1.
Eurasian jay
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Across its vast range, several very distinct racial forms have evolved to look very different from each other, especially when forms at the extremes of its range are compared. The bird is called jay, without any epithets, by English speakers in Great Britain and it is the original jay after which all others are named. The Eurasian jay was one of the species originally described by Linnaeus in his 18th century work Systema Naturae. He recognised its affinity with other corvids, naming it Corvus glandarius, the current scientific name is from Latin, Garrulus means noisy or chattering, and glandarius is of acorns, a favoured food. Eight racial groups are recognised by Madge & Burn, the nominate group, the cervicalis group, with a rufous nape, grey mantle, very pale head sides, and a streaked or black crown. The atricapillus group, with a uniform mantle & nape, black crown, the race hyrcanus, small with black forecrown and broadly streaked hindcrown. The brandtii group, with a crown, reddish head, dark iris. The leucotis group, with no white in the wing, a white forecrown, black hindcrown, the bispecularis group, with an unstreaked rufous crown, and no white wing-patch. The japonicus group, with a large white wing-patch, blackish face, a member of the widespread jay group, and about the size of the jackdaw, it inhabits mixed woodland, particularly with oaks, and is a habitual acorn hoarder. In recent years, the bird has begun to migrate into urban areas, before humans began planting the trees commercially on a wide scale, Eurasian jays were the main source of movement and propagation for the English oak. It will even imitate the sound of the bird it is attacking, such as a tawny owl, however, the jay is a potential prey item for owls at night and other birds of prey such as goshawks and peregrines during the day. It nests in trees or large shrubs laying usually 4–6 eggs that hatch after 16–19 days and are fledged generally after 21–23 days, both sexes typically feed the young. For more information, see Anting In order to keep its plumage free from parasites, it lies on top of anthills with spread wings, similar to other corvids, Eurasian jays have been reported to plan for future needs. Male Eurasian Jays also take account the desires of their partner when sharing food with her as a courtship ritual. Akimova, A. Haring, E. Kryukov, S. Kryukov, first insights into a DNA sequence based phylogeny of the Eurasian Jay Garrulus glandarius. Cheke, Lucy G. Bird, Christopher D. Clayton, Nicola S. Tool-use, Eurasian jay photo gallery at VIREO Interactive range map of Garrulus glandarius at IUCN Red List maps Garrulus glandarius in the Flickr, Field Guide Birds of the World Eurasian jay media at ARKive
2.
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
3.
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
4.
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
5.
Bird
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Birds, a subgroup of Reptiles, are the last living examples of Dinosaurs. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at ten thousand. Birds are the closest living relatives of crocodilians, the fossil record indicates that birds evolved from feathered ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. True birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago, Birds, especially those in the southern continents, survived this event and then migrated to other parts of the world while diversifying during periods of global cooling. Primitive bird-like dinosaurs that lie outside class Aves proper, in the broader group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period, around 170 million years ago. Birds have wings which are more or less developed depending on the species, the digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have evolved for swimming. Many species annually migrate great distances, Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and bird songs, and participating in such social behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of species are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous or, rarely, Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction. They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents, most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Some birds, such as hens, lay eggs even when not fertilised, songbirds, parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano is harvested for use as a fertiliser, Birds prominently figure throughout human culture. About 120–130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry, the first classification of birds was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae. Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system currently in use, Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy. Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the dinosaur clade Theropoda, Aves and a sister group, the clade Crocodilia, contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria
6.
Passerine
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A passerine is any bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. A notable feature of passerines compared to other orders of Aves is the arrangement of their toes, sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders, with over 5,000 identified species. It has roughly twice as many species as the largest of the mammal orders and it contains more than 110 families, the second-most of any order of tetrapods. The passerines contain several groups of parasites such as the viduas, cuckoo-finches. Most passerines are omnivorous, while the shrikes are carnivorous, the order is divided into three suborders, Tyranni, Passeri, and the basal Acanthisitti. Oscines have the best control of their syrinx muscles among birds, producing a range of songs and other vocalizations. Most passerines are smaller than members of other avian orders. The heaviest and altogether largest passerines are the thick-billed raven and the races of common raven. The superb lyrebird and some birds-of-paradise, due to long tails or tail coverts, are longer overall. The smallest passerine is the short-tailed pygmy tyrant, at 6.5 cm and 4.2 g, the foot of a passerine has three toes directed forward and one toe directed backward, called anisodactyl arrangement. This arrangement enables the birds to perch upon vertical surfaces, such as trees. The toes have no webbing or joining, but in some cotingas, the hind toe joins the leg at the same level as the front toes. The passeriformes have this toe arrangement in common with hunting birds like eagles, the leg arrangement of passerine birds contains a special adaptation for perching. This enables passerines to sleep while perching without falling off and this is especially useful for passerine birds that develop nocturnal lifestyles. Most passerine birds develop 12 tail feathers, although the superb lyrebird has 16, certain species of passerines have stiff tail feathers, which help the birds balance themselves when perching upon vertical surfaces. Some passerines, specifically in the family Ploceidae, are known for their elaborate sexual ornaments. A well-known example is the long-tailed widowbird, the chicks of passerines are altricial, blind, featherless, and helpless when hatched from their eggs. Hence, the chicks require extensive parental care, vinous-throated parrotbill has two egg colours, white and blue
7.
Corvidae
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Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers. In common English, they are known as the family, or, more technically. The genus Corvus, including the jackdaws, crows, and ravens and their total brain-to-body mass ratio is equal to that of great apes and cetaceans, and only slightly lower than in humans. They are medium to large in size, with feet and bills, rictal bristles. Corvids are found worldwide except for the tip of South America, the majority of the species are found in tropical South and Central America, southern Asia and Eurasia, with fewer than 10 species each in Africa and Australasia. The genus Corvus has re-entered Australia in relatively recent geological prehistory, with five species, several species of raven have reached oceanic islands, and some of these species are now highly threatened with extinction or have already gone extinct. Over the years, much disagreement has arisen on the evolutionary relationships of the corvid family. What eventually seemed clear was that corvids are derived from Australasian ancestors, other lineages derived from these ancestors evolved into ecologically diverse, but often Australasian groups. In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Sibley and Ahlquist united the corvids with other taxa in the Corvida, the corvids constitute the core group of the Corvoidea, together with their closest relatives. They are also the group of the Corvida, which includes the related groups, such as Old World orioles. Clarification of the interrelationships of the corvids has been achieved based on analysis of several DNA sequences. The jays and magpies do not constitute monophyletic lineages, but rather seem to split up into an American and Old World lineage, and these are not closely related among each other. The position of the magpie, which has always been a major enigma, is even less clear than before. Likewise, the Humes ground jay is in fact a member of the tit family Paridae, the known prehistoric corvid genera appear to be mainly of the New World and Old World jay and Holarctic magpie lineages, Miocorvus Miopica Miocitta Corvidae gen. et sp. indet. Protocitta Corvidae gen. et sp. indet, - probably belongs in an extant genus Henocitta In addition, there are numerous fossil species of extant genera since the Mio–Pliocene, mainly European Corvus. Corvids are large to very large passerines with a robust build, strong legs, the sexes are very similar in color and size. Corvids have strong, stout bills and large wingspans, the family includes the largest members of the passerine order. The smallest corvid is the dwarf jay, at 41 g and 21.5 cm, the largest corvids are the common raven and the thick-billed raven, both of which regularly exceed 1,400 grams and 65 cm
8.
Pinyon jay
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The pinyon jay, historically known as the blue crow or Maximilians jay, is a jay between the North American blue jay and the Eurasian jay in size. It is the member of the genus Gymnorhinus. Its overall proportions are very nutcracker-like and indeed this can be seen as convergent evolution as both birds fill similar ecological niches, the pinyon jay is a bluish-grey coloured bird with deeper head colouring and whitish throat with black bill, legs and feet. This species occurs in western North America from central Oregon to northern Baja California and it lives in foothills where the pinyon pines Pinus edulis and Pinus monophylla occur. The seed of the pine is the staple food but they supplement their diet with fruits. Insects of many types are eaten and sometimes caught with its feet. The nest is always part of a colony but there is never more than one nest in a tree, sometimes the colony can cover quite extensive areas with a single nest in each tree. There are usually 3–4 eggs laid, quite early in the season, the male bird normally brings food near to the nest, and the female flies to him to receive it and take back to the nest to feed the chicks that fledge around 3 weeks later. The voice is described as a rhythmic krawk-kraw-krawk repeated two or three times, Pinyon jays are residents from central Oregon to western South Dakota, south to northern Baja California, northwestern and east-central Arizona, central New Mexico, and western Oklahoma. They winter throughout their range and irregularly from southern Washington to northwestern Montana. The pinyon jay is casual in Iowa and a sight report exists in Saskatchewan, the pinyon jay is a permanent resident of pinyon-juniper woodlands and low-elevation ponderosa pine forests in the southwestern United States. Pinyon-juniper woodlands are composed primarily of Colorado pinyon and Utah juniper and cover vast acreages in Colorado, northern Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. Other pinyon and juniper species occurring in these woodlands include singleleaf pinyon, Parry pinyon, Mexican pinyon, alligator juniper, Rocky Mountain juniper, the pinyon jay relies on singleleaf pinyon in the northwestern portion of its range and Colorado pinyon in the southeastern portion of its range. Ponderosa pines of the southwestern United States include interior ponderosa pine, in this article, pinyon refers to both Colorado pinyon and singleleaf pinyon, and ponderosa pine refers to interior ponderosa pine and Arizona pine, unless otherwise specified. Pinyon jays form flocks that are maintained in a variety of forms throughout the year. The breeding season during January and February is the time of the year when the composition of the flock changes dramatically. Two flocks are formed,1 with breeding birds and 1 with yearling non-breeding birds, a 3rd flock may form at this time, composed of breeding pairs that were unsuccessful in their 1st breeding attempt in order to try a 2nd breeding attempt. Despite separation into separate flocks at times, a degree of sociality continues to be maintained
9.
Species
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In biology, a species is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, looked at more closely it is problematic, for example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear. Other ways of defining species include similarity of DNA, morphology, all species are given a two-part name, a binomial. The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs, the second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the Boa genus, Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped that species could evolve given sufficient time, Charles Darwins 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection. Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal transfer, and species may become extinct for a variety of reasons. In his biology, Aristotle used the term γένος to mean a kind, such as a bird or fish, a kind was distinguished by its attributes, for instance, a bird has feathers, a beak, wings, a hard-shelled egg, and warm blood. A form was distinguished by being shared by all its members, Aristotle believed all kinds and forms to be distinct and unchanging. His approach remained influential until the Renaissance, when observers in the Early Modern period began to develop systems of organization for living things, they placed each kind of animal or plant into a context. Many of these early delineation schemes would now be considered whimsical, animals likewise that differ specifically preserve their distinct species permanently, one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa. In the 18th century, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified organisms according to shared physical characteristics and he established the idea of a taxonomic hierarchy of classification based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships. At the time, however, it was widely believed that there was no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appeared. However, whether or not it was supposed to be fixed, by the 19th century, naturalists understood that species could change form over time, and that the history of the planet provided enough time for major changes. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in his 1809 Zoological Philosophy, described the transmutation of species, proposing that a species could change over time, in 1859, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided a compelling account of evolution and the formation of new species. Darwin argued that it was populations that evolved, not individuals and this required a new definition of species. Darwin concluded that species are what appear to be, ideas
10.
Magpie
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In addition to other members of the genus Pica, corvids considered as magpies are in the genera Cissa. Magpies also found in region of India i. Among the traditional magpies, there appear to be two distinct lineages, one consists of Holarctic species with black/white colouration and is probably closely related to crows and Eurasian jays. The other contains several species from South to East Asia with vivid colouration which is green or blue. Either the North American, Korean, and remaining Eurasian forms are accepted as three or four species, or there exists only a single species, Pica pica. Treepies are a group of corvids externally similar to magpies. The Australian magpie, Cracticus tibicen, is conspicuously piebald, with black and it is a member of the family Cracticidae and not a corvid. The Magpies Nest, an English fairy tale The Weaver Girl, heckle and Jeckle, a series of 1960s American cartoon shorts about two magpies who are always getting into trouble. The Magpie Salute A Rock band formed by Black Crowes co-founder Rich Robinson in October 2016, anonymous, The Word Origin Calendar, Sat. /Sun. Ericson, Per G. P. Jansén, Anna-Lee, Johansson, Ulf S. & Ekman, Jan, Inter-generic relationships of the crows, jays, magpies, journal of Avian Biology 36, 222–234. Lee, Sang-im, Parr, Cynthia S. Hwang, Youna, Mindell, David P. & Choe, phylogeny of magpies inferred from mtDNA data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 29, 250–257, Magpie videos, photos and sounds on the Internet Bird Collection
11.
Eurasian magpie
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The Eurasian magpie or common magpie is a resident breeding bird throughout Europe, much of Asia and northwest Africa. It is one of several birds in the crow family designated magpies, in Europe, magpie is used by English speakers as a synonym for the European magpie, the only other magpie in Europe is the Iberian magpie, which is limited to the Iberian peninsula. The Eurasian magpie is one of the most intelligent birds, the expansion of its nidopallium is approximately the same in its relative size as the brain of chimpanzees, orangutans and humans. The magpie was described and illustrated by Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner in his Historiae animalium of 1555, in 1758 Linnaeus included the species in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Corvus pica. The magpie was moved to a separate genus Pica by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760, Pica is the Classical Latin word for this magpie. The Eurasian magpie is almost identical in appearance to the North American black-billed magpie, an analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences published in 2003 confirmed that the black-billed magpie and the yellow-billed magpie were closely related to each other. The study also found that magpies in Korea are as different from the subspecies as they are to the North America magpie species. These results imply that the species Pica pica is not monophyletic, Magpies were originally known as simply pies. This comes from a root meaning pointed, in reference to either the beak or the tail. Pie as a term for the dates to the thirteenth century. The adult male of the subspecies, P. p. pica, is 44–46 cm in length. The graduated tail is black, glossed green and reddish purple. The legs and bill are black, the iris is dark brown, the plumage of the sexes is similar but females are slightly smaller. The tail feathers of both sexes are quite long, about 12-28 cm long, males of the nominate subspecies weigh 210–272 g while females weigh 182–214 g. The young resemble the adults, but are at first without much of the gloss on the sooty plumage, the young have the malar region pink, and somewhat clear eyes. The tail is shorter than the adults. The subspecies differ in their size, the amount of white on their plumage and the colour of the gloss on their black feathers. The northwest African race P. p. mauritanica differs from the subspecies in having a patch of blue bare skin behind the eye, no white patch on the rump
12.
East Asia
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East Asia is the eastern subregion of the Asian continent, which can be defined in either geographical or ethno-cultural terms. Geographically and geopolitically, it includes China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Korea and Japan, it covers about 12,000,000 km2, or about 28% of the Asian continent, the East Asian people comprise more than 1.5 billion people. About 38% of the population of Asia and 22%, or over one fifth, the overall population density of the region is 133 inhabitants per square kilometre, about three times the world average of 45/km2. Historically, societies in East Asia have been part of the Chinese cultural sphere, major religions include Buddhism, Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion in China and Taiwan, Shinto in Japan, Korean shamanism in Korea. Shamanism is also prevalent among Mongolians and other populations of northern East Asia. The Chinese calendar is the root from which many other East Asian calendars are derived, Chinese Dynasties dominated the region in matters of culture, trade, and exploration as well as militarily for a very long time. There are records of tributes sent overseas from the kingdoms of Korea. There were also considerable levels of cultural and religious exchange between the Chinese and other regional Dynasties and Kingdoms, as connections began to strengthen with the Western world, Chinas power began to diminish. Around the same time, Japan solidified itself as a nation state, throughout World War II, Korea, Taiwan, much of eastern China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam all fell under Japanese control. Culturally, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam are commonly seen as being encompassed by cultural East Asia, there are mixed debates around the world whether these countries or regions should be considered in East Asia or not. Vietnam Siberia in Russia Sovereignty issues exist over some territories in the South China Sea, however, in this context, the term Far East is often more appropriate which covers ASEAN countries and the countries in East Asia. However, being a Eurocentric term, Far East describes the geographical position in relation to Europe rather than its location within Asia. Alternatively, the term Asia Pacific Region is often used in describing East Asia and this usage, which is seen in economic and diplomatic discussions, is at odds with the historical meanings of both East Asia and Northeast Asia. The Council on Foreign Relations defines Northeast Asia as Japan and Korea, the military and economic superpower of China became the largest economy in the world in 2014, surpassing the United States of America. Currently in East Asia, trading systems are open, and zero or low duties on imports of consumer and capital goods etc. have considerably helped stimulate cost-efficiency. Free and flexible labor and other markets are important factors making for high levels of business-economic performance. East Asian populations have demonstrated highly positive work ethics, there are relatively large and fast-growing markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds. The culture of East Asia has been influenced by the civilisation of China, East Asia, as well as Vietnam, share a Confucian ethical philosophy, Buddhism, political and legal structures, and historically a common writing system
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