New Zealand
New Zealand /njuːˈziːlənd/ is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu—and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, the countrys varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealands capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland, sometime between 1250 and 1300 CE, Polynesians settled in the islands that were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand, in 1840, representatives of Britain and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands.
In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire, the majority of New Zealands population of 4.7 million is of European descent, the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealands culture is derived from Māori and early British settlers. The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, New Zealand is a developed country and ranks highly in international comparisons of national performance, such as health, economic freedom and quality of life. Since the 1980s, New Zealand has transformed from an agrarian, Queen Elizabeth II is the countrys head of state and is represented by a governor-general. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes, the Realm of New Zealand includes Tokelau, the Cook Islands and Niue, and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealands territorial claim in Antarctica. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Pacific Islands Forum, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and called it Staten Landt, in 1645, Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand, Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the country before the arrival of Europeans. Māori had several names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North and South, in 1830, maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907, this was the accepted norm. The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised and this set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, and South Island or Te Waipounamu
Pale-headed rosella
The pale-headed rosella, is a broad-tailed parrot of the genus Platycercus native to northeastern Australia. It is a parrot with a pale yellow head, predominantly white cheeks, scalloped black and gold back. Two subspecies are recognised, although some consider it to be conspecific with the eastern rosella of southeastern Australia. Found in open woodland, it feeds on seeds and fruit, as with other rosellas, the pale-headed rosella nests in hollows of large trees. Even found to have a nest in a tree hollow 50 cm under ground rather than above ground and it readily adapts to aviculture and is sold as a cagebird. The pale-headed rosella was first described by English ornithologist John Latham in 1790, there are two subspecies, the better known palliceps, known as the blue-cheeked rosella, and adscitus. Its closest relative was thought to be the eastern rosella, which replaces it in southeastern Australia, hybrids of the two taxa have been recorded where their ranges meet in northeastern New South Wales and southeastern Queensland.
However, a 2017 mitochondrial study found that the closest relative was in fact the northern rosella, other common names occasionally seen include mealy rosella, Moreton Bay rosella, blue rosella, and blue-cheeked rosella for the northern subspecies. The term white-cheeked rosella has been used for a species or superspecies combining the pale-headed, the pale-headed rosella is 33 cm long, which includes the 15 cm length of its tail. Its underparts are pale blue, and upper breast and head are pale cream-yellow, the tail which is blue-black and green, the feathers of the nape and back are black edged with bright yellow, giving rise to a scalloped appearance. In these margins of the race, the yellow is paler with a pale blue tinge. The cheeks are white in the southern subspecies, and partly flushed with blue in the lowerparts in the northern subspecies. The bill is pale blue-white and the dark grey. The sexes are similar in appearance, although the female is smaller and duller. The nominate subspecies adscitus is found from the Cape York Peninsula south through to Cardwell in central-northern Queensland and it is common throughout its range.
Its preferred habitat is open forest, but has adapted well to human modification of the landscape and may even become a pest to orchards. Watering troughs help the species in the western limits of its range. It was introduced to Hawaii in 1877, but had died out there by the late 1920s and it eats grass and tree seeds and fruits, including river red-gum, river she-oak, snow-in-summer and other melaleucas, and rough cockleburr
Species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, looked at more closely it is problematic, for example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear. Other ways of defining species include similarity of DNA, all species are given a two-part name, a binomial. The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs, the second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the Boa genus, Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped that species could evolve given sufficient time, Charles Darwins 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection.
Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal transfer, and species may become extinct for a variety of reasons. In his biology, Aristotle used the term γένος to mean a kind, such as a bird or fish, a kind was distinguished by its attributes, for instance, a bird has feathers, a beak, wings, a hard-shelled egg, and warm blood. A form was distinguished by being shared by all its members, Aristotle believed all kinds and forms to be distinct and unchanging. His approach remained influential until the Renaissance, when observers in the Early Modern period began to develop systems of organization for living things, they placed each kind of animal or plant into a context. Many of these early delineation schemes would now be considered whimsical, animals likewise that differ specifically preserve their distinct species permanently, one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa. In the 18th century, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified organisms according to shared physical characteristics and he established the idea of a taxonomic hierarchy of classification based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships.
At the time, however, it was widely believed that there was no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appeared. However, whether or not it was supposed to be fixed, by the 19th century, naturalists understood that species could change form over time, and that the history of the planet provided enough time for major changes. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in his 1809 Zoological Philosophy, described the transmutation of species, proposing that a species could change over time, in 1859, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided a compelling account of evolution and the formation of new species. Darwin argued that it was populations that evolved, not individuals and this required a new definition of species. Darwin concluded that species are what appear to be, ideas
Parramatta
Parramatta is a suburb of Sydney, Australia,23 kilometres west of its central business district on the banks of the Parramatta River. Parramatta is the seat of the City of Parramatta, one of four cities within the Sydney metropolitan area. Parramatta, founded by the British in 1788, the year as Sydney, is the oldest inland European settlement in Australia. Since 2000, government agencies such as the New South Wales Police Force, Parramatta is a major business and commercial centre, and home to Westfield Parramatta, the ninth largest shopping centre in Australia. It is colloquially known as Parra, radiocarbon dating suggests human activity occurred in Parramatta from around 30,000 years ago. The Darug people who lived in the area before European settlement regarded the area as rich in food from the river, the Parramatta Eels Rugby League club chose their symbol as a result of this phenomenon. Parramatta was founded in 1788, the year as Sydney. As such, Parramatta is the second oldest city in Australia, during 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip had reconnoitred several places before choosing Parramatta as the most likely place for a successful large farm.
Parramatta was the furthest navigable point inland on the Parramatta River and the point at which the river became freshwater, as a settlement developed, Governor Phillip gave it the name Rose Hill after George Rose, Secretary for the British Treasury. In 1791 he changed the name to Parramatta, approximating the term used by the local Aboriginal people, a neighbouring suburb acquired the name Rose Hill. In an attempt to deal with the crisis, Phillip in 1789 granted a convict named James Ruse the land of Experiment Farm at Parramatta on the condition that he develop a viable agriculture. There, Ruse became the first person to grow grain in Australia. The Parramatta area was the site of the pioneering of the Australian wool industry by John Macarthurs Elizabeth Farm in the 1790s, Philip Gidley Kings account of his visit to Parramatta on 9 April 1790 is one of the earliest descriptions of the area. Walking four miles with Governor Phillip to Prospect he saw undulating grassland interspersed with magnificent trees, Governor Arthur Phillip built a small house for himself on the hill of The Crescent.
It was used as a retreat by Governors until the 1850s, the house, Old Government House, is currently a historic site and museum within Parramatta Park and is Australias oldest surviving public building. In 1803, another incident occurred in Parramatta, involving a convicted criminal named Joseph Samuel. Samuel was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by hanging, in the second attempt, the noose slipped off his neck. In the third attempt, the new rope broke, Governor King was summoned and pardoned Samuel, as the incident appeared to him to be divine intervention
Companion parrot
A companion parrot is a parrot kept as a pet that interacts abundantly with its human counterpart. Generally, most species of parrot can make excellent companions, some species of lories and lorikeets are kept as pets but are quite messy, and often more popular as aviary birds. Hanging parrots and fig parrots are kept as aviary birds. Some species as pygmy parrots and kakapos, night parrots, many parrot species are still common, some abundant parrot species may still be legally killed as crop pests in their native countries. Endangered parrot species are suited to conservation breeding programs than as companions. Companion parrots need to be fed a diet that includes vegetables and fruits. The larger parrots can be expensive to care for, messy and loud, like dogs, parrots require some amount of basic training and proper early socialization to mature into good companions. Their intelligence means parrots learn new behaviors — both good and bad — easily and this is especially true for macaws and other species with dramatic, beautiful colouring, as well as cockatoos due to their intensely affectionate demeanor.
These traits unfortunately make them tempting impulse purchases, leading to hundreds of macaws, in more recent years, pellets or formulated diets have become very popular, especially in the US. They offer an advantage over a seed-based diet in that a parrot cannot pick out, many pellets contain artificial food dyes and preservatives that may be harmful, however there are no-color-added options available on the market. Most pellets contain soy, which is not a part of a natural diet, however. Avian veterinarians and nutritionists agree the pelleted and formulated diets are the best base diet for pet birds, although pellets may be advertised as a complete diet, there are dozens of species of parrots commonly kept as pets, all with varying nutritional needs. There are still many birds which develop problems such as toxicity, fatty liver disease or gout. A common mistake made by owners feeding pellets is over-supplementing them with fresh food, as a pellet is, essentially, a supplemented grain, supplementing them even more dilutes the diet, making the pellets less efficient and the diet unbalanced.
The best diet for a bird should be determined by an avian veterinarian, parrots can be very rewarding pets to the right owners, due to their intelligence and desire to interact with people. Many parrots are very affectionate, even cuddly with trusted people, some species have a tendency to bond to one or two people, and dislike strangers, unless they are regularly and consistently handled by different people. Properly socialized parrots can be friendly and confident companions, most pet parrots take readily to trick training. Trick training can help to redirect a birds energy and prevent or correct many behavior problems
Eastern rosella
The eastern rosella is a rosella native to southeast of the Australian continent and to Tasmania. It has been introduced to New Zealand where feral populations are found in the North Island, the eastern rosella was named by George Shaw in 1792. It is sometimes considered a subspecies of the pale-headed rosella, the term white-cheeked rosella has been used for a species or superspecies combining the pale-headed and eastern forms. Hybrids of the two taxa have been recorded where their ranges meet in northeastern New South Wales and southeastern Queensland, three subspecies of eastern rosella are recognised, P. e. eximius and southern New South Wales. Black feathers on the back have green margins, P. e. elecica, northeast New South Wales and southeast Queensland. In the male the black feathers on the back have golden-yellow margins and this subspecies is called the golden-mantled rosella, often abbreviated to GMR. White cheek patches are larger and the red on the head is darker, the eastern rosella is 30 cm long.
It has a red head and white cheeks, the beak is white and the irises are brown. The upper breast is red and the lower breast is yellow fading to green over the abdomen. The feathers of the back and shoulders are black, and have yellowish or greenish margins giving rise to an appearance that varies slightly between the subspecies and the sexes. The wings and lateral feathers are bluish while the tail is dark green. The female is similar to the male though duller in colouration and has an underwing stripe, juveniles are duller than females and have an underwing stripe. The diet of eastern rosellas mainly consists of fruit, flowers, natural range is eastern Australia, down to Tasmania. The eastern rosella is found in wooded country, open forests, gardens, bushlands. The eastern rosella has become naturalised in New Zealand, in the Wellington-Hutt Valley Region, established in the 1960s from escaped cage birds, colonising the foothills of the Tararua Range, to Eketahuna in the east, & Otaki in the west.
Sightings from New Plymouth, Gisborne, Banks Peninsula, Nelson area, the two species crossed & by 1955 no pure Crimson Rosellas remained in the Dunedin area. Eastern rosellas usually breed in spring but if needed summer as well, in the wild their breeding hollow is 1m deep and 30m high up a tree. The sign the eastern rosella mostly shows that they would be breeding is that they give food to each other, the eastern rosella is sometimes kept as a pet
Type species
A similar concept is used for suprageneric groups called a type genus. In botanical nomenclature, these terms have no standing under the code of nomenclature. In botany, the type of a name is a specimen which is the type of a species name. The species name that has that type can be referred to as the type of the genus name, names of genus and family ranks, the various subdivisions of those ranks, and some higher-rank names based on genus names, have such types. In bacteriology, a species is assigned for each genus. Every named genus or subgenus in zoology, whether or not currently recognized as valid, is associated with a type species. In practice, there is a backlog of untypified names defined in older publications when it was not required to specify a type, a type species is both a concept and a practical system that is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals. The type species represents the species and thus definition for a particular genus name. In the Glossary, type species is defined as The nominal species that is the type of a nominal genus or subgenus.
The type species permanently attaches a formal name to a genus by providing just one species within that genus to which the name is permanently linked. The species name in turn is fixed, in theory, to a type specimen, for example, the type species for the land snail genus Monacha is Monacha cartusiana. That genus is placed within the family Hygromiidae. The type genus for that family is the genus Hygromia, the concept of the type species in zoology was introduced by Pierre André Latreille. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature states that the name of the type species should always be cited. It gives an example in Article 67.1, Astacus marinus Fabricius,1775 was designated as the type species of the genus Homarus, thus giving it the name Homarus marinus. However, the species of Homarus should always be cited using its original name. 3, the type of the genus name Elodes is quoted as the type of the species name Hypericum aegypticum, Glossary of scientific naming Genetypes – genetic sequence data from type specimens.
Holotype Paratype Principle of Typification Type Type genus
Outback
The Outback is the vast, remote interior of Australia. Culturally, the Outback is deeply ingrained in Australian heritage, early European exploration of inland Australia was sporadic. More focus was on the more accessible and fertile coastal areas, the first party to successfully cross the Blue Mountains just outside Sydney was led by Gregory Blaxland in 1813,25 years after the colony was established. This contrasts with the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition in 1860–61 which was better funded. The Overland Telegraph line was constructed in the 1870s along the route identified by Stuart, mineral exploration continues as new mineral deposits are identified and developed. While the early explorers used horses to cross the outback, the first woman to make the riding a horse was Anna Hingley. The paucity of land use has led to the Outback being recognised globally as one of the largest remaining. The savanna of northern Australia are the largest, intact savanna regions in the world, in the south, the Great Western Woodlands, which occupy 16,000,000 hectares, an area larger than all of England, are the largest remaining temperate woodland left on Earth.
Reflecting the wide climatic and geological variation, the Outback contains a wealth of distinctive, the Australian Outback is full of very important well-adapted wildlife, although much of it may not be immediately visible to the casual observer. Many animals, such as red kangaroos and dingoes, hide in bushes to rest, birdlife is prolific, most often seen at waterholes at dawn and dusk. Huge flocks of budgerigars, cockatoos and galahs are often sighted, on bare ground or roads during the winter, various species of snakes and lizards bask in the sun, but they are rarely seen during the summer months. Feral animals such as camels thrive in central Australia, brought to Australia by pastoralists and explorers, feral horses known as brumbies are station horses that have run wild. Feral pigs, foxes and rabbits are other imported animals that degrade the environment, so time, the Outback is home to a diverse set of animal species, such as the kangaroo and dingo. The Dingo Fence was built to restrict dingo movements into agricultural areas towards the south east of the continent, the marginally fertile parts are primarily utilised as rangelands and have been traditionally used for sheep or cattle grazing, on cattle stations which are leased from the Federal Government.
While small areas of the outback consist of soils the majority has exceedingly infertile palaeosols. Riversleigh, in Queensland, is one of Australias most renowned fossil sites and was recorded as a World Heritage site in 1994, the 100 km2 area contains fossil remains of ancient mammals and reptiles of Oligocene and Miocene age. The largest industry across the Outback, in terms of the occupied, is pastoralism, in which cattle, sheep. Capitalizing on the lack of improvement and absence of fertiliser and pesticide use
Clutch (eggs)
A clutch of eggs refers to all the eggs produced by birds, amphibians, or reptiles, often at a single time, particularly those laid in a nest. In birds, destruction of a clutch by predators results in double-clutching, the technique is used to double the production of a species eggs, in the California condor case, specifically to increase population size. The act of putting ones hand in a nest to remove eggs is known as dipping the clutch, clutch size differs greatly between species, sometimes even within the same genus. It may differ within the species due to many factors including habitat, nutrition, predation pressures. Clutch size variation can reflect variation in optimal reproduction effort, in birds, clutch size can vary within a species due to various features, while some species are determinant layers, laying a species-specific number of eggs. Long-lived species tend to have smaller clutch sizes than short-lived species, the evolution of optimal clutch size is driven by other factors, such as parent-offspring conflict.
Clutch size recorded in field notes may or may not include lost or broken eggs
Animal
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 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, reptiles and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, annelids, flatworms, 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 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, Pisces, Amphibia and Mammalia. Since the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms and Protozoa. The protozoa were 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 distinguished from plants 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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