1.
Ecoregion
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An ecoregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than an ecozone. All three of these are less or greater than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, the biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. Three caveats are appropriate for all bio-geographic mapping approaches, firstly, no single bio-geographic framework is optimal for all taxa. Ecoregions reflect the best compromise for as many taxa as possible, secondly, ecoregion boundaries rarely form abrupt edges, rather, ecotones and mosaic habitats bound them. Thirdly, most ecoregions contain habitats that differ from their assigned biome, biogeographic provinces may originate due to various barriers. Some physical, some climatic and some ocean chemical related, the history of the term is somewhat vague as it was used in many contexts, forest classifications, biome classifications, biogeographic classifications, etc. The concept of ecoregion of Bailey gives more importance to ecological criteria, while the WWF concept gives more importance to biogeography, there is significant, but not absolute, spatial correlation among these characteristics, making the delineation of ecoregions an imperfect science. Such transition zones are called ecotones, Ecoregions can be categorized using an algorithmic approach or a holistic, “weight-of-evidence” approach where the importance of various factors may vary. An example of the approach is Robert Bailey’s work for the U. S. The intended purpose of ecoregion delineation may affect the method used, according to WWF, the boundaries of an ecoregion approximate the original extent of the natural communities prior to any major recent disruptions or changes. WWF has identified 867 terrestrial ecoregions, and approximately 450 freshwater ecoregions across the Earth, the use of the term ecoregion is an outgrowth of a surge of interest in ecosystems and their functioning. In particular, there is awareness of issues relating to spatial scale in the study and it is widely recognized that interlinked ecosystems combine to form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The Global 200 is the list of ecoregions identified by WWF as priorities for conservation, Terrestrial ecoregions are land ecoregions, as distinct from freshwater and marine ecoregions. In this context, terrestrial is used to mean of land, WWF ecologists currently divide the land surface of the Earth into 8 major ecozones containing 867 smaller terrestrial ecoregions. The WWF effort is a synthesis of previous efforts to define. Many consider this classification to be decisive, and some propose these as stable borders for bioregional democracy initiatives. The eight terrestrial ecozones follow the major floral and faunal boundaries, identified by botanists and zoologists, ecozone boundaries generally follow continental boundaries, or major barriers to plant and animal distribution, like the Himalayas and the Sahara
2.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
3.
Meghalaya
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Meghalaya is a state in northeast India. The name means the abode of clouds in Sanskrit, the population of Meghalaya as of 2016 is estimated to be 3,211,474. Meghalaya covers an area of approximately 22,430 square kilometers, the state is bounded to the south by the Bangladeshi divisions of Mymensingh and Sylhet, to the west by the Bangladeshi division of Rangpur, and to the north and east by Indias State of Assam. The capital of Meghalaya is Shillong, during the British occupation of India, the British imperialist authorities nicknamed it the Scotland of the East. Meghalaya was previously part of Assam, but on 21 January 1972, English is the official language of Meghalaya. The other principal languages spoken include Khasi, Pnar, Hajong, Rabha, Garo, the state is the wettest region of India, recording an average of 12,000 mm of rains a year. About 70% of the state is forested, the Meghalaya subtropical forests ecoregion encompasses the state, its mountain forests are distinct from the lowland tropical forests to the north and south. The forests are notable for their biodiversity of mammals, birds, Meghalaya has predominantly an agrarian economy with a significant commercial forestry industry. The important crops are potatoes, rice, maize, pineapples, bananas, papayas, spices, the service sector is made up of real estate and insurance companies. Meghalayas gross state product for 2012 was estimated at ₹16,173 crore in current prices. The state is rich in minerals, but it has no significant industries. The state has about 1,170 km of national highways and it is also a major logistical center for trade with Bangladesh. Ancient Meghalaya, along with neighboring Indian states, have been of archeological interest, people have lived here since neolithic era. Neolithic sites discovered so far are located in areas of high elevation such as in Khasi Hills, Garo Hills, here neolithic style jhum or shifting cultivation is practiced even today. The highland plateaus fed by abundant rains provided safety from floods, the importance of Meghalaya is its possible role in human history through domestication of rice. The limited archeology done in the hills of Meghalaya suggest human settlement since ancient times, modern history Meghalaya was formed by carving out two districts from the state of Assam, the United Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills, and the Garo Hills on 21 January 1972. Before attaining full statehood, Meghalaya was given semi-autonomous status in 1970, the Khasi, Garo, and Jaintia tribes had their own kingdoms until they came under British administration in the 19th century. Later, the British incorporated Meghalaya into Assam in 1835, the region enjoyed semi-independent status by virtue of a treaty relationship with the British Crown
4.
Assam
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Assam (English pronunciation, /əˈsæm/ listen is a state in northeastern India. Located south of the eastern Himalayas, Assam comprises the Brahmaputra Valley, Assam, along with Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, and Meghalaya, is one of the Seven Sister States. Geographically, Assam and these states are connected to the rest of India via a 22 kilometres strip of land in West Bengal called the Siliguri Corridor or Chickens Neck. Assam shares a border with Bhutan and Bangladesh, and its culture, people. Assam is known for Assam tea and Assam silk, the first oil well in Asia was drilled here. The state has conserved the one-horned Indian rhinoceros from near extinction, along with the water buffalo, pygmy hog, tiger. It provides one of the last wild habitats for the Asian elephant, the Assamese economy is aided by wildlife tourism, centred around Kaziranga National Park and Manas National Park which are World Heritage Sites. Sal tree forests are found in the state which, as a result of abundant rainfall, Assam receives more rainfall compared to most parts of India. This rain feeds the Brahmaputra River, whose tributaries and oxbow lakes provide the region with a hydro-geomorphic and aesthetic environment, the precise etymology of Assam came from Ahom Dynasty. In the classical period and up to the 12th century the region east of the Karatoya river, largely congruent to present-day Assam, was called Kamarupa, in medieval times the Mughals used Asham and Kamrup, and during British colonialism, the English used Assam. Though many authors have associated the name with the 13th century Shan invaders the precise origin of the name is not clear. It was suggested by some that the Sanskrit word Asama was the root, which has been rejected by Kakati, among possible origins are Tai and Bodo. Assam and adjoining regions have evidences of settlements from all the periods of the Stone ages. The hills at the height of 1, 500–2,000 feet were popular habitats probably due to availability of exposed dolerite basalt, useful for tool-making. According to a text, Kalika Purana, the earliest ruler of Assam was Mahiranga Danav of the Danava dynasty. The last of these rulers, also Naraka, was slain by Krishna, narakas son Bhagadatta became the king, who fought for the Kauravas in the battle of Kurukshetra with an army of kiratas, chinas and dwellers of the eastern coast. Samudraguptas 4th century Allahabad pillar inscription mentions Kamarupa and Davaka as frontier kingdoms of the Gupta Empire, ruled by three dynasties Varmanas, Mlechchha dynasty and Kamarupa-Palas, from their capitals in present-day Guwahati, Tezpur and North Gauhati respectively. All three dynasties claimed their descent from Narakasura, an immigrant from Aryavarta, in the reign of the Varman king, Bhaskar Varman, the Chinese traveller Xuanzang visited the region and recorded his travels
5.
Magnolia
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Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae of the family Magnoliaceae. It is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol, appearing before bees did, the flowers are theorized to have evolved to encourage pollination by beetles. To avoid damage from pollinating beetles, the carpels of Magnolia flowers are extremely tough, fossilised specimens of M. acuminata have been found dating to 20 million years ago, and of plants identifiably belonging to the Magnoliaceae date to 95 million years ago. Magnolia shares the characteristic with several other flowering plants near the base of the flowering plant lineage such as Amborella. As with all Magnoliaceae, the perianth is undifferentiated, with 9–15 tepals in 3 or more whorls, the flowers are bisexual with numerous adnate carpels and stamens are arranged in a spiral fashion on the elongated receptacle. The fruit dehisces along their dorsal sutures, the pollen is monocolpate, and the embryo development is of the Polygonium type. The name Magnolia first appeared in 1703 in the Genera of Charles Plumier, english botanist William Sherard, who studied botany in Paris under Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, a pupil of Magnol, was most probably the first after Plumier to adopt the genus name Magnolia. He was at least responsible for the part of Johann Jacob Dilleniuss Hortus Elthamensis and of Mark Catesbys Natural History of Carolina, Florida. These were the first works after Plumiers Genera that used the name Magnolia, Carl Linnaeus, who was familiar with Plumiers Genera, adopted the genus name Magnolia in 1735 in his first edition of Systema Naturae, without a description, but with a reference to Plumiers work. In 1753, he took up Plumiers Magnolia in the first edition of Species Plantarum, there he described a monotypic genus, with the sole species being Magnolia virginiana. He placed it in the synonymy of Magnolia virginiana var. fœtida, under Magnolia virginiana Linnaeus described five varieties. In the tenth edition of Systema Naturae, he merged grisea with glauca, by the end of the 18th century, botanists and plant hunters exploring Asia began to name and describe the Magnolia species from China and Japan. The first Asiatic species to be described by western botanists were Magnolia denudata and Magnolia liliiflora, soon after that, in 1794, Carl Peter Thunberg collected and described Magnolia obovata from Japan and at roughly the same time Magnolia kobus was also first collected. With the number of increasing, the genus was divided into the two subgenera Magnolia and Yulania. Magnolia contains the American evergreen species M. grandiflora, which is of importance, especially in the southeastern United States, and M. virginiana. Yulania contains several deciduous Asiatic species, such as M. denudata and M. kobus, classified in Yulania, is also the American deciduous M. acuminata, which has recently attained greater status as the parent responsible for the yellow flower colour in many new hybrids. Relations in the family Magnoliaceae have been puzzling taxonomists for a long time, because the family is quite old and has survived many geological events, its distribution has become scattered. Some species or groups of species have been isolated for a long time, to create divisions in the family, solely based upon morphological characters, has proven to be a nearly impossible task
6.
Orchidaceae
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The Orchidaceae are a diverse and widespread family of flowering plants, with blooms that are often colourful and often fragrant, commonly known as the orchid family. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering plants, the Orchidaceae have about 28,000 currently accepted species, distributed in about 763 genera. The determination of which family is larger is still under debate, regardless, the number of orchid species nearly equals the number of bony fishes and is more than twice the number of bird species, and about four times the number of mammal species. The family also encompasses about 6–11% of all seed plants, the largest genera are Bulbophyllum, Epidendrum, Dendrobium and Pleurothallis. The family also includes Vanilla, Orchis, and many cultivated plants such as Phalaenopsis. Moreover, since the introduction of species into cultivation in the 19th century, horticulturists have produced more than 100,000 hybrids. Orchids are easily distinguished from plants, as they share some very evident, shared derived characteristics. Among these are, bilateral symmetry of the flower, many flowers, a nearly always highly modified petal, fused stamens and carpels. All orchids are perennial herbs that lack any permanent woody structure and they can grow according to two patterns, Monopodial, The stem grows from a single bud, leaves are added from the apex each year and the stem grows longer accordingly. The stem of orchids with a monopodial growth can reach several metres in length, as in Vanda, Sympodial, Sympodial orchids have a front and a back. The plant produces a series of adjacent shoots which grow to a size, bloom. Sympodial orchids grow laterally rather than vertically, following the surface of their support, the growth continues by development of new leads, with their own leaves and roots, sprouting from or next to those of the previous year, as in Cattleya. While a new lead is developing, the rhizome may start its growth again from a so-called eye, Sympodial orchids may have visible pseudobulbs joined by a rhizome, which creeps along the top or just beneath the soil. Terrestrial orchids may be rhizomatous or form corms or tubers, the root caps of terrestrial orchids are smooth and white. Some sympodial terrestrial orchids, such as Orchis and Ophrys, have two subterranean tuberous roots, one is used as a food reserve for wintry periods, and provides for the development of the other one, from which visible growth develops. In warm and constantly humid climates, many terrestrial orchids do not need pseudobulbs, epiphytic orchids, those that grow upon a support, have modified aerial roots that can sometimes be a few meters long. In the older parts of the roots, a modified spongy epidermis and it is made of dead cells and can have a silvery-grey, white or brown appearance. In some orchids, the velamen includes spongy and fibrous bodies near the passage cells, the cells of the root epidermis grow at a right angle to the axis of the root to allow them to get a firm grasp on their support
7.
Joseph Dalton Hooker
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Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM GCSI CB PRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. He was a founder of botany and Charles Darwins closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, succeeding his father, William Jackson Hooker, Hooker was born in Halesworth, Suffolk, England. From age seven, Hooker attended his fathers lectures at Glasgow University, taking an early interest in plant distribution and he was educated at the Glasgow High School and went on to study medicine at Glasgow University, graduating M. D. in 1839. In 1851 he married Frances Harriet Henslow, daughter of Darwins mentor and they had four sons and three daughters, William Henslow Hooker Harriet Anne Hooker married William Turner Thiselton-Dyer Charles Paget Hooker Maria Elizabeth Hooker died aged 6. Brian Harvey Hodgson Hooker Reginald Hawthorn Hooker statistician Grace Ellen Hooker Frances Harriet Henslows contribution to his work included translating French botanical texts which Hooker edited. After his first wifes death in 1874, in 1876 he married Lady Hyacinth Jardine, daughter of William Samuel Symonds and they had two sons, Joseph Symonds Hooker Richard Symonds Hooker. Joseph Hooker died in his sleep at midnight at home, the Camp, Sunningdale in Berkshire, on 10 December 1911 after a short, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey offered a grave near Darwins in the nave but also insisted that Hooker be cremated before. His memorial tablet in the church, with a motif of five plants, was designed by Matilds Smith. Hookers first expedition, led by James Clark Ross, consisted of two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, it was the last major voyage of exploration made entirely under sail, Hooker was the youngest of the 128-man crew. He sailed on the Erebus and was assistant to Robert McCormick, the ships sailed on 30 September 1839. Before journeying to Antarctica they visited Madeira, Tenerife, Santiago and Quail Island in the Cape Verde archipelago, St Paul Rocks, Trinidade east of Brazil, St Helena, and the Cape of Good Hope. Hooker made plant collections at each location and while travelling drew these and specimens of algae, from the Cape they entered the southern ocean. Their first stop was the Crozet Islands where they set down on Possession Island to deliver coffee to sealers and they departed for the Kerguelen Islands where they would spend several days. The expedition spent some time in Hobart, Van Diemens Land, and then moved on to the Auckland Islands and Campbell Island, and onward to Antarctica to locate the South Magnetic Pole. After spending 5 months in the Antarctic they returned to resupply in Hobart, then went on to Sydney, and they left New Zealand to return to Antarctica. They made a landing at Cockburn Island and after leaving the Antarctic, stopped at the Cape, St Helena and Ascension Island. The ships arrived back in England on 4 September 1843, the voyage had been a success for Ross as it was the first to confirm the existence of the southern continent, in 1845, Hooker applied for the Chair of Botany at the University of Edinburgh
8.
Kew Gardens
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Kew Gardens is a botanical garden in southwest London that houses the largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the collection contains more than 175,000 prints. It is one of Londons top tourist attractions and is a World Heritage Site, Kew Gardens has its own police force, Kew Constabulary, which has been in operation since 1847. Kew, the area in which Kew Gardens are situated, consists mainly of the gardens themselves, Royal residences in the area which would later influence the layout and construction of the gardens began in 1299 when Edward I moved his court to a manor house in neighbouring Richmond. That manor house was abandoned, however, Henry VII built Sheen Palace in 1501. Around the start of the 16th century courtiers attending Richmond Palace settled in Kew, early royal residences at Kew included Mary Tudors house, which was in existence by 1522 when a driveway was built to connect it to the palace at Richmond. Around 1600, the land that would become the gardens was known as Kew Field, the exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Lord Capel John of Tewkesbury, was enlarged and extended by Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales, the widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The origins of Kew Gardens can be traced to the merging of the estates of Richmond. William Chambers built several structures, including the lofty Chinese pagoda built in 1761 which still remains. George III enriched the gardens, aided by William Aiton and Sir Joseph Banks, the old Kew Park, was demolished in 1802. The Dutch House adjoining was purchased by George III in 1781 as a nursery for the royal children and it is a plain brick structure now known as Kew Palace. Some early plants came from the garden established by William Coys at Stubbers in North Ockendon. The collections grew somewhat haphazardly until the appointment of the first collector, Francis Masson, capability Brown, who became Englands most renowned landscape architect, applied for the position of master gardener at Kew, and was rejected. In 1840 the gardens were adopted as a botanical garden, in large part due to the efforts of the Royal Horticultural Society. Under Kews director, William Hooker, the gardens were increased to 30 hectares and the grounds, or arboretum, extended to 109 hectares. The first curator was John Smith, the Palm House was built by architect Decimus Burton and iron-maker Richard Turner between 1844 and 1848, and was the first large-scale structural use of wrought iron. It is considered the worlds most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure, the structures panes of glass are all hand-blown. The Temperate House, which is twice as large as the Palm House and it is now the largest Victorian glasshouse in existence
9.
Medicinal plants
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Medicinal plants, medicinal herbs, or simply herbs have been identified and used from prehistoric times. Plants make many chemical compounds for biological functions, including defence against insects, fungi, over 12,000 active compounds are known to science. These chemicals work on the body in exactly the same way as pharmaceutical drugs. However, since a plant may contain many substances, the effects of taking a plant as medicine can be complex. The earliest historical records of herbs are found from the Sumerian civilisation, drug research makes use of ethnobotany to search for pharmacologically active substances in nature, and has in this way discovered hundreds of useful compounds. These include the common drugs aspirin, digoxin, quinine, the compounds found in plants are of many kinds, but most are in four major biochemical classes, the alkaloids, glycosides, polyphenols, and terpenes. Medicinal plants are used to treat disease in non-industrialized societies. The annual global export value of plants in 2012 was over US$2.2 billion. Plants, including many now used as herbs and spices, have been used as medicines from prehistoric times. Spices have been used partly to counter food spoilage bacteria, especially in hot climates, angiosperms were the original source of most plant medicines. Human settlements are surrounded by weeds useful as medicines, such as nettle, dandelion. Humans were not alone in using herbs as medicines, some such as non-human primates, monarch butterflies. Plant samples from prehistoric sites are among the lines of evidence that Paleolithic peoples had knowledge of herbal medicine. The mushroom was used to treat whipworm. In ancient Sumeria, hundreds of plants including myrrh and opium are listed on clay tablets. The ancient Egyptian Ebers Papyrus lists over 800 plant medicines such as aloe, cannabis, castor bean, garlic, juniper, the Chinese pharmacopoeia, the Shennong Ben Cao Jing records plant medicines such as chaulmoogra for leprosy, ephedra, and hemp. This was expanded in the Tang Dynasty Yaoxing Lun, in the fourth century BC, Aristotles pupil Theophrastus wrote the first systematic botany text, Historia plantarum. In the Early Middle Ages, Benedictine monasteries preserved medical knowledge in Europe, translating and copying classical texts, hildegard of Bingen wrote Causae et Curae on medicine
10.
Habitat
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A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant, or other type of organism. The term typically refers to the zone in which the organism lives and it is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds a species population. Every organism has certain habitat needs for the conditions in which it will thrive, habitat types include polar, temperate, subtropical and tropical. The terrestrial vegetation type may be forest, steppe, grassland, the word habitat has been in use since about 1755 and derives from the Latin third-person singular present indicative of habitāre, to inhabit, from habēre, to have or to hold. Habitat can be defined as the environment of an organism. It is similar in meaning to a biotope, an area of environmental conditions associated with a particular community of plants. Generally speaking, animal communities are reliant on specific types of plant communities, some plants and animals are generalists, and their habitat requirements are met in a wide range of locations. The small white butterfly for example is found on all the continents of the world apart from Antarctica and its larvae feed on a wide range of Brassicas and various other plant species, and it thrives in any open location with diverse plant associations. Disturbance is important in the creation of biodiverse habitats, in the absence of disturbance, a climax vegetation cover develops that prevents the establishment of other species. Lightning strikes and toppled trees in tropical forests allow species richness to be maintained as pioneering species move in to fill the gaps created. Similarly coastal habitats can become dominated by kelp until the seabed is disturbed by a storm, another cause of disturbance is when an area may be overwhelmed by an invasive introduced species which is not kept under control by natural enemies in its new habitat. Terrestrial habitat types include forests, grasslands, wetlands and deserts, within these broad biomes are more specific habitats with varying climate types, temperature regimes, soils, altitudes and vegetation types. Many of these habitats grade into each other and each one has its own communities of plants. A habitat may suit a particular species well, but its presence or absence at any particular location depends to some extent on chance, on its dispersal abilities, freshwater habitats include rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, marshes and bogs. Although some organisms are found across most of these habitats, the majority have more specific requirements, similarly, aquatic plants can be floating, semi-submerged, submerged or grow in permanently or temporarily saturated soils besides bodies of water. Marine habitats include brackish water, estuaries, bays, the sea, the intertidal zone. Further variations include rock pools, sand banks, mudflats, brackish lagoons, sandy and pebbly beaches, the benthic zone or seabed provides a home for both static organisms, anchored to the substrate, and for a large range of organisms crawling on or burrowing into the surface. A desert is not the kind of habitat that favours the presence of amphibians, with their requirement for water to keep their skins moist, nevertheless, some frogs live in deserts, creating moist habitats underground and hibernating while conditions are adverse
11.
Tiger
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The tiger is the largest cat species, most recognisable for their pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with a lighter underside. The species is classified in the genus Panthera with the lion, leopard, jaguar, Tigers are apex predators, primarily preying on ungulates such as deer and bovids. They are territorial and generally solitary but social animals, often requiring large contiguous areas of habitat that support their prey requirements and this, coupled with the fact that they are indigenous to some of the more densely populated places on Earth, has caused significant conflicts with humans. Tigers once ranged widely across eastern Eurasia, from the Black Sea in the west, to the Indian Ocean in the south, today, they range from the Siberian taiga to open grasslands and tropical mangrove swamps. The remaining six tiger subspecies have been classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a 2016 global census estimated the population of wild tigers at approximately 3,890 individuals. Major reasons for decline include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation. The extent of area occupied by tigers is estimated at less than 1,184,911 km2, in 2016, wildlife conservation group at WWF declared that worlds count of wild tigers has risen for the first time in a century. Tigers are among the most recognisable and popular of the charismatic megafauna. They have featured prominently in ancient mythology and folklore, and continue to be depicted in modern films and they appear on many flags, coats of arms, and as mascots for sporting teams. The tiger is the animal of Bangladesh, India, Malaysia. In 1758, Linnaeus described the tiger in his work Systema Naturae, in 1929, the British taxonomist Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the species under the genus Panthera using the scientific name Panthera tigris. The derivation from Greek pan- and ther may be folk etymology, the specific epithet, tigris, as well as the common name, tiger, come from the Middle English tigre and the Old English tigras, both used for the animal. These derive from the Old French tigre, itself a derivative of the Latin word tigris and the Greek word tigris. The original source may have been the Persian tigra meaning pointed or sharp, the tigers closest living relatives were previously thought to be the lion, leopard and jaguar, all of which are classified under the genus Panthera. The oldest remains of an extinct relative, called Panthera zdanskyi or the Longdan tiger, have been found in the Gansu province of northwestern China. This species is considered to be a taxon to the extant tiger and lived about 2 million years ago. It was smaller than the tiger, being the size of a jaguar. Despite being considered more primitive, the Longdan tiger was functionally and possibly ecologically similar to its modern cousin, as Panthera zdanskyi lived in northwestern China, that may have been where the tiger lineage originated
12.
Clouded leopard
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The clouded leopard is a wild cat occurring from the Himalayan foothills through mainland Southeast Asia into China. Since 2008, it is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and its total population is suspected to be fewer than 10,000 mature individuals, with a decreasing population trend, and no single population numbering more than 1,000 adults. The scientific name of the leopard is Neofelis nebulosa. It is one of two members of the genus Neofelis, and is classified under the family Felidae and it was first described by the British zoologist Edward Griffith in 1821. The other member of this genus is the Sunda clouded leopard, the clouded leopard is part of the Panthera lineage, one of the eight lineages of Felidae. This lineage comprises the species of Panthera and Neofelis, the Neofelis species diverged first from the lineage, followed by the snow leopard. Subsequent branching in the lineage is disputed, broadly, two different cladograms have been proposed for the Panthera lineage. The clouded leopard is considered to form a link between the big cats and the small cats. It represents the smallest of the big cats, but despite its name, the fur of clouded leopards is of a dark grey or ochreous ground-colour, often largely obliterated by black and dark dusky-grey blotched pattern. There are black spots on the head, and the ears are black, partly fused or broken-up stripes run from the corner of the eyes over the cheek, from the corner of the mouth to the neck, and along the nape to the shoulders. Elongated blotches continue down the spine and form a single median stripe on the loins, two large blotches of dark dusky-grey hair on the side of the shoulders are each emphasized posteriorly by a dark stripe, which passes on to the foreleg and breaks up into irregular spots. The flanks are marked by dark dusky-grey irregular blotches bordered behind by long, oblique and these blotches yielding the clouded pattern suggest the English name of the cat. The underparts and legs are spotted, and the tail is marked by large, irregular, females are slightly smaller than males. Their irises are usually either greyish-green or brownish-yellow in color and their legs are short and stout, with broad paws. They have rather short compared to the other big cats. Their ulnae and radii are not fused, which contributes to a greater range of motion when climbing trees. Clouded leopards weigh between 11.5 and 23 kg, females vary in head-to-body length from 68.6 to 94 cm, with a tail 61 to 82 cm long. Males are larger at 81 to 108 cm with a tail 74 to 91 cm long and their shoulder height varies from 50 to 55 cm
