1.
Conservation status
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The conservation status of a group of organisms indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Various systems of conservation status exist and are in use at international, multi-country, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the best known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system. Also included are species that have gone extinct since 500 AD, when discussing the IUCN Red List, the official term threatened is a grouping of three categories, critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category, Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora aims to ensure that trade in specimens of wild animals. Many countries require CITES permits when importing plants and animals listed on CITES, in the European Union, the Birds and Habitats Directives are the legal instruments that evaluate the conservation status within the EU of species and habitats. NatureServe conservation status focuses on Latin America, United States, Canada, and it has been developed by scientists from NatureServe, The Nature Conservancy, and the network of natural heritage programs and data centers. It is increasingly integrated with the IUCN Red List system and its categories for species include, presumed extinct, possibly extinct, critically imperiled, imperiled, vulnerable, apparently secure, and secure. The system also allows ambiguous or uncertain ranks including inexact numeric ranks, NatureServe adds a qualifier for captive or cultivated only, which has a similar meaning to the IUCN Red List extinct in the wild status. The Red Data Book of the Russian Federation is used within the Russian Federation, in Australia, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 describes lists of threatened species, ecological communities and threatening processes. The categories resemble those of the 1994 IUCN Red List Categories & Criteria, prior to the EPBC Act, a simpler classification system was used by the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992. Some state and territory governments also have their own systems for conservation status, in Belgium, the Flemish Research Institute for Nature and Forest publishes an online set of more than 150 nature indicators in Dutch. In Canada, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is a group of experts that assesses and designates which wild species are in danger of disappearing from Canada. Under the Species at Risk Act, it is up to the federal government, in China, the State, provinces and some counties have determined their key protected wildlife species. There is the China red data book, in Finland, a large number of species are protected under the Nature Conservation Act, and through the EU Habitats Directive and EU Birds Directive. In Germany, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation publishes red lists of endangered species, india has the Wild Life Protection Act,1972, Amended 2003 and the Biological Diversity Act,2002. In Japan, the Ministry of Environment publishes a Threatened Wildlife of Japan Red Data Book, in the Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality publishes a list of threatened species, and conservation is enforced by the Nature Conservation Act 1998. Species are also protected through the Wild Birds and Habitats Directives, in New Zealand, the Department of Conservation publishes the New Zealand Threat Classification System lists
2.
Near Threatened
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The IUCN notes the importance of re-evaluating near-threatened taxa at appropriate intervals. The rationale used for near-threatened taxa usually includes the criteria of vulnerable which are plausible or nearly met, additionally, the 402 conservation-dependent taxa may also be considered near-threatened. Prior to 2001, the IUCN used the version 2.3 Categories and Criteria, with this category system, Near Threatened and Conservation Dependent were both subcategories of the category Lower Risk. IUCN Red List near threatened species, ordered by taxonomic rank, category, IUCN Red List near threatened species, ordered alphabetically
3.
IUCN Red List
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The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, founded in 1964, is the worlds most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the main authority on the conservation status of species. A series of Regional Red Lists are produced by countries or organizations, the IUCN Red List is set upon precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world, the aim is to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to try to reduce species extinction. Major species assessors include BirdLife International, the Institute of Zoology, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, collectively, assessments by these organizations and groups account for nearly half the species on the Red List. The IUCN aims to have the category of every species re-evaluated every five years if possible, the 1964 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants used the older pre-criteria Red List assessment system. Plants listed may not, therefore, appear in the current Red List, IUCN advise that is best to check both the online Red List and the 1997 plants Red List publication. The 2006 Red List, released on 4 May 2006 evaluated 40,168 species as a whole, plus an additional 2,160 subspecies, varieties, aquatic stocks, on 12 September 2007, the World Conservation Union released the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Russ Mittermeier, chief of Swiss-based IUCNs Primate Specialist Group, stated that 16,306 species are endangered with extinction,188 more than in 2006, the Red List includes the Sumatran orangutan in the Critically Endangered category and the Bornean orangutan in the Endangered category. The study shows at least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth are known to be threatened with extinction, and 836 are listed as Data Deficient. The Red List of 2012 was released 19 July 2012 at Rio+20 Earth Summit, nearly 2,000 species were added, the IUCN assessed a total of 63,837 species which revealed 19,817 are threatened with extinction. With 3,947 described as endangered and 5,766 as endangered. At threat are 41% of amphibian species, 33% of reef-building corals, 30% of conifers, 25% of mammals, the IUCN Red List has listed 132 species of plants and animals from India as Critically Endangered. Extinct – No known individuals remaining, extinct in the wild – Known only to survive in captivity, or as a naturalized population outside its historic range. Critically endangered – Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild, Endangered – High risk of extinction in the wild. Vulnerable – High risk of endangerment in the wild, near threatened – Likely to become endangered in the near future. Does not qualify for a more at-risk category, widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category. Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction, Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria
4.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
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Animal
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Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
6.
Chordate
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Chordates are deuterostomes, as during the embryo development stage the anus forms before the mouth. They are also bilaterally symmetric coelomates, in the case of vertebrate chordates, the notochord is usually replaced by a vertebral column during development, and they may have body plans organized via segmentation. There are also additional extinct taxa, the Vertebrata are sometimes considered as a subgroup of the clade Craniata, consisting of chordates with a skull, the Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, the worlds largest and fastest animals, the blue whale and peregrine falcon respectively, are chordates, as are humans. Fossil chordates are known from at least as early as the Cambrian explosion, Hemichordata, which includes the acorn worms, has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but it now is usually treated as a separate phylum. The Hemichordata, along with the Echinodermata, form the Ambulacraria, the Chordata and Ambulacraria form the superphylum Deuterostomia, composed of the deuterostomes. Attempts to work out the relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. All of the earliest chordate fossils have found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial and it has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce family trees shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic. While this has been known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux. Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson, it was already in prevalent use by 1880, ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization, among the vertebrate sub-group of chordates the notochord develops into the spine, and in wholly aquatic species this helps the animal to swim by flexing its tail. In fish and other vertebrates, this develops into the spinal cord, the pharynx is the part of the throat immediately behind the mouth. In fish, the slits are modified to form gills, a muscular tail that extends backwards behind the anus. This is a groove in the wall of the pharynx. In filter-feeding species it produces mucus to gather food particles, which helps in transporting food to the esophagus and it also stores iodine, and may be a precursor of the vertebrate thyroid gland
7.
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
8.
Falconidae
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The falcons and caracaras are around 60 species of diurnal birds of prey that make up the family Falconidae. The family is divided into two subfamilies, Polyborinae, which includes the caracaras and forest falcons, and Falconinae, the falcons, kestrels and they differ from the eagles of Accipitridae, in that falcons kill with their beaks instead of their taloned feet. They have a tooth on the side of their beak for the purpose and they have strongly hooked bills, sharply curved talons and excellent eyesight. The plumage is usually composed of browns, whites, chestnut, black and grey, there is little difference in the plumage of males and females, although a few species have some sexual dimorphism in boldness of plumage. The family has a distribution across the world, absent only from the densest forest of central Africa, some remote oceanic islands. Some species have exceptionally wide ranges, particularly the cosmopolitan peregrine falcon, other species have more restricted distributions, particularly island endemics like the Mauritius kestrel. Most habitat types are occupied, from tundra to rainforest and deserts, although they are more birds of open country. Some species, mostly in the genus Falco, are migratory, with some species summering in Eurasia and wintering entirely in Africa. The Amur falcon has one of the longest migrations, moving from East Asia to southern Africa, falcons and caracaras are carnivores, feeding on birds, small mammals including bats, reptiles, insects and carrion. The forest falcons of the Neotropics are generalist forest hunters, several species, particularly the true falcons, will stash food supplies in caches. They are solitary hunters and pairs guard territories, although they may form large flocks during migration, some species are specialists, the laughing falcon specialises in snakes, others are more generalist. The falcons and caracaras are generally solitary breeders, although around 10% of species are colonial and they are monogamous, although some caracaras may also employ alloparenting strategies, where younger birds help adults in raising the next brood of chicks. Nests are generally not built, but are co opted from other birds, for example pygmy falcons nest in the nests of weavers, around 2–4 eggs are laid, and mostly incubated by the female. Incubation times vary from species to species and are correlated with size, lasting 28 days in smaller species. Chicks fledge after 28–49 days, again varying with size, falcons and caracaras have a complicated relationship with humans. In ancient Egypt they were deified in the form of Horus, caracaras also formed part of the legends of the Aztecs, and are today the national emblems of Mexico. Falcons were important in the sport of falconry and they have also been persecuted for their predation on game and farm animals, and that persecution has led to the extinction of at least one species, the Guadalupe caracara. Several insular species have declined dramatically, none more so than the Mauritius kestrel, around five species of falcon are considered vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN, including the saker falcon
9.
Falconinae
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The falcons and caracaras are around 60 species of diurnal birds of prey that make up the family Falconidae. The family is divided into two subfamilies, Polyborinae, which includes the caracaras and forest falcons, and Falconinae, the falcons, kestrels and they differ from the eagles of Accipitridae, in that falcons kill with their beaks instead of their taloned feet. They have a tooth on the side of their beak for the purpose and they have strongly hooked bills, sharply curved talons and excellent eyesight. The plumage is usually composed of browns, whites, chestnut, black and grey, there is little difference in the plumage of males and females, although a few species have some sexual dimorphism in boldness of plumage. The family has a distribution across the world, absent only from the densest forest of central Africa, some remote oceanic islands. Some species have exceptionally wide ranges, particularly the cosmopolitan peregrine falcon, other species have more restricted distributions, particularly island endemics like the Mauritius kestrel. Most habitat types are occupied, from tundra to rainforest and deserts, although they are more birds of open country. Some species, mostly in the genus Falco, are migratory, with some species summering in Eurasia and wintering entirely in Africa. The Amur falcon has one of the longest migrations, moving from East Asia to southern Africa, falcons and caracaras are carnivores, feeding on birds, small mammals including bats, reptiles, insects and carrion. The forest falcons of the Neotropics are generalist forest hunters, several species, particularly the true falcons, will stash food supplies in caches. They are solitary hunters and pairs guard territories, although they may form large flocks during migration, some species are specialists, the laughing falcon specialises in snakes, others are more generalist. The falcons and caracaras are generally solitary breeders, although around 10% of species are colonial and they are monogamous, although some caracaras may also employ alloparenting strategies, where younger birds help adults in raising the next brood of chicks. Nests are generally not built, but are co opted from other birds, for example pygmy falcons nest in the nests of weavers, around 2–4 eggs are laid, and mostly incubated by the female. Incubation times vary from species to species and are correlated with size, lasting 28 days in smaller species. Chicks fledge after 28–49 days, again varying with size, falcons and caracaras have a complicated relationship with humans. In ancient Egypt they were deified in the form of Horus, caracaras also formed part of the legends of the Aztecs, and are today the national emblems of Mexico. Falcons were important in the sport of falconry and they have also been persecuted for their predation on game and farm animals, and that persecution has led to the extinction of at least one species, the Guadalupe caracara. Several insular species have declined dramatically, none more so than the Mauritius kestrel, around five species of falcon are considered vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN, including the saker falcon
10.
Falcon
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Falcons are birds of prey in the genus Falco, which includes about 40 species. Falcons are widely distributed on all continents of the world except Antarctica, adult falcons have thin, tapered wings, which enable them to fly at high speed and change direction rapidly. Fledgling falcons, in their first year of flying, have flight feathers. This makes flying easier while learning the skills required to be effective hunters as adults. The falcons are the largest genus in the Falconinae subfamily of Falconidae, which also includes another subfamily comprising caracaras. All these birds kill with their beaks, using a tooth on the side of their beaks—unlike the hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey in the Accipitridae, the largest falcon is the gyrfalcon at up to 65 cm in length. The smallest falcons are the kestrels, of which the Seychelles kestrel measures just 25 cm, as with hawks and owls, falcons exhibit sexual dimorphism, with the females typically larger than the males, thus allowing a wider range of prey species. Some small falcons with long, narrow wings are called hobbies, as is the case with many birds of prey, falcons have exceptional powers of vision, the visual acuity of one species has been measured at 2.6 times that of a normal human. Peregrine falcons have been recorded diving at speeds of 200 miles per hour, the Late Latin falco is believed to derive from falx as meaning a sickle, referencing the claws of the bird. In Middle English and Old French, the term faucon refers generically to several captive raptor species, the traditional term for a male falcon is tercel or tiercel, from the Latin tertius because of the belief that only one in three eggs hatched a male bird. Some sources give the etymology as deriving from the fact that a falcon is about one-third smaller than a female. A falcon chick, especially one reared for falconry, still in its stage, is known as an eyas. The word arose by mistaken division of Old French un niais, the technique of hunting with trained captive birds of prey is known as falconry. Compared to other birds of prey, the record of the falcons is not well distributed in time. The oldest fossils tentatively assigned to this genus are from the Late Miocene and this coincides with a period in which many modern genera of birds became recognizable in the fossil record. Falcons are roughly divisible into three or four groups, kestrels feed chiefly on terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates of appropriate size, such as rodents, reptiles, or insects. The second group contains slightly larger species, the hobbies and relatives and these birds are characterized by considerable amounts of dark slate-grey in their plumage, their malar areas are nearly always black. They feed mainly on smaller birds, third are the peregrine falcon and its relatives, variably sized powerful birds that also have a black malar area, and often a black cap, as well
11.
Carl Linnaeus
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Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the father of modern taxonomy. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus, Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his education at Uppsala University. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands and he then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, at the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message, Tell him I know no man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Swedish author August Strindberg wrote, Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum, The Pliny of the North and he is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany, the abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is L. In older publications, sometimes the abbreviation Linn. is found, Linnæus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia and his siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, and Emerentia Linnæa. One of a line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius, a year after Linnæus birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curates house, even in his early years, Linnæus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus, soon Linnæus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants
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Binomial nomenclature
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Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
13.
Johann Friedrich Gmelin
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Johann Friedrich Gmelin was a German naturalist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist and malacologist. Johann Friedrich Gmelin was born as the eldest son of Philipp Friedrich Gmelin in 1748 in Tübingen, defended under the presidency of Ferdinand Christoph Oetinger, whom he thanks with the words Patrono et praeceptore in aeternum pie devenerando, pro summis in medicina obtinendis honoribus. In 1769, Gmelin became a professor of medicine at University of Tübingen. In 1773 he became professor of philosophy and adjunct professor of medicine at University of Göttingen and he was promoted to full professor of medicine and professor of chemistry, botany, and mineralogy in 1778. He died in 1804 in Göttingen, Johann Friedrich Gmelin published several textbooks in the fields of chemistry, pharmaceutical science, mineralogy, and botany. He also published the 13th edition of Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus in 1788 and 1789 and this contained descriptions and scientific names of many new species, including birds that had earlier been catalogued without a scientific name by John Latham in his A General Synopsis of Birds. Gmelins publication is cited as the authority for over 290 bird species, among his students were Georg Friedrich Hildebrandt, Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer, Friedrich Stromeyer and Wilhelm August Lampadius. He was the father of Leopold Gmelin and he discovered the Redfin Pickerel in 1789. In the scientific field of herpetology, he described new species of amphibians. In the field of malacology, he described and named many species of gastropods, the abbreviation Gmel. is also found. Gmelin, Johann Friedrich, Ferdinand Christoph Oetinger, irritabilitatem vegetabilium, in singulis plantarum partibus exploratam ulterioribusque experimentis confirmatam. Allgemeine Geschichte der Gifte,2 Vol. 1776/77 Digital edition of the University, Allgemeine Geschichte der Pflanzengifte,1777 Allgemeine Geschichte der mineralischen Gifte. Digital edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf, einleitung in die Chemie zum Gebrauch auf Universitäten. Digital edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf, Digital edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf. Beyträge zur Geschichte des teutschen Bergbaus,1783 Ueber die neuere Entdeckungen in der Lehre von der Luft, und deren Anwendung auf Arzneikunst, in Briefen an einen Arzt, von J. F. Gmelin. 1784 Grundsätze der technischen Chemie,1786 Grundriß der Pharmazie,1792 Apparatus Medicaminum tam simplicium quam praeparatorum et compositorum in Praxeos Adiumentum consideratus, Digital edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf. Geschichte der Chemie,1799 Allgemeine Geschichte der thierischen und mineralischen Gifte,1806 Vane-Wright, the butterflies named by J. F. Gmelin. Bulletin of the British Museum, Entomology,32, 17-64. Books by Johann Friedrich Gmelin at Internet Archive Zoologica Göttingen State and University Library
14.
Bird of prey
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Bird of prey or predatory bird, also known as raptors, refers to several species of birds that hunt and feed on rodents and other small animals. The term raptor is derived from the Latin word rapere, meaning to seize or take by force and these birds are characterized by keen vision that allows them to detect their prey during flight and powerful talons and beaks. Taken literally, the bird of prey has a wide meaning that includes many birds that hunt and feed on animals. In ornithology, the definition for bird of prey has a meaning, birds that have very good eyesight for finding food, strong feet for holding food. Most birds of prey also have strong curved talons for catching or killing prey, Birds of prey generally prey on vertebrates, which are usually quite large relative to the size of the bird. Most also eat carrion, at least occasionally, and vultures, the order Accipitriformes is believed to have originated 44 million years ago when it split from the common ancestor of the secretarybird and the accipitrid species. The phylogeny of Accipitriformes is complex and difficult to unravel, widespread paraphylies were observed in many phylogenetic studies. More recent and detailed studies show similar results, however, according to the findings of a 2014 study, the sister relationship between larger clades of Accipitriformes was well supported. The diurnal birds of prey are formally classified into five families of two orders, the Cathartidae are sometimes placed separately in an enlarged stork family, Ciconiiformes, and may be raised to an order of their own, Cathartiiformes. The secretary bird and/or osprey are sometimes listed as subfamilies of Acciptridae, Sagittariinae and Pandioninae, australias letter-winged kite is a member of the family Accipitridae, although it is a nocturnal bird. He placed all birds of prey into an order, Accipitres, subdividing this into four genera, Vultur, Falco, Strix. This approach was followed by subsequent authors such as Gmelin, Latham, louis Pierre Veillot used additional ranks, order, tribe, family, genus, species. Birds of prey were divided into diurnal and nocturnal tribes, the owls remained monogeneric, thus Veillots families were similar to the Linnaean genera, with the difference that shrikes were no longer included amongst the birds of prey. In addition to the original Vultur and Falco, Veillot adopted four genera from Savigny, Phene, Haliæetus, Pandion and he also introduced five new genera of vultures and eleven new genera of accipitrines. The common names for birds of prey are based on structure. Eagles tend to be large birds with long, broad wings, booted eagles have legs and feet feathered to the toes and build very large stick nests. Ospreys, a species found worldwide that specializes in catching fish. Kites have long wings and relatively weak legs and they spend much of their time soaring
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Swamp harrier
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The swamp harrier also known as the marsh harrier, Australasian harrier, kāhu, swamp-hawk or New Zealand hawk. It is large, slim, and the most common bird of prey in New Zealand countryside and it is one of the few birds to have benefited from European-New Zealand settlement, It is a bird of open country and became firmly established after forests were cleared by Polynesians. The swamp harrier belongs to the sub-family Circinae and genus Circus, the sub-family and genus are derived from the characteristic behavior of circling flight during courtship and hawking. The swamp harrier is largely brown, becoming lighter with age. It hunts by flying slowly, low to the ground, on upswept wings, the body length is 50 to 58 cm, and the wingspan is 120 to 145 cm. The recorded weights of adults range from 580 to 1100 g and it is usually found in wetlands and well-watered open country. Common enemies of harriers are Australian magpies, masked lapwings which dive bomb and they have been known to kill young kārearea and have also been heavily blamed and persecuted for killing chickens, pheasants and ducklings. Swamp harriers have historically used for falconry in New Zealand, quarry is usually pukeko. The swamp harrier mainly feeds on birds and waterbirds, rabbits and other small mammals, reptiles, frogs. During the winter months harriers feed to an extent on carrion, including roadkill. This species nests on the ground, often in swamps, on a mound in reeds or other dense vegetation, in some districts they nest in fields of oats or barley. The clutch size may range from two to seven, but is three or four. The incubation period is 31 to 34 days, and is carried out by the female alone, chicks are fed by both parents, are fully feathered by 28 days and fledging about 45 days after hatching. Kārearea, or New Zealand falcon BirdLife International, downloaded from http, //www. birdlife. org on 4/12/2006 Marchant, S. & Higgins, P. J. Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. Wingspan Birds of Prey Trust - The national centre for the conservation, education and advocacy of birds of prey in New Zealand
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South Island
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The South Island or Te Waipounamu is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, the South Island covers 150,437 square kilometres and has a temperate climate. In the early stages of European settlement of the country, the South Island had the majority of the European population, in prose, the two main islands of New Zealand are called the North Island and the South Island, with the definite article. Charcoal drawings can be found on rock shelters in the centre of the South Island. The drawings are estimated to be between 500 and 800 years old, and portray animals, people and fantastic creatures, possibly stylised reptiles, some of the birds pictured are long extinct, including moa and Haasts eagles. They were drawn by early Māori, but by the time Europeans arrived, early inhabitants of the South Island were the Waitaha. They were largely absorbed via marriage and conquest by the Kāti Mamoe in the 16th century, Kāti Mamoe were in turn largely absorbed via marriage and conquest by the Kāi Tahu who migrated south in the 17th century. While today there is no distinct Kāti Mamoe organisation, many Kāi Tahu have Kāti Mamoe links in their whakapapa and, a notable feature of the Moriori culture, an emphasis on pacifism, proved disadvantageous when Māori warriors arrived in the 1830s aboard a chartered European ship. In the early 18th century, Kāi Tahu, a Māori tribe who originated on the east coast of the North Island, There they and Kāti Mamoe fought Ngāi Tara and Rangitāne in the Wairau Valley. Ngāti Māmoe then ceded the east coast regions north of the Clarence River to Kāi Tahu, Kāi Tahu continued to push south, conquering Kaikoura. By the 1730s, Kāi Tahu had settled in Canterbury, including Banks Peninsula, from there they spread further south and into the West Coast. In 1827-1828 Ngāti Toa under the leadership of Te Rauparaha successfully attacked Kāi Tahu at Kaikoura, Ngāti Toa then visited Kaiapoi, ostensibly to trade. When they attacked their hosts, the well-prepared Kāi Tahu killed all the leading Ngāti Toa chiefs except Te Rauparaha, Te Rauparaha returned to his Kapiti Island stronghold. After destroying Te Maiharanuis village they took their captives to Kapiti, John Stewart, though arrested and sent to trial in Sydney as an accomplice to murder, nevertheless escaped conviction. In the summer of 1831–32 Te Rauparaha attacked the Kaiapoi pā, Kaiapoi was engaged in a three-month siege by Te Rauparaha, during which his men successfully sapped the pā. They then attacked Kāi Tahu on Banks Peninsula and took the pā at Onawe, in 1832-33 Kāi Tahu retaliated under the leadership of Tūhawaiki and others, attacking Ngāti Toa at Lake Grassmere. Kāi Tahu prevailed, and killed many Ngāti Toa, although Te Rauparaha again escaped, fighting continued for a year or so, with Kāi Tahu maintaining the upper hand. Ngāti Toa never again made an incursion into Kāi Tahu territory
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North Island
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The North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the slightly larger but much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The islands area is 113,729 square kilometres, making it the worlds 14th-largest island and it has a population of 3,596,200. Twelve main urban areas are in the North Island, about 77% of New Zealands population lives in the North Island. Although the island has been known as the North Island for many years, in 2009 the New Zealand Geographic Board found that, along with the South Island, after a public consultation, the board officially named the island North Island or Te Ika-a-Maui in October 2013. In prose, the two islands of New Zealand are called the North Island and the South Island, with the definite articles. It is normal to use the preposition in rather than on, for example Hamilton is in the North Island, maps, headings, tables and adjectival expressions use North Island without the. According to Māori mythology, the North and South Islands of New Zealand arose through the actions of the demigod Māui, Māui and his brothers were fishing from their canoe when he caught a great fish and pulled it from the sea. While he was not looking his brothers fought over the fish and this great fish became the North Island and thus a Māori name for the North Island is Te Ika-a-Māui. The mountains and valleys are believed to have formed as a result of Māuis brothers hacking at the fish. Until the early 20th Century, an alternative Māori name for the North Island was Aotearoa, in present usage, Aotearoa is a collective name for New Zealand as a whole. The sub-national GDP of the North Island was estimated at US$102.863 billion in 2003, the island has an extensive flora and bird population, with numerous National Parks and other protected areas. Nine local government regions cover the North Island and all its adjacent islands, healthcare in the North Island is provided by fifteen District Health Boards. Organised around geographical areas of varying sizes, they are not coterminous with the Local Government Regions
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Auckland Islands
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The Auckland Islands are an archipelago of New Zealand, lying 465 kilometres south of the South Island. It includes Auckland Island, Adams Island, Enderby Island, Disappointment Island, Ewing Island, Rose Island, Dundas Island and Green Island, the islands have no permanent human inhabitants. Ecologically, the Auckland Islands form part of the Antipodes Subantarctic Islands tundra ecoregion, along with other New Zealand Sub-Antarctic Islands, they were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998. They include Auckland Island, Adams Island, Enderby Island, Disappointment Island, Ewing Island, Rose Island, Dundas Island and Green Island, the islands are close to each other, separated by narrow channels, and the coastline is rugged, with numerous deep inlets. Auckland Island, the island, has an approximate land area of 510 km2. It is notable for its cliffs and rugged terrain, which rises to over 600 m. Prominent peaks include Cavern Peak, Mount Raynal, Mount DUrville, Mount Easton, the southern end of the island broadens to a width of 26 km. Here, the channel of Carnley Harbour separates the main island from the roughly triangular Adams Island. The channel is the remains of the crater of a volcano, and Adams Island. The main island features many sharply incised inlets, notably Port Ross at the northern end, the group includes numerous other smaller islands, notably Disappointment Island and Enderby Island, each covering less than 5 km2. Most of the islands originated volcanically, with the archipelago dominated by two 12 million year old Miocene volcanoes, subsequently eroded and dissected and these rest on older volcanic rocks 15-25 million years old with some older granites and fossil-bearing sedimentary rocks from around 100 million years ago. The archipelago features an oceanic climate. The Auckland Islands have a constant cool & mild weather year-round. Evidence exists that Polynesian voyagers first discovered the Auckland Islands, traces of Polynesian settlement, possibly dating to the 13th century, have been found by archaeologists on Enderby Island. This is the most southerly settlement by Polynesians yet known, a whaling vessel, Ocean, discovered the islands in 1806, finding them uninhabited. Captain Abraham Bristow named them Lord Aucklands on 18 August 1806 in honour of his fathers friend William Eden, Bristow worked for the businessman Samuel Enderby, the namesake of Enderby Island. The following year Bristow returned on the Sarah in order to claim the archipelago for Britain, the explorers Dumont DUrville in 1839, and James Clark Ross visited in 1839 and in 1840 respectively. Whalers and sealers set up bases, the islands becoming one of the principal sealing stations in the Pacific in the years immediately after their discovery
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Chatham Islands
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The Chatham Islands form an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about 650 kilometres east of mainland New Zealand. It consists of ten islands within a 40-kilometre radius, the largest of which are Chatham Island. The archipelago is called Rēkohu in the indigenous Moriori language, Moriori are the indigenous people of the Chatham Islands, and members of the Māori Ngāti Mutunga tribe have also settled on the island. It has officially been part of New Zealand since 1842 and includes the countrys easternmost point, the islands are at about 43°53′S 176°31′W, roughly 840 kilometres east of Christchurch, New Zealand. The nearest mainland New Zealand point to the Chatham Islands is Cape Turnagain, in the North Island at a distance of 650 kilometres, the nearest mainland city to the islands is Hastings, New Zealand, located 697 kilometres to the North-West. The two largest islands, Chatham Island and Pitt Island, constitute most of the area of 966 square kilometres. The islands sit on the Chatham Rise, a large, relatively shallowly submerged part of the Zealandia continent that stretches east from near the South Island. The Chatham Islands, which emerged only within the last four years, are the only part of the Chatham Rise showing above sea level. The islands are hilly with coasts being a mixture including cliffs and dunes, beaches. Chatham has a number of streams, including Te Awainanga and Tuku, Chatham and Pitt are the only inhabited islands, with the remaining smaller islands being conservation reserves with restricted or prohibited access. The livelihoods of the inhabitants depend on agriculture, with the island being an exporter of coldwater crayfish, the names of the main islands, in the order of occupation are, Chatham Islands have a maritime climate characterised by a narrow temperature range and relatively frequent rainfall. Its isolated position far from any sizeable landmass renders the record temperature for main settlement Waitangi to be just 23.8 °C. The climate is cool, wet and windy, with high temperatures between 15 and 20 °C in summer, and between 5 and 10 °C in July, the Southern Hemisphere winter. Snow is extremely rare, having being recorded near sea level in July 2015 after several decades, the International Date Line lies to the east of the Chathams, even though the islands lie east of 180° longitude. Of interest are the trees, with branches trailing almost horizontally in the lee of the wind. The ferns in the forest understory include Blechnum discolor, the islands are a breeding ground for huge flocks of seabirds and are home to a number of endemic birds, some of which are seabirds and others which live on the islands. The best known species are the magenta petrel and the black robin, Other endemic species are the Chatham oystercatcher, the Chatham gerygone, Chatham pigeon, Forbes parakeet, the Chatham snipe and the shore plover. The endemic Chatham shag, Pitt shag and the Chatham albatross are at risk of capture by a variety of fishing gear, including fishing lines, trawls, gillnets, for accounts and notes on seabird species seen in the Chathams between 1960 and 1993 online
20.
Fossil
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Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how they were formed, such a preserved specimen is called a fossil if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10,000 years. The observation that fossils were associated with certain rock strata led early geologists to recognize a geological timescale in the 19th century. The development of dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed geologists to determine the numerical or absolute age of the various strata. Like extant organisms, fossils vary in size from microscopic, even single bacterial cells one micrometer in diameter, to gigantic, such as dinosaurs, Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as animal tracks or feces. These types of fossil are called trace fossils, as opposed to body fossils, finally, past life leaves some markers that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of biochemical signals, these are known as chemofossils or biosignatures. The process of fossilization varies according to type and external conditions. Permineralization is a process of fossilization that occurs when an organism is buried, the empty spaces within an organism become filled with mineral-rich groundwater. Minerals precipitate from the groundwater, occupying the empty spaces and this process can occur in very small spaces, such as within the cell wall of a plant cell. Small scale permineralization can produce very detailed fossils, for permineralization to occur, the organism must become covered by sediment soon after death or soon after the initial decay process. The degree to which the remains are decayed when covered determines the later details of the fossil, some fossils consist only of skeletal remains or teeth, other fossils contain traces of skin, feathers or even soft tissues. This is a form of diagenesis, in some cases the original remains of the organism completely dissolve or are otherwise destroyed. The remaining organism-shaped hole in the rock is called an external mold, if this hole is later filled with other minerals, it is a cast. An endocast or internal mold is formed when sediments or minerals fill the cavity of an organism. This is a form of cast and mold formation. If the chemistry is right, the organism can act as a nucleus for the precipitation of minerals such as siderite, if this happens rapidly before significant decay to the organic tissue, very fine three-dimensional morphological detail can be preserved. Nodules from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois, USA, are among the best documented examples of such mineralization, replacement occurs when the shell, bone or other tissue is replaced with another mineral
21.
Hobby (bird)
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A hobby is a fairly small, very swift falcon with long, narrow wings. Four birds called hobby, and some others which, although termed falcon, are very similar, all specialise in being superb aerialists. The tails are all-dark or have only slight bands, monophyly of Hypotriorchis is supported by DNA sequence data, though the exact limits of the group are still uncertain. The hobbies seem to be one of the Falco lineages which emerged around the Miocene-Pliocene boundary some 8-5 million years ago and these species are tentatively placed here, New Zealand falcon or kārearea
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Orange-breasted falcon
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The orange-breasted falcon is a bird of the falcon family. It is probably related to and looks like a larger version of the bat falcon. These two, in turn, are probably closest to the falcon and constitute a rather old American lineage of Falcos. It is found from southern Mexico to northern Argentina and its a medium-sized falcon at 35–40 cm long and a weight of 325–700 grams. The orange-breasted falcon has a similar plumage to the smaller bat falcon and is generally considered most closely related to that species now. In, del Hoyo, Josep, Elliott, Andrew & Sargatal, Jordi, Handbook of Birds of the World, Volume 2,268, plate 27. Bednarek, W. Brüning, H. Gaucher, P. Ristow, D. Scharlau, W. Schmidl, D. & Wink, Michael, & Chancellor, R. D. Raptor conservation today, 593–599. PDF fulltext Griffiths, Carole S. Phylogeny of the Falconidae inferred from molecular, Griffiths, Carole S. Barrowclough, George F. Groth, Jeff G. & Mertz, Lisa. Phylogeny of the Falconidae, a comparison of the efficacy of morphological, mitochondrial, groombridge, Jim J. Jones, Carl G. Bayes, Michelle K. van Zyl, Anthony J. Carrillo, José, Nichols, Richard A. & Bruford, Michael W. A molecular phylogeny of African kestrels with reference to divergence across the Indian Ocean, lotfikhah, F. & Bednarek, W. Molecular systematics of holarctic raptors. PDF fulltext Orange-breasted Falcon photo gallery, vireo. acnatsci. org Stamp photo Orange-breasted Falcon videos on the Internet Bird Collection
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Bat falcon
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The bat falcon is a falcon that is a resident breeder in tropical Mexico, Central and South America, and Trinidad. It was long known as Falco albigularis, the names Falco fusco-coerulescens or Falco fuscocaerulescens, the female bat falcon, at 30.5 cm length, is much larger than the 23-cm-long male. Adults have a back, head, and tail. The throat, upper breast, and neck sides are white, the lower breast and belly are black, finely barred white. Young birds are similar, but with a buffy throat, the call of this species is a high pitched ke-ke-ke like theAmerican kestrel. It is probably related to and looks like a small version of the orange-breasted falcon. These two, in turn, are probably closest to the falcon and constitute a rather old American lineage of Falco species. This small dark bird of prey inhabits open woodlands and forest clearings, Bat falcons perch conspicuously on high, open snags, from which they launch aerial attacks on their prey. They hunt bats, birds, and large insects such as dragonflies, the smaller male takes more insects, and the female more birds and bats. The flight is direct and powerful and this falcon is partly crepuscular, as the bats in its diet suggest. It lays two or three eggs in an unlined treehole nest. William, The home life of the bat falcon, Falco albigularis Daudin, in, del Hoyo, Josep, Elliott, Andrew & Sargatal, Jordi, Handbook of Birds of the World, Volume 2, 267–268, plate 27. ISBN 84-87334-15-6 ffrench, Richard, ONeill, John Patton & Eckelberry, a guide to the birds of Trinidad and Tobago. Bednarek, W. Brüning, H. Gaucher, P. Ristow, D. Scharlau, W. Schmidl, D. & Wink, Michael, & Chancellor, R. D. Raptor conservation today, 593–599. PDF fulltext Griffiths, Carole S. Phylogeny of the Falconidae inferred from molecular, PDF fulltext Griffiths, Carole S. Barrowclough, George F. Groth, Jeff G. & Mertz, Lisa. Phylogeny of the Falconidae, a comparison of the efficacy of morphological, mitochondrial, groombridge, Jim J. Jones, Carl G. Bayes, Michelle K. van Zyl, Anthony J. Carrillo, José, Nichols, Richard A. & Bruford, Michael W. A molecular phylogeny of African kestrels with reference to divergence across the Indian Ocean, lotfikhah, F. & Bednarek, W. Molecular systematics of holarctic raptors. PDF fulltext Bat Falcon videos on the Internet Bird Collection Stamps with RangeMap Bat Falcon photo gallery VIREO Photo-High Res Photo-Medium Res, Article oiseaux
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Aplomado falcon
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The aplomado falcon is a medium-sized falcon of the Americas. The species largest contiguous range is in South America, but not in the deep interior Amazon Basin and it was long known as Falco fusco-coerulescens or Falco fuscocaerulescens, but these names are now believed to refer to the bat falcon. Its resemblance in shape to the accounts for its old name orange-chested hobby. Aplomado is an unusual Spanish word for lead-colored, referring to the areas of the plumage – an approximate English translation would be plumbeous falcon. Spanish names for the species include halcón aplomado and halcón fajado, in adult birds, the upperparts are dark blue-grey, as is much of the head, with the usual falcon moustache contrasting sharply with the white throat and eyestripe. The tail is black with white or grey bars and a white tip. The cere, eye-ring, and feet are yellow or yellow-orange, except that females are bigger than males, the sexes are similar. These two species are considered to belong to the same lineage as the aplomado falcon. All that can be said with certainty is that they diverged as part of an apparently largely western Holarctic radiation in the Late Miocene. The aplomado falcons habitat is dry grasslands, savannahs, and marshes, globally, however, it is so widespread that it is assessed as Species of Least Concern by the IUCN. It feeds on invertebrates and small vertebrates, with small birds making up the overwhelming bulk of its prey. Mixed-species feeding flocks in open cerrado and grassland will go on frenzied alert upon spotting this species and it is often seen soaring at twilight hunting insects and eating them on the wing. It also hunts at fields being burned, at which birds of this species may gather. In Brazil, aplomado falcons have been observed following maned wolves, the nest is a platform built of sticks at any height in a bush or tree. Two or three eggs are laid, until the 1950s it was found in the extreme southwestern United States, and reintroduction efforts are under way in West and South Texas. It began to reoccupy its former range in West Texas and southern New Mexico in the 1990s, sightings and nesting activity continue to the present. The addition of nesting platforms to areas where Northern Aplomado Falcons Falco femoralis septentrionalis were reintroduced in South Texas improved the birds productivity and this resulted in a stable population, however without the addition of nest platforms the re-introduced population would likely decline to extinction. The expansion of the program to that area has met with criticism, because technically
25.
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (New Zealand)
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The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was a state sector organisation of New Zealand which dealt with matters relating to agriculture, forestry and biosecurity. It was commonly known by its acronym, MAF, in April 2012, it became part of the newly formed Ministry for Primary Industries. In 1998, this Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Forestry merged to become the Ministry of Agriculture, on 1 July 2010, the Food Safety Authority and MAF were amalgamated, and on 1 July 2011 the Ministry of Fisheries was also merged into MAF. MAF in turn merged with the New Zealand Food Safety Authority in April 2012 to form the Ministry for Primary Industries, the name change proved problematic however, with New Zealand shipments of meat prevented from entering the lucrative Chinese market due to incorrect documentation. It also worked to promote sustainability in the New Zealand rural sector, Agriculture in New Zealand Forestry in New Zealand Biosecurity in New Zealand New Biosecurity Document Management Software for MPI Approved Transitional Facilities
26.
Marlborough Region
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The Marlborough Region, commonly known simply as Marlborough, is one of the regions of New Zealand, located in the northeast of the South Island. Marlborough is an authority, both a region and a district, and its council is located at Blenheim. It has a population of 45,500, Marlborough is known for its dry climate, the picturesque Marlborough Sounds, and Sauvignon blanc wine. It takes its name from the earlier Marlborough Province, which was named after John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Marlboroughs geography can be roughly divided into four sections. Two of these sections, in the south and the west, are mountainous and this is particularly true of the southern section, which rises to the peaks of the Kaikoura Ranges. These two mountainous regions are the final vestiges of the ranges that make up the Southern Alps. Between these two areas is the long valley of the Wairau River. This broadens to wide plains at its end, in the centre of which stands the town of Blenheim. This region has fertile soil and temperate weather, enabling it to become the centre of the New Zealand wine industry, the fourth geographic zone lies along its north coast. Here the drowned valleys of the Marlborough Sounds make for a convoluted, the town of Picton is located at the southern end of one of the larger sounds, Queen Charlotte Sound. The town of Havelock is located at the end of the Pelorus Sound. Blenheim is the capital and largest town, with 30,500 residents. The major towns are, Wairau Valley Marlborough is administered by a unitary authority, between 1859 and 1876 Marlborough had its own provincial government, and was known as the Marlborough Province, which ended when the Abolition of the Provinces Act came into force on 1 Nov 1876. Much of the population is found around the coastal plains around and to the south of the mouth of the Wairau. Apart from the urban areas of Blenheim and Picton, Marlboroughs towns include Havelock, Renwick, Ward. Marlboroughs world-famous former residents include rocket scientist William Pickering and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ernest Rutherford, the sub-national GDP of the Marlborough region was estimated at US$1.193 billion in 2003, 1% of New Zealands national GDP. Marlborough can lay claim to starting the modern New Zealand wine industry, here in the late 1970s, Marlborough produced Sauvignon blanc, among other varietals, which led to confidence that New Zealand could produce interesting wine. Today, the Marlborough wine region represents 77% of total area in the country
27.
New Zealand dollar
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The New Zealand dollar is the currency and legal tender of New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, the Ross Dependency, Tokelau, and a British territory, the Pitcairn Islands. Within New Zealand, it is almost always abbreviated with the dollar sign, in the context of currency trading, it is often informally called the Kiwi, since New Zealand is commonly associated with the indigenous bird and the $1 coin depicts a kiwi. Introduced in 1967, the dollar is subdivided into 100 cents, altogether there are ten denominations—five coins and five banknotes—with the smallest being the 10-cent coin. Formerly there were lower denominations, but those were discontinued due to inflation, the New Zealand dollar is consistently one of the 10 most-traded currencies in the world, being approximately 2. 0% of global foreign exchange market daily turnover in 2013. Prior to the introduction of the New Zealand dollar in 1967, the New Zealand pound was the currency of New Zealand, which had been distinct from the pound sterling since 1933. The pound used the £sd system, in which the pound was divided into 20 shillings and one shilling was divided into 12 pence, switching to decimal currency had been proposed in New Zealand since the 1930s, although only in the 1950s did any plans come to fruition. In 1957, a committee was set up by the Government to investigate decimal currency, the idea fell on fertile ground, and in 1963, the Government decided to decimalise New Zealand currency. The Decimal Currency Act was passed in 1964, setting the date of transition to 10 July 1967, words such as fern, kiwi and zeal were proposed to avoid confusion with the word dollar, which many people at the time associated with the United States dollar. In the end, the dollar was chosen anyway. On Monday 10 July 1967, the New Zealand dollar was introduced to replace the pound at a rate of two dollars to one pound, some 27 million new banknotes were printed and 165 million new coins were minted for the changeover. The New Zealand dollar was pegged to the US dollar at US$1.43 = NZ$1. This rate changed on 21 November of the year to US$1.12 = NZ$1 after the devaluation of the British pound. In 1971 the US devalued its dollar relative to gold, leading New Zealand on 23 December to peg its dollar at US$1.216 with a 4. 5% fluctuation range, keeping the same gold value. From 9 July 1973 to 4 March 1985 the dollars value was determined from a basket of currencies. The NZ$ was floated on 4 March 1985 at the rate of US$0.4444. Since then the value has been determined by the financial markets. The dollars post-float minimum average daily value was US$0.3922 on 22 November 2000, much of this medium-term variation in the exchange rate has been attributed to differences in interest rates. The New Zealand dollars value is often affected by currency trading
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Postage stamp
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Postage stamp may also refer to a formatting artifact in the display of film or video, Windowbox. A postage stamp is a piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are printed on special paper, show a national designation and a denomination on the front. They are sometimes a source of net profit to the issuing agency, stamps are usually rectangular, but triangles or other shapes are occasionally used. The stamp is affixed to an envelope or other postal cover the customer wishes to send, the item is then processed by the postal system, where a postmark, sometimes known as a cancellation mark, is usually applied in overlapping manner to stamp and cover. This procedure marks the stamp as used to prevent its reuse, in modern usage, postmarks generally indicate the date and point of origin of the mailing. The mailed item is delivered to the address the customer has applied to the envelope or parcel. Postage stamps have facilitated the delivery of mail since the 1840s, before then, ink and hand-stamps, usually made from wood or cork, were often used to frank the mail and confirm the payment of postage. The first adhesive postage stamp, commonly referred to as the Penny Black, was issued in the United Kingdom in 1840, there are varying accounts of the inventor or inventors of the stamp. The postage stamp resolved this issue in a simple and elegant manner, concurrently with the first stamps, the UK offered wrappers for mail. S. Postal service for priority or express mailing, the postage stamp afforded convenience for both the mailer and postal officials, more effectively recovered costs for the postal service, and ultimately resulted in a better, faster postal system. With the conveniences stamps offered, their use resulted in greatly increased mailings during the 19th and 20th centuries, as postage stamps with their engraved imagery began to appear on a widespread basis, historians and collectors began to take notice. The study of stamps and their use is referred to as philately. Stamp collecting can be both a hobby and a form of study and reference, as government-issued postage stamps. The postage for the item was prepaid by the use of a hand-stamp to frank the mailed item. Though this stamp was applied to a letter instead of a piece of paper it is considered by many historians as the worlds first postage stamp. Rowland Hill The Englishman Sir Rowland Hill began interest in postal reform in 1835, in 1836, a Member of Parliament, Robert Wallace, provided Hill with numerous books and documents, which Hill described as a half hundred weight of material. Hill commenced a study of these documents, leading him to the 1837 publication of a pamphlet entitled Post Office Reform its Importance
29.
Royal New Zealand Air Force
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The Royal New Zealand Air Force is the air force component of the New Zealand Defence Force. The RNZAF fought in World War II, Malaysia, Korean War, Vietnam, the RNZAFs air combat capability ended in 2001 with the disbanding of the A-4 Skyhawk squadrons. The Air Force is led by an air vice-marshal who holds the appointment of Chief of Air Force, the RNZAF motto is the same as that of the Royal Air Force, Per ardua ad astra, meaning Through adversity to the stars. New Zealands military aviation began in 1913 when the New Zealand Army was presented with two Blériot monoplanes by the United Kingdom and these machines were grounded after a young woman was given a joyride. Both aircraft were handed back after war broke out. In the Great War, New Zealand aircrew flew as part of the British Royal Flying Corps, New Zealand pilots serving with British forces saw service in all theatres. Fifteen became aces, the top scorer being Keith Caldwell with, depending on how counted, the government assisted two private schools to train pilots for the conflict. The Walsh brothers flying school at Auckland was founded by Leo, from 1915 pilots trained on the Walsh Brothers Flying Boats including Curtiss machines, aircraft of their own design and, later in the war, the first two aircraft made by Boeing. In 1916 Sir Henry Wigram established the Canterbury Aviation Company at Sockburn, Christchurch and he gave the aerodrome, later Wigram Aerodrome, to the government for defence purposes. At the end of the war many New Zealand pilots stayed with the new Royal Air Force, others returned to New Zealand and, serving part-time, provided the nucleus of the New Zealand Permanent Air Force. At the close of hostilities Great Britain offered an Imperial Gift to each of the Dominions of a hundred war-surplus combat aircraft, New Zealand was the last to respond and least enthusiastic. Several of the aircraft were heavily modified—a 504 becoming a 3-seat floatplane. The importance of aviation in war was recognised, largely thanks to the efforts of visionary parliamentarian Sir Henry Wigram. It was initially equipped with the surviving Avro 504K, the DH. 4s, DH. 9s and these operated from an airfield outside Christchurch at Sockburn. In 1926 Wigram donated £2,500 for the purchase of modern fighters, Sockburn was later renamed RNZAF Station Wigram, a name adopted by the suburb which grew up around the airfield. It is the site of the present Royal New Zealand Air Force Museum, a trickle of new-build Bristol Fighters and other new types joined the NZPAF in the late 1920s and early 1930s. A Lewis gun-equipped De Havilland Gipsy Moth floatplane took part in operations against rebels in Samoa. The NZPAFs first action came in 1930 when the Moth dropped a bomb made out of a treacle tin on to a ship suspected of gun-running
30.
BirdLife International
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It is the worlds largest partnership of conservation organisations, with over 120 partner organisations. BirdLife International was founded as in 1922 the International Council for Bird Preservation by American ornithologists T. Gilbert Pearson and it changed its name in 1993 to BirdLife International. In addition to the programmes, there are global programmes. Together these programmes help the partnership to focus and work on common priorities and they provide the framework for planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating conservation work. BirdLife International publishes a magazine, World Birdwatch, which contains recent news and authoritative articles about birds, their habitats. BirdLife International is the official Red List authority for birds, for the International Union for Conservation of Nature, in the 2012 assessment,1,313 species of birds are considered threatened with extinction. This represents 13% of the 10,064 extant bird species in the world
31.
International Union for Conservation of Nature
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, lobbying. IUCNs mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of resources is equitable. Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to equality, poverty alleviation. Unlike other international NGOs, IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation and it tries to influence the actions of governments, business and other stakeholders by providing information and advice, and through lobbying and partnerships. The organization is best known to the public for compiling and publishing the IUCN Red List. IUCN has a membership of over 1200 governmental and non-governmental organizations, some 11,000 scientists and experts participate in the work of IUCN commissions on a voluntary basis. It employs approximately 1000 full-time staff in more than 60 countries and its headquarters are in Gland, Switzerland. IUCN has observer and consultative status at the United Nations, and plays a role in the implementation of several conventions on nature conservation. It was involved in establishing the World Wide Fund for Nature, in the past, IUCN has been criticized for placing the interests of nature over those of indigenous peoples. In recent years, its relations with the business sector have caused controversy. It was previously called the International Union for Protection of Nature, establishment In 1947, the Swiss League for the Protection of Nature organised an international conference on the protection of nature in Brunnen. It is considered to be the first government-organized non-governmental organization, the initiative to set up the new organisation came from UNESCO and especially from its first Director General, the British biologist Julian Huxley. At the time of its founding IUPN was the international organisation focusing on the entire spectrum of nature conservation Early years. Its secretariat was located in Brussels and its first work program focused on saving species and habitats, increasing and applying knowledge, advancing education, promoting international agreements and promoting conservation. Providing a solid base for conservation action was the heart of all activities. IUPN and UNESCO were closely associated and they jointly organized the 1949 Conference on Protection of Nature. In preparation for this conference a list of endangered species was drawn up for the first time
32.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
33.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
34.
Department of Conservation (New Zealand)
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The Department of Conservation is the public service department of New Zealand charged with the conservation of New Zealands natural and historical heritage. An advisory body, the New Zealand Conservation Authority is provided to advise DOC, in addition there are 13 conservation boards for different areas around the country that provide for interaction between DOC and the public. This Act also set out the majority of the Departments responsibilities and roles, as a consequence of Conservation Act all Crown land in New Zealand designated for conservation and protection became managed by the Department of Conservation. All of the land under its control is protected for conservation, ecological, scenic, scientific, historic or cultural reasons. DOC also administers the Nature Heritage Fund, and is responsible for fire control. In addition to its work managing land and providing for recreation in New Zealand and this is particularly a concern amongst some farmers and other industries that are major users of neighbouring land, many of whom have been affected by decisions of the department. After a number of years of falling budgets, in 2013 the department announced it would be slashing 140 jobs, the Department of Conservation moved into a new headquarters, Conservation House, on Manners Street, Wellington in 2006. It is the first green building in New Zealand to be given a 5-star rating, having won numerous environmental awards, including a top 10 placing by Grist Magazine. The site was originally a cinema operated by the Hoyts Group from the mid-1980s until the early 2000s. The Department serves 1 portfolio and 3 ministers, New Zealand has 13 national parks, and a wide number of other conservation lands with varying levels of environmental protection, called the conservation estate in total. About one third of this estate, generally the land considered most valuable, has been protected from mining since 1997 via being listed in Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act 1991, in 1995,14 people died when a viewing platform maintained by the Department of Conservation collapsed. Immediately following the tragedy, all of the departments 106 viewing platforms throughout New Zealand were checked, fifteen platforms were closed for repairs. A Commission of Inquiry that followed the tragedy revealed that the department had acted illegally and negligently in constructing the viewing platform. Many people in New Zealand criticised the government for the situation, and Denis Marshall. In March 2006, an eruption at the Green Lake of Raoul Island. At the exact time of the eruption, Mr Kearney is thought to have been taking measurements of the lake as part of a programme for monitoring volcanic activity. Five other DOC workers, who were living on the island, were forced to evacuate back to New Zealand shortly after the eruption. Searches for Mr Kearney, which have been inhibited by the remote location
35.
Radio New Zealand
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Radio New Zealand is a New Zealand public service radio broadcaster and Crown entity formed by the Radio New Zealand Act 1995. It operates the news, current affairs, and arts network Radio New Zealand National and classical music, since 2014, the organisation focuses increasingly on its production of digital content in audio, video and written forms. The organisation plays a role in New Zealand public broadcasting. Under law, it is responsible for the Radio New Zealand International Pacific shortwave service and it has a statutory role under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 to act as a lifeline utility in emergency situations. The New Zealand Parliament also fully funds its AM Network, for the broadcast of Parliamentary proceedings, the organisation placed a strong emphasis on training its staff in Received Pronunciation, until it began promoting local and indigenous accents in the 1990s. The broadcaster is bound by the Charter and Operating Principles included in the Radio New Zealand Act and it must operate a news service, an international shortwave service and an archiving programme. It must also produce and commission high quality programming based on research of public needs, in achieving these objectives, it must be socially and financially responsible. Radio New Zealand National, formerly National Radio, is Radio New Zealands general public service broadcaster, flagship news and current affairs programmes Morning Report, Midday Report and Checkpoint total thirty hours every week and news updates are broadcast every hour. Its news service has specialist correspondents, reporters and a network of regional correspondents, magazine programmes include a broad range of contributors, interviews, music pieces and dramas, with reports and regular features in English and Māori. The network provides coverage of science, politics, philosophy, religion, rural affairs, sports, Radio New Zealand National broadcasts in AM and FM via mono terrestrial transmitters based around New Zealand and the Optus satellite. It is also available on Sky Digital TV channel 421, Freeview satellite channel 50, Radio New Zealand National claims a cumulative audience of 522,000 people, which would make it the most popular station in New Zealand. Its station share of 11% also makes it one in terms of station share among people 15. The network was known as Concert FM but the name was changed as part of a wider name change within Radio New Zealand to associate Concert FM with the Radio New Zealand brand. The station broadcasts in FM stereo via terrestrial transmitters located around New Zealand and it is also available on Sky Digital TV channel 502, and on Freeviews satellite and terrestrial services on channel 51. Concert features four full-time continuity presenters and several part-time and specialist presenters, the playlist is among the most diverse and eclectic of the worlds state run classical music networks. The AM Network is a network of radio transmitters operated by Radio New Zealand which broadcast all sittings of the New Zealand Parliament through a contract with the Parliament. Sitting hours are seasonal, and may be extended due to certain circumstances, AM Network Parliamentary coverage is also streamed online, with podcasts and transcripts available. The transmitters were used by The Concert Programme before it moved to FM broadcasting
36.
Birds of New Zealand
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The birds of New Zealand evolved into an avifauna that included a large number of endemic species. As an island archipelago New Zealand accumulated bird diversity and when Captain James Cook arrived in the 1770s he noted that the song was deafening. The mix includes species with unusual biology such as the kakapo which is the only flightless, nocturnal, lek breeding parrot. A process of colonization, speciation and extinction has been at play over many millions of years, some species have arrived in human recorded history while other arrived before but are little changed. When humans arrived in New Zealand about 700 years ago the environment changed quickly, several species were hunted to extinction, most notably the Moa and Haasts eagle. Mice, dogs, cats, stoats, weasels, pigs, goats, deer, hedgehogs, the flightless birds were especially sensitive. Consequently, many species became extinct, and others remain critically endangered. Several species are now confined only to islands, or to fenced ecological islands from which predators have been eliminated. New Zealand is today a world leader in the required to bring severely endangered species back from the brink of extinction. The terrestrial birds, wetland birds and seabirds in New Zealand each make up about a third of the number of species. This is in sharp contrast to the composition of the bird species where 90% are terrestrial. Of the 131 species that lived on or near land,93 were endemic, due to habitat loss, their historical use as a food source by Māori, and predation by introduced species, many birds have become extinct and numerous more are threatened with extinction. Huge conservation efforts are being made to save the takahe, kakapo, mohua, kokako, one well documented conservation success story, due in a large part to the efforts of Don Merton, is the saving of the black robin on the Chatham Islands. From human settlement to 1994,43 of the 93 endemic land, freshwater and coastal species have become extinct, as have 4 of the 22 endemic seabird species, fifteen species extinctions have occurred since 1840. According to the 2005 New Zealand Threat Classification System list,153 species or subspecies were then threatened with extinction, some of the more well known and distinctive bird species in New Zealand are the kiwi, tui, bellbird and the now extinct moa species. The Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand, checklist Committee Ornithological Society of New Zealand. Checklist of the birds of New Zealand, Norfolk and Macquarie Islands, available online as a PDF Morris, Rod, Smith, Hal. Ericson P, Christidis L, Cooper, A, Irestedt M, Jackson J, Johansson US, a Gondwanan origin of passerine birds supported by DNA sequences of the endemic New Zealand wrens
37.
New Zealand bellbird
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The New Zealand bellbird, also known by its Māori names korimako and makomako, is a passerine bird endemic to New Zealand. It has greenish colouration and is the only living member of the genus Anthornis, the bellbird forms a significant component of the famed New Zealand dawn chorus of bird song that was much noted by early European settlers. The explorer Captain Cook wrote of its song it seemed to be like small bells most exquisitely tuned and its bell-like song is sometimes confused with that of the tui. The species is common across much of New Zealand and its islands as well as the Auckland Islands. Males are olive green with a purplish sheen on their head and black outer wing. While females are an olive brown with a blue sheen on the head. Both have a red eye. They are about 17–20 cm from the tip of their beak to the end of their tail, females weigh about 25 g and males 32 g. Juvenile females have brown eyes and a yellow cheek stripe. Juvenile males have dull brown-black outer wing and tail feathers, there are four sub-species, A. melanura melanura, A. melanura dumerii, A. melanura oneho, and A. melanura obscura. The Chatham bellbird, A. melanocephala, which became extinct in the early 20th century, was classified as a subspecies of the New Zealand bellbird. The bellbird is found both the main islands of New Zealand apart from the north of the North Island. Its population and distribution had been affected by the introduction of European-style farming. Another important factor is the introduction of species such as cats, weasels, stoats, ferrets, rats. Predators either eat the birds or consume eggs, while food robbers compete with the bellbird for its food sources of nectar, honeydew. The decline occurred around the time as many other New Zealand species, but for unknown reasons was reversed. Breeding occurs from September to January where two broods can be produced and their nesting habits are similar to the tui in respect to colour of eggs, clutch size and incubation. They generally lay three to four eggs with brown spots and blotches
38.
Buff-banded rail
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The buff-banded rail is a distinctively coloured, highly dispersive, medium-sized rail of the rail family, Rallidae. It utilises a range of moist or wetland habitats with low and it is usually quite shy but may become very tame and bold in some circumstances, such as in island resorts within the Great Barrier Reef region. Its nest is situated in dense grassy or reedy vegetation close to water. Described subspecies include, Media related to Gallirallus philippensis at Wikimedia Commons Data related to Gallirallus philippensis at Wikispecies
39.
New Zealand grebe
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The New Zealand grebe, New Zealand dabchick, or weweia is a member of the grebe family endemic to New Zealand. The New Zealand grebe has dark plumage, black back. It grows to a size of about 29 centimeters, and a weight of about 250 grams, females tend to be lighter than their male counterparts. Their diet consists mostly aquatic insects and their larvae, as well as small mollusks such as freshwater snails, bigger prey such as fish and freshwater crayfish are sometimes taken
40.
New Zealand fantail
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The New Zealand fantail is a small insectivorous bird, the only species of fantail in New Zealand. It has four subspecies, R. f. fuliginosa in the South Island, R. f. placabilis in the North Island, R. f. penita in the Chatham Islands, and the now-extinct R. f. cervina formerly on Lord Howe Island. It is also known by its Maori names, Pīwakawaka, Tīwakawaka or Piwaiwaka, the common pied morph is known as pied fantail. It grows to 16 cm in length, of which half is the tail and this reveals that the outer tail feathers that are light and the centre ones are dark. Some subspecies are found in a darker plumage, notably the black fantail morph seen in 4% of South Island birds, the black morph lacks the white areas and so is dark all over apart from a white spot behind the eye. Juveniles are similar to the adults but have a browner body, during waking hours the bird is almost never still. It flits from perch to perch, sometimes on the ground but mostly on the twigs of a tree or any convenient object. The birds are not shy, and will often flit within a few metres of people, especially in forested areas, in doing so, it is able to catch any small flying insects that may have been disturbed by human activities such as walking or digging. Under cold temperatures a flock of fantails will huddle to stay warm, the birds call is an almost metallic cheek, either as a single sound or repeated as a chattering. The New Zealand fantail is a breeder, nesting from August to March in the North Island, September to January in the South Island. They usually raise two or more broods per season, the birds form compact, cup-shaped nests, usually in the forks of trees, made from moss, bark and fibre, and often completed with spiders web. The clutch size is three to four cream eggs which are spotted grey and brown. The incubation period is two weeks, and incubation and feeding duties are shared by both adults. Nest building and incubation of the brood may occur while the fledged young of the first brood are still being fed. Young males may begin breeding two months after fledging, the nests of the New Zealand fantail are occasionally parasitised by the two species of cuckoo in New Zealand. In Maori mythology, the piwakawaka is a messenger, bringing death or news of death from the gods to the people. The bulbous eyes and erratic flying behaviour of the bird is attributed to it being squeezed by Maui for not revealing the whereabouts of his ancestress Mahuika, tiwakawaka is also the name of one of the first Maori settlers to New Zealand. A field guide to the birds of New Zealand, grey Fantail videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection
41.
Grey warbler
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The grey warbler or riroriro is an insectivorous bird in the family Acanthizidae endemic to New Zealand. Its natural habitat is temperate forests, also sometimes called grey gerygone, teetotum and rainbird. Smaller than the silvereye weighing about 6.5 grams this 11 cm long bird is grey-brown above and has a grey face, throat and breast and has an off white abdomen. The tail is white underneath and dark brown on top with white tips visible in flight, the female has similar plumage but is smaller in size. The young are paler with no hint of yellow and have brown eyes, the males song often starts with a series of three squeaks and builds into a distinctive long plaintive wavering trill that rises and falls. They sing throughout the year but most vigorously when nesting, during spring, common throughout New Zealand main islands and many off-shore islands, absent from open country and alpine areas. At home in native and exotic forests it may be found almost anywhere there is some tree or shrub cover, among their size of New Zealand birds they skirmish and reconcile for popularity with the rifleman. Grey warblers mainly feed upon spiders, insects and their larvae and they are very active, almost never stay still as they move from one perch to another. Grey warblers are unique among New Zealand birds in building a structure with a side entrance near the top. It is attached to a twig at the top, but is also secured at the back or sides. The male is not involved in nest building or incubation, the 3 to 6 eggs, each laid 2 days apart, are pinkish-white with fine reddish-brown speckles all over. The eggs, weighing 1.5 grams are about 17 millimetres long and 12 millimetres wide, incubation takes about 19 days and the chicks spend another 15 to 19 days in the nest. NZ Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, Nov 2003 Gerygone Flaviventris
42.
Sacred kingfisher
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The sacred kingfisher is a medium-sized woodland kingfisher that occurs in mangroves, woodlands, forests, and river valleys in Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of the western Pacific. In New Zealand the species is known by its Māori name kōtare. It is called “sacred” for it was said to be a bird for Polynesians. Likewise, the subspecies of collared kingfisher and other kingfishers in the southwestern Pacific were ascribed venerable power over the ocean. Sacred kingfishers are found in Australia, New Zealand, Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, New Guinea, eastern Indonesia, much of northern and western Melanesia, and this species breeds throughout much of Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and locally, New Guinea. Birds move south again to Australia in August to September and it has also occurred as a vagrant on Christmas Island, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Nauru. A pair spotted in Pampanga Philippines April / May 2016, in Australia, it occurs in eucalypt forests, melaleuca forests, woodland and paperbark forests. In New Zealand, T. sanctus vagans shows altitudinal migration, with post-breeding movement from higher altitudes to the coast and also from forest to coast, the sacred kingfisher is a medium-sized kingfisher. They are mostly turquoise, with underparts and collar feathers. Both sexes are similar, but females are usually more dull-colored, juveniles have rusty-brown edges on the collar and underparts. The sacred kingfisher is 19–23 cm long, and feeds on insects, small crustaceans, fish, small rodents and reptiles, usually, a bird will sit on a low branch and wait for prey to pass by. It swoops down to grab the prey and returns to its perch to eat, once a pair of birds has mated, both members of the pair dig the nest, usually a burrow in a river bank or a large, empty branch. The female lays five eggs, and both birds incubate the eggs and take care of the young. Coates, Brian, J and Bishop, K. David, a Guide to the Birds of Wallacea. The Birds of Borneo, Sumatra, Java and Bali, oxford, UK http, //birdsinbackyards. net/species/Todiramphus-sanctus Sacred kingfisher calling video Australian Museum fact sheet GROMS database
43.
Pacific long-tailed cuckoo
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The Pacific long-tailed cuckoo, also known as the long-tailed cuckoo, long-tailed koel, or the koekoeā in Māori, is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. The species breeds in New Zealand, and migrates to the islands of the south-western Pacific in the winter, the long-tailed cuckoo is a brood parasite, laying its eggs in the nests of yellowheads, whiteheads and brown creepers. The eggs hatch before those of the host and the young chicks eject the eggs of the host, long-tailed cuckoo chicks are able to mimic the calls of their hosts chicks. Davies, N Cuckoos, Cowbirds and Other Cheats T & A D Poyser, London, ISBN 0-85661-135-2
44.
New Zealand pigeon
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The New Zealand pigeon or kererū is a bird endemic to New Zealand. Māori call it kererū in most of the country but kūkupa and kūkū in some parts of the North Island, commonly called wood pigeon, they are distinct from the wood pigeon of the Northern Hemisphere, which is a member of a different genus. The New Zealand pigeon belongs to the family Columbidae, and the subfamily Treroninae, the members of this subfamily feed largely on fruits, mainly drupes. New Zealand pigeons are members of the pigeon genus Hemiphaga, which is endemic to the New Zealand archipelago, however recently a Hemiphaga bone was found on Raoul Island. The Chatham pigeon or Chatham Island pigeon is traditionally considered a subspecies of the kererū, the New Zealand pigeon is a large, 550–850 grams, arboreal fruit-pigeon found in forests from Northland to Stewart Island/Rakiura, ranging in habitats from coastal to montane. The general morphology is that of a pigeon, in that it has a relatively small head. New Zealand pigeons build flimsy, shallow, twiggy nests and feed crop milk to hatchlings, the mainland New Zealand pigeon grows to some 51 centimetres in length and 650 grams in weight, compared to 55 centimetres and 800 grams for the Chatham Island variant. The head, throat and wings are generally a shiny green-purple colour, the breast is typically white and the bill red with an orange-ish tip. The feet and eyes are red, juveniles have a similar colouration but are generally paler with dull colours for the beak, eyes and feet and a shorter tail. The New Zealand pigeons make occasional soft coo sounds, and their wings make a distinctive whooshing sound as they fly. The birds flight is very distinctive. Birds will often ascend slowly before making impressively steep parabolic dives, it is thought that this behaviour is associated with nesting. As generally accepted, there are three subspecies of New Zealand pigeon, of these, only two survive, H. n. novaseelandiae of mainland New Zealand and H. n. chathamensis of the Chatham Islands. The other subspecies, Norfolk pigeon of Norfolk Island, is now extinct, the subspecies differ in their plumage colour and physical morphology. Few authorities outside New Zealand have followed this, with most still considering it a subspecies, the New Zealand pigeons are commonly regarded as frugivorous, primarily eating fruits from native trees. They play an important ecological role, as they are the only capable of eating the largest native fruits and drupes, such as those of the taraire. While fruit comprises the part of their diets, the New Zealand pigeon also browses on leaves and buds. One of their leaves to eat is from an introduced plant
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Australasian pipit
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The Australasian pipit is a fairly small passerine bird of open country in Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea. It belongs to the pipit genus Anthus in the family Motacillidae and it was formerly lumped together with the Richards, African, Mountain and Paddyfield pipits in a single species, Richards pipit, Anthus novaeseelandiae. Some authors split the Australasian pipit further into two species, Australian pipit in Australia and New Guinea and New Zealand pipit in New Zealand and it is a slender bird,16 to 19 cm long, and weighs about 40 grams. The plumage is brown above with dark streaks. The underparts are pale with streaks on the breast, there is a pale stripe over the eye and dark malar and moustachial stripes. The long tail has white outer-feathers and is often wagged up, the legs are long and pinkish-brown while the bill is slender and brownish. It has a sparrow-like chirruping call and a drawn-out tswee call and it is a bird of open habitats such as grassland, farmland, roadsides, dry river beds, sand dunes and open woodland. It forages on the ground for invertebrates such as beetles, spiders. It will also eat seeds such as those of grasses, the breeding season begins in August. The cup-shaped nest is placed at the base of vegetation or in the shelter of a stone and it is made of grass and built by the female. Two to five eggs are laid, three or four being most common and they are buff-white with brown blotching and are incubated for 14 to 15 days. The young birds are fed by parents and are able to fly after 14 to 16 days. The birds numbers have declined in parts of New Zealand due to the improvement of pastures, use of pesticides, watts, Dave Field Guide to Tasmanian birds, Reed New Holland, Sydney
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New Zealand plover
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The New Zealand plover, red-breasted plover, or New Zealand dotterel is an endangered species found only in certain areas of New Zealand. Its Māori names include tūturiwhatu, pukunui, and kūkuruatu, there are two subspecies, C. o. obscurus in the South Island and C. o. aquilonius in the North Island. New Zealand plovers are shorebirds and are found on sandy beaches. Parents lay eggs in the spring and summer and they nest on beaches above the high tide mark, and the nest is just a shallow hole dug in the ground, not made of twigs like a nest in a tree. The chicks hatch about 28 days after the eggs have been laid, because the nests are on the ground, chicks can walk the day they hatch and can usually fly within 6–8 weeks. The southerly subspecies, is now present on Stewart Island at the southern end of South Island. Conservation measures were put in place involving the poisoning of feral cats, the northerly subspecies has a wider range at the northerly end of the North Island and its population was about 1300 in 1989. It had recovered to about 1700 individuals by 2004 but only as a result of intensive management, the IUCN rates this bird as Endangered. New Zealand dotterel/tūturiwhatu Department of Conservation J. E. Dowding, New Zealand dotterel recovery plan, 2004–14. Department of Conservation, Wellington, New Zealand
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South Island robin
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The South Island robin, is a sparrow-sized bird found only in New Zealand, where it has the status of a protected endemic species. The birds are distributed through the South Island and Stewart Island/Rakiura. The nominate, and the Stewart Island robin are the two subspecies, the species is closely related to the North Island robin, and also to the extremely rare black robin of the Chatham Islands. The South Island robin is a passerine, 10–18 cm in length. The females and juveniles within a group of robins look similar to each other. However, North Island males are almost black with a spot just above the beak as well as the grayish-white lower breast. Females and juveniles are grayer with more variable pale patches on their breasts and throats, South Island males are dark gray except for the distinct yellowish white lower chest, while females and juveniles are again lighter gray with a less distinct breast. Finally, Stewart Island robins look similar to North Island robins, New Zealand robins are relatively long-lived, life-spans of at least 14 years have been recorded in the wild. The South Island robin has two subspecies, P. australis australis, the form, and P. australis rakiura. These subspecies do not overlap in distributions, the North Island robin, the tomtit and the black robin in the Chatham Islands are closely related species. P. traversi seems to be a Chatham Island derivative of P. australis, the family Petroicidae of Australo-Papuan robins has a total of 44 species in Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea. There is molecular evidence to suggest two waves of immigration by the Petroica genus from Australia. P. longipes and P. australis can be traced to the first, fossils of New Zealand robins can sometimes be found near pit fall deposits, as they do most of their feeding/foraging on the ground. Historically it inhabited much of lowland New Zealands South Island, but its distribution has become much more patchy in the last century due to habitat loss, the South Island robin has fared slightly better than the Stewart Island robin. There are two populations on the east coast of the Stewart Island, and slightly more common in the north, total population was lower than 500 individuals at one point. A programme of translocation to predator-free islands has since been instituted that has relatively successful at establishing new populations. When the population was introduced to Ulva Island, nesting was positively correlated with presence of broad-leaved coastal vegetation, invertebrates, including earthworms, beetles, and other arthropods foraged from the leaf litter comprise most of the South Island robins’ diet. Invertebrate prey may be cached whole or in portions, single items are cached at separate sites
