to see, often swimming in open water. They are close relatives of the moorhen, coots have prominent frontal shields or other decoration on the forehead, with red to dark red eyes and coloured bills. Many, but not all, have white on the under tail, the featherless shield gave rise to the expression as bald as a coot, which the Oxford English Dictionary cites in use as early as 1430. Like other rails, they have long, lobed toes that are adapted to soft. Coots have strong legs and can walk and run vigorously and they tend to have short, rounded wings and are weak fliers, though northern species nevertheless can cover long distances. The greatest species variety occurs in South America, and the genus originated there. They are common in Europe and North America, Coot species that migrate do so at night. The American coot has been observed rarely in Britain and Ireland, in southern Louisiana, the coot is referred to by the French name poule deau, which translates into English as water hen or moorhen. Coots are omnivorous, eating plant material, but also small animals. They are aggressively territorial during the season, but are otherwise often found in sizeable flocks on the shallow vegetated lakes they prefer. Chick mortality occurs mainly due to rather than predation as coots have difficulty feeding a large family of hatchlings on the tiny shrimp. Most chicks died in the first 10 days after hatching, when they are most dependent on adults for food. Coots can be brutal to their own young under pressure such as the lack of food. After a short while, these attacks concentrate on the weaker chicks, the coot may eventually raise only two or three out of nine hatchlings. In this attacking behaviour, the parents are said to tousle their young and this can result in the death of the chick. A group of coots may be referred to as a covert or cover, minor Coot videos on the Internet Bird Collection Beach, Chandler B. ed. Coot. Chicago, F. E. Compton and Co
20.
Mallard
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This duck belongs to the subfamily Anatinae of the waterfowl family Anatidae. The male birds have a green head and are grey on wings and belly. Both sexes have an area of white-bordered black speculum feathers which commonly also include iridescent blue feathers especially among males, mallards live in wetlands, eat water plants and small animals, and are social animals preferring to congregate in groups or flocks of varying sizes. This species is the ancestor of most breeds of domesticated ducks. The mallard was one of the bird species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th-century work Systema Naturae. The scientific name is from Latin Anas, duck and Ancient Greek platyrhynchus, Mallard originally referred to any wild drake and it is sometimes still used this way. It was derived from the Old French malart or mallart for wild drake and it may be related to an Old High German masculine proper name Madelhart, clues lying in the alternate English forms maudelard or mawdelard. Masle has also proposed as an influence. This is quite unusual among such different species, and apparently is because the mallard evolved very rapidly and recently, the distinct lineages of this radiation are usually kept separate due to non-overlapping ranges and behavioural cues, but are still not fully genetically incompatible. Mallards and their domesticated conspecifics are also fully interfertile, the genome of Anas platyrhynchos was sequenced in 2013. Mallards appear to be closer to their Indo-Pacific relatives than to their American ones judging from biogeography, the large ice age palaeosubspecies which made up at least the European and west Asian populations during the Pleistocene has been named Anas platyrhynchos palaeoboschas. In their mitochondrial DNA, mallards are differentiated between North America and Eurasia, however, in the nuclear genome there is a lack of genetic structure. Haplotypes typical of American mallard relatives and spotbills can be found in mallards around the Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands hold a population of mallards that appear to be evolving towards a subspecies, as gene flow with other populations is very limited. The size of the mallard varies clinally, and birds from Greenland and they are sometimes separated as subspecies, the Greenland mallard. The mallard is a waterfowl species although it is often slightly heavier than most other dabbling ducks. It is 50–65 cm long, has a wingspan of 81–98 cm, and weighs 0. 72–1.58 kg. Among standard measurements, the chord is 25.7 to 30.6 cm, the bill is 4.4 to 6.1 cm. The breeding male mallard is unmistakable, with a glossy bottle-green head and white collar which demarcates the head from the purple-tinged brown breast, grey wings
21.
Pacific black duck
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It is usually called the grey duck in New Zealand, where it is also known by its Maori name, pārera. This sociable duck is found in a variety of habitats, and its nesting habits are much like those of the mallard. It feeds by upending, like other Anas ducks and it has a dark body, and a paler head with a dark crown and facial stripes. In flight, it shows a green speculum and pale underwing, the size range is 54–61 cm, males tend to be larger than females, and some island forms are smaller and darker than the main populations. It is not resident on the Marianas islands, but sometimes occurs there during migration, the now extinct Mariana mallard was probably originally derived from hybrids between this species and the mallard, which came to the islands during migration and settled down there. Rhymer et al. say their data points to the loss of identity of the grey duck as a separate species in New Zealand. Heather, Barrie D. & Robertson, Hugh A, the Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand. BirdLife Species Factsheet Parera, the grey duck Australian Museum fact sheet
22.
Old English
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Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid 5th century, Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain, Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule, Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms. The oldest Old English inscriptions were using a runic system. Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is a process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections. Perhaps around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, Old English is a West Germanic language, developing out of Ingvaeonic dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England and this included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, Norse was also widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century, the oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmons Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century, with the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, a later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. This form of the language is known as the Winchester standard and it is considered to represent the classical form of Old English
23.
Anatinae
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The Anatinae are a subfamily of the family Anatidae. Its surviving members are the ducks, which feed mainly at the surface rather than by diving. The other members of the Anatinae are the extinct moa-nalo, a young, there has been much debate about the dabbling ducks systematical status and which ducks belong to the Anatinae. As understood here, the subfamily contains only the dabbling ducks and their close relatives, alternatively, the Anatinae are considered to include most ducks, and the dabbling ducks form a tribe Anatini within these. The classification as presented here more appropriately reflects the uncertainty about the interrelationships of the major lineages of Anatidae. The dabbling duck group, of worldwide distribution, was delimited in a 1986 study to include eight genera, however, Salvadoris teal is almost certainly closely related to the pink-eared duck, and other genera are likewise of unresolved affiliation. The peculiar marbled duck, formerly assigned to the dabbling ducks, is thought to be a diving duck or even a distinct subfamily. This group of ducks has been so named because its members feed mainly on vegetable matter by upending on the surface, or grazing. These are mostly gregarious ducks of freshwater or estuaries and these birds are strong fliers and northern species are highly migratory. Compared to other types of duck, their legs are placed more towards the centre of their bodies and they walk well on land, and some species feed terrestrially. Puddle ducks, as they are called, generally feed on the surface of the water or feed on very shallow bottoms. They are not equipped to dive down several feet like their diving counterparts, the most prominent difference between puddle ducks and divers are the size of the feet. A puddle ducks feet are smaller because they do not need the extra propulsion to dive for their forage. Another distinguishing characteristic of puddle ducks when compared to diving ducks is the way in which take flight when spooked or are on the move. Puddle ducks spring straight up from the water, but diving ducks need to gain momentum to take off, so they must run across the water a short distance to gain flight. Traditionally, most ducks were assigned to either the shelducks, the ducks, and the dabbling and diving ducks. However, the perching ducks turned out to be an assemblage of various tropical waterfowl that happened to evolve the ability to perch well in their forested habitat. Several of these, such as the Brazilian teal, were assigned to the Anatinae
24.
Dutch language
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It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after English and German. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English and is said to be roughly in between them, Dutch vocabulary is mostly Germanic and incorporates more Romance loans than German but far fewer than English. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, the official name for Dutch is Nederlands, and its dialects have their own names, e. g. Hollands, West-Vlaams. The use of the word Vlaams to describe Standard Dutch for the variations prevalent in Flanders and used there, however, is common in the Netherlands, the Dutch language has been known under a variety of names. It derived from the Old Germanic word theudisk, one of the first names used for the non-Romance languages of Western Europe. It literarily means the language of the people, that is. The term was used as opposed to Latin, the language of writing. In the first text in which it is found, dating from 784, later, theudisca appeared also in the Oaths of Strasbourg to refer to the Germanic portion of the oath. This led inevitably to confusion since similar terms referred to different languages, owing to Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and 17th centuries, the English term came to refer exclusively to the Dutch. A notable exception is Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a West Central German variety called Deitsch by its speakers, Jersey Dutch, on the other hand, as spoken until the 1950s in New Jersey, is a Dutch-based creole. In Dutch itself, Diets went out of common use - although Platdiets is still used for the transitional Limburgish-Ripuarian Low Dietsch dialects in northeast Belgium, Nederlands, the official Dutch word for Dutch, did not become firmly established until the 19th century. This designation had been in use as far back as the end of the 15th century, one of them was it reflected a distinction with Hoogduits, High Dutch, meaning the language spoken in Germany. The Hoog was later dropped, and thus, Duits narrowed down in meaning to refer to the German language. g, in English, too, Netherlandic is regarded as a more accurate term for the Dutch language, but is hardly ever used. Old Dutch branched off more or less around the same time Old English, Old High German, Old Frisian and Old Saxon did. During that period, it forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, on the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in nowadays France and Germany. The division in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, one of the few moments linguists can detect somewhat of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in the pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age, the Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups, East, West, and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots, Frisian, Low German and High German
25.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
26.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
27.
Lithuanian language
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Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.9 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania, Lithuanian is a Baltic language, related to Latvian. It is written in a Latin alphabet, Lithuanian is often said to be the most conservative living Indo-European language, retaining many features of Proto-Indo-European now lost in other Indo-European languages. Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant, among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is extraordinarily conservative, retaining many archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit or Ancient Greek. For this reason, it is one of the most important sources in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation, the Proto-Balto-Slavic languages branched off directly from Proto-Indo-European, then branched into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. Proto-Baltic branched off into Proto-West Baltic and Proto-East Baltic, according to some glottochronological speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic ones between AD400 and AD600. The Greek geographer Ptolemy had already written of two Baltic tribe/nations by name, the Galindai and Sudinoi in the 2nd century AD, the differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after AD800, for a long period, they could be considered dialects of a single language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th or 15th century, also, the 13th- and 14th-century occupation of the western part of the Daugava basin by the German Sword Brethren had a significant influence on the languages independent development. The earliest surviving written Lithuanian text is a translation dating from about 1503–1525 of the Lords Prayer, the Hail Mary, printed books existed after 1547, but the level of literacy among Lithuanians was low through the 18th century, and books were not commonly available. Brought into the country by book smugglers despite the threat of prison sentences. Jonas Jablonskis made significant contributions to the formation of the standard Lithuanian language and his proposal for Standard Lithuanian was based on his native Western Aukštaitijan dialect with some features of the eastern Prussian Lithuanians dialect spoken in Lithuania Minor. These dialects had preserved archaic phonetics mostly intact due to the influence of the neighbouring Old Prussian language, Lithuanian has been the official language of Lithuania since 1918. During the Soviet era, it was used in official discourse along with Russian, Lithuanian is one of two living Baltic languages, along with Latvian. An earlier Baltic language, Old Prussian, was extinct by the 18th century, such an opinion was first represented by the likes of August Schleicher, and to a certain extent, Antoine Meillet. Endzelīns thought that the similarity between Baltic and Slavic was explicable through language contact while Schleicher, Meillet and others argued for a kinship between the two families. An attempt to reconcile the opposing stances was made by Jan Michał Rozwadowski and he proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities, they had posterior contact. The genetic kinship view is augmented by the fact that Proto-Balto-Slavic is easily reconstructible with important proofs in historic prosody, vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov believed in the unity of Balto-Slavic, but not in the unity of Baltic. In the 1960s, they proposed a new division, that into East-Baltic, West-Baltic, the Ivanov–Toporov theory is gaining ground among students of comparative-historic grammar of Indo-European language, and seems to be replacing the previous two stances in most PIE textbooks
28.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
29.
Sanskrit
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Sanskrit is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, a philosophical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and a literary language and lingua franca of ancient and medieval South Asia. As a result of transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia and parts of Central Asia, as one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical, the compositions of Sanskrit were orally transmitted for much of its early history by methods of memorization of exceptional complexity, rigor, and fidelity. Thereafter, variants and derivatives of the Brahmi script came to be used, Sanskrit is today one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which mandates the Indian government to develop the language. It continues to be used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the form of hymns. The Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- may be translated as refined, elaborated, as a term for refined or elaborated speech, the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit in the Manusmṛti and the Mahabharata. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the fourth century BCE. Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, evolved out of the earlier Vedic form, the present form of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced back to as early as the second millennium BCE. Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or Pāṇinian Sanskrit as separate dialects, although they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a collection of hymns, incantations and theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the Brahmanas. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, for nearly 2000 years, Sanskrit was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent East Asia. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of Indian epic poetry—the Ramayana, the deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations, and not because they are pre-Paninian. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ārṣa, meaning of the ṛṣis, in some contexts, there are also more prakritisms than in Classical Sanskrit proper. There were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, paścimottarī, madhyadeśī, pūrvi, the predecessors of the first three dialects are attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest. In the 2001 Census of India,14,035 Indians reported Sanskrit to be their first language, in India, Sanskrit is among the 14 original languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its official language. In October 2012 social activist Hemant Goswami filed a petition in the Punjab. More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since Indias independence in 1947, much of this work has been judged of high quality, in comparison to both classical Sanskrit literature and modern literature in other Indian languages
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Ornithology
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Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. The word ornithology derives from the ancient Greek ὄρνις ornis and λόγος logos, several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds. Most marked among these is the extent of studies undertaken by amateurs working within the parameters of strict scientific methodology, most modern biological theories apply across taxonomic groups and the number of professional scientists who identify themselves as ornithologists has therefore declined. A wide range of tools and techniques are used in ornithology, the origins of the word ornithology come from the Greek ornithologos and late 17th-century Latin ornithologia meaning bird science. Trends include the move from mere descriptions to the identification of patterns, Humans have had an observational relationship with birds since prehistory, with some stone age drawings being amongst the oldest indications of an interest in birds. Birds were perhaps important as a source, and bones of as many as 80 species have been found in excavations of early Stone Age settlements. Waterbird and seabird remains have also found in shell mounds on the island of Oronsay off the coast of Scotland. Cultures around the world have rich vocabularies related to birds, traditional bird names are often based on detailed knowledge of the behaviour, with many names being onomatopoeic, many still in use. Traditional knowledge may also involve the use of birds in folk medicine, hunting of wild birds as well as their domestication would have required considerable knowledge of their habits. Poultry farming and falconry were practised from early times in many parts of the world, artificial incubation of poultry was practised in China around 246 BC and around at least 400 BC in Egypt. The Egyptians also made use of birds in their scripts, many of which. Early written records provide information on the past distributions of species. For instance Xenophon records the abundance of the ostrich in Assyria, other old writings such as the Vedas demonstrate the careful observation of avian life histories and includes the earliest reference to the habit of brood parasitism by the Asian koel. Like writing, the art of China, Japan, Persia and India also demonstrate knowledge. Aristotle in 350 BC in his Historia Animalium noted the habit of migration, moulting, egg laying and life spans. Similar misconceptions existed regarding the breeding of barnacle geese, around 77 AD, Pliny the Elder described birds, among other creatures, in his Historia Naturalis. The origins of falconry have been traced to Mesopotamia and the earliest record comes from the reign of Sargon II, falconry made its entry to Europe only after AD400, brought in from the East after invasions by the Huns and Allans. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen learned about Arabian falconry during wars in the region and he had this work translated into Latin and also conducted experiments on birds in his menagerie
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Mandarin duck
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The mandarin duck is a perching duck species found in East Asia. It is medium-sized, at 41–49 cm long with a 65–75 cm wingspan and it is closely related to the North American wood duck, the only other member of the genus Aix. Aix is an Ancient Greek word used by Aristotle to refer to a diving bird, and galericulata is the Latin for a wig, derived from galerum. The adult male is a striking and unmistakable bird and it has a red bill, large white crescent above the eye and reddish face and whiskers. The breast is purple with two white bars, and the flanks ruddy, with two orange sails at the back. The female is similar to wood duck, with a white eye-ring and stripe running back from the eye, but is paler below, has a small white flank stripe. Both the males and females have crests, but the crest is more pronounced on the male, like many other species of ducks, the male undergoes a moult after the mating season into eclipse plumage. When in eclipse plumage, the male looks similar to the female, but can be told apart by their bright yellow-orange beak, lack of any crest, Mandarin ducklings are almost identical in appearance to wood ducklings, and very similar to mallard ducklings. The ducklings can be distinguished from mallard ducklings because the eye-stripe of mandarin ducklings stops at the eye, there are various mutations of the mandarin duck found in captivity. The most common is the mandarin duck. The Asian populations are migratory, overwintering in lowland eastern China, there are now about 7,000 in Britain, and other populations on the European continent, the largest in the region of Berlin. Isolated populations exist in the United States, the town of Black Mountain, North Carolina has a limited population, and there is a free-flying feral population of several hundred mandarins in Sonoma County, California. This population is the result of several mandarin ducks escaping from captivity, the habitats it prefers in its breeding range are the dense, shrubby forested edges of rivers and lakes. It mostly occurs in low-lying areas, but it may breed in valleys at altitudes of up to 1,500 m, in winter, it additionally occurs in marshes, flooded fields, and open rivers. While it prefers freshwater, it may also be seen wintering in coastal lagoons, in its introduced European range, it lives in more open habitat than in its native range, around the edges lakes, water meadows, and cultivated areas with woods nearby. In the wild, mandarin ducks breed in densely wooded areas near lakes, marshes or ponds. They nest in cavities in trees close to water and during the spring, a single clutch of nine to twelve eggs is laid in April or May. Although the male may defend the female and his eggs during incubation, he himself does not incubate the eggs
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Lamella (surface anatomy)
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In surface anatomy, a lamella is a thin plate-like structure, often one amongst many lamellae very close to one another, with open space between. Aside from respiratory organs, they appear in other roles including filter feeding. In fish gills there are two types of lamellae, primary and secondary, the primary gill lamellae come out of the interbranchial septum at the fish gill filament to increase the contact area between the water and the blood capillaries that lie in the fish gill filaments. The secondary gill lamellae are small lamellae that come out of the ones and are used to further increase the contact area. Both types of lamellae are used to increase the amount of intake of the blood. Both types of lamellae contain huge amounts of capillaries and are the sites where the exchange of oxygen from the water, pecten – the similar structure in birds
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Bird flight
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Flight is the main mode of locomotion used by most of the worlds bird species. Flight assists birds while feeding, breeding, avoiding predators, and this article discusses the mechanics of bird flight, with emphasis on the varied forms of birds wings. The specifics of hovering, take-off and landing are also examined, additional adaptations of birds bodies relating to their flying ability are covered. Finally, theories on the evolution of flight are discussed. The fundamentals of flight are similar to those of aircraft, in which the aerodynamic forces sustaining flight are lift. Lift force is produced by the action of air flow on the wing, the airfoil is shaped such that the air provides a net upward force on the wing, while the movement of air is directed downward. Additional net lift may come from airflow around the body in some species. Aerodynamic drag is the force opposite to the direction of motion, the streamlining of birds body and wings reduces these forces. Flapping involves two stages, the down-stroke, which provides the majority of the thrust, and the up-stroke, at each up-stroke the wing is slightly folded inwards to reduce the energetic cost of flapping-wing flight. Birds change the angle of attack continuously within a flap, as well as with speed, when in gliding flight, the upward aerodynamic force on both birds and gliders is equal to the weight. The birds forelimbs are the key to flight, each wing has a central vane to hit the wind, composed of three limb bones, the humerus, ulna and radius. The other set of feathers, behind the carpal joint on the ulna, are called the secondaries. The remaining feathers on the wing are known as coverts, of which there are three sets, the wing sometimes has vestigial claws. Albatrosses have locking mechanisms in the joints that reduce the strain on the muscles during soaring flight. Female birds exposed to predators during ovulation produce chicks that grow their wings faster than chicks produced by predator-free females, both adaptations may make them better at avoiding avian predators. The shape of the wing is important in determining the capabilities of a bird. Different shapes correspond to different trade-offs between advantages such as speed, low use, and maneuverability. Two important parameters are the ratio and wing loading
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Steamer duck
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The steamer ducks are a genus of ducks in the family Anatidae. The genus name Tachyeres, having fast oars or fast rower, the common name steamer ducks arose because, when swimming fast, they flap their wings into the water as well as using their feet, creating an effect like a paddle steamer. They can be aggressive and are capable of chasing off predators like petrels and they are usually placed in the shelduck subfamily Tadorninae. There are four species, Flying steamer duck Fuegian steamer duck Chubut steamer duck Falkland steamer duck The Chubut steamer duck was described in 1981. Based on the Taxonomy in Flux from John Boyds website,1, pp. 87-91 Cunningham, Robert O. On some Points in the Anatomy of the Steamer Duck, transactions of the Zoological Society of London
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Moulting
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Moulting can involve shedding the epidermis, pelage, or other external layer. In some groups, other parts may be shed, for example. In birds, moulting is the replacement of feathers by shedding old feathers while producing new ones. Feathers are dead structures at maturity which are gradually abraded and need to be replaced, adult birds moult at least once a year, although many moult twice and a few three times each year. It is generally a slow process as birds rarely shed all their feathers at any one time, the number and area of feathers that are shed varies. In some moulting periods, a bird may renew only the feathers on the head and body, shedding the wing, some species of bird become flightless during an annual wing moult and must seek a protected habitat with a reliable food supply during that time. The process of moulting in birds is as follows, First, as the pin feathers become full feathers, other feathers are shed. This is a process that occurs in many phases. It is usually symmetrical, with feather loss equal on each side of the body, because feathers make up 4–12% of a birds body weight, it takes a large amount of energy to replace them. For this reason, moults often occur immediately after the breeding season, the plumage produced during this time is called postnuptial plumage. Prenuptial moulting occurs in red-collared widowbirds where the males replace their nonbreeding plumage with breeding plumage and it is thought that large birds can advance the moult of severely damaged feathers. In some countries, flocks of commercial layer hens are force-moulted to reinvigorate egg-laying and this causes a body weight loss of 25 to 35%, which stimulates the hen to lose her feathers, but also reinvigorates egg-production. Some flocks may be force-moulted several times, in 2003, more than 75% of all flocks were force-moulted in the US. Other methods of inducing a moult include low-density diets or dietary manipulation to create an imbalance of a particular nutrient, the most important among these include manipulation of minerals including sodium, calcium, iodine and zinc, with full or partially reduced dietary intakes. The most familiar example of moulting in reptiles is when snakes shed their skin and this is usually achieved by the snake rubbing its head against a hard object, such as a rock or piece of wood, causing the already stretched skin to split. This is similar to how one might remove a sock from ones foot by grabbing the open end, the snakes skin is often left in one piece after the moulting process, including the discarded brille, so that the moult is vital for maintaining the animals quality of vision. The skins of lizards, in contrast, generally fall off in pieces, in arthropods, such as insects, arachnids and crustaceans, moulting is the shedding of the exoskeleton, typically to let the organism grow. The new exoskeleton is soft but hardens after the moulting of the old exoskeleton
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Bird migration
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Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by humans and it occurs mainly in the northern hemisphere, where birds are funnelled on to specific routes by natural barriers such as the Mediterranean Sea or the Caribbean Sea. More recently, Johannes Leche began recording dates of arrivals of spring migrants in Finland in 1749, threats to migratory birds have grown with habitat destruction especially of stopover and wintering sites, as well as structures such as power lines and wind farms. The Arctic tern holds the long-distance migration record for birds, travelling between Arctic breeding grounds and the Antarctic each year, shorter migrations are common, including altitudinal migrations on mountains such as the Andes and Himalayas. The timing of migration seems to be controlled primarily by changes in day length, migrating birds navigate using celestial cues from the sun and stars, the earths magnetic field, and probably also mental maps. Records of bird migration were made as much as 3,000 years ago by the Ancient Greek writers Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus and Aristotle. The Bible also notes migrations, as in the Book of Job, the author of Jeremiah wrote, Even the stork in the heavens knows its seasons, and the turtle dove, the swift and the crane keep the time of their arrival. Aristotle noted that cranes traveled from the steppes of Scythia to marshes at the headwaters of the Nile, pliny the Elder, in his Historia Naturalis, repeats Aristotles observations. Aristotle however suggested that swallows and other birds hibernated and this belief persisted as late as 1878, when Elliott Coues listed the titles of no less than 182 papers dealing with the hibernation of swallows. It was not until the end of the century that migration as an explanation for the winter disappearance of birds from northern climes was accepted. Bewick then describes an experiment which succeeded in keeping alive in Britain for several years. He concludes, These experiments have since been confirmed by. Migration is the seasonal movement, often north and south. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat, sometimes, journeys are not termed true migration because they are irregular or in only one direction. Migration is marked by its annual seasonality, non-migratory birds are said to be resident or sedentary. Approximately 1800 of the worlds 10,000 bird species are long-distance migrants, many bird populations migrate long distances along a flyway. The most common pattern involves flying north in the spring to breed in the temperate or Arctic summer, of course, in the southern hemisphere the directions are reversed, but there is less land area in the far south to support long-distance migration. The primary motivation for migration appears to be food, for example, also, the longer days of the northern summer provide extended time for breeding birds to feed their young
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Plumage
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Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies, and may vary with age classes, within species there can be different colour morphs. The placement of feathers on a bird are not haphazzard, but rather emerge in organized, overlapping rows and groups, most birds moult, usually before and after breeding, resulting in a breeding or nuptial plumage and a basic plumage. Many ducks and some species such as the red junglefowl have males wearing a bright nuptial plumage while breeding. The painted buntings juveniles have two inserted moults in their first autumn, each yielding plumage like an adult females, the first starts a few days after fledging replacing the juvenile plumage with an auxiliary formative plumage, the second a month or so later giving the formative plumage. Abnormal plumages include a variety of conditions, albinism, total loss of colour, is rare, but partial loss of colours is more common. Some species are polymorphic, having two or more colour variants. A few species have special types of polymorphism, as in the male ruff which has an assortment of different colours around the head, hen feathering is an inherited plumage character in domestic fowl controlled by a single gene. Plumology is the name for the science that is associated with the study of feathers, almost all species of birds moult at least annually, usually after the breeding season, known as the pre-basic moult. This resulting covering of feathers, which will last either until the breeding season or until the next annual moult, is known as the basic plumage. Many species undertake another moult prior to the season known as the pre-alternate moult. The alternate plumage is brighter than the basic plumage, for the purposes of sexual display. The Humphrey-Parkes terminology requires some attention to detail to name moults, many ducks have bright, colourful plumage, exhibiting strong sexual dimorphism. However, they moult into a dull plumage after breeding in mid-summer and this drab, female-like appearance is called eclipse plumage. When they shed feathers to go into eclipse, the ducks become flightless for a period of time. Although mainly found in the Anatidae, a few species, including related red junglefowl, most fairywrens. There are hereditary as well as variations in plumage that are rare. Melanism refers to an excess of black or dark colours, erythromelanism or erythrism is the result of excessive reddish brown erythromelanin deposition in feathers that normally lack melanin
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Paradise shelduck
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The paradise shelduck is a large goose-like duck endemic to New Zealand. It is a shelduck, a group of large birds which are part of the bird family Anatidae. The genus name Tadorna comes from Celtic roots and means pied waterfowl, known to the Māori as pūtangitangi, but now commonly referred to as the paradise duck, it is a prized game bird. Both the male and female have striking plumage, the male has a head and barred black body. The paradise shelducks usually live as pairs, grazing on grass and weeds, paradise shelducks form long-term pair bonds, often lasting for life, and defend territories. They have a breeding season, lasting from August through December. They reach sexual maturity two years, and build nests lined with grass and feathers hidden in high grass, inside hollow trees, on branches of habitable trees. The mean clutch size is around nine eggs, before Europeans settled in New Zealand the Māori hunted paradise shelducks in favoured districts. Hunting was done outside the season when the birds were molting. During the breeding season hunting them was forbidden and this conservation and selective hunting system ensured good supplies of food. The genus name Tadorna comes from Celtic roots and means pied waterfowl, paradise shelducks – pūtangitangi Te Ara, The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
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New Zealand
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New Zealand /njuːˈziːlənd/ is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu—and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, the countrys varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealands capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland, sometime between 1250 and 1300 CE, Polynesians settled in the islands that later were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand, in 1840, representatives of Britain and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands. In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire, today, the majority of New Zealands population of 4.7 million is of European descent, the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealands culture is derived from Māori and early British settlers. The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, New Zealand is a developed country and ranks highly in international comparisons of national performance, such as health, education, economic freedom and quality of life. Since the 1980s, New Zealand has transformed from an agrarian, Queen Elizabeth II is the countrys head of state and is represented by a governor-general. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes, the Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau, the Cook Islands and Niue, and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealands territorial claim in Antarctica. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Pacific Islands Forum, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and called it Staten Landt, in 1645, Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand, Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the country before the arrival of Europeans. Māori had several names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North, Middle and South, in 1830, maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907, this was the accepted norm. The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised and this set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, and South Island or Te Waipounamu
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Pecten (biology)
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A pecten is a comb-like structure, widely found in the biological world. Although pectens in various animals look similar, they have a range of uses. The adjective, pectinate, means supplied with a comb-like structure, some toothcombs are referred to as pectinations. In ducks, they are placed on the sides of the bill, whales have a similar oral comb-like structure called baleen. The avian eye also contains a structure called a pecten oculi and it is thought to enhance nutrition for the cells of the retina. They also occur on the underside of scorpions, where they are used as sense organs
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Poaceae
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Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants known as grasses. Poaceae includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and cultivated lawns, Grasses have stems that are hollow except at the nodes and narrow alternate leaves borne in two ranks. The lower part of each leaf encloses the stem, forming a leaf-sheath, with ca 780 genera and around 12,000 species, Poaceae are the fifth-largest plant family, following the Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, Fabaceae and Rubiaceae. Grasslands such as savannah and prairie grasses are dominant are estimated to constitute 40. 5% of the land area of the Earth, excluding Greenland. Grasses are also an important part of the vegetation in many habitats, including wetlands, forests. Though commonly called grasses, seagrasses, rushes, and sedges fall outside this family, the rushes and sedges are related to the Poaceae, being members of the order Poales, but the seagrasses are members of order Alismatales. The name Poaceae was given by John Hendley Barnhart in 1895, based on the tribe Poeae described in 1814 by Robert Brown, the term is derived from the Ancient Greek πόα. Grasses include some of the most versatile plant life-forms, a cladogram shows subfamilies and approximate species numbers in brackets, Before 2005, fossil findings indicated that grasses evolved around 55 million years ago. Recent findings of grass-like phytoliths in Cretaceous dinosaur coprolites have pushed this back to 66 million years ago. In 2011, revised dating of the origins of the rice tribe Oryzeae suggested a date as early as 107 to 129 Mya, a multituberculate mammal with grass-eating adaptations seems to suggest that grasses were already around at 120 mya. This separation occurred within the short time span of about 4 million years. Grass leaves are always alternate and distichous, and have parallel veins. Each leaf is differentiated into a lower sheath hugging the stem, the leaf blades of many grasses are hardened with silica phytoliths, which discourage grazing animals, some, such as sword grass, are sharp enough to cut human skin. A membranous appendage or fringe of hairs called the ligule lies at the junction between sheath and blade, preventing water or insects from penetrating into the sheath, flowers of Poaceae are characteristically arranged in spikelets, each having one or more florets. The spikelets are further grouped into panicles or spikes, the part of the spikelet that bears the florets is called the rachilla. A spikelet consists of two bracts at the base, called glumes, followed by one or more florets, a floret consists of the flower surrounded by two bracts, one external—the lemma—and one internal—the palea. The flowers are usually hermaphroditic—maize being an important exception—and anemophilous or wind-pollinated, the perianth is reduced to two scales, called lodicules, that expand and contract to spread the lemma and palea, these are generally interpreted to be modified sepals. This complex structure can be seen in the image on the right, the fruit of grasses is a caryopsis, in which the seed coat is fused to the fruit wall
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Mollusca
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The molluscs compose the large phylum Mollusca of invertebrate animals. Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, molluscs are the largest marine phylum, comprising about 23% of all the named marine organisms. Numerous molluscs also live in freshwater and terrestrial habitats and they are highly diverse, not just in size and in anatomical structure, but also in behaviour and in habitat. The phylum is divided into 9 or 10 taxonomic classes. The gastropods are by far the most numerous molluscs in terms of classified species, the three most universal features defining modern molluscs are a mantle with a significant cavity used for breathing and excretion, the presence of a radula, and the structure of the nervous system. Other than these things, molluscs express great morphological diversity, so many textbooks base their descriptions on an ancestral mollusc. This has a single, limpet-like shell on top, which is made of proteins and chitin reinforced with calcium carbonate, the underside of the animal consists of a single muscular foot. Although molluscs are coelomates, the coelom tends to be small, the main body cavity is a hemocoel through which blood circulates, their circulatory systems are mainly open. The generalized mollusc has two paired nerve cords, or three in bivalves, the brain, in species that have one, encircles the esophagus. Most molluscs have eyes, and all have sensors to detect chemicals, vibrations, the simplest type of molluscan reproductive system relies on external fertilization, but more complex variations occur. All produce eggs, from which may emerge trochophore larvae, more complex veliger larvae, good evidence exists for the appearance of gastropods, cephalopods and bivalves in the Cambrian period 541 to 485.4 million years ago. Molluscs have, for centuries, also been the source of important luxury goods, notably pearls, mother of pearl, Tyrian purple dye and their shells have also been used as money in some preindustrial societies. Mollusc species can also represent hazards or pests for human activities, the bite of the blue-ringed octopus is often fatal, and that of Octopus apollyon causes inflammation that can last for over a month. Stings from a few species of large tropical cone shells can also kill, schistosomiasis is transmitted to humans via water snail hosts, and affects about 200 million people. Snails and slugs can also be serious pests, and accidental or deliberate introduction of some snail species into new environments has seriously damaged some ecosystems. The words mollusc and mollusk are both derived from the French mollusque, which originated from the Latin molluscus, from mollis, molluscus was itself an adaptation of Aristotles τα μαλακά, the soft things, which he applied to cuttlefish. The scientific study of molluscs is accordingly called malacology, as it is now known these groups have no relation to molluscs, and very little to one another, the name Molluscoida has been abandoned. The most universal features of the structure of molluscs are a mantle with a significant cavity used for breathing and excretion
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Diving duck
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The diving ducks, commonly called pochards or scaups, are a category of duck which feed by diving beneath the surface of the water. They are part of Anatidae, the diverse and very large family that includes ducks, geese, the diving ducks are placed in a distinct subfamily, Aythyinae. While morphologically close to the ducks, there are nonetheless some pronounced differences such as in the structure of the trachea. Alternatively, the ducks are placed as a tribe Aythyini in a subfamily Anatidae which would encompass all duck-like birds except the whistling-ducks. Although the group is cosmopolitan, most members are native to the Northern Hemisphere and this group of ducks is so named because its members feed mainly by diving, although in fact the Netta species are reluctant to dive, and feed more like dabbling ducks. These are gregarious ducks, mainly found on water or on estuaries. They are strong fliers, their broad, blunt-tipped wings require faster wing-beats than those of many ducks, Northern species tend to be migratory, southern species do not migrate though the hardhead travels long distances on an irregular basis in response to rainfall. Diving ducks do not walk as well on land as the dabbling ducks, three genera are included in the Aythyini. The probably extinct pink-headed duck, previously treated separately in Rhodonessa, has suggested to belong into Netta. DNA sequence analyses, which would resolve this question, have not been conducted to date for lack of suitable material. It might be a divergence from the dabbling duck lineage. The molecular analysis suggests that the white-winged duck should be placed into a monotypic genus Asarcornis which is fairly close to Aythya
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Mergini
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The seaducks form a subfamily of the Anatidae, which is a group of waterfowl that includes the ducks, geese and swans. Most species within this group spend their winters near coastal marine waters, many species have developed specialized salt glands to allow them to tolerate salt water, but these are poorly developed in juveniles. Some of the species prefer riverine habitats, all but two of the 20 species in this group occupy habitats in far northern latitudes. The fish-eating members of group, such as the mergansers. These are therefore known as sawbills. Other seaducks forage by diving underwater, taking molluscs or crustaceans from the sea floor, unlike the Alcidae, the Merginae take on the eclipse plumage during the late summer, and molt into their breeding plumage during the winter. There are twenty living species in ten extant genera, Genus †Chendytes and these birds became extinct in prehistoric times. They were large, goose-like ducks with reduced wings which were unfit for flying, at least one species survived to the Holocene. †Chendytes lawi Genus †Shiriyanetta, similar to Chendytes, but lived on the side of the Pacific. †Shiriyanetta hasegawai Genus Polysticta Stellers eider Genus Somateria, the eiders, the drakes have body plumage showing varying amounts of black and white, and distinctive head patterns. Common eider Spectacled eider King eider Genus Histrionicus Harlequin duck Genus †Camptorhynchus †Labrador duck Genus Melanitta, the drakes are mostly black and have swollen bills. Common scoter Black scoter or American scoter Velvet scoter White-winged scoter Surf scoter Genus Clangula Long-tailed duck or oldsquaw Genus Bucephala and these are less marine than some species in this group, and will winter on fresh water. Drakes have white bodies with black backs and distinctive head markings, females are grey with chestnut heads. Common goldeneye Barrows goldeneye Bufflehead Genus Mergellus Smew Genus Lophodytes Hooded merganser Genus Mergus and these are the least marine of this group, only red-breasted and common mergansers being common on the sea. These are large saw-billed ducks which dive for fish, brazilian merganser †New Zealand merganser Red-breasted merganser Common merganser or goosander Scaly-sided merganser
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