1.
Postojna Cave
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Postojna Cave is a 24,120 m long karst cave system near Postojna, southwestern Slovenia. It is the second-longest cave system in the country as well as one of its top tourism sites, the caves were created by the Pivka River. The cave was first described in the 17th century by the pioneer of study of karst phenomena, Johann Weikhard von Valvasor. In 1818, when the cave was being prepared for a visit by Francis I, the first Emperor of the Austria-Hungary, first tourist guide and electric lighting In 1819, Archduke Ferdinand visited the caves, this is when the caves became officially known as a tourist destination. Čeč became the first official tourist guide for the caves when the caves were opened to the public. Electric lighting was added in 1884, preceding even Ljubljana, the capital of Carniola, of which the cave was part at the time, Cave rails In 1872, cave rails were laid along with first cave train for tourists. At first, these were pushed along by the guides themselves, blackening of the entrance During World War II, German occupying forces used the cave to store nearly 1,000 barrels of aircraft fuel, which were destroyed in April 1944 by Slovene Partisans. The fire burned for seven days, destroying a section of the cave. After World War II After 1945, the gas locomotive was replaced by an electric one, about 5.3 kilometres of the cave system are open to the public. The cave also houses the only underground post office. The caves are home to the endemic olm, the largest troglodytic amphibian in the world. The tour through the caves includes an aquarium with some olms in it, on January 30,2016, a female olm at the cave began to lay over 50 eggs. This rare event led to news about Postojna Cave and the olm. From the end of May to mid-July 2016, twenty-two baby olms successfully hatched, Karst topography refers to a plateau in southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy, which gave the name to karst topography. Postojna Cave was carved by the Pivka River over millions of years, there are stalagmites, stalactites, and formations called curtains or draperies that look like folded curtains. The cave system is 24.12 kilometers long and is made up of four caves interconnected through the underground river. However, according to rules, the passages and siphons connecting the caves must be walked or swum through by man for them to be considered one whole. Connecting two of the cave systems will make this the longest cave system in Slovenia and one of the longest in all of Europe
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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
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Vulnerable species
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Vulnerability is mainly caused by habitat loss or destruction of the species home. Vulnerable habitat or species are monitored and can become increasingly threatened, some species listed as vulnerable may be common in captivity, an example being the military macaw. There are currently 5196 animals and 6789 plants classified as vulnerable, compared with 1998 levels of 2815 and 3222, practices such as Cryoconservation of animal genetic resources have been enforced in efforts to conserve vulnerable breeds of livestock specifically. The International Union for Conservation of Nature uses several criteria to enter species in this category, a reduction of at least 20%, projected or suspected to be met within the next ten years or three generations, whichever is the longer, based on any of, or above. Population is characterised by a restriction in its area of occupancy or in the number of locations. E) Quantitative analysis showing the probability of extinction in the wild is at least 10% within 100 years
4.
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
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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
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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
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Amphibian
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Amphibians are ectothermic, tetrapod vertebrates of the class Amphibia. They inhabit a variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arboreal or freshwater aquatic ecosystems. Thus amphibians typically start out as larvae living in water, the young generally undergo metamorphosis from larva with gills to an adult air-breathing form with lungs. Amphibians use their skin as a respiratory surface and some small terrestrial salamanders and frogs lack lungs. They are superficially similar to lizards but, along with mammals and birds, reptiles are amniotes, the earliest amphibians evolved in the Devonian period from sarcopterygian fish with lungs and bony-limbed fins, features that were helpful in adapting to dry land. They diversified and became dominant during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, over time, amphibians shrank in size and decreased in diversity, leaving only the modern subclass Lissamphibia. The three modern orders of amphibians are Anura, Urodela, and Apoda, the number of known amphibian species is approximately 7,000, of which nearly 90% are frogs. The smallest amphibian in the world is a frog from New Guinea with a length of just 7.7 mm. The largest living amphibian is the 1.8 m Chinese giant salamander, the study of amphibians is called batrachology, while the study of both reptiles and amphibians is called herpetology. The word amphibian is derived from the Ancient Greek term ἀμφίβιος, the term was initially used as a general adjective for animals that could live on land or in water, including seals and otters. Traditionally, the class Amphibia includes all tetrapod vertebrates that are not amniotes, the numbers of species cited above follows Frost and the total number of known amphibian species is over 7,000, of which nearly 90% are frogs. With the phylogenetic classification, the taxon Labyrinthodontia has been discarded as it is a group without unique defining features apart from shared primitive characteristics. Classification varies according to the phylogeny of the author and whether they use a stem-based or a node-based classification. The phylogeny of Paleozoic amphibians is uncertain, and Lissamphibia may possibly fall within groups, like the Temnospondyli or the Lepospondyli. If the common ancestor of amphibians and amniotes is included in Amphibia, all modern amphibians are included in the subclass Lissamphibia, which is usually considered a clade, a group of species that have evolved from a common ancestor. The three modern orders are Anura, Caudata, and Gymnophiona, although the fossils of several older proto-frogs with primitive characteristics are known, the oldest true frog is Prosalirus bitis, from the Early Jurassic Kayenta Formation of Arizona. It is anatomically similar to modern frogs. The oldest known caecilian is another Early Jurassic species, Eocaecilia micropodia, the earliest salamander is Beiyanerpeton jianpingensis from the Late Jurassic of northeastern China
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Lissamphibia
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The Lissamphibia are a group of tetrapods that includes all modern amphibians. Lissamphibians consist of three living groups, the Salientia, the Caudata, and the Gymnophiona, a fourth group, the Allocaudata, was moderately successful, spanning 160 million years from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Pliocene, but became extinct 2.5 million years ago. Some writers have argued that the early Permian dissorophoid Gerobatrachus hottoni is a lissamphibian, if it is not, the earliest known lissamphibians are Triadobatrachus and Czatkobatrachus from the Early Triassic. Some, if not all, lissamphibians share the following characteristics, some of these apply to the soft body parts, hence do not appear in fossils. Nevertheless, Haeckel considered the caecilians to be related to what he called Lissamphibia. In the early to mid 20th century, an origin of amphibians was favoured. With the single origin of amphibians being accepted by most herpetologists and paleontologists, however, the origin and relationships of the various lissamphibian groups both with each other and among other early tetrapods remains controversial. Not all paleontologists today are convinced that Lissamphibia is indeed a natural group, one of the hypotheses regarding their ancestors is that they evolved by paedomorphosis and miniaturization from early tetrapods. Benton, M. J. Vertebrate Palaeontology, 3rd ed. Blackwell, carroll, R. L. Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, WH Freeman & Co. San Mauro, Diego, Miguel Vences, Marina Alcobendas, Rafael Zardoya, initial diversification of living amphibians predated the breakup of Pangaea. Biology 356 - Major Features of Vertebrate Evolution by Dr. Robert Reisz, University of Toronto
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Salamander
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All present-day salamander families are grouped together under the scientific name Urodela. Salamander diversity is most abundant in the Northern Hemisphere and most species are found in the Holarctic ecozone, Salamanders never have more than four toes on their front legs and five on their rear legs, but some species have fewer digits and others lack hind limbs. Their permeable skin usually makes them reliant on habitats in or near water or other cool, some salamander species are fully aquatic throughout their lives, some take to the water intermittently, and others are entirely terrestrial as adults. Unique among vertebrates, they are capable of regenerating lost limbs, members of the family Salamandridae are mostly known as newts and lack the costal grooves along the sides of their bodies typical of other groups. The skin of some species contains the poison tetrodotoxin and these salamanders tend to be slow-moving and have bright warning coloration to advertise their toxicity. Salamanders typically lay eggs in water and have aquatic larvae, in some species and some harsh environments, salamanders reproduce while still in the larval state. In literature and legend, the salamander is associated with fire, being supposedly unharmed by the flames, more plausibly, salamanders were said to be intensely poisonous. Despite this, salamander brandy, a prepared by dunking live salamanders in fermenting fruit juices, is reputed to have hallucinogenic. The skin lacks scales and is moist and smooth to the touch, except in newts of the Salamandridae, the skin may be drab or brightly colored, exhibiting various patterns of stripes, bars, spots, blotches, or dots. Male newts become dramatically colored during the breeding season, cave species dwelling in darkness lack pigmentation and have a translucent pink or pearlescent appearance. Salamanders range in size from the minute salamanders, with a length of 2.7 cm, including the tail, to the Chinese giant salamander which reaches 1.8 m. Most, however, are between 10 and 20 cm in length, an adult salamander generally resembles a small lizard, having a basal tetrapod body form with a cylindrical trunk, four limbs, and a long tail. Their function seems to be to keep the skin moist by channeling water over the surface of the body. The feet are broad with short digits, usually four on the front feet, Salamanders do not have claws, and the shape of the foot varies according to the animals habitat. Climbing species have elongated, square-tipped toes, while rock-dwellers have larger feet with short, when ascending, the tail props up the rear of the body, while one hind foot moves forward and then swings to the other side to provide support as the other hind foot advances. In larvae and aquatic salamanders, the tail is flattened, has dorsal and ventral fins. In the families Ambystomatidae and Salamandridae, the tail, which is larger than that of the female, is used during the amplexus embrace to propel the mating couple to a secluded location. In terrestrial species, the moves to counterbalance the animal as it runs, while in the arboreal salamander and other tree-climbing species
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Proteidae
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The family Proteidae is a group of aquatic salamanders found today in the Balkan Peninsula and North America. The range of the genus Necturus runs from southern central Canada, through the midwestern United States, east to North Carolina and south to Georgia, the range of the olm, the only extant member of the genus Proteus, is limited to the Western Balkans. Proteidae, is divided into two extant genera, Necturus with five North American species, and Proteus with one extant European species and they represent an ancient group, known from fossils since the Miocene. However, molecular data and a Laurasian distribution suggest origins that go further back and this aspect of their physiology is known as pedomorphosis. Despite having lungs, which appear to provide little use in respiration, the adult gills resemble fish gills in many ways, but differ from fish gills in that they are external and lack any form of operculum or covering. The bright red exposed gills are often found closed against the body in cool, in warmer, poorly oxygenated water, the gills expand to increase water circulation and provide greater surface area for oxygen intake. Necturus salamanders such as mudpuppies also absorb oxygen through their skin, other distinguishing features of proteid salamanders, as compared with other salamanders, are the absence of eyelids and a lack of maxilary bones in the upper jaw. They show a degree of care, tending to the eggs after attaching them to submerged stones. Proteid salamanders range in size from 28 centimetres to 40 centimetres in length. Members of Necturus, commonly called mudpuppies, or waterdogs, prefer shallow lakes and streams that have slow moving water and rocks to hide under and their name originates from the misconception that they make a dog-like barking sound. Diet consists of fish and many invertebrates, including crayfish, snails. Mudpuppies mature at four to six years and can live to be more than twenty years old, progenesis is common for mudpuppies, enabling them to reach sexual maturity in their larval stage. Even though they eat fish eggs, negative effects on fish populations have not been documented, fishermen have been known to catch mudpuppies, sometimes in large numbers, but most often when ice fishing. Necturus salamanders also commonly feed on mollusks, worms, insects, the main difference between a mudpuppy and a siren is that, whereas mudpuppies have both front and hind legs, a siren will only have one pair of very small, atrophied front legs. Axolotl Data related to Proteidae at Wikispecies Media related to Proteidae at Wikimedia Commons Tree of Life, Proteidae
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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
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Subspecies
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In biological classification, subspecies is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, or a taxonomic unit in that rank. A subspecies cannot be recognized independently, a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or at least two, in zoology, under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the subspecies is the only taxonomic rank below that of species that can receive a name. In botany and mycology, under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, in bacteriology and virology, under standard bacterial nomenclature and virus nomenclature, there are recommendations but not strict requirements for recognizing other important infraspecific ranks. A taxonomist decides whether to recognize a subspecies or not, the differences between subspecies are usually less distinct than the differences between species. In zoology, the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature accepts only one rank below that of species, other groupings, infrasubspecific entities do not have names regulated by the ICZN. Such forms have no official ICZN status, though they may be useful in describing altitudinal or geographical clines, pet breeds, transgenic animals, etc. While the scientific name of a species is a binomen, the name of a subspecies is a trinomen - a binomen followed by a subspecific name. A tigers binomen is Panthera tigris, so for a Sumatran tiger the trinomen is, for example, names published before 1992 in the rank of variety are taken to be names of subspecies. In botany, subspecies is one of many ranks below that of species, such as variety, subvariety, form, the subspecific name is preceded by subsp. or ssp. as Schoenoplectus californicus ssp. tatora. A botanical name consists of at most three parts, an infraspecific name includes the species binomial, and one infraspecific epithet, such as subspecies or variety. For example, Motacilla alba alba is the subspecies of the white wagtail. The subspecies name that repeats the name is referred to in botanical nomenclature as the subspecies autonym. When zoologists disagree over whether a population is a subspecies or a full species. A subspecies is a rank below species – the only recognized rank in the zoological code. Botanists and mycologists have the choice of ranks lower than subspecies, such as variety or form, in biological terms, rather than in relation to nomenclature, a polytypic species has two or more subspecies, races, or more generally speaking, populations that need a separate description. These are separate groups that are distinct from one another and do not generally interbreed. These subspecies, races, or populations, can be named as subspecies by zoologists, a monotypic species has no distinct population or races, or rather one race comprising the whole species. A taxonomist would not name a subspecies within such a species, monotypic species can occur in several ways, All members of the species are very similar and cannot be sensibly divided into biologically significant subcategories
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Boris Sket
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Boris Sket is a Slovene zoologist. Sket obtained his doctorate at the University of Ljubljana in 1961, in 1965, he became an invertebrate zoology professor at the Biotechnical faculty in Ljubljana and remained at this position until 2006. Between 1983 and 1985, Sket served as a dean of the Biotechnical faculty, currently, he is a scientific councillor and still lectures speleobiology to graduate and post-graduate students. His research focuses on the faunistics of troglobites and speleology in general and he described over a hundred new species and genera of invertebrates, mostly crustaceans and leeches. He also serves in editorial boards of several journals and is a subject field editor of the journal Zootaxa. In 2011, Sket became a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences. Additionally, he is a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia. Ljubljana, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. List of Slovenian biologists Official page
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Adriatic Sea
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The Adriatic Sea /ˌeɪdriˈætᵻk/ is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula and the Apennine Mountains from the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto to the northwest, the countries with coasts on the Adriatic are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro and Slovenia. The Adriatic contains over 1,300 islands, mostly located along its eastern, Croatian and it is divided into three basins, the northern being the shallowest and the southern being the deepest, with a maximum depth of 1,233 metres. The Otranto Sill, a ridge, is located at the border between the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. The prevailing currents flow counterclockwise from the Strait of Otranto, along the eastern coast, tidal movements in the Adriatic are slight, although larger amplitudes are known to occur occasionally. The Adriatics salinity is lower than the Mediterraneans because the Adriatic collects a third of the water flowing into the Mediterranean. The surface water temperatures range from 30 °C in summer to 12 °C in winter. The Adriatic Sea sits on the Apulian or Adriatic Microplate, which separated from the African Plate in the Mesozoic era, the plates movement contributed to the formation of the surrounding mountain chains and Apennine tectonic uplift after its collision with the Eurasian plate. In the Late Oligocene, the Apennine Peninsula first formed, separating the Adriatic Basin from the rest of the Mediterranean, all types of sediment are found in the Adriatic, with the bulk of the material transported by the Po and other rivers on the western coast. The western coast is alluvial or terraced, while the eastern coast is indented with pronounced karstification. There are dozens of protected areas in the Adriatic, designed to protect the seas karst habitats. The sea is abundant in flora and fauna—more than 7,000 species are identified as native to the Adriatic, many of them endemic, rare and threatened ones. The Adriatics shores are populated by more than 3.5 million people, the earliest settlements on the Adriatic shores were Etruscan, Illyrian, and Greek. By the 2nd century BC, the shores were under Romes control, following Italian unification, the Kingdom of Italy started an eastward expansion that lasted until the 20th century. Following World War I and the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, the former disintegrated during the 1990s, resulting in four new states on the Adriatic coast. Italy and Albania agreed on their maritime boundary in 1992, Fisheries and tourism are significant sources of income all along the Adriatic coast. Adriatic Croatias tourism industry has grown faster economically than the rest of the Adriatic Basins, maritime transport is also a significant branch of the areas economy—there are 19 seaports in the Adriatic that each handle more than a million tonnes of cargo per year. The largest Adriatic seaport by annual cargo turnover is the Port of Trieste, in the southeast, the Adriatic Sea connects to the Ionian Sea at the 72-kilometre wide Strait of Otranto
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Troglobite
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A troglobite is an animal that lives entirely in the dark parts of caves. Roughly speaking, troglobites may be classed as troglofauna and stygofauna, troglobites typically have evolutionary adaptations to cave life. Examples of such adaptations include slow metabolism, loss of sight, conversely, as opposed to lost or reduced functions, many species have extreme sensory adaptations for sense of touch or other stimuli that do not depend on light. Such adaptations may take the form of long antennae or sensory hairs, troglobites commonly do not survive well outside caves and therefore cannot travel between separate cave systems. As a result many species are endemic to a cave or system of caves. Strictly speaking, in contrast to troglobites, creatures that shelter in caves, examples of trogloxenes include both nocturnal species such as cave-dwelling bats, and diurnal animals such as cave swallows. Most bats sleep in caves during the day and hunt at night, however some fossorials which spend their whole lives underground might be considered subterranean fauna, although they are not true troglofauna as they do not live in caves. Beauty rat snake There are no known birds that live exclusively in caves
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Aquatic animal
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An aquatic animal is an animal, either vertebrate or invertebrate, which lives in water for most or all of its life. It may breathe air or extract its oxygen from that dissolved in water through specialised organs called gills, natural environments and the animals that live in them can be categorized as aquatic or terrestrial. The term aquatic can in theory be applied to animals that live in fresh water or salt water. However, the marine is most commonly used for animals that live in saltwater, i. e. in oceans, seas. Aquatic animals are often of concern to conservationists because of the fragility of their environments. Aquatic animals are subject to pressure from overfishing, destructive fishing, marine pollution, the term aquatic mammal is also applied to four-footed mammals like the river otter and beavers, although these are technically amphibious. Amphibians, like frogs, while requiring water, are separated into their own environmental classification, the majority of amphibians have an aquatic larval stage, like a tadpole, but then live as terrestrial adults, and may return to the water to mate. Certain fish also evolved to breathe air to survive oxygen-deprived water, such as arapaima, Aquatic mammal Aquatic plant Freshwater snail List of semiaquatic tetrapods Marine biology Marine invertebrates Marine mammal Annelids
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Dinaric Alps
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The Dinaric Alps or Dinarides is a mountain chain which spans from Italy in the northwest, over Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania to Kosovo in the southeast. They extend for 645 kilometres along the coast of the Adriatic Sea, from the Julian Alps in the northwest down to the Šar-Korab massif, where the mountain direction changes to north-south. The highest mountain of the Dinaric Alps is Mount Triglav, a located in Julian Alps in north west Slovenia. The Dinaric Alps are the fifth most rugged and extensively mountainous area of Europe after the Caucasus Mountains, Alps, Pyrenees and Scandinavian Mountains. They are formed largely of Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary rocks of dolomite, limestone, sand and conglomerates formed by seas and lakes that had once covered the area. During the Alpine earth movements that occurred 50–100 million years ago, immense lateral pressures folded, the Dinarides are named after Mount Dinara, a prominent peak in the center of the mountain range on the border of Croatia and Bosnia. The Mesozoic limestone forms a distinctive region of the Balkans, notable for features such as the Karst. The Quaternary ice ages had relatively little direct influence on the Balkans. No permanent ice caps existed, and there is evidence of extensive glaciation. Only the highest summits of Durmitor, Orjen and Prenj have glacial valleys, however, in the Prokletije, a range on the northern Albanian border that runs east to west, there is evidence of major glaciation. One geological feature of great importance to the landscape of the Dinarides must be considered in more detail. They are hard and slow to erode, and often persist as steep jagged escarpments, through which steep-sided gorges, the partially submerged western Dinaric Alps form the numerous islands and harbors along the Croatian coast. The most extensive example of limestone mountains in Europe are those of the Karst of the Dinaric Alps, here, all the characteristic features are encountered again and again as one travels through this wild and underpopulated country. Limestone is a porous rock, yet very hard and resistant to erosion. Water is the most important corrosive force, dissolving the limestone by chemical action of its natural acidity, as it percolates down through cracks in the limestone it opens up fissures and channels, often of considerable depth, so that whole systems of underground drainage develop. During subsequent millennia these work deeper, leaving in their wake enormous waterless caverns, sinkholes and grottoes and forming underground labyrinths of channels, the roofs of some of these caverns may eventually fall in, to produce great perpendicular-sided gorges, exposing the water to the surface once more. The Dinaric rivers carved many canyons characteristic for Dinaric Alps, only along the Dinaric gorges is communication possible across the Karst, and roads and railways tunnel through precipitous cliffs and traverse narrow ledges above roaring torrents. A number of springs and rivers rise in the Dinaric range, at the same time, the purity of these rocks is such that the rivers are crystal clear, and there is little soil-making residue
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Endemism
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The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species that is endemic is precinctive, the word endemic is from New Latin endēmicus, from Greek ενδήμος, endēmos, native. Endēmos is formed of en meaning in, and dēmos meaning the people, the term, precinctive, has been suggested by some scientists, and was first used in botany by MacCaughey in 1917. It is the equivalent of endemism, precinction was perhaps first used by Frank and McCoy. That definition excludes artificial confinement of examples by humans in far-off botanical gardens or zoological parks, physical, climatic, and biological factors can contribute to endemism. The orange-breasted sunbird is found in the fynbos vegetation zone of southwestern South Africa. The glacier bear is found only in limited places in Southeast Alaska, political factors can play a part if a species is protected, or actively hunted, in one jurisdiction but not another. There are two subcategories of endemism, paleoendemism and neoendemism, paleoendemism refers to species that were formerly widespread but are now restricted to a smaller area. Neoendemism refers to species that have arisen, such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through hybridization. Endemics can easily become endangered or extinct if their restricted habitat changes, particularly—but not only—due to human actions, there were millions of both Bermuda petrels and Bermuda cedars in Bermuda when it was settled at the start of the seventeenth century. By the end of the century, the petrels were thought extinct, cedars, already ravaged by centuries of shipbuilding, were driven nearly to extinction in the twentieth century by the introduction of a parasite. Bermuda petrels and cedars are now rare, as are species endemic to Bermuda
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Karst
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Karst topography is a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves and it has also been documented for more weathering-resistant rocks, such as quartzite, given the right conditions. Subterranean drainage may limit surface water, with few to no rivers or lakes, the English word karst was borrowed from German Karst in the late 19th century. The German word came into use before the 19th century, according to the prevalent interpretation, the term is derived from the German name for the Karst region, a limestone plateau above the city of Trieste in the northern Adriatic. Scholars disagree, however, on whether the German word was borrowed from Slovene, the Slovene common noun kras was first attested in the 18th century, and the adjective form kraški in the 16th century. The Slovene words arose through metathesis from the reconstructed form *korsъ, ultimately, the word is of Mediterranean origin, believed to derive from some Romanized Illyrian base. It has been suggested that the word may derive from the Proto-Indo-European root karra- rock, the name may also be connected to the oronym Karsádios oros cited by Ptolemy, and perhaps also to Latin Carusardius. The development of karst occurs whenever acidic water starts to break down the surface of bedrock near its cracks, as the bedrock continues to degrade, its cracks tend to get bigger. As time goes on, these fractures will become wider, if this underground drainage system does form, it will speed up the development of karst formations there because more water will be able to flow through the region, giving it more erosive power. The carbonic acid that causes karstic features is formed as rain passes through the atmosphere picking up carbon dioxide, once the rain reaches the ground, it may pass through soil that can provide much more CO2 to form a weak carbonic acid solution, which dissolves calcium carbonate. The oxidation of sulfides leading to the formation of acid can also be one of the corrosion factors in karst formation. As oxygen -rich surface waters seep into deep anoxic karst systems, they bring oxygen, sulfuric acid then reacts with calcium carbonate, causing increased erosion within the limestone formation. This chain of reactions is, This reaction chain forms gypsum, the karstification of a landscape may result in a variety of large- or small-scale features both on the surface and beneath. On exposed surfaces, small features may include solution flutes, runnels, limestone pavement, medium-sized surface features may include sinkholes or cenotes, vertical shafts, foibe, disappearing streams, and reappearing springs. Large-scale features may include limestone pavements, poljes, and karst valleys, mature karst landscapes, where more bedrock has been removed than remains, may result in karst towers, or haystack/eggbox landscapes. Beneath the surface, complex underground systems and extensive caves. Some of the most dramatic of these formations can be seen in Thailands Phangnga Bay, calcium carbonate dissolved into water may precipitate out where the water discharges some of its dissolved carbon dioxide. Rivers which emerge from springs may produce tufa terraces, consisting of layers of calcite deposited over extended periods of time, in caves, a variety of features collectively called speleothems are formed by deposition of calcium carbonate and other dissolved minerals
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Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
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Trieste
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Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a strip of Italian territory lying between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city. It is also located near Croatia some further 30 kilometres south, Trieste is located at the head of the Gulf of Trieste and throughout history it has been influenced by its location at the crossroads of Latin, Slavic, and Germanic cultures. In 2009, it had a population of about 205,000 and it is the capital of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trieste was one of the oldest parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. In the 19th century, it was the most important port of one of the Great Powers of Europe, as a prosperous seaport in the Mediterranean region, Trieste became the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the fin de siècle period at the end of the 19th century it emerged as an important hub for literature, Trieste underwent an economic revival during the 1930s, and Trieste was an important spot in the struggle between the Eastern and Western blocs after the Second World War. Today, the city is in one of the richest regions of Italy, Roman authors also transliterated the name as Tergestum. Modern names of the city include, Italian, Trieste, Slovene, Trst, German, Triest, Hungarian, Trieszt, Croatian, Trst, Serbian, Трст/Trst, Trieste lies in the northernmost part of the high Adriatic in northeastern Italy, near the border with Slovenia. The city lies on the Gulf of Trieste, built mostly on a hillside that becomes a mountain, Triestes urban territory lies at the foot of an imposing escarpment that comes down abruptly from the Karst Plateau towards the sea. The karst landforms close to the city reach an elevation of 458 metres above sea level and it lies on the borders of the Italian geographical region, the Balkan Peninsula, and the Mitteleuropa. The territory of Trieste is composed of different climate zones depending on the distance from the sea. The average temperatures are 5.4 °C in January and 23.3 °C in July, the climatic setting of the city is humid subtropical climate. On average, humidity levels are low, while only two months receive slightly less than 60 mm of precipitation. Trieste along with the Istrian peninsula has evenly distributed rainfall above 1,000 mm in total, snow occurs on average 0 –2 days per year. Temperatures are very mild - lows below zero are somewhat rare, winter maxima are lower than in typical Mediterranean zone with quite high minima. Summer is very warm with maxima about 28 °C and lows above 20 °C, the absolute maximum of the last fifty years is 37.2 °C in 2003, whereas the absolute minimum is −14.6 °C in 1956. Since the second millennium BC, the location was an inhabited site, originally an Illyrian settlement, the Veneti entered the region in the 10th-9th c. BC and seem to have given the town its name, Tergeste, still later, the town was later captured by the Carni, a tribe of the Eastern Alps, before becoming part of the Roman republic in 177 BC during the Istrian War
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Introduced species
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Non-native species can have various effects on the local ecosystem. Introduced species that become established and spread beyond the place of introduction are called invasive species, some have a negative effect on a local ecosystem. Some introduced species may have no effect or only minor impact. Some species have been introduced intentionally to combat pests and they are called biocontrols and may be regarded as beneficial as an alternative to pesticides in agriculture for example. In some instances the potential for being beneficial or detrimental in the long run remains unknown, a list of some introduced species is given in a separate article. The effects of introduced species on natural environments have gained much scrutiny from scientists, governments, the terminology associated with introduced species is now in flux for various reasons. The term invasive refers only to those species that become established, for practical purposes, this term is applied only to invasive species that cause damage. With respect to plants, these latter are in this case defined as either ornamental or cultivated plants, also called an exotic or non-native species. Such species might be termed naturalized, established, wild non-native species, if they further spread beyond the place of introduction they are called invasive. The transition from introduction, to establishment and to invasion has been described in the context of plants, introduced species are essentially non-native species. Invasive species are introduced species that spreadwidely or quickly and cause harm, be that to the environment, human health. There have been calls from scientists to consider a species only in terms of their spread. According to a definition, an invasive species is one that has been introduced and become a pest in its new location. The term is used to both a sense of urgency and actual or potential harm. Executive Order 13112 defines invasive species as a species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health. The biological definition of species, on the other hand, makes no reference to the harm they may cause. From a regulatory perspective, it is neither desirable nor practical to list as undesirable or outright ban all non-native species, regulations require a definitional distinction between non-natives that are deemed especially onerous and all others. Introduced pest species that are listed as invasive, best fit the definition of an invasive species
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Vicenza
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Vicenza listen is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region at the base of the Monte Berico. Vicenza is approximately 60 kilometres west of Venice and 200 kilometres east of Milan, Vicenza is a thriving and cosmopolitan city, with a rich history and culture, and many museums, art galleries, piazzas, villas, churches and elegant Renaissance palazzi. With the Palladian Villas of the Veneto in the area, and his renowned Teatro Olimpico. In December 2008, Vicenza had an population of 115,927. Additionally, about one fifth of the gold and jewelry is made in Vicenza. Another important sector is the engineering/computer components industry, vicentia was settled by the Italic Euganei tribe and then by the Paleo-Veneti tribe in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. The Romans allied themselves with the Paleo-Veneti in their fight against the Celtic tribes that populated north-western Italy, the Roman presence in the area grew exponentially over time and the Paleo-Veneti were gradually assimilated. In 157 BC, the city was a de facto Roman centre and was given the name of Vicetia or Vincentia, the citizens of Vicetia received Roman citizenship and were inscribed into the Roman tribe Romilia in 49 BC. It was also an important Lombard city and then a Frankish center, numerous Benedictine monasteries were built in the Vicenza area, beginning in the 6th century. In 899, Vicenza was destroyed by Magyar raiders, in 1001, Otto III handed over the government of the city to the bishop, and its communal organization had an opportunity to develop, separating soon from the episcopal authority. When peace was restored, however, the old rivalry with Padua, Bassano, and other cities was renewed, besides there were the internal factions of the Vivaresi. The tyrannical Ezzelino III from Bassano drove the Guelphs out of Vicenza, the independent commune joined the Second Lombard League against Emperor Frederick II, and was sacked by that monarch, after which it was annexed to Ezzelinos dominions. Vicenza came under rule of Venice in 1404, and its subsequent history is that of Venice and it was besieged by the Emperor Sigismund, and Maximilian I held possession of it in 1509 and 1516. Vicenza was a candidate to host the Council of Trent, after 1797, under Napoleonic rule, it was made a duché grand-fief within Napoleons personal Kingdom of Italy for general Caulaincourt, also imperial Grand-Écuyer. After 1814, Vicenza passed to the Austrian Empire, in 1848, however, the populace rose against Austria, more violently than in any other Italian centre apart from Milan and Brescia. As a part of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, it was annexed to Italy after the Third War of Italian independence, after the end of the latter, what followed was a period of depression following the devasatation caused by two world wars. In the following years, the development grew vertiginously
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Kranj
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Kranj is the fourth-largest city in Slovenia, with a population of 37,373. It is located approximately 20 kilometres northwest of Ljubljana, the centre of the City Municipality of Kranj and of the traditional region of Upper Carniola is a mainly industrial city with significant electronics and rubber industries. The nucleus of the city is a medieval old town, built at the confluence of the Kokra. The city is served by the Kranj railway station on the route from Ljubljana to Munich, Germany, slovenias national airport, Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport is also very close to Kranj, considerably more so than its nominal client, Ljubljana. Kranj was attested in sources in the 5th century and c.670 as Carnium. The Slovene name is derived from Slavic *Korn’ь, borrowed from Romance Carnium in late antiquity, like the Latin regional name Carnia, it is derived from the northern Italic tribe known as the Carnī. The name of the tribe is derived from the Celtic root *karno- peak, hill. The German name of the town was Krainburg, the name of the historical region of Carniola is a Latin diminutive form of Carnia. Archaeological finds show that Kranj was settled in prehistoric times, the Romans founded the settlement of Carnium at the confluence of the Sava and Kokra. In the 6th century, a major Germanic settlement stood at the site. The Gothic settlement was continued by the Lombards and existed until c, AD580, when it was destroyed by invading Slavs. Traces of the old Slavic settlement date from the 9th and 10th centuries, as the seat of the margraves of Carniola in the 11th century, it was the most important settlement in the territory. The town itself is believed to have developed in the early 13th century, citizens of the town of Kranj appear in a document from 1221 and it was the seat of a court whose jurisdiction extended between that of Radovljica and Kamnik. In 1414 a decision was issued relieving the citizens of the town from paying tolls, in 1422 an ordinance required houses to be built of stone to prevent fires. A parish school was established in Kranj in 1423, and the year the right was granted to Kranj to elect its own judge. Kranj was laid waste in 1471 in an Ottoman attack, emperor Frederick III granted Kranj the right to collect tolls in documents from 1488 and 1493, and a 1493 document also granted the town the right to hold fairs twice a year. The town hospice records date back to the 15th century, crafts developed in Kranj during the Middle Ages. Mills first developed along the Sava and Kokra rivers, and this was followed by butchers, fur merchants, hide and wood processors, habsburg efforts to maintain Viennas monopoly on trade with Italy resulted in trade routes bypassing Kranj
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Slovene language
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Slovene or Slovenian belongs to the group of South Slavic languages. It is spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide and it is the first language of about 2.1 million Slovenian people and is one of the 24 official and working languages of the European Union. Standard Slovene is the standard language that was formed in the 18th century, mostly based on Upper and Lower Carniolan dialect groups. For example, the Resian and Torre dialects in the Italian Province of Udine differ most from other Slovene dialects, the distinctive characteristics of Slovene are dual grammatical number, two accentual norms, and abundant inflection. Although Slovene is basically an SVO language, word order is very flexible, Slovene has a T-V distinction, second-person plural forms are used for individuals as a sign of respect. Slovene and Slovak are the two modern Slavic languages whose names for themselves literally mean Slavic. Slovene is an Indo-European language belonging to the Western subgroup of the South Slavic branch of the Slavic languages, furthermore, Slovene shares certain linguistic characteristics with all South Slavic languages, including those of the Eastern subgroup, such as Bulgarian. The Slovene language also has commonalities with the West Slavic languages. Like all Slavic languages, Slovene traces its roots to the same group of languages that produced Old Church Slavonic. The earliest known examples of a distinct, written Slovene dialect are from the Freising Manuscripts, the consensus estimate of their date of origin is between 972 and 1093. These religious writings are among the oldest surviving manuscripts in any Slavic language and this linguistic border remained almost unchanged until the late 19th century, when a second process of Germanization took place, mostly in Carinthia. Between the 9th and 12th century, proto-Slovene spread into northern Istria, during most of the Middle Ages, Slovene was a vernacular language of the peasantry, although it was also spoken in most of the towns on Slovene territory, together with German or Italian. Although during this time, German emerged as the language of the nobility, Slovene had some role in the courtly life of the Carinthian, Carniolan and Styrian nobility. This is proved by the survival of certain ritual formulas in Slovene, the words Buge waz primi, gralva Venus. The first printed Slovene words, stara pravda, appeared in 1515 in Vienna in a poem of the German mercenaries who suppressed the Slovene peasant revolt. Standard Slovene emerged in the half of the 16th century, thanks to the works of Slovene Lutheran authors. During this period, German had a influence on Slovene. Many Slovene scientists before the 1920s also wrote in languages, mostly German
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Macedonian language
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It is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia and a recognized minority language in parts of Albania, Romania and Serbia. Standard Macedonian was implemented as the language of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia in 1945 and has since developed a modern literature. Most of the codification was formalized during the same period, Macedonian dialects form a continuum with Bulgarian dialects, they in turn form a broader continuum with Serbo-Croatian through the transitional Torlakian dialects. The name of the Macedonian language is a matter of controversy in Greece. Macedonians closest relative is Bulgarian, with which it has a degree of mutual intelligibility. The next closest relative is Serbo-Croatian, all South Slavic languages, including Macedonian, form a dialect continuum. Its other principal members are Romanian, Greek and Albanian, all of which belong to different genetic branches of the Indo-European family and they are also the only Slavic languages with any definite articles. Bulgarian and Macedonian are the only Indo-European languages that use of the narrative mood. Prior to the codification of the language, Macedonian dialects were described by linguists as being either dialects of Bulgarian or Serbian. Similarly, Torlakian was also regarded as Bulgarian. On the other hand, many Macedonian intellectuals maintained that their language was neither a dialect of Serbian nor of Bulgarian, but the core of its standard was not formed out of dialects or variants that had ever been covered by the Bulgarian standard. Consequently, its autonomy could not have resulted from a conscious distancing of a variant of a pluricentric language, like the other South Slavic standards, the Macedonian standard was based on dialects which had never before been covered by a standard. Modern questions of classification are largely shaped by political and social factors, likewise, this view does not take into account the fact that a Macedonian koiné language was already in existence. The codifiers ultimately chose the dialects, but did so because they were most widespread. The population of the Republic of Macedonia was 2,022,547 in 2002, outside of the Republic, there are Macedonians living in other parts of the geographical area of Macedonia. There are ethnic Macedonian minorities in neighbouring Albania, in Bulgaria, in Greece, according to the official Albanian census of 1989,4,697 ethnic Macedonians reside in Albania. A large number of Macedonians live outside the traditional Balkan Macedonian region, with Australia, Canada, according to a 1964 estimate, approximately 580,000 Macedonians live outside of the Macedonian Republic, nearly 30% of the total population. The Macedonian language has the status of official language only in the Republic of Macedonia, and is a minority and official language in parts of Albania, Romania
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Montenegrin language
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Montenegrin /ˌmɒntᵻˈniːɡrᵻn/ is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language used as the official language of Montenegro. Montenegros language has historically and traditionally been called Serbian, the idea of a Montenegrin standard language separate from Serbian appeared in the 2000s after Serbia and Montenegro broke up, via proponents of Montenegrin independence. Montenegrin became the language of Montenegro with the ratification of a new constitution on 22 October 2007. The Montenegrin standard is still emerging and its orthography was established on 10 July 2009 with the addition of two letters to the alphabet, although the grammar and a school curriculum are yet to be approved. Their usage remained controversial and they achieved only limited public acceptance and they had been used for official documents since 2009, but in February 2017, the Assembly of Montenegro removed them from any type of governmental documentation. In January 2008, the government of Montenegro formed the Council for the Codification of the Montenegrin Language, proceeding documents will, after verification, become a part of the educational programme in Montenegrin schools. The first Montenegrin standard was proposed in July 2009. In addition to the Serbo-Croatian standard, the proposal introduced two additional letters, ⟨ś⟩ and ⟨ź⟩, to replace the digraphs ⟨sj⟩ and ⟨zj⟩. The Council has criticized this act, saying it comes from a small group, on 21 June 2010, the Council for General Education adopted the first Montenegrin Grammar. The language remains an issue in Montenegro. In the previous census of 1991, the vast majority of Montenegrin citizens,510,320 or 82. 97%, declared themselves speakers of the official language. The 1981 population census recorded a Serbo-Croatian-speaking majority. However, in the first Communist censuses, the vast majority of the population declared Serbian their native language, according to the Constitution of Montenegro, the official language of the republic since 1992 is Serbian of the Ijekavian standard. After World War II and until 1992, the language of Montenegro was Serbo-Croatian. Before that, in the previous Montenegrin realm, the language in use was called Serbian, the new constitution, adopted on 19 October 2007, deemed Montenegrin to be the official language of Montenegro. The most recent population census conducted in Montenegro was in 2011, according to it,36. 97% of the population declared Montenegrin their native language, and 42. 88% declared Serbian their native language. Mijat Šuković, a prominent Montenegrin lawyer, wrote a version of the constitution which passed the parliaments constitutional committee. Šuković suggested Montenegrin as the language of Montenegro
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Serbian language
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Serbian is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language mainly used by Serbs. It is the language of Serbia and one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, it is a minority language in Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia. Standard Serbian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, which is also the basis of Standard Croatian, Bosnian, the other dialect spoken by Serbs is Torlakian in southeastern Serbia, which is transitional to Macedonian and Bulgarian. Serbian is practically the only European standard language with complete synchronic digraphia, the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić, who created the alphabet on phonemic principles. The Latin alphabet was designed by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1830, Serbian is a standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian, a Slavic language, of the South Slavic subgroup. Other standardized forms of Serbo-Croatian are Bosnian, Croatian, and Montenegrin and it has lower intelligibility with the Eastern South Slavic languages Bulgarian and Macedonian, than with Slovene. The 2011 census show that 42. 88% still declare Serbian to be their native language, Standard Serbian language uses both Cyrillic and Latin script. Even in official government documents this constitutional requirement is rarely enforced, Serbian is a rare example of synchronic digraphia, a situation where all literate members of a society have two interchangeable writing systems available to them. Media and publishers typically select one alphabet or another, for example, the public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia, predominantly uses the Cyrillic script whereas the privately run broadcasters, like RTV Pink, predominantly use the Latin script. A survey from 2014 showed that 47% of the Serbian population favors the Latin alphabet whereas 36% favors the Cyrillic one and these are the tenses of the indicative mood. Apart from the mood, there is also the imperative mood. The conditional mood has two more tenses, the first conditional and the second conditional, Serbian has active and passive voice. As for the verb forms, Serbian has one infinitive. Most Serbian words are of native Slavic lexical stock, tracing back to the Proto-Slavic language, there are many loanwords from different languages, reflecting cultural interaction throughout history. Notable loanwords were borrowed from Greek, Latin, Italian, Turkish, Hungarian, Russian, Serbian literature emerged in the Middle Ages, and included such works as Miroslavljevo jevanđelje in 1192 and Dušanov zakonik in 1349. In the mid-15th century, Serbia was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, however, some of the greatest literary works in Serbian come from this time, in the form of oral literature, the most notable form being Serbian epic poetry. The epic poems were written down in the 19th century, and preserved in oral tradition up to the 1950s
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Croatian language
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It is the official and literary standard of Croatia and one of the official languages of the European Union. Croatian is also one of the languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a recognized minority language in Serbia. Croatian is written in Gajs Latin alphabet, besides the Shtokavian dialect, on which Standard Croatian is based, there are two other main dialects, Chakavian and Kajkavian. It is still used now in parts of Istria, which became a crossroads of various mixtures of Chakavian with Ekavian/Ijekavian/Ikavian dialects, the cultural apex of this 17th century idiom is represented by the editions of Adrianskoga mora sirena by Petar Zrinski and Putni tovaruš by Katarina Zrinska. However, this first linguistic renaissance in Croatia was halted by the execution of Petar Zrinski. Subsequently the Croatian elite in the 18th century gradually abandoned this combined Croatian standard, specifically, three major groups of dialects were spoken on Croatian territory, and there had been several literary languages over four centuries. The leader of the Illyrian movement Ljudevit Gaj standardized the Latin alphabet in 1830–1850, the uniform Neo-Shtokavian then became common in the Croatian elite. In the 1860s, the Zagreb Philological School dominated the Croatian cultural life, drawing upon linguistic, while it was dominant over the rival Rijeka Philological School and Zadar Philological Schools, its influence waned with the rise of the Croatian Vukovians. Croatian is commonly characterized by the Ijekavian pronunciation, the use of the Latin alphabet. Some differences are absolute, while some appear mainly in the frequency of use, Croatian, although technically a form of Serbo-Croatian, is sometimes considered a distinct language by itself. Differences between various forms of Serbo-Croatian are often exaggerated for political reasons. Most Croatian linguists regard Croatian as a language that is considered key to national identity. The issue is sensitive in Croatia as the notion of a language being the most important characteristic of a nation is widely accepted. The terms Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat are still used as a term for all these forms by foreign scholars. Within ex-Yugoslavia, the term has largely replaced by the ethnic terms Serbian, Croatian. In 2013, the EU started publishing a Croatian language version of its official gazette, Standard Croatian is the official language of the Republic of Croatia and, along with Standard Bosnian and Standard Serbian, one of three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is also official in the regions of Burgenland, Molise, additionally, it has co-official status alongside Romanian in the communes of Carașova and Lupac, Romania. Croatian is officially used and taught at all the universities in Croatia, there is no regulatory body that determines the proper usage of Croatian
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Natural history
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Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. It encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it, with articles nowadays more often published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. For example, geobiology has a strong multi-disciplinary nature combining scientists, a person who studies natural history is known as a naturalist or natural historian. The English term natural history is a translation of the Latin historia naturalis and its meaning has narrowed progressively with time, while the meaning of the related term nature has widened. In antiquity, it covered essentially anything connected with nature or which used materials drawn from nature. For example, Pliny the Elders encyclopedia of this title, published circa 77 to 79 AD, covers astronomy, geography, man and his technology, medicine and superstition as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two divisions, the humanities and divinity, with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry, natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits, the astronomer, William Herschel was also a natural historian. Instead of working with plants or minerals he worked with the stars and he spent his time building telescopes to see the stars and the rest of the time watching the stars. In the beginning, he believed there to be a known as a nebulae. Herschel can be considered a natural historian because he observed the natural world, in the process he made charts of all the stars and kept records of all that he saw. S. Wilcove and T. Eisner, The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior and it encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do. Some definitions go further, focusing on observation of organisms in their environment. Bartholomew, A student of history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants. A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a component, as seen in a recent definition by H. W. Greene
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Johann Weikhard von Valvasor
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He is known as a pioneer of study of karst phenomena. Valvasor was born in the town of Ljubljana, then Duchy of Carniola, in the 16th century, It was Johann Baptist Valvasor who established the family Valvasor in the Duchy of Carniola in central Europe in a part of Austria that is now the Republic of Slovenia. In medieval Latin Valvasor or Valvasore held the meaning the carrier of the feud, in western Europe its use can be traced back to the 11th century. Neither the exact day nor the place of Valvasors birth are known. He was the child born to Bartholomäus and Anna Maria Freiin von Rauber. His godparents were Freiherr Konrad Ruess von Ruessenstein from the Strmol Castle, Valvasors father died when the boy was ten years old. His mother died when he was 16, at the time he was attending the Jesuit school in Ljubljana. Graduating in 1659 at the age of seventeen, he did not choose to continue his studies at a university and this journey lasted fourteen years and it even took him to northern Africa. During this period, he joined the army in the Austrian-Turkish War, shortly after marrying Anna Rosina Grafenweger in 1672, Valvasor acquired the Bogenšperk Castle near Litija, where he arranged a writing, drawing and printing workshop. Valvasor spent a fortune on the publishing of his books, towards the end of his life, his debts forced him to sell Bogenšperk Castle, his vast library, Valvasor died in September 1693 in Krško. He also recorded the first written document on vampires when he wrote on the legend of a vampire in Istria named Jure Grando, from 2009 until 2012, it was translated into Slovene by Doris, Primož and Božidar Debenjak. The initiator, project manager, editor and technical editor of this publishing project was Tomaž Čeč. Valvasor was a pioneer of study of karst phenomena. org - Life and work of Johann Weichard Freiherr von Valvasor J. W. F
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The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola
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The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola is an encyclopedia published in Nuremberg in 1689 by the polymath Johann Weikhard von Valvasor. It is the most important work on his homeland, the Duchy of Carniola, written in New High German, the anthology was published in 15 volumes, divided into four sections with 3552 large-format pages and 24 annexes. It was lavishly illustrated with 528 copperplate engravings, the work refers to history, geography, topography, medicine, biology, geology, theology, customs and folklore of the Carniolan region that makes up a large part of present-day Slovenia. Valvasor could rely on elder accounts, nevertheless the meticulously researched, from 2009 until 2012, it was translated into Slovene by Doris, Primož and Božidar Debenjak. The initiator, project manager, editor and technical editor of this project was Tomaž Čeč. Valvasor himself rather intended to write a kind of travelogue than a dictionary, the author also sprinkles anecdotes, fairytales and poems to diversify the composition. RTVSLO, 2012/04/ Družinske zgodbe, Družina Debenjak - conversation with the translators of the work to Slovene, volumes 1–4 online at the Wolfenbüttel Digital Library
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Dragon
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A dragon is a legendary creature, typically scaled or fire-spewing and with serpentine, reptilian or avian traits, that features in the myths of many cultures around world. The two most well-known cultural traditions of dragon are The European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Balkans, most are depicted as reptilian creatures with animal-level intelligence, and are uniquely six-limbed. The Chinese dragon, with counterparts in Japan, Korea and other East Asian, most are depicted as serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence, and are quadrupeds. The two traditions may have evolved separately, but have influenced each other to a certain extent, the English word dragon and Latin word draco derives from Greek δράκων, dragon, serpent of huge size, water-snake. The Greek and Latin term referred to any great serpent, not necessarily mythological, a dragon is a mythological representation of a reptile. In antiquity, dragons were mostly envisaged as serpents, but since the Middle Ages, it has become common to them with legs. Dragons are usually shown in modern times with a body like a huge lizard, the European dragon has bat-like wings growing from its back. A dragon-like creature with wings but only a pair of legs is known as a wyvern. The association of the serpent with a monstrous opponent overcome by a deity has its roots in the mythology of the Ancient Near East, including Canaanite, Hittite. Humbaba, the fire-breathing dragon-fanged beast first described in the Epic of Gilgamesh, is described as a dragon with Gilgamesh playing the part of dragon-slayer. The folk-lore motif of the dragon guarding gold may have come from earlier Bronze Age customs of introducing serpents to village granaries to deter rats or mice. Although dragons occur in many legends around the world, different cultures have varying stories about monsters that have been grouped together under the dragon label, some dragons are said to breathe fire or to be poisonous, such as in the Old English poem Beowulf. They are commonly portrayed as serpentine or reptilian, hatching from eggs and they are sometimes portrayed as hoarding treasure. Some myths portray them with a row of dorsal spines, European dragons are more often winged, while Chinese dragons resemble large snakes. Dragons can have a number of legs, none, two, four, or more when it comes to early European literature. Dragons are often held to have spiritual significance in various religions. In many Asian cultures, dragons were, and in some still are, revered as representative of the primal forces of nature, religion. They are associated with wisdom—often said to be wiser than humans—and longevity and they are commonly said to possess some form of magic or other supernatural power, and are often associated with wells, rain, and rivers
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Cave salamander
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Several salamanders that primarily or exclusively inhabit caves have commonly been termed cave salamanders. Some of these animals have developed special, even extreme, adaptations to their subterranean environments and these adaptations include rudimentary eyes—thus the related term blind salamanders—or absence of pigmentation, rendering them a pale yellowish or pinkish color. With the highly notable exception of Proteus anguinus, all cave salamanders are members of the family Plethodontidae, the first dedicated scientific study of a cave animal was focused upon a cave salamander, Proteus anguinus. It was originally identified as a larva by Johann Weikhard von Valvasor in 1689. Later, the Austrian naturalist Joseph Nicolaus Lorenz described it scientifically in 1768, the species he described was known to the locals as a cave puppet and is now known to be Eurycea lucifuga. His discovery was not surprising at the time because E. lucifuga inhabits near the entrance of caves, thus an in-depth exploration was not required, and, E. lucifuga is neither blind nor depigmented
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Eye
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Eyes are organs of the visual system. They provide organisms vision, the ability to process visual detail, eyes detect light and convert it into electro-chemical impulses in neurons. Eyes with resolving power have come in ten different forms. Image-resolving eyes are present in molluscs, chordates and arthropods, the simplest eyes, such as those in microorganisms, do nothing but detect whether the surroundings are light or dark, which is sufficient for the entrainment of circadian rhythms. Complex eyes can distinguish shapes and colours, the visual fields of many organisms, especially predators, involve large areas of binocular vision to improve depth perception. In other organisms, eyes are located so as to maximise the field of view, such as in rabbits and horses, the first proto-eyes evolved among animals 600 million years ago about the time of the Cambrian explosion. The last common ancestor of animals possessed the biochemical toolkit necessary for vision, in most vertebrates and some molluscs, the eye works by allowing light to enter and project onto a light-sensitive panel of cells, known as the retina, at the rear of the eye. The cone cells and the rod cells in the retina detect, the visual signals are then transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve. The eyes of most cephalopods, fish, amphibians and snakes have fixed lens shapes, and focusing vision is achieved by telescoping the lens—similar to how a camera focuses. Compound eyes are found among the arthropods and are composed of many simple facets which, depending on the details of anatomy, may give either a single pixelated image or multiple images, each sensor has its own lens and photosensitive cell. Some eyes have up to 28,000 such sensors, which are arranged hexagonally, compound eyes are very sensitive to motion. Some arthropods, including many Strepsiptera, have eyes of only a few facets, each with a retina capable of creating an image. With each eye viewing a different thing, an image from all the eyes is produced in the brain, providing very different. Possessing detailed hyperspectral colour vision, the Mantis shrimp has been reported to have the worlds most complex colour vision system, trilobites, which are now extinct, had unique compound eyes. They used clear calcite crystals to form the lenses of their eyes, in this, they differ from most other arthropods, which have soft eyes. The number of lenses in such an eye varied, however, some trilobites had only one, in contrast to compound eyes, simple eyes are those that have a single lens. For example, jumping spiders have a pair of simple eyes with a narrow field of view. Some insect larvae, like caterpillars, have a different type of simple eye which gives a rough image, some of the simplest eyes, called ocelli, can be found in animals like some of the snails, which cannot actually see in the normal sense
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Vestigiality
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Assessment of the vestigiality must generally rely on comparison with homologous features in related species. Typical examples of both occur in the loss of flying capability in island-dwelling species. Vestigial features may take various forms, for example they may be patterns of behavior, anatomical structures, vestigiality, biologically speaking, refers to organisms retaining organs, which have seemingly lost the entirety of the original function. The issue is controversial and not without dispute, nonetheless, vestigial organs are common, the simple fact that it is noncoding DNA does not establish that it is functionless. Furthermore, even if an extant DNA sequence is functionless, it not follow that it has descended from an ancestral sequence of functional DNA. Logically such DNA would not be vestigial in the sense of being the vestige of a functional structure, in contrast pseudogenes have lost their protein-coding ability or are otherwise no longer expressed in the cell. Whether they have any extant function or not, they have lost their former function, Vestigial structures are often called vestigial organs, although many of them are not actually organs. Such vestigial structures typically are degenerate, atrophied, or rudimentary and it is important to avoid confusion of the concept of vestigiality with that of exaptation. Both may occur together in the example, depending on the relevant point of view. In exaptation a structure used for one purpose is modified for a new one. Similarly, the ostrich uses its wings in displays and temperature control, Vestigial characters range from detrimental through neutral to favorable in terms of selection. Vestigiality in its various forms presents many examples of evidence for biological evolution, Vestigial structures have been noticed since ancient times, and the reason for their existence was long speculated upon before Darwinian evolution provided a widely accepted explanation. However, only in recent centuries have anatomical vestiges become a subject of serious study, in 1798, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire noted on vestigial structures, His colleague, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, named a number of vestigial structures in his 1809 book Philosophie Zoologique. Charles Darwin was familiar with the concept of vestigial structures, though the term for them did not yet exist. He listed a number of them in The Descent of Man, including the muscles of the ear, wisdom teeth, the appendix, the bone, body hair. N organ may become rudimentary for its purpose, and be used for a distinct object. In 1893, Robert Wiedersheim published The Structure of Man, a book on human anatomy, for the greater part Organs which may be rightly termed Vestigial. Later versions of Wiedersheims list were expanded to as many as 180 human vestigial organs, Vestigial structures are often homologous to structures that are functioning normally in other species
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Sense
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A sense is a physiological capacity of organisms that provides data for perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology, the nervous system has a specific sensory system or organ, dedicated to each sense. Humans have a multitude of senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are the five traditionally recognized senses. However, what constitutes a sense is a matter of debate, leading to difficulties in defining what exactly a distinct sense is. Other animals also have receptors to sense the world around them, humans have a comparatively weak sense of smell and a stronger sense of sight relative to many other mammals while some animals may lack one or more of the traditional five senses. Some animals may also intake and interpret sensory stimuli in different ways. Some species of animals are able to sense the world in a way humans cannot, with some species able to sense electrical and magnetic fields. There is no agreement as to the number of senses because of differing definitions of what constitutes a sense. The senses are frequently divided into exteroceptive and interoceptive, Exteroceptive senses are senses that perceive the bodys own position, motion, external senses include the traditional five, sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, as well as thermoception and possibly an additional weak magnetoception. Proprioceptive senses include nociception, equilibrioception, proprioception, interoceptive senses are senses that perceive sensations in internal organs. Non-human animals may possess senses that are absent in humans, such as electroreception and detection of polarized light, in Buddhist philosophy, Ayatana or sense-base includes the mind as a sense organ, in addition to the traditional five. This addition to the commonly acknowledged senses may arise from the psychological orientation involved in Buddhist thought, the mind considered by itself is seen as the principal gateway to a different spectrum of phenomena that differ from the physical sense data. This way of viewing the human sense system indicates the importance of internal sources of sensation and perception that complements our experience of the external world, there are two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones. Rods are very sensitive to light, but do not distinguish colors, cones distinguish colors, but are less sensitive to dim light. There is some disagreement as to whether this one, two or three senses. Neuroanatomists generally regard it as two senses, given that different receptors are responsible for the perception of color and brightness, the inability to see is called blindness. Blindness may result from damage to the eyeball, especially to the retina, damage to the nerve that connects each eye to the brain. Temporary or permanent blindness can be caused by poisons or medications, people with blindsight are usually not aware that they are reacting to visual sources, and instead just unconsciously adapt their behaviour to the stimulus
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Olfaction
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Olfaction, also known as olfactics, is the sense of smell. This sense is mediated by specialized cells, called olfactory receptors. In humans, olfaction – the detection of smells – occurs when odorant molecules bind to sites on these receptors. These receptors come together at the glomerulus, a structure that transmits signals to the olfactory bulb, many vertebrates, including most mammals and reptiles, have two distinct olfactory systems—the main olfactory system, and the accessory olfactory system. For air-breathing animals, the olfactory system detects volatile chemicals. Olfaction, along with taste, is a form of chemoreception, the chemicals that activate the olfactory system, generally at very low concentrations, are called odorants. Although taste and smell are separate sensory systems in land animals, volatile small molecule odorants, non-volatile proteins, and non-volatile hydrocarbons may all produce olfactory sensations. Some animal species are able to smell carbon dioxide in minute concentrations, in vertebrates, smells are sensed by olfactory sensory neurons in the olfactory epithelium. The olfactory epithelium is made up of at least six morphologically and biochemically different cell types, the proportion of olfactory epithelium compared to respiratory epithelium gives an indication of the animals olfactory sensitivity. Humans have about 10 cm2 of olfactory epithelium, whereas some dogs have 170 cm2, a dogs olfactory epithelium is also considerably more densely innervated, with a hundred times more receptors per square centimeter. This may occur by diffusion or by the binding of the odorant to odorant-binding proteins, the mucus overlying the epithelium contains mucopolysaccharides, salts, enzymes, and antibodies. This mucus acts as a solvent for odor molecules, flows constantly, in insects, smells are sensed by olfactory sensory neurons in the chemosensory sensilla, which are present in insect antenna, palps, and tarsa, but also on other parts of the insect body. Odorants penetrate into the pores of chemosensory sensilla and get in contact with insect odorant-binding proteins or Chemosensory proteins. The binding of the ligand to the leads to an action potential in the receptor neuron, via a second messenger pathway. In mammals, the odorants stimulate adenylate cyclase to synthesize cAMP via a G protein called Golf, CAMP, which is the second messenger here, opens a cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channel, producing an influx of cations into the cell, slightly depolarising it. The Ca2+ in turn opens a Ca2+-activated chloride channel, leading to efflux of Cl−, further depolarizing the cell, Ca2+ is then extruded through a sodium-calcium exchanger. A calcium-calmodulin complex also acts to inhibit the binding of cAMP to the cAMP-dependent channel and this mechanism of transduction is somewhat unusual, in that cAMP works by directly binding to the ion channel rather than through activation of protein kinase A. There are also similarities in the immediate processing of stimuli by lateral inhibition
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Hearing
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Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations, changes in the pressure of the surrounding medium through time, through an organ such as the ear. Sound may be heard through solid, liquid, or gaseous matter and it is one of the traditional five senses, partial or total inability to hear is called hearing loss. Like touch, audition requires sensitivity to the movement of molecules in the world outside the organism, both hearing and touch are types of mechanosensation. There are three components of the human ear, the outer ear, the middle ear. The outer ear includes the pinna, the part of the ear, as well as the ear canal which terminates at the eardrum. The pinna serves to focus sound waves through the ear canal toward the eardrum, because of the asymmetrical character of the outer ear of most mammals, sound is filtered differently on its way into the ear depending on what vertical location it is coming from. This gives these animals the ability to localize sound vertically, the eardrum is an airtight membrane, and when sound waves arrive there, they cause it to vibrate following the waveform of the sound. The middle ear consists of a small air-filled chamber that is located medial to the eardrum, within this chamber are the three smallest bones in the body, known collectively as the ossicles which include the malleus, incus and stapes. They aid in the transmission of the vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear, the purpose of the middle ear ossicles is to overcome the impedance mismatch between air and water, by providing impedance matching. Also located in the ear are the stapedius and tensor tympani muscles which protect the hearing mechanism through a stiffening reflex. The stapes transmits sound waves to the ear through the oval window. The round window, another flexible membrane, allows for the displacement of the inner ear fluid caused by the entering sound waves. The inner ear consists of the cochlea, which is a spiral-shaped, fluid-filled tube and it is divided lengthwise by the organ of Corti, which is the main organ of mechanical to neural transduction. Inside the organ of Corti is the membrane, a structure that vibrates when waves from the middle ear propagate through the cochlear fluid – endolymph. The basilar membrane is tonotopic, so that frequency has a characteristic place of resonance along it. Characteristic frequencies are high at the entrance to the cochlea. Basilar membrane motion causes depolarization of the cells, specialized auditory receptors located within the organ of Corti. While the hair cells do not produce action potentials themselves, they release neurotransmitter at synapses with the fibers of the auditory nerve, which does produce action potentials
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Biological pigment
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Biological pigments, also known simply as pigments or biochromes, are substances produced by living organisms that have a color resulting from selective color absorption. Biological pigments include plant pigments and flower pigments, many biological structures, such as skin, eyes, feathers, fur and hair contain pigments such as melanin in specialized cells called chromatophores. For example, butterfly wings typically contain structural color, although many butterflies have cells that contain pigment as well, see conjugated systems for electron bond chemistry that causes these molecules to have pigment. Other functions of pigments in plants include attracting insects to flowers to encourage pollination, plant pigments include a variety of different kinds of molecule, including porphyrins, carotenoids, anthocyanins and betalains. All biological pigments selectively absorb certain wavelengths of light while reflecting others, the principal pigments responsible are, Chlorophyll is the primary pigment in plants, it is a chlorin that absorbs yellow and blue wavelengths of light while reflecting green. It is the presence and relative abundance of chlorophyll that gives plants their green color, all land plants and green algae possess two forms of this pigment, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b. Kelps, diatoms, and other photosynthetic heterokonts contain chlorophyll c instead of b, all chlorophylls serve as the primary means plants use to intercept light in order to fuel photosynthesis. Carotenoids are red, orange, or yellow tetraterpenoids, during the process of photosynthesis, they have functions in light-harvesting, in photoprotection, and also serve as protein structural elements. In higher plants, they serve as precursors to the plant hormone abscisic acid. Plants, in general, contain six ubiquitous carotenoids, neoxanthin, violaxanthin, antheraxanthin, zeaxanthin, lutein, lutein is a yellow pigment found in fruits and vegetables and is the most abundant carotenoid in plants. Lycopene is the red pigment responsible for the color of tomatoes, other less common carotenoids in plants include lutein epoxide, lactucaxanthin, and alpha carotene. In cyanobacteria, many other carotenoids exist such as canthaxanthin, myxoxanthophyll, synechoxanthin, algal phototrophs such as dinoflagellates use peridinin as a light harvesting pigment. Anthocyanins are water-soluble flavonoid pigments that appear red to blue, according to pH and they occur in all tissues of higher plants, providing color in leaves, plant stem, roots, flowers, and fruits, though not always in sufficient quantities to be noticeable. Anthocyanins are most visible in the petals of flowers of many species, betalains are red or yellow pigments. Like anthocyanins they are water-soluble, but unlike anthocyanins they are synthesized from tyrosine and this class of pigments is found only in the Caryophyllales, and never co-occur in plants with anthocyanins. Betalains are responsible for the red color of beets. Chlorophylls degrade into colorless tetrapyrroles known as nonfluorescent chlorophyll catabolites, as the predominant chlorophylls degrade, the hidden pigments of yellow xanthophylls and orange beta-carotene are revealed. These pigments are present throughout the year, but the red pigments, pigmentation is used by many animals for protection, by means of camouflage, mimicry, or warning coloration
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Skin
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Skin is the soft outer tissue covering vertebrates. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton have different developmental origin, structure, the adjective cutaneous means of the skin. In mammals, the skin is an organ of the system made up of multiple layers of ectodermal tissue. Skin of a different nature exists in amphibians, reptiles, all mammals have some hair on their skin, even marine mammals like whales, dolphins, and porpoises which appear to be hairless. The skin interfaces with the environment and is the first line of defense from external factors, for example, the skin plays a key role in protecting the body against pathogens and excessive water loss. Its other functions are insulation, temperature regulation, sensation, severely damaged skin may heal by forming scar tissue. This is sometimes discoloured and depigmented, the thickness of skin also varies from location to location on an organism. The skin on the palms and the soles of the feet is 4 mm thick, the speed and quality of wound healing in skin is promoted by the reception of estrogen. Primarily, fur augments the insulation the skin provides but can serve as a secondary sexual characteristic or as camouflage. On some animals, the skin is hard and thick. Reptiles and fish have hard scales on their skin for protection. Amphibian skin is not a barrier, especially regarding the passage of chemicals via skin and is often subject to osmosis. For example, a sitting in an anesthetic solution would be sedated quickly. Amphibian skin plays key roles in everyday survival and their ability to exploit a range of habitats. Keratinocytes are the cells, constituting 95% of the epidermis, while Merkel cells, melanocytes. Keratinocytes from the stratum corneum are eventually shed from the surface, the epidermis contains no blood vessels, and cells in the deepest layers are nourished by diffusion from blood capillaries extending to the upper layers of the dermis. The epidermis and dermis are separated by a sheet of fibers called the basement membrane. The dermis is the layer of skin beneath the epidermis consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress
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Neoteny
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Neoteny (/niːˈɒtᵻni/ /niːˈɒtni/ or /niːˈɒtəni/, is the delaying or slowing of the physiological development of an organism, typically an animal. Neoteny is found in modern humans, in progenesis, sexual development is accelerated. Both neoteny and progenesis result in paedomorphism, a type of heterochrony, some authors define paedomorphism as the retention of larval traits, as seen in salamanders. Both neoteny and progenesis cause the retention in adults of traits seen only in the young. Such retention is important in biology, domestication, and evolutionary developmental biology. The origins of the concept of neoteny have been traced to the Bible, the word neoteny is borrowed from the German Neotenie, the latter constructed by Kollmann from the Greek νέος and τείνειν. The adjective is either neotenic or neotenous, for the opposite of neotenic, different authorities use either gerontomorphic or peramorphic. In 1926, Louis Bolk described neoteny as the process in humanization. Neoteny in humans is the slowing or delaying of body development, compared to non-human primates, resulting in such as a large head, a flat face. These neotenic changes may have brought about by sexual selection in human evolution. In turn, they may have permitted the development of human capacities such as emotional communication, however, humans also have relatively large noses and long legs, both peramorphic traits. Some evolutionary theorists have proposed that neoteny was a key feature in human evolution, stephen Jay Gould believed that the evolutionary story of humans is one where we have been retaining to adulthood the originally juvenile features of our ancestors. J. B. S. Haldane mirrors Goulds hypothesis by stating a major trend in human beings is greater prolongation of childhood. Delbert D. Thiessen said that neoteny becomes more apparent as early primates evolved into later forms, neoteny is seen in domesticated animals such as dogs and mice. This is because there are resources available, less competition for those resources. This allows them to mature and reproduce more quickly than their wild counterparts, the environment that domesticated animals are raised in determines whether or not neoteny is present in those animals. Evolutionary neoteny can arise in a species when those conditions occur, another explanation for the neoteny in domesticated animals can be the selection for certain behavioral characteristics. Behavior is linked to genetics which therefore means that when a trait is selected for
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Larva
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A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a phase of their life cycle. The larvas appearance is very different from the adult form. A larva often has unique structures and organs that do not occur in the adult form and their diet may also be considerably different. Larvae are frequently adapted to separate from adults. For example, some such as tadpoles live almost exclusively in aquatic environments. By living in an environment, larvae may be given shelter from predators. Animals in the stage will consume food to fuel their transition into the adult form. In some species like barnacles, adults are immobile but their larvae are mobile, some larvae are dependent on adults to feed them. In many eusocial Hymenoptera species, the larvae are fed by female workers, in Ropalidia marginata the males are also capable of feeding larvae but they are much less efficient, spending more time and getting less food to the larvae. The larvae of species can become pubescent and do not develop further into the adult form. This is a type of neoteny and it is a misunderstanding that the larval form always reflects the groups evolutionary history. This could be the case, but often the stage has evolved secondarily. In these cases the form may differ more than the adult form from the groups common origin. Within Insects, only Endopterygotes show different types of larvae, several classifications have been suggested by many entomologists, and following classification is based on Antonio Berlese classification in 1913. There are four types of endopterygote larvae types, Apodous larvae - no legs at all and are poorly sclerotized. Based on sclerotization, three forms are recognized. Eucephalous - with well sclerotized head capsule, found in Nematocera, Buprestidae and Cerambycidae families
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Gill
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A gill is a respiratory organ found in many aquatic organisms that extracts dissolved oxygen from water and excretes carbon dioxide. The gills of species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are kept moist. The microscopic structure of a gill presents a surface area to the external environment. Many microscopic aquatic animals, and some larger but inactive ones, can absorb oxygen through the entire surface of their bodies. However, more complex or more active aquatic organisms usually require a gill or gills, Gills usually consist of thin filaments of tissue, branches, or slender, tufted processes that have a highly folded surface to increase surface area. A high surface area is crucial to the gas exchange of aquatic organisms, a cubic meter of air contains about 250 grams of oxygen at STP. The concentration of oxygen in water is lower than in air, in fresh water, the dissolved oxygen content is approximately 8 cm3/L compared to that of air which is 210 cm3/L. Water is 777 times more dense than air and is 100 times more viscous, oxygen has a diffusion rate in air 10,000 times greater than in water. The use of sac-like lungs to remove oxygen from water would not be efficient enough to sustain life, rather than using lungs, aseous exchange takes place across the surface of highly vascularised gills over which a one-way current of water is kept flowing by a specialised pumping mechanism. The density of the water prevents the gills from collapsing and lying on top of each other, with the exception of some aquatic insects, the filaments and lamellae contain blood or coelomic fluid, from which gases are exchanged through the thin walls. The blood carries oxygen to other parts of the body, carbon dioxide passes from the blood through the thin gill tissue into the water. Gills or gill-like organs, located in different parts of the body, are found in groups of aquatic animals, including mollusks, crustaceans, insects, fish. The gills of vertebrates typically develop in the walls of the pharynx, most species employ a countercurrent exchange system to enhance the diffusion of substances in and out of the gill, with blood and water flowing in opposite directions to each other. The gills are composed of filaments, the gill lamellae. When a fish breathes, it draws in a mouthful of water at regular intervals, then it draws the sides of its throat together, forcing the water through the gill openings, so it passes over the gills to the outside. Fish gill slits may be the ancestors of the tonsils, thymus glands. Adjacent slits are separated by a gill arch from which projects a cartilaginous gill ray. This gill ray is the support for the sheet-like interbranchial septum, the base of the arch may also support gill rakers, projections into the pharyngeal cavity that help to prevent large pieces of debris from damaging the delicate gills
. PMID 20659920.
