1.
Ramsar Convention
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The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands and it is named after the city of Ramsar in Iran, where the Convention was signed in 1971. The most recent COP12 was held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, cOP13 will take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in 2018. The List of Wetlands of International Importance included 2,231 Ramsar Sites in March 2016 covering over 2.1 million square kilometres. The country with the highest number of Sites is the United Kingdom with 170, the Ramsar Sites Information Service is a searchable database which provides information on each Ramsar Site. As of 2016 there are 18 Transboundary Ramsar Sites, as of 2016 there are 15 Ramsar Regional Initiatives covering regions of the Mediterranean, Asia, Africa and South America. The Ramsar Convention works closely with six other known as International Organization Partners. The IOPs also participate regularly as observers in all meetings of the Conference of the Parties and as members of the Scientific. Conference of the Parties Conference of the Parties is the Conventions governing body consisting of all governments that have ratified the treaty and this ultimate authority reviews progress under the Convention, identifies new priorities, and sets work plans for members. The COP can also make amendments to the Convention, create expert advisory bodies, review progress reports by member nations, and collaborate with other international organizations and agreements. The Standing Committee The Standing Committee is the executive body which represents the COP between its triennial meetings, within the framework of the decisions made by the COP. The Contracting Parties that are members of the Standing Committee are elected by each meeting of the COP to serve for the three years until the next one, the Secretariat The Secretariat carries out the day-to-day coordination of the Convention’s activities. It is based at the headquarters of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland, the 2nd of February each year is World Wetlands Day, marking the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971. Established to raise awareness about the value of wetlands for humanity, in 2015 World Wetlands Day was celebrated in 59 countries
2.
North Sea
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The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of around 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery, the North Sea was the centre of the Vikings rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, and the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus the access to the markets, as Germanys only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geological and geographical features, in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the population, heavy industrialization, and intense use of the sea and area surrounding it. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, in the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland, Orkney, the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea including water from the Baltic Sea, the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some highly industrialized areas, for the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to a north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres wide and has a depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris and this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms. These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, the Devils Hole lies 200 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. The feature is a series of trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long,1 and 2 kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Cleaver Bank, Fisher Bank, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows, On the Southwest
3.
Denmark
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The term Danish Realm refers to the relationship between Denmark proper, the Faroe Islands and Greenland—three countries constituting the Kingdom of Denmark. The legal nature of the Kingdom of Denmark is fundamentally one of a sovereign state. The Faroe Islands and Greenland have been part of the Crown of Denmark since 1397 when the Kalmar Union was ratified, legal matters in The Danish Realm are subject to the Danish Constitution. Beginning in 1953, state law issues within The Danish Realm has been governed by The Unity of the Realm, a less formal name for The Unity of the Realm is the Commonwealth of the Realm. In 1978, The Unity of The Realm was for the first time referred to as rigsfællesskabet. The name caught on and since the 1990s, both The Unity of The Realm and The Danish Realm itself has increasingly been referred to as simply rigsfællesskabet in daily parlance. The Danish Constitution stipulates that the foreign and security interests for all parts of the Danish Realm are the responsibility of the Danish government, the Faroes received home rule in 1948 and Greenland did so in 1979. In 2005, the Faroes received a self-government arrangement, and in 2009 Greenland received self rule, the Danish Realms unique state of internal affairs is acted out in the principle of The Unity of the Realm. This principle is derived from Article 1 of the Danish Constitution which specifies that constitutional law applies equally to all areas of the Danish Realm, the Constitutional Act specifies that sovereignty is to continue to be exclusively with the authorities of the Realm. The language of Denmark is Danish, and the Danish state authorities are based in Denmark, the Kingdom of Denmarks parliament, with its 179 members, is located in the capital, Copenhagen. Two of the members are elected in each of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Government ministries are located in Copenhagen, as is the highest court, in principle, the Danish Realm constitutes a unified sovereign state, with equal status between its constituent parts. Devolution differs from federalism in that the powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government. The Self-Government Arrangements devolves political competence and responsibility from the Danish political authorities to the Faroese, the Faroese and Greenlandic authorities administer the tasks taken over from the state, enact legislation in these specific fields and have the economic responsibility for solving these tasks. The Danish government provides a grant to the Faroese and the Greenlandic authorities to cover the costs of these devolved areas. The 1948 Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands sets out the terms of Faroese home rule, the Act states. the Faroe Islands shall constitute a self-governing community within the State of Denmark. It establishes the government of the Faroe Islands and the Faroese parliament. The Faroe Islands were previously administered as a Danish county, the Home Rule Act abolished the post of Amtmand and these powers were expanded in a 2005 Act, which named the Faroese home government as an equal partner with the Danish government
4.
Norse mythology
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The cosmos in Norse mythology consists of Nine Worlds that flank a central cosmological tree, Yggdrasil. Units of time and elements of the cosmology are personified as deities or beings, various forms of a creation myth are recounted, where the world is created from the flesh of the primordial being Ymir, and the first two humans are Ask and Embla. These worlds are foretold to be reborn after the events of Ragnarök, there the surviving gods will meet, and the land will be fertile and green, and two humans will repopulate the world. Norse mythology has been the subject of scholarly discourse since the 17th century, by way of comparative mythology and historical linguistics, scholars have identified elements of Germanic mythology reaching as far back as Proto-Indo-European mythology. In the modern period, the Romanticist Viking revival re-awoke an interest in the subject matter, the myths have further been revived in a religious context among adherents of Germanic Neopaganism. The majority of these Old Norse texts were created in Iceland and this occurred primarily in the 13th century. The Prose Edda was composed as a manual for producing skaldic poetry—traditional Old Norse poetry composed by skalds. Originally composed and transmitted orally, skaldic poetry utilizes alliterative verse, kennings, the Prose Edda presents numerous examples of works by various skalds from before and after the Christianization process and also frequently refers back to the poems found in the Poetic Edda. The Poetic Edda consists almost entirely of poems, with some prose narrative added, in comparison to skaldic poetry, Eddic poetry is relatively unadorned. Numerous further texts, such as the sagas, provide further information, the saga corpus consists of thousands of tales recorded in Old Norse ranging from Icelandic family histories to Migration period tales mentioning historic figures such as Attila the Hun. By way of historical linguistics and comparative mythology, comparisons to other attested branches of Germanic mythology may also lend insight, wider comparisons to the mythology of other Indo-European peoples by scholars has resulted in the potential reconstruction of far earlier myths. Of the mythical tales and poems that are presumed to have existed during the Middle Ages, Viking Age, Migration Period, numerous gods are mentioned in the source texts. In the mythology, Thor lays waste to numerous jötnar who are foes to the gods or humanity, the god Odin is also frequently mentioned in surviving texts. One-eyed, wolf and raven-flanked, and spear in hand, Odin pursues knowledge throughout the worlds, Odin has a strong association with death, Odin is portrayed as the ruler of Valhalla, where valkyries carry half of those slain in battle. Odins wife is the powerful goddess Frigg who can see the future but tells no one, and together they have a beloved son, Baldr. After a series of dreams had by Baldr of his death, his death is engineered by Loki, and Baldr thereafter resides in Hel. Odin must share half of his share of the dead with a powerful goddess and she is beautiful, sensual, wears a feathered cloak, and practices seiðr. She rides to battle to choose among the slain, and brings her chosen to her afterlife field Fólkvangr, Freyja weeps for her missing husband Óðr, and seeks after him in far away lands
5.
Politics of Denmark
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Denmark is described as a nation state. Danish politics and governance are characterized by a striving for broad consensus on important issues. Executive power is exercised by the cabinet of Denmark, presided over by the Prime Minister who is first among equals, legislative power is vested in both the executive and the national parliament. Members of the judiciary are nominated by the executive, formally appointed by the monarch, Denmark has a multi-party system, with two strong parties, and four or five other significant parties. No single party has held a majority in the Folketing since the beginning of the 20th century. Since only four coalition governments have enjoyed a majority, government bills rarely become law without negotiations. Hence the Folketing tends to be powerful than legislatures in other EU countries. The Constitution does not grant the power of judicial review of legislation. Since there are no constitutional or administrative courts, the Supreme Court deals with a constitutional dimension, on many issues the political parties tend to opt for co-operation, and the Danish state welfare model receives broad parliamentary support. This ensures a focus on efficiency and devolved responsibilities of local government on regional and municipal levels. Margrethe II has ruled as Queen Regnant and head of state since 14 January 1972, in accordance with the Danish Constitution the Danish monarch, as head of state, is the theoretical source of all executive and legislative power. However, since the introduction of parliamentary sovereignty in 1901, a de facto separation of powers has been in effect, the text of the Danish constitution dates back to 1849. Therefore, it has been interpreted by jurists to suit modern conditions, in a formal sense, the monarch retains the ability to deny giving a bill royal assent. In order for a bill to law, a royal signature. The monarch also chooses and dismisses the Prime Minister, although in modern times a dismissal would cause a constitutional crisis, on 28 March 1920, King Christian X was the last monarch to exercise the power of dismissal, sparking the 1920 Easter Crisis. When a new government is to be formed, the monarch calls the party leaders to a conference of deliberation, on the basis of the advice the monarch then appoints the party leader who commands a majority of recommendation to lead negotiations for forming a new government. However, the monarch does continue to exercise three rights, the right to be consulted, the right to advise, and the right to warn, pursuant to these ideals, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet attend the regular meeting of the Council of State. Nine parties are represented in parliament, the four oldest and in history most influential parties are the Conservative Peoples Party, the Social Democrats, Venstre and the Danish Social Liberal Party
6.
Frederikshavn
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Frederikshavn is a Danish town in Frederikshavn municipality, Region Nordjylland, on the northeast coast of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark. Its name translates to Frederiks harbour, the town has a population of 23,156, and is an important traffic portal with its ferry connections to Sweden and Norway. The town is known for fishing, and its fishing. The Danish term frederikshavner is used to denote a quality plaice, frederikshavns oldest building, Fiskerklyngen, is originally from the mid-16th century, but the houses now there are from 18th–19th centuries. Frederikshavn was originally called Fladstrand, until 1818 when it received status as a merchant town under the name of Frederikshavn, due to its advantageous proximity to the entrance to the Baltic Sea, Frederikshavn has historically been a naval base of some strategic importance. Peter Tordenskjold barricaded himself here in the fortress that German troops had built in the 17th century. During the Great Northern War the Battle of Fladstrand was fought in the sea between Swedish and Danish naval forces. The only old military installations remaining to this day are the Gunpowder Tower, constructed in 1688, the Gunpowder Tower has been preserved, and is incorporated in the municipalitys coat-of-arms. Bangsbo Museum Frederikshavn Art Museum Frederikshavn Shipyard Historical Society Tordenskiold Festival, Frederikshavn, like the rest of North Jutland, was hit with hard unemployment. The towns largest workplace, the shipyard Danyard, closed in the late 1990s and this resulted in more than 2,000 workers being unemployed. Today there is activity at the large ship building area. In summer 2008, the unemployment rate, like the rest of Denmark, as with many provincial municipalities around the world, some of its young people leave to large urban cities. However, the municipality is engaged in many innovative projects which are attracting tourists. The process is expected to be completed by 2015, Frederikshavn is served by Frederikshavn railway station. It is the train station of the Vendsyssel and Skagen railway lines and offers direct InterCity services to Copenhagen, regional train services to Aalborg. Former footballer Allan Olsen, musician Lucas Bjerregaard, Danish golfer EUC Nord - a technical school located partly in Frederikshavn
7.
Shoal
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Often it refers to those submerged ridges, banks, or bars that rise near enough to the surface of a body of water as to constitute a danger to navigation. Shoals are also known as sandbanks, sandbars, or gravelbars, two or more shoals that are either separated by shared troughs or interconnected by past and or present sedimentary and hydrographic processes are referred to as a shoal complex. The term shoal is also used in a number of ways that can be similar or quite different from how it is used in the geologic, geomorphic. Shoals are characteristically long and narrow ridges and they can develop where a stream, river, or ocean current promotes deposition of sediment and granular material, resulting in localized shallowing of the water. Marine shoals also develop either by the in place drowning of barrier islands as the result of sea level rise or by the erosion. Shoals can appear as a coastal landform in the sea, where they are classified as a type of bank, or as fluvial landforms in rivers, streams. A shoal–sandbar may seasonally separate a smaller body of water from the sea, such as, Marine lagoons Brackish water estuaries Freshwater seasonal stream and river mouths and deltas. They are typically composed of sand, although they could be of any matter that the moving water has access to and is capable of shifting around. Wave shoaling is the process when surface waves move towards shallow water, such as a beach, they slow down, their wave height increases and this behavior is called shoaling, and the waves are said to shoal. The waves may or may not build to the point where they break, depending on how large they were to begin with, in particular, waves shoal as they pass over submerged sandbanks or reefs. This can be treacherous for boats and ships, shoaling can also diffract waves, so the waves change direction. For example, if waves pass over a bank which is shallower at one end than the other. Thus the wave fronts will refract, changing direction like light passing through a prism, refraction also occurs as waves move towards a beach if the waves come in at an angle to the beach, or if the beach slopes more gradually at one end than the other. Sandbars, also known as a trough bars, form where the waves are breaking, sometimes this occurs seaward of a trough. Sand carried by the moving bottom current is deposited where the current reaches the wave break. Other longshore bars may lie further offshore, representing the point of even larger waves. A harbor or river bar is a sedimentary deposit formed at an entrance or river mouth by. Where beaches are suitably mobile, or the river’s suspended and/or bed loads are large enough, deposition can build up a sandbar that completely blocks a river mouth and damming the river
8.
Heath
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A heath is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and is characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler, heaths are widespread worldwide, but are fast disappearing and considered a rare habitat in Europe. They form extensive and highly diverse communities across Australia in humid and sub-humid areas where fire regimes with recurring burning are required for the maintenance of the heathlands, even more diverse though less widespread heath communities occur in Southern Africa. Extensive heath communities can also be found in the California chaparral, New Caledonia, central Chile, in addition to these extensive heath areas, the vegetation type is also found in scattered locations across all continents, except Antarctica. Heaths are dominated by low shrubs,20 centimetres to 2 metres tall, heath vegetation can be extremely plant-species rich, and heathlands of Australia are home to some 3,700 endemic or typical species in addition to numerous less restricted species. The fynbos heathlands of South Africa are second only to tropical rainforests in plant biodiversity with over 7,000 species, in marked contrast, the tiny pockets of heathland in Europe are extremely depauperate with a flora consisting primarily of heather, heath and gorse. The bird fauna of heathlands are usually species of the region. In the depauperate heathlands of Europe bird species tend to be characteristic of the community and include Montagus harrier. Australian heathlands are also home to the worlds only nectar-feeding terrestrial mammal, the bird fauna of the South African fynbos includes sunbirds, warblers and siskins. Heathlands are also an excellent habitat for insects including ants, moths, butterflies and these heaths were originally created or expanded by centuries of human clearance of the natural forest and woodland vegetation, by grazing and burning. Referring to heathland in England, Rackham says, “Heaths are clearly the product of human activities and need to be managed as heathland, in recent years the conservation value of even these man-made heaths has become much more appreciated, and consequently most heathlands are protected. However they are threatened by tree incursion because of the discontinuation of traditional management techniques such as grazing and burning that mediated the landscapes. Some are also threatened by urban sprawl, anthropogenic heathlands are maintained artificially by a combination of grazing and periodic burning, or mowing, if not so maintained, they are rapidly re-colonised by forest or woodland. The re-colonising tree species will depend on what is available as the seed source. Bolster heath Chalk heath Garrigue Maquis shrubland Matorral Scrubland The Countryside Agency information on types of open land Origin of the word heath
9.
Islet
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An islet is a very small island. As suggested by its origin as islette, an Old French diminutive of isle, use of the term implies small size, but little attention is given to drawing an upper limit on its applicability. Cay or Key – an islet formed by the accumulation of sand deposits atop a reef Motu – A reef islet formed by broken coral and sand. River island – A small islet within the current of a river, rock – A rock, in the sense of a type of islet, is an uninhabited landform composed of rock, lying offshore, and having at most minimal vegetation. Sandbar – An exposed sandbar is another type of islet, Sea stack – A thin, vertical landform jutting out of a body of water. Skerry – A small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation, subsidiary islets – A more technical application is to small land features, isolated by water, lying off the shore of a larger island. Likewise, any emergent land in an atoll is called an islet. Tidal island – Often small islands lie off the mainland of an area, being connected to it in low tide. In the Caribbean and West Atlantic, islets are often called cays or keys, rum Cay in the Bahamas and the Florida Keys off Florida are examples of islets. In the Channel Islands, they are identified by the suffix -hou from the Norse -holm. In Scotland and Ireland, they are often called inches, from the Gaelic innis, which originally meant island, in Ireland they are often termed skerries. In and around Polynesia, islets are widely known by the term motu, in and around the River Thames in England, small islands are known as aits or eyots. One long-term dispute over the status of such an islet was that of Snake Island, there are thousands of islets on Earth, approximately 24,000 islands and islets in the Stockholm archipelago alone. The following is a list of example islets from around the world, Islands or Rocks, Is that the Real Question. The Treatment of Islands in the Delimitation of Maritime Boundaries, in Myron H. Nordquist, John Norton Moore, Alfred H. A. The Law of the Sea Convention, US Accession and Globalization
10.
Salt marsh
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It is dominated by dense stands of salt-tolerant plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the marsh in trapping and binding sediments. Salt marshes play a role in the aquatic food web. They also support terrestrial animals and provide coastal protection, salt marshes occur on low-energy shorelines in temperate and high-latitudes which can be stable or emerging, or submerging if the sedimentation rate exceeds the subsidence rate. Commonly these shorelines consist of mud or sand flats which are nourished with sediment from inflowing rivers and these typically include sheltered environments such as embankments, estuaries and the leeward side of barrier islands and spits. In the tropics and sub-tropics they are replaced by mangroves, an area that differs from a marsh in that instead of herbaceous plants. Most salt marshes have a low topography with low elevations but a vast wide area, salt marshes are located among different landforms based on their physical and geomorphological settings. Such marsh landforms include deltaic marshes, estuarine, back-barrier, open coast, embayments, deltaic marshes are associated with large rivers where many occur in Southern Europe such as the Camargue, France in the Rhone delta or the Ebro delta in Spain. They are also extensive within the rivers of the Mississippi Delta in the United States, in New Zealand, most salt marshes occur at the head of estuaries in areas where there is little wave action and high sedimentation. Such marshes are located in Awhitu Regional Park in Auckland, the Manawatu Estuary, back-barrier marshes are sensitive to the reshaping of barriers in the landward side of which they have been formed. They are common along much of the eastern coast of the United States, large, shallow coastal embayments can hold salt marshes with examples including Morecambe Bay and Portsmouth in Britain and the Bay of Fundy in North America. They have a big impact on the biodiversity of the area, salt marsh ecology involves complex food webs which include primary producers, primary consumers, and secondary consumers. The low physical energy and high grasses provide a refuge for animals, many marine fish use salt marshes as nursery grounds for their young before they move to open waters. Saltmarshes across 99 countries were mapped by Mcowen et al, a total of 5,495,089 hectares of mapped saltmarsh across 43 countries and territories are represented in a Geographic Information Systems polygon shapefile. This estimate is at the low end of previous estimates. Mats of filamentous blue-green algae can fix silt and clay sized sediment particles to their sticky sheaths on contact which can increase the erosion resistance of the sediments. This assists the process of sediment accretion to allow colonising species to grow, as a result, competitive species that prefer higher elevations relative to sea level can inhabit the area and often a succession of plant communities develops. Coastal salt marshes can be distinguished from terrestrial habitats by the tidal flow that occurs
11.
Wadden Sea
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The Wadden Sea is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern continental Europe and the range of Frisian Islands, forming a body of water with tidal flats. It is rich in biological diversity, in 2009, the Dutch and German parts of the Wadden Sea were inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List and the Danish part was added in June 2014. The Wadden Sea is one of the worlds seas whose coastline has been most modified by humans, via systems of dikes and causeways on the mainland, within the Netherlands it is bounded from the IJsselmeer by the Afsluitdijk. The islands in the Wadden Sea are called the Wadden Sea Islands or Frisian Islands and these are remnants of the once expansive and now submerged Doggerland. However, on the westernmost Dutch island, Texel, the Frisian language has not been spoken for centuries, the Danish Wadden Sea Islands have never been inhabited by Frisians. The outlying German island of Heligoland, although one of the Frisian Islands, is not situated in the Wadden Sea. The German part of the Wadden Sea was the setting for the 1903 Erskine Childers novel The Riddle of the Sands, the word wad is Dutch for mud flat. The area is typified by extensive mud flats, deeper tidal trenches and the islands that are contained within this. The landscape has been formed for a part by storm tides in the 10th to 14th centuries. The present islands are a remnant of the coastal dunes. The islands are marked by dunes and wide, sandy beaches towards the North Sea, the impact of waves and currents, carrying away sediments, is slowly changing the layout of the islands. For example, the islands of Vlieland and Ameland have moved eastwards through the centuries, having lost land on one side, the Wadden Sea is famous for its rich flora and fauna, especially birds. Hundreds of thousands of waders, ducks, and geese use the area as a stopover or wintering site. Some species that are extinct are still available here. Wadden Sea is an important habitat for two species of seals, harbor and grey seals, North Atlantic right whales and gray whales were once seen in the region, using the shallow, calm waters for either feeding and breeding before they were completely wiped out by shore-based whaling. These two species are now thought to be extinct or remnant populations of which low-tens at best survive. One whale, possibly a right whale, was observed close to beaches on Texel in the West Frisian Islands and off Steenbanken, Schouwen-Duiveland in July 2005
12.
Grazing
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Grazing is a method of feeding in which a herbivore feeds on plants such as grasses, or other multicellular organisms such as algae. In agriculture, grazing is one method used whereby domestic livestock are used to convert grass and other forage into meat, milk, many small selective herbivores follow larger grazers, who skim off the highest, tough growth of plants, exposing tender shoots. For terrestrial animals, grazing is normally distinguished from browsing in that grazing is eating grass or forbs, Grazing differs from true predation because the organism being grazed upon is not generally killed. Grazing differs from parasitism as the two live together in a constant state of physical externality. Water animals that feed for example on algae found on stones are called grazers-scrapers, grazers-scrapers feed also on microorganisms and dead organic matter on various substrates. Grazing is a method of feeding in which a herbivore feeds on such as grasses. In zoology, graminivory is a form of grazing, a graminivore is an herbivorous animal that feeds primarily on grass. The word is derived from Latin graminis, meaning grass, and vorare, horses, cattle, capybara, hippopotamuses, grasshoppers, geese, and giant pandas are examples of graminivores. Some carnivores, such as dogs and cats, are known to eat grass occasionally, giant pandas have evolved to be obligate bamboo grazers, and 99% of their diet consists of sub-alpine bamboo species. Rabbits are herbivores that feed by grazing on grass, forbs and they graze heavily and rapidly for about the first half-hour of a grazing period, followed by about half an hour of more selective feeding. If the environment is relatively non-threatening, the rabbit will remain outdoors for many hours and their diet contains large amounts of cellulose, which is hard to digest. Rabbits solve this problem by using a form of hindgut fermentation and they pass two distinct types of feces, hard droppings and soft black viscous pellets, the latter of which are known as caecotrophs and are immediately eaten. Rabbits reingest their own droppings to digest their food further and extract sufficient nutrients, capybara are herbivores that graze mainly on grasses and aquatic plants, as well as fruit and tree bark. As with other grazers, they can be selective and will feed on the leaves of one species. They eat a variety of plants during the dry season. While they eat grass during the wet season, they have to switch to more abundant reeds during the dry season, the capybaras jaw hinge is not perpendicular and therefore they chew food by grinding back-and-forth rather than side-to-side. Capybara are coprophagous, as a source of gut flora, to help digest the cellulose in the grass that forms their normal diet. They may also regurgitate food to masticate again, similar to cud-chewing by a cow, as with other rodents, the front teeth of capybara grow continually to compensate for the constant wear from eating grasses, their cheek teeth also grow continuously
