1.
Conservation status
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The conservation status of a group of organisms indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Various systems of conservation status exist and are in use at international, multi-country, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the best known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system. Also included are species that have gone extinct since 500 AD, when discussing the IUCN Red List, the official term threatened is a grouping of three categories, critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category, Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora aims to ensure that trade in specimens of wild animals. Many countries require CITES permits when importing plants and animals listed on CITES, in the European Union, the Birds and Habitats Directives are the legal instruments that evaluate the conservation status within the EU of species and habitats. NatureServe conservation status focuses on Latin America, United States, Canada, and it has been developed by scientists from NatureServe, The Nature Conservancy, and the network of natural heritage programs and data centers. It is increasingly integrated with the IUCN Red List system and its categories for species include, presumed extinct, possibly extinct, critically imperiled, imperiled, vulnerable, apparently secure, and secure. The system also allows ambiguous or uncertain ranks including inexact numeric ranks, NatureServe adds a qualifier for captive or cultivated only, which has a similar meaning to the IUCN Red List extinct in the wild status. The Red Data Book of the Russian Federation is used within the Russian Federation, in Australia, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 describes lists of threatened species, ecological communities and threatening processes. The categories resemble those of the 1994 IUCN Red List Categories & Criteria, prior to the EPBC Act, a simpler classification system was used by the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992. Some state and territory governments also have their own systems for conservation status, in Belgium, the Flemish Research Institute for Nature and Forest publishes an online set of more than 150 nature indicators in Dutch. In Canada, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is a group of experts that assesses and designates which wild species are in danger of disappearing from Canada. Under the Species at Risk Act, it is up to the federal government, in China, the State, provinces and some counties have determined their key protected wildlife species. There is the China red data book, in Finland, a large number of species are protected under the Nature Conservation Act, and through the EU Habitats Directive and EU Birds Directive. In Germany, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation publishes red lists of endangered species, india has the Wild Life Protection Act,1972, Amended 2003 and the Biological Diversity Act,2002. In Japan, the Ministry of Environment publishes a Threatened Wildlife of Japan Red Data Book, in the Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality publishes a list of threatened species, and conservation is enforced by the Nature Conservation Act 1998. Species are also protected through the Wild Birds and Habitats Directives, in New Zealand, the Department of Conservation publishes the New Zealand Threat Classification System lists
2.
Least Concern
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A least concern species is one which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as evaluated but not qualified for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, near threatened, species cannot be assigned the Least Concern category unless they have had their population status evaluated. That is, adequate information is needed to make a direct, or indirect, since 2001 the category has had the abbreviation LC, following the IUCN2001 Categories & Criteria. However, around 20% of least concern taxa in the IUCN database use the code LR/lc, prior to 2001 least concern was a subcategory of the Lower Risk category and assigned the code LR/lc or. While least concern is not considered a red listed category by the IUCN, the number of animal species listed in this category totals 14033. There are also 101 animal subspecies listed and 1500 plant taxa, there are also two animal subpopulations listed, the Australasian and Southern African subpopulations of spiny dogfish. No fungi or protista have the classification, though only four species in those kingdoms have been evaluated by the IUCN, humans qualify for this category, and in 2008 were formally assessed as such by the IUCN
3.
IUCN Red List
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The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, founded in 1964, is the worlds most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the main authority on the conservation status of species. A series of Regional Red Lists are produced by countries or organizations, the IUCN Red List is set upon precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world, the aim is to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to try to reduce species extinction. Major species assessors include BirdLife International, the Institute of Zoology, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, collectively, assessments by these organizations and groups account for nearly half the species on the Red List. The IUCN aims to have the category of every species re-evaluated every five years if possible, the 1964 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants used the older pre-criteria Red List assessment system. Plants listed may not, therefore, appear in the current Red List, IUCN advise that is best to check both the online Red List and the 1997 plants Red List publication. The 2006 Red List, released on 4 May 2006 evaluated 40,168 species as a whole, plus an additional 2,160 subspecies, varieties, aquatic stocks, on 12 September 2007, the World Conservation Union released the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Russ Mittermeier, chief of Swiss-based IUCNs Primate Specialist Group, stated that 16,306 species are endangered with extinction,188 more than in 2006, the Red List includes the Sumatran orangutan in the Critically Endangered category and the Bornean orangutan in the Endangered category. The study shows at least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth are known to be threatened with extinction, and 836 are listed as Data Deficient. The Red List of 2012 was released 19 July 2012 at Rio+20 Earth Summit, nearly 2,000 species were added, the IUCN assessed a total of 63,837 species which revealed 19,817 are threatened with extinction. With 3,947 described as endangered and 5,766 as endangered. At threat are 41% of amphibian species, 33% of reef-building corals, 30% of conifers, 25% of mammals, the IUCN Red List has listed 132 species of plants and animals from India as Critically Endangered. Extinct – No known individuals remaining, extinct in the wild – Known only to survive in captivity, or as a naturalized population outside its historic range. Critically endangered – Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild, Endangered – High risk of extinction in the wild. Vulnerable – High risk of endangerment in the wild, near threatened – Likely to become endangered in the near future. Does not qualify for a more at-risk category, widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category. Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction, Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria
4.
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
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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
6.
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
7.
Mammal
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Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia, a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles by the possession of a neocortex, hair, three middle ear bones and mammary glands. All female mammals nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands, Mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the great whales. The basic body type is a quadruped, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in trees. The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta, Mammals range in size from the 30–40 mm bumblebee bat to the 30-meter blue whale. With the exception of the five species of monotreme, all modern mammals give birth to live young, most mammals, including the six most species-rich orders, belong to the placental group. The largest orders are the rodents, bats and Soricomorpha, the next three biggest orders, depending on the biological classification scheme used, are the Primates, the Cetartiodactyla, and the Carnivora. Living mammals are divided into the Yinotheria and Theriiformes There are around 5450 species of mammal, in some classifications, extant mammals are divided into two subclasses, the Prototheria, that is, the order Monotremata, and the Theria, or the infraclasses Metatheria and Eutheria. The marsupials constitute the group of the Metatheria, and include all living metatherians as well as many extinct ones. Much of the changes reflect the advances of cladistic analysis and molecular genetics, findings from molecular genetics, for example, have prompted adopting new groups, such as the Afrotheria, and abandoning traditional groups, such as the Insectivora. The mammals represent the only living Synapsida, which together with the Sauropsida form the Amniota clade, the early synapsid mammalian ancestors were sphenacodont pelycosaurs, a group that produced the non-mammalian Dimetrodon. At the end of the Carboniferous period, this group diverged from the line that led to todays reptiles. Some mammals are intelligent, with some possessing large brains, self-awareness, Mammals can communicate and vocalize in several different ways, including the production of ultrasound, scent-marking, alarm signals, singing, and echolocation. Mammals can organize themselves into fission-fusion societies, harems, and hierarchies, most mammals are polygynous, but some can be monogamous or polyandrous. They provided, and continue to provide, power for transport and agriculture, as well as commodities such as meat, dairy products, wool. Mammals are hunted or raced for sport, and are used as model organisms in science, Mammals have been depicted in art since Palaeolithic times, and appear in literature, film, mythology, and religion. Defaunation of mammals is primarily driven by anthropogenic factors, such as poaching and habitat destruction, Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is accepted, McKenna & Bell and Wilson & Reader provide useful recent compendiums. Though field work gradually made Simpsons classification outdated, it remains the closest thing to a classification of mammals
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Even-toed ungulate
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The even-toed ungulates are ungulates whose weight is borne equally by the third and fourth toes. By contrast, odd-toed ungulates, such as horses, bear their weight primarily on their third toe, the aquatic cetaceans evolved from within even-toed ungulates, and therefore modern taxonomic classification sometimes combines Artiodactyla and Cetacea into Cetartiodactyla. The oldest fossils of even-toed ungulates date back to the early Eocene, since these findings almost simultaneously appeared in Europe, Asia, and North America, it is very difficult to accurately determine the origin of artiodactyls. The fossils are classified as belonging to the family Dichobunidae, their best-known and these were small animals, some as small as a hare, with a slim build, lanky legs, and a long tail. The hind legs were longer than the front legs. The early to middle Eocene saw the emergence of the ancestors of most of todays mammals, two formerly widespread, but now extinct, families of even-toed ungulates were Enteledontidae and Anthracotheriidae. Entelodonts existed from the middle Eocene to the early Miocene in Eurasia and they had a stocky body with short legs and a massive head, which was characterized by two humps on the lower jaw bone. Anthracotheres had a large, porcine build, with short legs and this group appeared in the middle Eocene up until the Pliocene, and spread throughout Eurasia, Africa, and North America. Anthracothereres are thought to be the ancestors of hippos, and, likewise, hippopotamuses appeared in the late Miocene and occupied Africa and Asia – they never got to the Americas. The camels were, during parts of the Cenozoic, limited to North America. Among the North American camels were groups like the stocky, short-legged Merycoidodontidae and they first appeared in the late Eocene and developed a great diversity of species in North America. Only in the late Miocene or early Pliocene did they migrate from North America into Eurasia, the North American varieties became extinct around 10,000 years ago. Suina have been around since the Eocene, in the late Eocene or the Oligocene, two families stayed in Eurasia and Africa, the peccaries, which became extinct in the Old World, exist today only in the Americas. South America was settled by even-toed ungulates only in the Pliocene, with only the peccaries, lamoids, and various species of capreoline deer, South America has comparatively fewer artiodactyl families than other continents. The classification of artiodactyls was hotly debated because the ocean-dwelling cetaceans evolved from the land-dwelling even-toed ungulates, some semiaquatic even-toed ungulates are more closely related to the ocean-dwelling cetaceans than to the other even-toed ungulates. This makes the Artiodactyla as traditionally defined an invalid paraphyletic taxon, since it includes animals descended from a common ancestor, phylogenetic classification only recognizes monophyletic taxa, that is, groups that descend from a common ancestor and include all its descendants. To address this problem, the traditional order Artiodactyla and infraorder Cetacea are sometimes subsumed into the more inclusive Cetartiodactyla taxon, an alternative approach is to include both land-land dwelling even toed ungulates and ocean-dwelling cetaceans in a revised Artiodactyla taxon. Order Artiodactyla/Clade CetartiodactylaSuborder Tylopoda Family †Anoplotheriidae, molecular biology involves sequencing an organisms DNA and RNA and comparing the sequence with that of other living beings – the more similar they are, the more closely they are related
9.
Bovidae
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The Bovidae are the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes bison, African buffalo, water buffalo, antelopes, gazelles, sheep, goats, muskoxen, and domestic cattle. A member of family is called a bovid. With 143 extant species and 300 known extinct species, the family Bovidae consists of eight major subfamilies apart from the disputed Peleinae and Pantholopinae, the family evolved 20 million years ago, in the early Miocene. The bovids show great variation in size and pelage colouration, excepting some domesticated forms, all male bovids have two or more horns, and in many species females possess horns, too. Most bovids bear 30 to 32 teeth, social activity and feeding usually peak during dawn and dusk. Bovids typically rest before dawn, during midday, and after dark and they have various methods of social organisation and social behaviour, which are classified into solitary and gregarious behaviour. Bovids use different forms of vocal, olfactory, and tangible communication, most species alternately feed and ruminate throughout the day. While small bovids forage in dense and closed habitat, larger species feed on vegetation in open grasslands. Mature bovids mate at least once a year and smaller species may even mate twice, the greatest diversities of bovids occur in Africa. The maximum concentration of species is in the savannas of eastern Africa, other bovid species also occur in Europe, Asia, and North America. Bovidae includes three of the five domesticated mammals whose use has spread outside their original ranges, namely cattle, sheep, dairy products such as milk, butter, and cheese are manufactured largely from domestic cattle. Bovids also provide leather, meat, and wool, the name Bovidae was given by the British zoologist John Edward Gray in 1821. The word Bovidae is the combination of the prefix bov- and the suffix -idae, the family Bovidae is placed in the order Artiodactyla. It includes 143 extant species, accounting for nearly 55% of the ungulates, molecular studies have supported monophyly in the family Bovidae. The number of subfamilies in Bovidae is disputed, with suggestions of as many as ten, in addition, three extinct subfamilies are known, Hypsodontinae, Oiocerinae and the subfamily Tethytraginae, which contains Tethytragus. In 1992, Alan W. Boodonts have somewhat primitive teeth, resembling those of oxen, a controversy exists about the recognition of Peleinae and Patholopinae, comprising the genera Pelea and Pantholops respectively, as subfamilies. Pantholops, earlier classified in the Antilopinae, was placed in its own subfamily. However, molecular and morphological analysis supports the inclusion of Pantholops in Caprinae, below is a cladogram based on Gatesy et al. and Gentry et al
10.
John Edward Gray
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John Edward Gray, FRS was a British zoologist. He was the brother of zoologist George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray. Gray was Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum in London from 1840 until Christmas 1874 and he published several catalogues of the museum collections that included comprehensive discussions of animal groups as well as descriptions of new species. He improved the zoological collections to make them amongst the best in the world, Gray was born in Walsall, but his family soon moved to London, where Gray studied medicine. He assisted his father in writing The Natural Arrangement of British Plants, after being blackballed by the Linnean Society he turned his interest from botany to zoology. He began his career by volunteering to collect insects for the British Museum at age 15. He officially joined the Zoological Department in 1824 to help John George Children catalog the reptile collection, in 1840 he took over from Children as Keeper of Zoology, which he continued for 35 years, publishing well over 1000 papers. He named many species, genera, subfamilies, and families. During this period he collaborated with Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, the natural history artist. Knowsley Park, near Liverpool, had been founded by Edward Stanley, Gray married Maria Emma Smith in 1826. She helped him with his work, especially with her drawings. In 1833, he was a founder of what became the Royal Entomological Society of London, during his fifty years employed at the British Museum Gray wrote nearly 500 papers, including many descriptions of species new to science. He was also active in malacology, the study of molluscs, on his death he was buried at St Marys Church, Lewisham. 1821, On the natural arrangement of Vertebrose Animals,1824, A revision of the family Equidae. 1824, On the natural arrangement of the pulmonobranchous Mollusca, annals of Philosophy, new series 8, 107–109. 1825, A list and description of species of shells not taken notice of by Lamarck. 1825, An outline of an attempt at the disposition of the Mammalia into tribes and families with a list of the genera apparently appertaining to each tribe, narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia. Performed between the years 1818 and 1822, with an Appendix, containing various subjects relating to hydrography and natural history
11.
Carl Jakob Sundevall
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Carl Jakob Sundevall was a Swedish zoologist. Sundevall studied at Lund University, where he became a Ph. D. in 1823, after traveling to East Asia, he studied medicine, graduating as Doctor of Medicine in 1830. He was employed at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm from 1833 and he wrote Svenska Foglarna which described 238 species of birds observed in Sweden. He classified a number of collected in southern Africa by Johan August Wahlberg. In 1835, he developed a phylogeny for the birds based on the muscles of the hip and he then went on to examine the arrangement of the deep plantar tendons in the birds foot. This latter information is used by avian taxonomists. Sundevall was also an entomologist and arachnologist and in 1862 wrote a monograph proposing a universal phonetic alphabet, Sundevall is commemorated in the scientific names of four species of reptiles, Elapsoidea sundevalli, Leptotyphlops sundewalli, Mochlus sundevalli, and Prosymna sundevalli. Areschoug, J. E. Minnesteckning öfver C. J. Sundevall
12.
Binomial nomenclature
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Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
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Hinrich Lichtenstein
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Martin Hinrich Carl Lichtenstein was a German physician, explorer, botanist and zoologist. Born in Hamburg, Lichtenstein was the son of Anton August Heinrich Lichtenstein and he studied medicine at Jena and Helmstedt. Between 1802 and 1806 he travelled in southern Africa, becoming the personal physician of the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, in 1829, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He died after he had a stroke at sea travelling aboard a steamer from Korsør to Kiel, Lichtenstein was responsible for the creation of Berlins Zoological Gardens in 1841, when he persuaded King Frederick William IV of Prussia to donate the grounds of his pheasantry. He also published Johann Reinhold Forsters manuscripts for Descriptiones animalium in 1844, in the field of herpetology he described many new species of amphibians and reptiles. Among species named by Lichtenstein are included the Australian king parrot, crowned sandgrouse, in 1859 Italian herpetologist, Giorgio Jan, named the forest night adder in honor of Hinrich Lichtenstein, as did the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck with the Lichtensteins sandgrouse. Mit einer Einführung von Wahrhold Drascher, ein Fragment aus dem Tagebuche des Hrn. Dr. Lichtenstein auf der Reise von Amsterdam nach dem Vorgebirge der guten Hofnung 1802, industrie-Comptoirs, Weimar 1806 Über die Beetjuanas. Als Nachtrag und Berichtigung zu Barrows Auszug aus Trüters Tagebuch einer Reise zu den Buschwanas, zur Geschichte der Sing-Akademie in Berlin. Nebst einer Nachricht über das Fest am funfzigsten Jahrestage Ihrer Stiftung und einem alphabetischen Verzeichniss aller Personen, ernst Rudorff, Briefe von Carl Maria von Weber an Hinrich Lichtenstein. Mit drei Porträts, drei Abbildungen und sechs Faksimiles, VIII Seiten,252 Seiten, mit Abb. Wilhelm Bölsche, Neue Welten. Die Eroberung der Erde in Darstellungen großer Naturforscher, thurston, H. T. Colby, F. M. eds
14.
Synonym (taxonomy)
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For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies. This name is no longer in use, it is now a synonym of the current scientific name which is Picea abies, unlike synonyms in other contexts, in taxonomy a synonym is not interchangeable with the name of which it is a synonym. In taxonomy, synonyms are not equals, but have a different status, for any taxon with a particular circumscription, position, and rank, only one scientific name is considered to be the correct one at any given time. A synonym cannot exist in isolation, it is always an alternative to a different scientific name, given that the correct name of a taxon depends on the taxonomic viewpoint used a name that is one taxonomists synonym may be another taxonomists correct name. Synonyms may arise whenever the same taxon is described and named more than once, independently. They may also arise when existing taxa are changed, as when two taxa are joined to one, a species is moved to a different genus. To the general user of scientific names, in such as agriculture, horticulture, ecology, general science. A synonym is a name that was used as the correct scientific name but which has been displaced by another scientific name. Thus Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the term as a name which has the same application as another. In handbooks and general texts, it is useful to have mentioned as such after the current scientific name. Synonyms used in this way may not always meet the strict definitions of the synonym in the formal rules of nomenclature which govern scientific names. Changes of scientific name have two causes, they may be taxonomic or nomenclatural, a name change may be caused by changes in the circumscription, position or rank of a taxon, representing a change in taxonomic, scientific insight. A name change may be due to purely nomenclatural reasons, that is, based on the rules of nomenclature, the earliest such name is called the senior synonym, while the later name is the junior synonym. One basic principle of zoological nomenclature is that the earliest correctly published name, synonyms are important because if the earliest name cannot be used, then the next available junior synonym must be used for the taxon. Objective synonyms refer to taxa with the type and same rank. For example, John Edward Gray published the name Antilocapra anteflexa in 1855 for a species of pronghorn, however, it is now commonly accepted that his specimen was an unusual individual of the species Antilocapra americana published by George Ord in 1815. Ords name thus takes precedence, with Antilocapra anteflexa being a subjective synonym. Objective synonyms are common at the level of genera, because for various reasons two genera may contain the type species, these are objective synonyms
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Oldfield Thomas
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Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas FRS FZS was a British zoologist. Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for the first time and he was appointed to the Museum Secretarys office in 1876, transferring to the Zoological Department in 1878. In 1891 Thomas married Mary Kane, daughter of Sir Andrew Clark, heiress to a small fortune and he also did field work himself in western Europe and South America. His wife shared his interest in history, and accompanied him on collecting trips. In 1896 when William Henry Flower took control of the department he hired Richard Lydekker to rearrange the exhibitions, officially retired from the museum in 1923, he continued his work without interruption. He died by shooting himself with a handgun while sitting at his desk in 1929, aged 71, about a year after the death of his wife. Works written by or about Oldfield Thomas at Wikisource
16.
Paul Gervais
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Paul Gervais full name François Louis Paul Gervaise was a French palaeontologist and entomologist. Gervais beaked whale is named after him, in 1841 he obtained the chair of zoology and comparative anatomy at the Faculty of Sciences in Montpellier, of which he was in 1856 appointed dean. He died in Paris on 10 February 1879, according to Florentino Ameghino Paul Gervais studied a fossil collection obtained from Juan Manuel de Rosas the governor of Buenos Aires. Earlier on this collection would have donated or donated-by-force to the Buenos Aires Province by Francisco Javier Muñiz
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Antelope
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An antelope is a member of a number of even-toed ungulate species indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelopes comprise a wastebasket taxon within the family Bovidae, encompassing those Old World species that are not cattle, sheep, buffalo, bison, a group of antelope is called a herd. It perhaps derives from Greek anthos and ops, perhaps meaning beautiful eye or alluding to the animals long eyelashes and this, however, may be a later folk etymology. The word talopus and calopus, from Latin, came to be used in heraldry, in 1607, it was first used for living, cervine animals. The 91 species, most of which are native to Africa, the classification of tribes or subfamilies within Bovidae is still a matter of debate, with several alternative systems proposed. Antelope are not a cladistic or taxonomically defined group, the term is used to describe all members of the family Bovidae that do not fall under the category of sheep, cattle, or goats. Usually, all species of the Alcelaphinae, Antilopinae, Hippotraginae, Reduncinae, Cephalophinae, many Bovinae, the grey rhebok, and the impala are called antelopes. No antelope species is native to Australasia or Antarctica, nor do any extant species occur in the Americas, North America is currently home to the native pronghorn, which taxonomists do not consider a member of the antelope group, but which is locally referred to as such. More species of antelope are native to Africa than to any other continent, almost exclusively in savannahs, other species occur in Asia, the Arabian Peninsula is home to the Arabian oryx and Dorcas gazelle. India is home to the nilgai, chinkara, blackbuck, Tibetan antelope, and four-horned antelope, while Russia and Central Asia have the Tibetan antelope, many species of antelopes have been imported to other parts of the world, especially the United States, for exotic game hunting. With some species possessing spectacular leaping and evasive skills, individuals may escape, Texas in particular has many game ranches, as well as habitats and climates, that are very hospitable to African and Asian plains antelope species. Accordingly, wild populations of antelope, gemsbok, and nilgai may be found in Texas. Antelope live in a range of habitats. Numerically, most live in the African savannahs, species living in forests, woodland, or bush tend to be sedentary, but many of the plains species undertake long migrations. These enable grass-eating species to follow the rains and thereby their food supply, the gnus and gazelles of East Africa perform some of the most impressive mass migratory circuits of all mammals. For example, a male common eland can measure 178 cm at the shoulder and weigh almost 950 kg, whereas an adult royal antelope may stand only 24 cm at the shoulder and weigh a mere 1.5 kg. Not surprisingly for animals with long, slender yet powerful legs, many antelopes have long strides, some are also adapted to inhabiting rock koppies and crags. Both dibatags and gerenuks habitually stand on their two legs to reach acacia and other tree foliage
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East Africa
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East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. The first five are included in the African Great Lakes region. Burundi and Rwanda are sometimes considered to be part of Central Africa. Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia – collectively known as the Horn of Africa, Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles – small island nations in the Indian Ocean. Réunion and Mayotte – French overseas territories also in the Indian Ocean, Mozambique and Madagascar – often considered part of Southern Africa, on the eastern side of the sub-continent. Madagascar has close ties to Southeast Asia and the islands of the Indian Ocean. Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe – often also included in Southern Africa, Egypt, Sudan and South Sudan – collectively part of the Nile Valley. Situated in the portion of the continent, and Egypt. Also members of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa free trade area, the geography of East Africa is often stunning and scenic. Shaped by global plate tectonic forces that have created the East African Rift, East Africa is the site of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya and it also includes the worlds second largest freshwater lake Lake Victoria, and the worlds second deepest lake Lake Tanganyika. The climate of East Africa is rather atypical of equatorial regions, in fact, on the coast of Somaliland and Puntland, many years can go by without any rain whatsoever. Unusually, most of the falls in two distinct wet seasons, one centred on April and the other in October or November. Annual rainfall here ranges from over 1,600 millimetres on the slopes to around 1,250 millimetres at Addis Ababa and 550 millimetres at Asmara. In the high rainfall can be over 2,500 millimetres. Temperatures in East Africa, except on the hot and generally humid coastal belt, are moderate, with maxima of around 25 °C, at altitudes of above 2,500 metres, frosts are common during the dry season and maxima typically about 21 °C or less. The unique geography and apparent suitability for farming made East Africa a target for European exploration, exploitation and colonialization in the nineteenth century, today, tourism is an important part of the economies of Kenya, Tanzania, Seychelles, and Uganda. The easternmost point of the continent, that is Ras Hafun in Somalia, is of archaeological, historical and economical importance, there are differing theories on whether there was a single exodus or several, a multiple dispersal model involves the Southern Dispersal theory. A growing number of researchers suspect that North Africa was instead the home of the modern humans who first trekked out of the continent
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Southern Africa
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Southern Africa is the southernmost region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics, and including several countries. The term southern Africa or Southern Africa, generally includes Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, from a political perspective the region is said to be unipolar with South Africa as a first regional power. It is not used in political, economic or human geography contexts because this definition cuts Mozambique in two, the Southern African Development Community was established in 1980 to facilitate co-operation in the region. Comoros, Madagascar, Malawi, Mayotte, Mauritius, Mozambique, Réunion, Seychelles, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania, though more commonly reckoned in Central and Eastern Africa, respectively, are occasionally included in Southern Africa as they are SADC members. The terrain of Southern Africa is varied, ranging from forest, the region has both low-lying coastal areas, and mountains. While colonialism has left its mark on the development over the course of history, today poverty, corruption, the pursuit of economic and political stability is an important part of the regions goals, as demonstrated by the SADC. In terms of strength, South Africa is by far the dominant power of the region. South Africas GDP alone is many times greater than the GDPs of all countries in the region. Southern Africa has a diversity of ecoregions including grassland, bushveld, karoo, savannah. It has complex Plateaus that create massive mountain structures along the South African border, there are numerous environmental issues in Southern Africa, including air pollution and desertification. Southern Africa is home to cultures and people. It was once populated by San, Khoikhoi and Pygmies in widely dispersed concentrations, the process of colonization and settling resulted in a significant population of European and Asian descent in many southern African countries. These factors vary from country to country, for example, the Democratic Republic of Congo has favourable climatic and physical conditions, but performs far below its capacity in food provision due to political instability and poor governance. The Republic of South Africa is a food producer and exporter in the region. However this data might not fully capture the reality of a region with high urban populations, urban food security has been noted as an emerging area of development concern in the region, with recent data showing high levels of food insecurity amongst low-income households. In South Africa for example, while over 50% experience hunger, there is only limited data on the other Southern African countries. History of Southern Africa Sub-Saharan Africa Southern Africa
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Genus
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A genus is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms in biology. In the hierarchy of classification, genus comes above species. In binomial nomenclature, the name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. Felis catus and Felis silvestris are two species within the genus Felis, Felis is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by a taxonomist, the standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. Moreover, genera should be composed of units of the same kind as other genera. The term comes from the Latin genus, a noun form cognate with gignere, linnaeus popularized its use in his 1753 Species Plantarum, but the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort is considered the founder of the modern concept of genera. The scientific name of a genus may be called the name or generic epithet. It plays a role in binomial nomenclature, the system of naming organisms. The rules for the names of organisms are laid down in the Nomenclature Codes. The standard way of scientifically describing species and other lower-ranked taxa is by binomial nomenclature, the generic name forms its first half. For example, the gray wolfs binomial name is Canis lupus, with Canis being the name shared by the wolfs close relatives. The specific name is written in lower-case and may be followed by names in zoology or a variety of infraspecific names in botany. Especially with these names, when the generic name is known from context. Because animals are typically only grouped within subspecies, it is written as a trinomen with a third name. Dog breeds, meanwhile, are not scientifically distinguished, there are several divisions of plant species and therefore their infraspecific names generally include contractions explaining the relation. For example, the genus Hibiscus includes hundreds of other species apart from the Rose of Sharon or common garden hibiscus, Rose of Sharon doesnt have subspecies but has cultivars that carry desired traits, such as the bright white H. syriaca Diana. Hawaiian hibiscus, meanwhile, includes several separate species, since not all botanists agree on the divisions or names between species, it is common to specify the source of the name using author abbreviations
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Species description
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A species description is a formal description of a newly discovered species, usually in the form of a scientific paper. Its purpose is to give a description of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species which have been described previously. The species description often contains photographs or other illustrations of the type material, the publication in which the species is described gives the new species a formal scientific name. Today, some 1.9 million species have been described and named and it is customary for scientists to introduce all relevant new findings and research in a scientific manuscript, which is sent to other scientists for peer review. If accepted, it is published in a journal of the appropriate discipline or in a book. Descriptions and naming of a new species or other taxa follow the same process, a name of a new species becomes valid with the date of publication of its formal scientific description. A scientific species description must fulfill several formal criteria specified by the nomenclature codes, Species names are written in the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, but many species names are based on words from other languages, Latinized. Once the manuscript has been accepted for publication, the new name is officially created. Once a species name has been assigned and approved, it can not be changed except in the case of error. For example, a species of beetle was named by a German collector after Adolf Hitler in 1933 when he had become chancellor of Germany. It is not clear whether such a dedication would be considered acceptable or appropriate today, Species names have been chosen on many different bases. Most common is a naming for the external appearance, its origin. Examples would include a bat species named for the two stripes on its back, a named for its Bolivian origin, and an ant species dedicated to the actor Harrison Ford. A scientific name in honor of a person or persons is a known as a taxonomic patronym or patronymic, a number of humorous species names also exist. Literary examples include the genus name Borogovia, which is named after the borogove, a second example, Macrocarpaea apparata was named after the magical spell to apparate from the Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling, as it seemed to appear out of nowhere. For example, the genus Victoria was named in honour of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, more recently, a species of lemur was named after the actor John Cleese in recognition of his work to publicize the plight of lemurs in Madagascar. Non-profit ecological organizations may also allow benefactors to name new species in exchange for support for taxonomic research. A German non-profit organisation, BIOPAT - Patrons for Biodiversity has raised more than $450,000 for research, the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants discourages this practice somewhat, Recommendation 20A
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Subspecies
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In biological classification, subspecies is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, or a taxonomic unit in that rank. A subspecies cannot be recognized independently, a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or at least two, in zoology, under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the subspecies is the only taxonomic rank below that of species that can receive a name. In botany and mycology, under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, in bacteriology and virology, under standard bacterial nomenclature and virus nomenclature, there are recommendations but not strict requirements for recognizing other important infraspecific ranks. A taxonomist decides whether to recognize a subspecies or not, the differences between subspecies are usually less distinct than the differences between species. In zoology, the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature accepts only one rank below that of species, other groupings, infrasubspecific entities do not have names regulated by the ICZN. Such forms have no official ICZN status, though they may be useful in describing altitudinal or geographical clines, pet breeds, transgenic animals, etc. While the scientific name of a species is a binomen, the name of a subspecies is a trinomen - a binomen followed by a subspecific name. A tigers binomen is Panthera tigris, so for a Sumatran tiger the trinomen is, for example, names published before 1992 in the rank of variety are taken to be names of subspecies. In botany, subspecies is one of many ranks below that of species, such as variety, subvariety, form, the subspecific name is preceded by subsp. or ssp. as Schoenoplectus californicus ssp. tatora. A botanical name consists of at most three parts, an infraspecific name includes the species binomial, and one infraspecific epithet, such as subspecies or variety. For example, Motacilla alba alba is the subspecies of the white wagtail. The subspecies name that repeats the name is referred to in botanical nomenclature as the subspecies autonym. When zoologists disagree over whether a population is a subspecies or a full species. A subspecies is a rank below species – the only recognized rank in the zoological code. Botanists and mycologists have the choice of ranks lower than subspecies, such as variety or form, in biological terms, rather than in relation to nomenclature, a polytypic species has two or more subspecies, races, or more generally speaking, populations that need a separate description. These are separate groups that are distinct from one another and do not generally interbreed. These subspecies, races, or populations, can be named as subspecies by zoologists, a monotypic species has no distinct population or races, or rather one race comprising the whole species. A taxonomist would not name a subspecies within such a species, monotypic species can occur in several ways, All members of the species are very similar and cannot be sensibly divided into biologically significant subcategories
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Lyre
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The lyre is a string instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later periods. The lyre is similar in appearance to a small harp but with distinct differences, the word comes via Latin from the Greek, the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning lyrists and written in the Linear B script. The lyres of Ur, excavated in ancient Mesopotamia, date to 2500 BC, the earliest picture of a lyre with seven strings appears in the famous sarcophagus of Hagia Triada. The sarcophagus was used during the Mycenaean occupation of Crete, the recitations of the Ancient Greeks were accompanied by lyre playing. The lyre of classical antiquity was ordinarily played by being strummed with a plectrum, the fingers of the free hand silenced the unwanted strings in the chord. However, later lyres were played with a bow in Europe, one example from Wales that has been resurrected recently is the crwth. In organology, lyres are defined as yoke lutes, being lutes in which the strings are attached to a yoke which lies in the plane as the sound-table. A classical lyre has a body or sound-chest, which. Extending from this sound-chest are two raised arms, which are hollow, and are curved both outward and forward. They are connected near the top by a crossbar or yoke, an additional crossbar, fixed to the sound-chest, makes the bridge which transmits the vibrations of the strings. They were stretched between the yoke and bridge, or to a tailpiece below the bridge, according to ancient Greek mythology, the young god Hermes stole a herd of sacred cows from Apollo. In order not to be followed, he made shoes for the cows which forced them to walk backwards, Apollo, following the trails, could not follow where the cows were going. Along the way, Hermes slaughtered one of the cows and offered all, from the entrails and a tortoise/turtle shell, he created the Lyre. Apollo, figuring out it was Hermes who had his cows, Apollo was furious, but after hearing the sound of the lyre, his anger faded. Apollo offered to trade the herd of cattle for the lyre, hence, the creation of the lyre is attributed to Hermes. Other sources credit it to Apollo himself, locales in southern Europe, western Asia, or north Africa have been proposed as the historic birthplace of the genus. The instrument is played in north-eastern parts of Africa. Some of the cultures using and developing the lyre were the Aeolian and Ionian Greek colonies on the coasts of Asia bordering the Lydian empire, some mythic masters like Musaeus, and Thamyris were believed to have been born in Thrace, another place of extensive Greek colonization
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Horn (anatomy)
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A horn is a permanent pointed projection on the head of various animals consisting of a covering of keratin and other proteins surrounding a core of live bone. Horns are distinct to antlers which are not permanent, in mammals, true horns are found mainly among the ruminant artiodactyls, in the families Antilocapridae and Bovidae. One pair of horns is usual, however, two or more occur in a few wild species and domesticated breeds of sheep. Polycerate sheep breeds include the Hebridean, Icelandic, Jacob, Manx Loaghtan, horns usually have a curved or spiral shape, often with ridges or fluting. In many species only males have horns, horns start to grow soon after birth, and continue to grow throughout the life of the animal. Partial or deformed horns in livestock are called scurs, similar growths on other parts of the body are not usually called horns, but spurs, claws or hoofs depending on the part of the body on which they occur. These are covered with furred skin, cervidae, Most deer have antlers, which are not true horns. When fully developed, antlers are dead bone without a horn or skin covering, they are only by adults and are shed. Rhinocerotidae, The horns of rhinoceroses are made of keratin, the substance as fingernails, and grow continuously. Chamaeleonidae, Many chameleons, most notably the Jacksons Chameleon, possess horns on their skulls, ceratopsidae, The horns of the Triceratops were extensions of its skull bones although debate exists over whether they had a keratin covering. Horned lizards, These lizards have horns on their heads which have a keratin covering over a bony core. Insects, Some insects have horn-like structures on the head or thorax and these are pointed outgrowths of the hard chitinous exoskeleton. Some have greatly enlarged jaws, also made of chitin, canidae, Golden jackals are known to occasionally develop a horny growth on the skull, which is associated with magical powers in south-eastern Asia. Many mammal species in various families have tusks, which serve the same functions as horns. These include the Moschidae, Suidae, Proboscidea, Monodontidae and Odobenidae, Polled animals or pollards are those of normally-horned species whose horns have been removed, or which have not grown. In some cases animals have small horny growths in the skin where their horns would be – these are known as scurs. Cutaneous horns are the examples of horns growing on people. They are most often benign growths and can be removed by a razor, cases of people growing horns have been historically described, sometimes with mythical status
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Diurnality
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Diurnality is a form of plant or animal behavior characterized by activity during the day, with a period of sleeping, or other inactivity, at night. The common adjective used for daytime activity is diurnal, the timing of activity by an animal depends on a variety of environmental factors such as the temperature, the ability to gather food by sight, the risk of predation, and the time of year. Diurnality is a cycle of activity within a period, cyclic activities called circadian rhythms are endogenous cycles not dependent on external cues or environmental factors. Animals active at dawn or dusk are crepuscular, those active at night are nocturnal, plants that open their flowers during the day are referred to as diurnal, while those that bloom at night are nocturnal. The timing of opening is often related to the time at which preferred pollinators are foraging. For example, sunflowers open during the day in order to attract bees, many animal species are diurnal, including many mammals, insects, reptiles and birds. In some animals, especially insects, external patterns of the environment control the activity, diurnality is descriptive, it refers to an observed 24-hour pattern, as opposed to ~24-hour circadian rhythms which are self-sustaining within the organism. In many species, the switches from nocturnal to diurnal foraging depending on the environmental temperature. This allows the individual to maximize its feeding efficiency during the summer and lower its risk of predation during the winter. Diurnal insects include some bees, such as Anthidium maculosum and these carder bees are diurnal and active only when the temperatures are above freezing. They are also most active when there are plenty of such as flowers, from which they can extract pollen. Some primarily nocturnal or crepuscular animals, like dogs and cats, have been domesticated and have become diurnal to coincide with the cycle of human life, however, these animals may exhibit their species original behavior when they are born feral. Other animals have been forced from their normal cycle to a one as a means of avoiding predators. Many plants are diurnal or nocturnal, depending on the period when the most effective pollinators, i. e. insects. Most angiosperm plants are visited by insects, so the flower adapts its phenology to the most effective pollinators. For example, the baobab is pollinated by bats and starts blooming in late afternoon. Services that alternate between high and low utilization in a daily cycle are described as being diurnal, many web sites have the most users during the day and little utilization at night, or vice versa. Operations planners can use this cycle to plan, for example, maintenance that needs to be done when there are fewer users on the web site
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Territory (animal)
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In ethology, territory is the sociographical area that an animal of a particular species consistently defends against conspecifics. Animals that defend territories in this way are referred to as territorial, territoriality is only shown by a minority of species. More commonly, an individual or a group of animals has an area that it habitually uses but does not necessarily defend, this is called the home range. The home ranges of different groups of animals often overlap, or in the overlap areas, within the home range there may be a core area that no other individual group uses, but, again, this is as a result of avoidance. The ultimate function of animals inhabiting and defending a territory is to increase the fitness or inclusive fitness of the animals expressing the behaviour. Fitness in this biological sense relates to the ability of an animal to survive, the proximate functions of territory defense vary. For some animals, the reason for such behaviour is to acquire and protect food sources, nesting sites, mating areas. Territories have been classified as six types, Type A, An all-purpose territory in which all activities occur, e. g. courtship, mating, nesting and foraging Type B, A mating and nesting territory, not including most of the area used for foraging. Type C, A nesting territory which includes the nest plus an area around it. Type D, A pairing and mating territory, the type of territory defended by males in lekking species. Type F, Winter territory which typically includes foraging areas and roost sites, may be equivalent to the Type A territory, or for a migratory species, may be on the wintering grounds. Reports of territory size can be confused by a lack of distinction between home range and the defended territory, the size and shape of a territory can vary according to its purpose, season, the amount and quality of resources it contains, or the geography. The size is usually a compromise of resource needs, defense costs, predation pressure, some species of squirrels may claim as much as 10 hectares of territory. For European badgers, a home range may be as small as 30 hectares in a rural habitat. On average, a territory may be approximately 50 hectares, with main setts normally at least 500 metres apart. In urban areas, territories can be as small as 5 hectares, if they can obtain food from bird tables. Spotted hyenas have highly variable territory sizes, ranging from less than 4,000 hectares in the Ngorongoro Crater to over 100,000 hectares in the Kalahari, sanderlings forage on beaches and sandflats. When on beaches, they feed either in flocks or individual territories of 10 to 120 metres of shoreline, the time to develop territories varies between animals
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Predation
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In an ecosystem, predation is a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey. Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on it, but the act of predation often results in the death of the prey, thus predation is often, though not always, carnivory. Other categories of consumption are herbivory, fungivory, and detritivory, all of these are consumer-resource systems. It can often be difficult to separate various types of feeding behaviors. For example, some parasites prey on their host and then lay their eggs on it, for their offspring to feed on it while it continues to live, the key characteristic of predation is the predators direct impact on the prey population. Selective pressures imposed on one another leads to an evolutionary arms race between prey and predator, resulting in various antipredator adaptations. Ways of classifying predation include grouping by trophic level or diet, by specialization, Predators can be classified by their interactions with their prey. Two factors are considered here, how close the predator and prey are, and whether the prey is killed by the predator. A true predator is one that kills and eats another living thing, Predators may hunt actively for prey in pursuit predation, or sit and wait for prey to approach within striking distance, as in ambush predators. Some predation entails venom that subdues a prey before the predator ingests it, as in the box jellyfish, or disables it, in some cases, the venom contributes to the digestion of the prey, as in rattlesnakes and some spiders. In contrast, baleen whales eat millions of microscopic plankton at once, seed and egg predation are true predation, as seeds and eggs are potential organisms. Predators need not eat prey entirely, for example, some predators cannot digest bones, some may eat only part of an organism, but still consistently cause its death. Grazing organisms do not often kill their prey, while some herbivores like zooplankton live on unicellular phytoplankton and therefore, by the individualized nature of the organism, kill their prey, many others only eat a small part of the plant. Grazing livestock may pull some grass out at the roots, but most is simply grazed upon, kelp is frequently grazed in subtidal kelp forests, but regrows at the base of the blade continuously to cope with browsing pressure. Animals may also be grazed upon, female mosquitos land on hosts briefly to gain sufficient proteins for the development of their offspring, starfish may be grazed on, being capable of regenerating lost arms. Parasites can at times be difficult to distinguish from grazers and their feeding behavior is similar in many ways, however they are noted for their close association with their host species. This close living arrangement may be described by the symbiosis, living together. Parasitic organisms range from the mistletoe, a parasitic plant
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Browsing (herbivory)
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Browsing is a type of herbivory in which an herbivore feeds on leaves, soft shoots, or fruits of high-growing, generally woody, plants such as shrubs. This is contrasted with grazing, usually associated with feeding on grass or other low vegetation. An example of this dichotomy are goats and sheep, these two closely related ruminants utilize dissimilar food sources. The plant material eaten is known as browse and is taken straight from the plant, though owners of livestock such as goats. In temperate regions, owners take browse before leaf fall, then dry, in time of drought, herdsmen may cut branches from beyond the reach of their stock, as forage at ground level. In the tropical regions, where population pressure leads owners to resort to more often. If the population of browsers grows too high, all of the browse that they can reach may be devoured, the resulting level below which few or no leaves are found is known as the browse line. If over-browsing continues for too long, the ability of the trees to reproduce may be impaired. Related to browsing is bark peeling, particularly in forestry this is a problem as the trees may then get diseased and also die. Even if they do not die the trees may suffer fungal infections that affect the wood value, with the rise in deer population in some places, such as Austria, the search for food means that the bark peeling reaches economically serious levels in some forest concerns. There is a difference in mode over the seasons, with winter bark peeling being more gnawing of the due to the trees being frozen to some extent. Summer bark peeling, with softer barks manifests more often as long strips pulled off the trees, certain tree species are more palatable than others, and certain deer are more prone to carry out bark peeling than others. There is also the aspect of male deer scratching with their antlers on trees. Overbrowsing occurs when overpopulated or densely concentrated herbivores exert extreme pressure on plants, reducing the carrying capacity, examples of overbrowsing herbivores around the world include Koala in Southern Australia, introduced mammals in New Zealand, and cervids in forests of North America and Europe. Deer exclosures are used to determine the ecological impacts of cervids, allowing scientists to compare flora, fauna, there are several causes of overabundant herbivores and subsequent overbrowsing. Herbivores are introduced to landscapes in which plants have not evolved to withstand browsing. In other cases, populations of herbivores exceed historic levels due to reduced hunting or predation pressure, for example, carnivores declined in North America throughout the last century and hunting regulations became stricter, contributing to increased cervid populations across North America. Agricultural fields and young silvicultural stands provide deer with high quality food leading to overabundance, overbrowsing impacts plants at individual, population, and community levels
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Monocot
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Monocotyledons, commonly referred to as monocots, are flowering plants whose seeds typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. However, molecular research has shown that while the monocots form a monophyletic group or clade. Monocots have almost always recognized as a group, but with various taxonomic ranks. The APG III system of 2009 recognises a clade called monocots, the monocots include about 60,000 species. The largest family in this group by number of species are the orchids, about half as many species belong to the true grasses, which are economically the most important family of monocots. In agriculture the majority of the biomass produced comes from monocots and these include not only major grains, but also forage grasses, sugar cane, and the bamboos. Other economically important monocot crops include various palms, bananas, gingers and their relatives, turmeric and cardamom, asparagus and the onions and garlic family. Additionally most of the bulbs, plants cultivated for their blooms, such as lilies, daffodils, irises, amaryllis, cannas, bluebells. The monocots or monocotyledons have, as the name implies, a single cotyledon, or embryonic leaf, from a diagnostic point of view the number of cotyledons is neither a particularly useful characteristic, nor is it completely reliable. Nevertheless, monocots are sufficiently distinctive that there has rarely been disagreement as to membership of this group, however, morphological features that reliably characterise major clades are rare. Thus monocots are distinguishable from other angiosperms both in terms of their uniformity and diversity, although largely herbaceous, some arboraceous monocots reach great height, length and mass. The latter include agaves, palms, pandans, and bamboos and this creates challenges in water transport that monocots deal with in various ways. Some such as species of Yucca develop anomalous secondary growth, while palm trees, the axis undergoes primary thickening, that progresses from internode to internode, resulting in a typical inverted conical shape of the basal primary axis. The limited conductivity also contributes to limited branching of the stems, despite these limitations a wide variety of adaptive growth forms has resulted from epiphytic orchids and bromeliads to submarine Alismatales and mycotrophic Burmanniaceae and Triuridaceae. Other monocots, particularly Poales have adopted a life form. Leaves The cotyledon, the primordial Angiosperm leaf consists of a proximal leaf base or hypophyll, in moncots the hypophyll tends to be the dominant part in contrast to other angiosperms. Mature monocot leaves are narrow and linear, forming a sheathing around the stem at its base. There is usually only one leaf per node because the leaf base encompasses more than half the circumference, the evolution of this monocot characteristic has been attributed to developmental differences in early zonal differentiation rather than meristem activity
30.
Dicotyledon
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The dicotyledons, also known as dicots, were one of the two groups into which all the flowering plants or angiosperms were formerly divided. The name refers to one of the characteristics of the group. There are around 200,000 species within this group, the other group of flowering plants were called monocotyledons or monocots, typically having one cotyledon. Historically, these two formed the two divisions of the flowering plants. Rather, a number of lineages, such as the magnoliids and groups now known as the basal angiosperms. The traditional dicots are thus a paraphyletic group, the largest clade of the dicotyledons are known as the eudicots. They are distinguished from all other flowering plants by the structure of their pollen, aside from cotyledon number, other broad differences have been noted between monocots and dicots, although these have proven to be differences primarily between monocots and eudicots. Many early-diverging dicot groups have monocot characteristics such as scattered vascular bundles, trimerous flowers, in addition, some monocots have dicot characteristics such as reticulated leaf veins. Traditionally the dicots have been called the Dicotyledones, at any rank, if treated as a class, as in the Cronquist system, they could be called the Magnoliopsida after the type genus Magnolia. In some schemes, the eudicots were treated as a separate class, the remaining dicots may be kept in a single paraphyletic class, called Magnoliopsida, or further divided. Some botanists prefer to retain the dicotyledons as a class, arguing its practicality. The following lists show the orders in the APG III system traditionally called dicots, together with the older Cronquist system
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Forb
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A forb is a herbaceous flowering plant that is not a graminoid. The term is used in biology and in ecology, especially in relation to grasslands. Forb is derived from the Greek φορβή, pasture or fodder, the spelling phorb is sometimes used, and in older usage this sometimes includes graminids and other plants currently not regarded as forbs. Forbs are members of a guild – a group of plant species with similar growth form. In certain contexts in ecology, guild membership may often be more important than the relationships between organisms. In addition to its use in ecology, the term forb may be used for subdividing popular guides to wildflowers, distinguishing them from other such as grasses, sedges, shrubs. Some examples of forbs are clover, sunflower, daylily, dicotyledon Herbaceous plant Overgrazing United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service link to Growth habits Codes and Definitions
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Fruit
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In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate seeds, accordingly, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the worlds agricultural output, and some have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings. On the other hand, in usage, fruit includes many structures that are not commonly called fruits, such as bean pods, corn kernels, tomatoes. The section of a fungus that produces spores is called a fruiting body. Many common terms for seeds and fruit do not correspond to the botanical classifications, however, in botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary or carpel that contains seeds, a nut is a type of fruit and not a seed, and a seed is a ripened ovule. Examples of culinary vegetables and nuts that are botanically fruit include corn, cucurbits, eggplant, legumes, sweet pepper, in addition, some spices, such as allspice and chili pepper, are fruits, botanically speaking. g. Botanically, a grain, such as corn, rice, or wheat, is also a kind of fruit. However, the wall is very thin and is fused to the seed coat. The outer, often edible layer, is the pericarp, formed from the ovary and surrounding the seeds, the pericarp may be described in three layers from outer to inner, the epicarp, mesocarp and endocarp. Fruit that bears a prominent pointed terminal projection is said to be beaked, a fruit results from maturation of one or more flowers, and the gynoecium of the flower forms all or part of the fruit. Inside the ovary/ovaries are one or more ovules where the megagametophyte contains the egg cell, after double fertilization, these ovules will become seeds. The ovules are fertilized in a process starts with pollination. After pollination, a tube grows from the pollen through the stigma into the ovary to the ovule, later the zygote will give rise to the embryo of the seed, and the endosperm mother cell will give rise to endosperm, a nutritive tissue used by the embryo. As the ovules develop into seeds, the ovary begins to ripen and the ovary wall, in some multiseeded fruits, the extent to which the flesh develops is proportional to the number of fertilized ovules. The pericarp is often differentiated into two or three distinct layers called the exocarp, mesocarp, and endocarp, in some fruits, especially simple fruits derived from an inferior ovary, other parts of the flower, fuse with the ovary and ripen with it. In other cases, the sepals, petals and/or stamens and style of the fall off. When such other floral parts are a significant part of the fruit, it is called an accessory fruit, since other parts of the flower may contribute to the structure of the fruit, it is important to study flower structure to understand how a particular fruit forms. There are three modes of fruit development, Apocarpous fruits develop from a single flower having one or more separate carpels
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Rut (mammalian reproduction)
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The rut is the mating season of ruminant animals such as deer, sheep, camels, goats, pronghorns, bison and Asian and African antelopes. During the rut, males rub their antlers or horns on trees or shrubs, fight with each other, wallow in mud or dust, self-anoint. The rut in many species is triggered by shorter daylengths, for different species, the timing of the rut depends on the length of the gestation period, usually occurring so the young are born in the spring. The rut for white-tailed deer usually lasts three weeks in the Northern Hemisphere and may occur most of the year in tropical zones, the rut is the time when white-tail deer, especially bucks, are more active and less cautious than usual. This makes them easier to hunt, as well as more susceptible to being hit by motor vehicles, the buck has one thing on his mind at this time of the year, to find as many does as he can. He will chase after many does for weeks, barely eating, the rut can take its toll on the bucks, they are usually quite worn out by the end of the breeding season. A white-tail doe may be in estrus for up to 72 hours, cow may come into estrus up to four or more times if they do not mate. The rut can start as early as the end of September, bucks usually begin to start this process when the velvet is falling off their antlers, and it can last all the way until they start to shed their antlers. The peak of the rut, however, is right in the middle, the average peak day for the white-tail rut in the U. S. is November 13. Around this period of time, the bucks and does are very active, for a hunter sitting in a tree stand at this time of the year, it is not uncommon to see many deer pass through his specific area, due to other deer chasing others. There are many behaviors a buck will exhibit during the rut, during pre-rut, bucks will spar with each other. Sparring is low-intensity aggressive behavior, involving mostly pushing and shoving, bucks of different sizes will do this to each other. These activities are usually done at night, the most prominent behavior of all during the heat of the rut is fighting, where bucks show their true dominance to others. The fights can go on and on, with the getting the group of does. Some fights go on death, and if not, it is not unusual to see one of them get injured. On average, a buck before breeding season can weigh up to 180 pounds, after he has gone through the stages of rut, he can lose about 50 pounds of weight, which is quite large, especially for only a few months of time. In the post-rut, a buck will need to replenish his body and catch up on the weight and energy he has lost. Sources have stated that after the rut, a buck will go to a spot and will remain “motionless” for a large amount of time
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Dominance (ethology)
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Dominance in ethology is an individuals preferential access to resources over another. Dominance in the context of biology and anthropology is the state of having high social status relative to one or more other individuals and this enables the dominant individual to obtain access to resources such as food or potential mates at the expense of the submissive individual, without active aggression. The absence or reduction of aggression means unnecessary energy expenditure and the risk of injury are reduced for both, the opposite of dominance is submissiveness. Dominance may be a purely dyadic relationship, i. e. individual A is dominant over individual B, alternatively, dominance may be hierarchical, with a transitive relationship, so that if A dominates B and B dominates C, A always dominates C. This is called a linear dominance hierarchy, some animal societies have despots, i. e. a single dominant individual with little or no hierarchical structure amongst the rest of the group. Horses use coalitions so that affiliated pairs in a herd have an accumulative dominance to displace a third horse that normally out-ranks both of them on an individual basis, dominance may initially be established by fighting, or simply by threatening displays or interchanges. Once established, however, dominance is usually maintained by agonistic behaviours with aggression considerably reduced or sometimes absent, in the maintenance of dominance relationships, the behaviour of the sub-dominant animal is critical. If a dominant animal perceives its status is being threatened, it will threaten the sub-dominant individual. The sub-dominant must then either escalate the intensity of the interaction to challenge the dominant, in this way, it is often the behaviour of the sub-dominant animal that maintains the dominance relationship, rather than the dominant. The ultimate function of a hierarchy is to increase the individual or inclusive fitness of the animals involved in its formation. Fighting to acquire such as food and mates is expensive in terms of time, energy. Therefore, the functions of a pecking order are to reduce the costs of time, energy and risk of injury incurred during resource acquisition. A dominant animal is one whose sexual, feeding, aggressive, subordinate animals are opposite, their behavior can be relatively easily influenced or inhibited by other group members. g. Naked mole-rat, bees and many farm, laboratory, zoo, studies have shown there is a strong association between high testosterone levels and dominance behaviors that help enhance mating success in men. In hierarchical societies, dominant individuals may exert control over others, for example, in a herd of feral goats it is a large male that is dominant and maintains discipline and coherence of the flock. He leads the group but shares leadership on an expedition with an old she-goat who will normally outlast a succession of dominant males. However, earlier work showed that leadership orders in goats was not related to age or dominance, in sheep, position in a moving flock is highly correlated with social dominance, but there is no definite study to show consistent voluntary leadership by an individual sheep. It has been suggested, however, that more commonly, decision-taking about the actions of the group is dissociated from social dominance and this led to the colloquial term pecking order describing the hierarchical system of social organization in chickens, although it is sometimes loosely applied to other animals
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Estrous cycle
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The estrous cycle comprises the recurring physiologic changes that are induced by reproductive hormones in most mammalian therian females. Estrous cycles start after sexual maturity in females and are interrupted by anestrous phases or pregnancies, typically, estrous cycles continue until death. Some animals may display bloody vaginal discharge, often mistaken for menstruation, however, species vary significantly in the detailed functioning. One difference is that animals that have estrous cycles reabsorb the endometrium if conception does not occur during that cycle, animals that have menstrual cycles shed the endometrium through menstruation instead. In species with estrous cycles, females are generally only sexually active during the phase of their cycle. This is also referred to as being in heat, in contrast, females of species with menstrual cycles can be sexually active at any time in their cycle, even when they are not about to ovulate. Humans have menstrual cycles rather than estrous cycles and they, unlike other species, were thought to not have any obvious external signs to signal estral receptivity at ovulation. Some research suggests, however, that tend to have more sexual thoughts and are far more prone to sexual activity right before ovulation. Estrus is derived via Latin oestrus, from Greek οἶστρος, specifically, this refers to the gadfly that Hera sent to torment Io, who had been won in her heifer form by Zeus. Euripides used oestrus to indicate frenzy, and to describe madness, homer uses the word to describe panic. Plato also uses it to refer to a drive and to describe the soul driven. Somewhat more closely aligned to current meaning and usage of estrus, Herodotus uses oistros to describe the desire of fish to spawn, the earliest use in English is of frenzied passion. In 1900 it was first used to describe rut in animals, in British English, the spelling is oestrus or œstrus. In all English spellings, the ends in -us and the adjective in -ous. Thus in American English, a mammal may be described as in estrus when it is in particular part of the estrous cycle. Estrum is sometimes used as a synonym for estrus, one or several follicles of the ovary start to grow. Typically this phase can last as little as one day or as long as three weeks, depending on the species, under the influence of estrogen the lining in the uterus starts to develop. Some animals may experience vaginal secretions that could be bloody, estrus refers to the phase when the female is sexually receptive
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Lactation
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Lactation describes the secretion of milk from the mammary glands and the period of time that a mother lactates to feed her young. The process can occur with all female mammals, although it predates mammals. In humans the process of feeding milk is also called breastfeeding or nursing, in most species, milk comes out of the mothers nipples, however, the monotremes, egg-laying mammals, lack nipples and release milk through ducts in the abdomen. In only one species of mammal, the Dayak fruit bat, is milk production a normal male function, galactopoiesis is the maintenance of milk production. Oxytocin is critical for the milk let-down reflex in response to suckling, newborn infants often produce some witchs milk. Galactorrhea is milk production unrelated to nursing and it can occur in males and females of many mammal species as result of hormonal imbalances such as hyperprolactinaemia. The chief function of lactation is to provide nutrition and immune protection to the young after birth, in almost all mammals, lactation induces a period of infertility, which serves to provide the optimal birth spacing for survival of the offspring. Progesterone levels drop after birth, this triggers the onset of copious milk production, estrogen stimulates the milk duct system to grow and differentiate. Like progesterone, high levels of estrogen also inhibit lactation, estrogen levels also drop at delivery and remain low for the first several months of breastfeeding. Breastfeeding mothers should avoid estrogen-based birth control methods, as a spike in estrogen levels may reduce a mothers milk supply, prolactin contributes to the increased growth and differentiation of the alveoli, and also influences differentiation of ductal structures. High levels of prolactin during pregnancy and breastfeeding also increase insulin resistance, increase growth factor levels, during lactation, prolactin is the main factor maintaining tight junctions of the ductal epithelium and regulating milk production through osmotic balance. Human placental lactogen – from the month of pregnancy, the placenta releases large amounts of HPL. This hormone is associated with prolactin and appears to be instrumental in breast, nipple. Growth hormone is structurally similar to prolactin and independently contributes to its galactopoiesis. Adrenocorticotropic hormone and glucocorticoids such as cortisol have an important lactation inducing function in animal species. Glucocorticoids play a complex regulating role in the maintenance of tight junctions, thyroid-stimulating hormone and thyrotropin-releasing hormone are very important galactopoietic hormones whose levels are naturally increased during pregnancy. Oxytocin contracts the muscle of the uterus during and after birth. After birth, oxytocin contracts the muscle layer of band-like cells surrounding the alveoli to squeeze the newly produced milk into the duct system
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Ecotone
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An ecotone is a transition area between two biomes. It is where two communities meet and integrate and it may be narrow or wide, and it may be local or regional. An ecotone may appear on the ground as a blending of the two communities across a broad area, or it may manifest itself as a sharp boundary line. The word ecotone was coined from a combination of eco plus -tone, from the Greek tonos or tension – in other words, there are several distinguishing features of an ecotone. First, an ecotone can have a sharp transition, with a distinct line between two communities. For example, a change in colors of grasses or plant life can indicate an ecotone, second, a change in physiognomy can be a key indicator. Scientists look at color variations and changes in plant height, third, a change of species can signal an ecotone. There will be specific organisms on one side of an ecotone or the other, other factors can illustrate or obscure an ecotone, for example, migration and the establishment of new plants. These are known as spatial mass effects, which are noticeable because some organisms will not be able to form self-sustaining populations if they cross the ecotone. Lastly, the abundance of species in an ecotone can reveal the type of biome or efficiency of the two communities sharing space. Because an ecotone is the zone in two communities integrate, many different forms of life have to live together and compete for space. Therefore, an ecotone can create a diverse ecosystem, changes in the physical environment may produce a sharp boundary, as in the example of the interface between areas of forest and cleared land. Elsewhere, a more gradually blended interface area will be found, mountain ranges often create such ecotones, due to the wide variety of climatic conditions experienced on their slopes. They may also provide a boundary between species due to the nature of their terrain. Mont Ventoux in France is an example, marking the boundary between the flora and fauna of northern and southern France. Plants in competition extend themselves on one side of the ecotone as far as their ability to maintain themselves allows, beyond this competitors of the adjacent community take over. As a result, the ecotone represents a shift in dominance, ecotones are particularly significant for mobile animals, as they can exploit more than one set of habitats within a short distance. The ecotone contains not only common to the communities on both sides, it may also include a number of highly adaptable species that tend to colonize such transitional areas
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Savanna
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A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland grassland ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support a herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses. Savannas maintain an open canopy despite a high tree density and it is often believed that savannas feature widely spaced, scattered trees. However, in savannas, tree densities are higher and trees are more regularly spaced than in forests. Savanna covers approximately 20% of the Earths land area, the word originally entered English in 1555 as the Latin Zauana, equivalent in the orthography of the times to zavana. Peter Martyr reported it as the name for the plain around Comagre. The accounts are inexact, but this is placed in present-day Madugandí or at points on the nearby Guna Yala coast opposite Ustupo or on Point Mosquitos. These areas are now given over to modern cropland or jungle. The common usage meaning to describe vegetation now conflicts with a simplified yet widespread climatic concept meaning, the divergence has sometimes caused areas such as extensive savannas north and south of the Congo and Amazon Rivers to be excluded from mapped savanna categories. Barrens has been used almost interchangeably with savanna in different parts of North America, sometimes midwestern savanna were described as grassland with trees. Different authors have defined the limits of savanna tree coverage as 5–10%. Two factors common to all environments are rainfall variations from year to year. In the Americas, e. g. in Belize, Central America, savanna vegetation is similar from Mexico to South America, savannas are subject to regular wildfires and the ecosystem appears to be the result of human use of fire. For example, Native Americans created the Pre-Columbian savannas of North America by periodically burning where fire-resistant plants were the dominant species, pine barrens in scattered locations from New Jersey to coastal New England are remnants of these savannas. Aboriginal burning appears to have responsible for the widespread occurrence of savanna in tropical Australia and New Guinea. The maquis shrub savannas of the Mediterranean region were created and maintained by anthropogenic fire. These fires are usually confined to the layer and do little long term damage to mature trees. However, these either kill or suppress tree seedlings, thus preventing the establishment of a continuous tree canopy which would prevent further grass growth
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Wildlife of Angola
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The wildlife of Angola is composed of its flora and fauna. Quiçama spans nearly 10,000 km² about 75 kilometres south of Luanda, backed by a privately funded, $10 million project, the generals are working with South African wildlife experts to revive Angolas wildlife, beginning with the Quiçama Park. Angolas protracted war has had an effect on the countrys wildlife. Forty years ago, thousands of animals roamed the fertile bushland of Quiçama, but over the years, the animals fell prey to landmines, ivory-stalking poachers and hungry locals. Many animals were slaughtered by the military, which used low-flying helicopters to take pot shots at big game. The avifauna of Angola includes a total of 983 species, of which 14 are endemic,1 has been introduced by humans, the western Angola Endemic Bird Area has 14 range-restricted species. Little is known about the status of the regions birds due to the civil war that has raged in Angola for the last 27 years. The greatest diversity of species is found in Cuanza Sul province. Pulitzers Longbill Macrosphenus pulitzeri is fairly common at elevations at Kumbira as well as in the dense understorey of secondary forest west of Seles. Angola Cave-chat Xenocopsychus ansorgei is found on the slopes above the forest at Kumbira. The southern and central coasts include the welwitschia, a primitive conifer, the grassy savanna around Lobito includes baobab and euphorbia trees. The Huambo, Benguela and Huíla provinces are home to montane forest with rare flora, the grassy savanna in the north includes miombo woodland and some evergreen forest. Wilson, Don E. Reeder, DeeAnn M. eds, mammal Species of the World, A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
40.
Kaokoland
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Kaokoland was an administrative unit and a bantustan in northern South West Africa, in the Kaokoveld ecoregion. Established during the era, it was intended to be a self-governing homeland of the OvaHimba. An actual government was, however, never established, like other homelands in South West Africa, the Kaokoland bantustan was abolished in May 1989, at the beginning of the transition of Namibia towards independence. Kaokoland remains as a name for the geographic area, while the political unit of administration since 1990 is Kunene Region. The area is one of the wildest and least populated areas in Namibia, the most represented ethnic group is the Himba people, who account for about 5,000 of the overall 16,000 inhabitants of Kaokoland. The main settlement in Kaokoland was the city of Opuwo, the Kaokoland area extends south-north from the Hoanib river to the Kunene river. It is largely mountainous, with the northern Baynes Mountains reaching the elevation at 2039 m. Other notable mountain ranges of Kaokoland include the Otjihipa Mountains and the Hartmann Mountains, the land is generally dry and rocky, especially to the south, where it borders on the Namib Desert, nevertheless, it has several rivers as well as falls. The most notable falls in Kaokoland are the Ruacana Falls and the Epupa Falls, the northern part of Kaokoland is greener, with vegetation thriving valleys such as the Marienfluss and Hartmann Valley. Before colonialism, Kaokoland was mostly inhabited by the Ovambo, Nama, in 1884, Kaokoland became part of German South West Africa, and Namibian Herero changed much of their habits and costumes as a consequence of German rule. After World War I, South Africa received the mandate from the League of Nations to administer the territory of Namibia, which became, for all practical purposes, a province of South Africa. South Africa also applied to Namibia the principles of apartheid, including the creation of distinct bantustans for different African ethnic groups, Kaokoland was thus established as a bantustan for the Himba people, that in the 1920s had come back from Angola into Namibia. The Himba people are the descendants of a Herero group that got isolated from the others in the 19th century. While the Herero people later experienced German rule and drastically changed their lifestyle as well as their costumes, in recent times, contacts between Himbas and Western tourists are becoming more and more common, especially in the most easily accessible regions of Kaokoland. While this has affected the Himba culture, Himbas have essentially remained faithful to their tradition. Fauna in Kaokoland suffered from a severe crippling between 1977 and 1982, as well as from poaching throughout the 1970s, but has been recovering afterwards and its longer legs, bigger feet, and incredible ability to withstand periods of drought all gave valid reasons to think so. Today, however, it is not considered a different species, the desert elephant claim a three-thousand square kilometre range and regularly travel up to two hundred kilometres in search of water. They only drink every three or four days, compared with elephants in Etosha drinking 100 to 200 L of water a day
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Wildlife of Namibia
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The wildlife of Namibia is composed of its flora and fauna. Namibias endangered species include wild dog, black rhino, oribi, the puku antelope is limited to about 100 individuals along the Chobe River in Botswana and the Linyati marshes in Namibia. The black and white rhino have suffered the most from poaching and are on the verge of extinction, if there had been no effort to save them in the last 20 years they most likely would have disappeared altogether. While both species occur naturally in Namibia, in many of the reserves they have been reintroduced, the country also has the largest population in southern Africa of cheetah not contained within national parks. There are over twenty species of antelope ranging from the largest, the eland, to the smallest, the gemsbok, a striking antelope with long symmetrical horns and distinctive black and white markings is featured on the Namibian coat of arms. Namibia also harbours a wealth of mammals including mongoose, jackal as well as the less common antbear and honey badger. Namibias parks and reserves range from the bush of the centre. The three main tourist attractions for wildlife in Namibia are Etosha National Park, Waterberg National Park, there are about 50 species of frogs but neither caecilians nor salamanders. Namibia is home to 250 species of reptiles with 59 endemics, there were 1331 recorded species of arachnids with 164 endemics but there are potentially 5650 species. Records show 6331 species of insects, but there are expected to be 35,000 species of insects. There are 645 species of birds, there were recorded 26 species of freshwater snails and 13 species of freshwater bivalves. A number of land gastropods are found in Namibia. There were recorded 4334 species of plants, senecio haworthii - Woolly senecio Aloe dichotoma - Quiver tree
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Wildlife of Gabon
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The wildlife of Gabon is composed of its flora and fauna. Gabon is a largely low-lying country with a warm, humid climate, much of the country is still covered by tropical rainforest and there are also grasslands, savannas, large rivers and coastal lagoons. Plant growth is rapid and dense, about 85 percent of the country is covered by tropical humid forest. The dense green of the vegetation never changes, since the more than 6,000 species of plants flower, tree growth is especially rapid, some trees tower as high as 60 m, and the trunks are thickly entwined with vines. There are about 300 species of trees, in the coastal regions, marine plants abound, and wide expanses are covered with tall papyrus grass. As of 2002, there were at least 190 species of mammals, Gabon has important populations of many mammals including about 35,000 gorillas,50,000 forest elephants and 64,000 common chimpanzees. About a quarter of Africas gorillas live in Gabon, other large mammals include the hippopotamus, forest buffalo, bongo and red river hog. A variety of monkeys occur, including the endemic Sun-tailed monkey, carnivorous mammals include the leopard, golden cat, and various jackals, mongooses, genets and civets. The last lion was killed in 1996 in the savannahs of the east of the country, the West African manatee is found along coasts and large rivers while the humpback whale breeds offshore. There are 604 species of birds throughout the country, none of these are endemic but some such as the Dja River warbler, Verreauxs batis, African river martin and black-chinned weaver are restricted to Central Africa and have only small ranges. The grey-necked picathartes and Loango weaver are classed as vulnerable species by the IUCN, a variety of snakes are found including the Gaboon viper. Sea turtles breed along the coast, particularly the leatherback turtle, there are over 7000 species of native vascular plant in Gabon. About 22% of these are endemic, new species are still being discovered such as the tree Cola lizae which was first described in 1987. Wildlife in Gabon faces a number of threats including logging and poaching, however 11% of the countrys area is now protected in a recently established network of 13 national parks. African Bird Club Birds and birding in Gabon, warne, Sophie Gabon, São Tomé and Príncipe, the Bradt Travel Guide, Bradt. ISBN 1-84162-073-4 Gabon to Create Huge Park System for Wildlife, National Geographic News
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Media related to Aepyceros melampus at Wikimedia Commons
Data related to Aepyceros melampus at Wikispecies
