1.
Holocene
–
The Holocene is the geological epoch that began after the Pleistocene at approximately 11,700 years before present. The term Recent has often used as an exact synonym of Holocene. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period and its name comes from the Ancient Greek words ὅλος and καινός, meaning entirely recent. It has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS1, given these, a new term, Anthropocene, is specifically proposed and used informally only for the very latest part of modern history involving significant human impact. It is accepted by the International Commission on Stratigraphy that the Holocene started approximately 11,700 years ago, the epoch follows the Pleistocene and the last glacial period. The Holocene can be subdivided into five time intervals, or chronozones, based on climatic fluctuations, Preboreal, Boreal, Atlantic, Subboreal and they find a general correspondence across Eurasia and North America, though the method was once thought to be of no interest. The scheme was defined for Northern Europe, but the changes were claimed to occur more widely. The periods of the include a few of the final pre-Holocene oscillations of the last glacial period. Paleontologists have not defined any faunal stages for the Holocene, if subdivision is necessary, periods of human technological development, such as the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age, are usually used. However, the time periods referenced by these terms vary with the emergence of those technologies in different parts of the world, climatically, the Holocene may be divided evenly into the Hypsithermal and Neoglacial periods, the boundary coincides with the start of the Bronze Age in Europe. According to some scholars, a division, the Anthropocene, has now begun. Continental motions due to plate tectonics are less than a kilometre over a span of only 10,000 years, however, ice melt caused world sea levels to rise about 35 m in the early part of the Holocene. The sea level rise and temporary land depression allowed temporary marine incursions into areas that are now far from the sea, Holocene marine fossils are known, for example, from Vermont and Michigan. Other than higher-latitude temporary marine incursions associated with depression, Holocene fossils are found primarily in lakebed, floodplain. Holocene marine deposits along low-latitude coastlines are rare because the rise in sea levels during the period exceeds any likely tectonic uplift of non-glacial origin, post-glacial rebound in the Scandinavia region resulted in the formation of the Baltic Sea. The region continues to rise, still causing weak earthquakes across Northern Europe, the equivalent event in North America was the rebound of Hudson Bay, as it shrank from its larger, immediate post-glacial Tyrrell Sea phase, to near its present boundaries. Climate has been stable over the Holocene. It appears that this was influenced by the glacial ice remaining in the Northern Hemisphere until the later date
Holocene
–
Holocene cinder cone volcano on State Highway 18 near
Veyo, Utah
Holocene
–
Bronze bead necklace,
Muséum de Toulouse
2.
Mute swan
–
The mute swan is a species of swan and a member of the waterfowl family Anatidae. It is native to much of Eurasia, and the far north of Africa and it is an introduced species in North America, Australasia and southern Africa. The name mute derives from it being less vocal than other swan species, measuring 125 to 170 cm in length, this large swan is wholly white in plumage with an orange beak bordered with black. It is recognisable by its pronounced knob atop the beak, which is larger in males, the mute swan was first formally described by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin as Anas olor in 1789, and was transferred by Johann Matthäus Bechstein to the new genus Cygnus in 1803. It is the species of the genus Cygnus. Both cygnus and olor mean swan in Latin, cygnus is a variant form of cycnus, a borrowing from Greek κύκνος kyknos, a word of the same meaning. Despite its Eurasian origin, its closest relatives are the black swan of Australia, the species is monotypic with no living subspecies. Mute swan subfossils,6,000 years old, have found in post-glacial peat beds of East Anglia. They have been recorded from Ireland east to Portugal and Italy, the paleosubspecies Cygnus olor bergmanni, which differed only in size from the living bird, is known from fossils found in Azerbaijan. Fossils of swan ancestors more distantly allied to the mute swan have been found in four U. S. states, California, Arizona, Idaho, the timeline runs from the Miocene to the late Pleistocene, or 10,000 BP. The latest find was in Anza Borrego Desert, a park in California. Adults of this large swan typically range from 140 to 160 cm long, although can range in extreme cases from 125 to 170 cm, males are larger than females and have a larger knob on their bill. On average, this is the second largest waterfowl species after the trumpeter swan, among standard measurements of the mute swan, the wing chord measures 53–62.3 cm, the tarsus is 10–11.8 cm and the bill is 6. 9–9 cm. The mute swan is one of the heaviest flying birds, young birds, called cygnets, are not the bright white of mature adults, and their bill is dull greyish-black, not orange, for the first year. The down may range from white to grey to buff. The white cygnets have a leucistic gene, cygnets grow quickly, reaching a size close to their adult size in approximately three months after hatching. Cygnets typically retain their grey feathers until they are at least one year old, all mute swans are white at maturity, though the feathers are often stained orange-brown by iron and tannins in the water. The morph immutabilis has pinkish legs and dull white cygnets, as with white domestic geese, polish swans carry a copy of a gene responsible for leucism
Mute swan
–
Mute swan
Mute swan
–
Mute swan in flight
Mute swan
–
"Polish swan" on the right
Mute swan
–
Finding food underwater
3.
Taxonomy (biology)
–
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
Taxonomy (biology)
–
Title page of
Systema Naturae, Leiden, 1735
Taxonomy (biology)
–
Evolution of the
vertebrates at class level, width of spindles indicating number of families. Spindle diagrams are typical for
Evolutionary taxonomy
Taxonomy (biology)
–
The same relationship, expressed as a
cladogram typical for
cladistics
Taxonomy (biology)
–
Type specimen for
Nepenthes smilesii, a tropical
pitcher plant.
4.
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 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
Animal
–
Carl Linnaeus, known as the father of modern
taxonomy
Animal
–
Had'n
Animal
–
The use of
love darts by the land snail
Monachoides vicinus is a form of
sexual selection
Animal
–
A
newt lung cell stained with
fluorescent dyes undergoing the early
anaphase stage of
mitosis
5.
Chordate
–
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
Chordate
Chordate
–
Craniate:
Hagfish
Chordate
–
Tunicates: sea squirts
Chordate
–
Cephalochordate:
Lancelet
6.
Bird
–
Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at ten thousand. As a subgroup of Reptilia, birds are the closest living relatives of crocodilians, while birds, the fossil record indicates that birds are also the last surviving representatives of dinosauria, having evolved from feathered ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. True birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago, dNA-based evidence finds that birds diversified dramatically around the time of the Cretaceous–Palaeogene extinction event which killed off all other dinosaur lineages. Birds, especially those in the continents, survived this event. Primitive bird-like dinosaurs that lie outside class Aves proper, in the broader group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period. Birds have wings which are more or less developed depending on the species, the digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have evolved for swimming. Many species annually migrate great distances, Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and bird songs, and participating in such social behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of species are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous or, rarely, Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction. They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents, most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Some birds, such as hens, lay eggs even when not fertilised, songbirds, parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano is harvested for use as a fertiliser, Birds prominently figure throughout human culture. About 120–130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry, the first classification of birds was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae. Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system currently in use, Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy. Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the dinosaur clade Theropoda, Aves and a sister group, the clade Crocodilia, contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria
Bird
–
Archaeopteryx lithographica is often considered the oldest known true bird.
Bird
Bird
–
Confuciusornis sanctus, a Cretaceous bird from China
Bird
–
The range of the
house sparrow has expanded dramatically due to human activities.
7.
Anseriformes
–
In fact, these living species are all included in Anatidae except for the three screamers and the magpie goose. All species in the order are highly adapted for an aquatic existence at the water surface, the males, except for the screamers, also have a penis, a trait that has disappeared in Neoaves. All are web-footed for efficient swimming, the earliest known Anseriform is the recently discovered Vegavis, which lived during the Cretaceous period. It is thought that the Anseriformes originated when the original Galloanserae split into the two main lineages, the extinct dromornithids may possibly represent early offshoots of the anseriform line, if they arent stem-Galliformes instead, and so maybe Gastornis. The ancestors of the Anseriformes developed the characteristic bill structure that they still share, the prehistoric wading presbyornithids were even more bizarre. The Anseriformes and the Galliformes are the most primitive neognathous birds, Anatidae systematics, especially regarding placement of some odd genera in the dabbling ducks or shelducks, is not fully resolved. See the Anatidae article for information, and for alternate taxonomic approaches. Some unusual groups, such as the extinct Gastornithidae and Dromornithidae, are found to be at the base of the Anseriformes family tree. Anatidae is traditionally divided into subfamilies Anatinae and Anserinae, the Anatinae consists of tribes Anatini, Aythyini, Mergini and Tadornini. The higher-order classification below follows a phylogenetic analysis performed by Angolin,2007, Mikkos Phylogeny Archive, the clade Somaterini has a single genus Somateria. List of Anseriformes by population Agnolin, F. Brontornis burmeisteri Moreno & Mercerat, un Anseriformes gigante del Mioceno Medio de Patagonia, revista del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales. Clarke, J. A. Tambussi, C. P. Noriega, erickson, G. M. & Ketcham, R. A. Definitive fossil evidence for the extant avian radiation in the Cretaceous, & Zusi, R. L. Higher-order phylogeny of modern birds based on comparative anatomy. Zoological Journal of the Linnen Society, murray, P. F. & Vickers-Rich, P. Magnificent Mihirungs, The Colossal Flightless Birds of the Australian Dreamtime
Anseriformes
Anseriformes
–
Crested screamer (Chauna torquata)
Anseriformes
–
Magpie goose (Anseranas semipalmata), sole surviving member of a
Mesozoic lineage
Anseriformes
–
Cast of
Dromornis stirtoni, a
mihirung, from Australia.
8.
Anatidae
–
The Anatidae are the biological family of birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The family has a distribution, occurring on all the worlds continents. These birds are adapted for swimming, floating on the water surface, the family contains around 146 species in 40 genera. They are generally herbivorous, and are monogamous breeders, a number of species undertake annual migrations. A few species have been domesticated for agriculture, and many others are hunted for food, five species have become extinct since 1600, and many more are threatened with extinction. The ducks, geese, and swans are small- to large-sized birds with a broad, diving species vary from this in being rounder. Extant species range in size from the cotton pygmy goose, at as little as 26.5 cm and 164 g, to the trumpeter swan, the wings are short and pointed, and supported by strong wing muscles that generate rapid beats in flight. They typically have long necks, although varies in degree between species. The legs are short, strong, and set far to the back of the body, combined with their body shape, this can make some species awkward on land, but they are stronger walkers than other marine and water birds such as grebes or petrels. They typically have webbed feet, though a few such as the Nene have secondarily lost their webbing. The bills are made of keratin with a thin and sensitive layer of skin on top. For most species, the shape of the bill tends to be flattened to a greater or lesser extent. These contain serrated lamellae which are well defined in the filter-feeding species. Their feathers are excellent at shedding water due to special oils, many of the ducks display sexual dimorphism, with the males being more brightly coloured than the females. The swans, geese, and whistling-ducks lack sexually dimorphic plumage, anatids are vocal birds, producing a range of quacks, honks, squeaks, and trumpeting sounds, depending on species, the female often has a deeper voice than the male. Anatids are generally herbivorous as adults, feeding on various water-plants, although some also eat fish, molluscs. One group, the mergansers, are primarily piscivorous, and have serrated bills to help catch fish. In a number of species, the young include a proportion of invertebrates in their diets
Anatidae
–
Anatidae Temporal range:
Early Oligocene – Recent
Anatidae
Anatidae
–
mute swan
Anatidae
–
Male
common shelduck
9.
Anserinae
–
The Anserinae are a subfamily in the waterfowl family Anatidae. It includes the swans and true geese, under alternative systematical concepts, it is split into two subfamilies, the Anserinae contain the geese and the ducks, while the Cygninae contain the swans. Swans – tribe Cygnini Genus Cygnus – true swans, The black-and-yellow-billed swans are sometimes separated in the genus Olor, giant Oʻahu goose, Anatidae sp. et gen. indet. & National Audubon Society, The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds, ISBN 0-517-03288-0 Gonzalez, J. Düttmann, H. Wink, M. Phylogenetic relationships based on two mitochondrial genes and hybridization patterns in Anatidae. Media related to Anserinae at Wikimedia Commons
Anserinae
–
Anserinae Temporal range:
Middle Miocene to present
10.
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, morphology, 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
Species
–
John Ray
Species
–
Carl Linnaeus believed in the fixity of species.
11.
Synonym (taxonomy)
–
For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies. This name is no longer in use, it is now a synonym of the current scientific name which is Picea abies, unlike synonyms in other contexts, in taxonomy a synonym is not interchangeable with the name of which it is a synonym. In taxonomy, synonyms are not equals, but have a different status, for any taxon with a particular circumscription, position, and rank, only one scientific name is considered to be the correct one at any given time. A synonym cannot exist in isolation, it is always an alternative to a different scientific name, given that the correct name of a taxon depends on the taxonomic viewpoint used a name that is one taxonomists synonym may be another taxonomists correct name. Synonyms may arise whenever the same taxon is described and named more than once, independently. They may also arise when existing taxa are changed, as when two taxa are joined to one, a species is moved to a different genus. To the general user of scientific names, in such as agriculture, horticulture, ecology, general science. A synonym is a name that was used as the correct scientific name but which has been displaced by another scientific name. Thus Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the term as a name which has the same application as another. In handbooks and general texts, it is useful to have mentioned as such after the current scientific name. Synonyms used in this way may not always meet the strict definitions of the synonym in the formal rules of nomenclature which govern scientific names. Changes of scientific name have two causes, they may be taxonomic or nomenclatural, a name change may be caused by changes in the circumscription, position or rank of a taxon, representing a change in taxonomic, scientific insight. A name change may be due to purely nomenclatural reasons, that is, based on the rules of nomenclature, the earliest such name is called the senior synonym, while the later name is the junior synonym. One basic principle of zoological nomenclature is that the earliest correctly published name, synonyms are important because if the earliest name cannot be used, then the next available junior synonym must be used for the taxon. Objective synonyms refer to taxa with the type and same rank. For example, John Edward Gray published the name Antilocapra anteflexa in 1855 for a species of pronghorn, however, it is now commonly accepted that his specimen was an unusual individual of the species Antilocapra americana published by George Ord in 1815. Ords name thus takes precedence, with Antilocapra anteflexa being a subjective synonym. Objective synonyms are common at the level of genera, because for various reasons two genera may contain the type species, these are objective synonyms
Synonym (taxonomy)
–
The
Latin Caudata and
Greek Urodela both mean "tailed" and have been used as a scientific name at the rank of order for the
salamanders (as opposed to the tail-less
frogs). Thus they are synonyms.
Synonym (taxonomy)
–
The common dandelion
Taraxacum officinale sensu lato is an extremely widespread group of
apomictic lineages, and some scientists apply the "biological species concept" to divide it into many distinct species; other scientists regard all the names for those independent species as synonyms.
12.
Family (biology)
–
In biological classification, family is one of the eight major taxonomic ranks, it is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks above the rank of genus. In vernacular usage, a family may be named one of its common members, for example, walnuts and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae. What does or does not belong to a family—or whether a family should be recognized at all—are proposed and determined by practicing taxonomists. There are no rules for describing or recognizing a family. Taxonomists often take different positions about descriptions of taxa, and there may be no broad consensus across the community for some time. Some described taxa are accepted broadly and quickly, but others only rarely, if at all, the naming of families is codified by various international codes. In zoological nomenclature, the names of animals end with the suffix -idae. The concept of rank at time was not yet settled, and in the preface to the Prodromus Magnol spoke of uniting his families into larger genera. Carolus Linnaeus used the word familia in his Philosophia botanica to denote groups of plants, trees, herbs, ferns, palms. He used this term only in the section of the book. In zoology, the family as an intermediate between order and genus was introduced by Pierre André Latreille in his Précis des caractères génériques des insectes. He used families in some but not in all his orders of insects, families can be used for evolutionary, palaeontological and generic studies because they are more stable than lower taxonomic levels such as genera and species
Family (biology)
–
The hierarchy of
biological classification 's eight major
taxonomic ranks. An
order contains one or more families. Intermediate minor rankings are not shown.
13.
Goose
–
Generic Substation Events is a control model defined as per IEC61850 which provides a fast and reliable mechanism of transferring event data over entire substation networks. When implemented, this ensures the same event message is received by multiple physical devices using multicast or broadcast services. The GSE control model is further subdivided into GOOSE and GSSE, generic Object Oriented Substation Events is a controlled model mechanism in which any format of data is grouped into a data set and transmitted within a time period of 4 millisecond. The following mechanisms are used to ensure specified transmission speed and reliability, GOOSE data is directly embedded into Ethernet data packets and works on publisher-subscriber mechanism on multicast or broadcast MAC addresses. GOOSE uses VLAN and priority tagging as per IEEE802. 1Q to have separate virtual network within the physical network. Enhanced retransmission mechanisms - The same GOOSE message is retransmitted with varying and increasing re-transmission intervals, a new event occurring within any GOOSE dataset element will result in the existing GOOSE retransmission message being stopped. A state number within the GOOSE protocol identifies whether a GOOSE message is a new message or a retransmitted message, GOOSE messages are designed to be brand independent. Some vendors offer intelligent electronic devices that fully support IEC61850 for a truly interoperable approach within the network without requiring vendor specific cables or algorithms. Generic Substation State Events is an extension of event transfer mechanism in UCA2.0, only Status data can be exchanged through GSSE and it uses a status list rather than a dataset as is used in GOOSE. GSSE messages are transmitted directly over IEC/ISO 8802-2 and 8802-3 using a mechanism to GOOSE messages. As the GSSE format is simpler than GOOSE it is handled faster in some devices, GSSE is being progressively superseded by the use of GOOSE and support for it may eventually disappear. Equipment manufacturers have started to offer non-standard protocols to report events over substation networks, fixed GOOSE - This is implemented in GE IEDs and makes use of the GSSE data format over the GOOSE protocol. This is said to be faster than GOOSE as it uses unstructured data in the string instead of structured data format required used by GOOSE
Goose
14.
Duck
–
Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the waterfowl family Anatidae, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the family Anatidae, they do not represent a group but a form taxon, since swans. Ducks are mostly birds, mostly smaller than the swans and geese. Ducks are sometimes confused with several types of unrelated water birds with similar forms, such as loons or divers, grebes, gallinules and this word replaced Old English ened/ænid duck, possibly to avoid confusion with other Old English words, like ende end with similar forms. Other Germanic languages still have similar words for duck, for example, Dutch eend duck, the word ened/ænid was inherited from Proto-Indo-European, compare, Latin anas duck, Lithuanian ántis duck, Ancient Greek nēssa/nētta duck, and Sanskrit ātí water bird, among others. A duckling is a duck in downy plumage or baby duck. A male duck is called a drake and the female is called a duck, the overall body plan of ducks is elongated and broad, and the ducks are also relatively long-necked, albeit not as long-necked as the geese and swans. The body shape of diving ducks varies somewhat from this in being more rounded, the bill is usually broad and contains serrated lamellae, which are particularly well defined in the filter-feeding species. In the case of some fishing species the bill is long, the scaled legs are strong and well developed, and generally set far back on the body, more so in the highly aquatic species. The wings are strong and are generally short and pointed. Three species of duck are almost flightless, however. Many species of duck are temporarily flightless while moulting, they seek out protected habitat with good food supplies during this period, the drakes of northern species often have extravagant plumage, but that is moulted in summer to give a more female-like appearance, the eclipse plumage. The plumage of birds generally resembles that of the female. Over the course of evolution, female ducks have evolved to have a corkscrew shaped vagina to prevent rape, Ducks exploit a variety of food sources such as grasses, aquatic plants, fish, insects, small amphibians, worms, and small molluscs. Dabbling ducks feed on the surface of water or on land, along the edge of the beak there is a comb-like structure called a pecten. This strains the water squirting from the side of the beak, the pecten is also used to preen feathers and to hold slippery food items. Diving ducks and sea ducks forage deep underwater, to be able to submerge more easily, the diving ducks are heavier than dabbling ducks, and therefore have more difficulty taking off to fly. A few specialized species such as the mergansers are adapted to catch, to avoid injury when digging into sediment it has no cere, but the nostrils come out through hard horn
Duck
–
Ducks
Duck
–
Pacific black duck displaying the characteristic upending "duck".
Duck
–
Male
Mandarin duck
Duck
–
Ducks in the ponds at
Khulna, Bangladesh
15.
Tribe (biology)
–
In biology, a tribe is a taxonomic rank above genus, but below family and subfamily. It is sometimes subdivided into subtribes, in zoology, some examples include the tribes Caprini, Hominini, Bombini, and Thunnini. The standard ending for the name of a tribe is -ini. The tribe Hominini is divided into subtribes by some scientists, subtribe Hominina then comprises humans, the standard ending for the name of a zoological subtribe is -ina. In botany, examples include the tribes Acalypheae and Hyacintheae, the standard ending for the name of a botanical tribe is -eae. The tribe Hyacintheae is divided into subtribes, including the subtribe Massoniinae, the standard ending for the name of a botanical subtribe is -inae. In bacteriology, the form of names is as in botany, e. g. Pseudomonadeae
Tribe (biology)
–
The hierarchy of
biological classification 's eight major
taxonomic ranks. Intermediate minor rankings are not shown.
16.
Coscoroba swan
–
The coscoroba swan is a species of waterfowl endemic to southern South America. It is the smallest of the birds called swans, but still a large species of waterfowl and it belongs to the subfamily Anserinae in the family of ducks, swans, and geese, Anatidae. It is placed in the monotypic genus Coscoroba, male coscoroba swans weigh 3. 8–5.4 kg and females weigh 3. 2–4.5 kg. The length is from 87.5 to 115 cm and the wingspan is 155 to 160 cm and they have white plumage except for black tips to the outer six primary feathers, although this black is often barely visible on the closed wing. In flight, the wing tips are conspicuous. The bird has a red beak, legs and feet and they look somewhat more like geese than swans. The female looks almost identical to the male, the cygnet is a patchy color, with brown and gray hues. The coscoroba swan is also lacking the black mask that other swans have where their lores are between the eyes and beak and they look like a very small swan in body and look like a goose in the head. In winter it flies north to central Chile, northern Argentina, Uruguay and its habitat is well-vegetated swamps and lagoons. Its population is estimated at 10, 000–25,000 birds and it also has an ancient route to the Pantanal of Brazil and has been seen in large flocks in the Nhecolandia and Rio Negro regions. The coscoroba swan feeds on plant matter, small aquatic insects. The female incubates the eggs, while the male stands guard, Coscoroba swans live to an age of approximately twenty years. Media related to Coscoroba coscoroba at Wikimedia Commons
Coscoroba swan
–
Coscoroba swan
Coscoroba swan
–
Flying
Coscoroba swan
–
Juveniles in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Coscoroba swan
–
Bath taking at
Weltvogelpark Walsrode
17.
Mate for life
–
Pair-bonding is a term coined in the 1940s that is frequently used in sociobiology and evolutionary biology circles. The term often implies either a lifelong socially monogamous relationship or a stage of mating interaction in socially monogamous species and it is sometimes used in reference to human relationships. Monogamous voles, such as voles, have significantly greater density. These differences are located in the forebrain and the dopamine-mediated reward pathway. Peptide arginine vasopressin, dopamine, and oxytocin act in this region to coordinate rewarding activities such as mating and these species-specific differences have shown to correlate with social behaviors, and in monogamous prairie voles are important for facilitation of pair bonding. When compared to montane voles, which are polygamous, monogamous prairie voles appear to have more of these AVP and oxytocin neurotransmitter receptors. According to evolutionary psychologists David P. g. gibbon mating systems being analogous to swingers Humans can experience some or all of the varieties of pair bonds in their lifetime. These bonds can be, temporary or last a lifetime, same-sex or cross-gender, in a biological sense there are two main types of pair bonds exhibited in humans, social pair bonding and sexual pair bonding. On the other hand, the pair bond is a behavioral and physiological bond between two individuals with a strong sexual attraction component. In this bond the participants in the pair bond prefer to have sex with each other over other options. Social pair bonds are usually more wide-ranging than their counterparts due to the sexual nature involved in the latter. In humans and other mammals, these bonds are created by a combination of social interaction and biological factors including neurotransmitters like oxytocin, vasopressin. Pair bonds do not equal marriage, marriage can be associated with sexual and social pair bonds, however, married couples do not necessarily have to experience both or either of these bonds. Marriage can be a consequence of pair bonding and vice versa, pair bonding in humans helps explain extreme bonds that we may share with others but are unable to articulate in terms of contemporary love. In various species, males provide care and females mate with multiple males. For example, recent studies show that extra-pair copulation frequently occurs in birds in which a social father provides intensive care for its social offspring. As noted above, different species of voles vary in their behavior. In the cichlid species Tropheus moorii, a male and female form a temporary monogamous pair bond and spawn
Mate for life
–
Northern gannet pair
Mate for life
–
Black-backed jackals are one of very few
monogamous mammals. This pair works together in teamwork to hunt down prey and scavenge. They will stay together until one of the two dies.
18.
Bird egg
–
Bird eggs are laid by the females and incubated for a time that varies according to the species, a single young hatches from each egg. Average clutch sizes range from one to about 17, clutch size may vary latitudinally within a species. Some birds lay eggs even when the eggs have not been fertilized, it is not uncommon for pet owners to find their lone bird nesting on a clutch of infertile eggs, which are sometimes called wind-eggs. The default color of vertebrate eggs is the white of the calcium carbonate from which the shells are made, the pigments biliverdin and its zinc chelate give a green or blue ground color, and protoporphyrin produces reds and browns as a ground color or as spotting. However, the markings on passerine eggs have been suggested to reduce brittleness by acting as a solid state lubricant. If insufficient calcium is available in the soil, the egg shell may be thin. Protoporphyrin speckling compensates for this, and increases inversely to the amount of calcium in the soil, for the same reason, later eggs in a clutch are more spotted than early ones, as the females store of calcium is depleted. Birds which build in trees generally have blue or greenish eggs, either spotted or unspotted, while birds that build in bushes or near or on the ground are likely to lay speckled eggs. For example, Cormorant eggs are rough and chalky Tinamou eggs are shiny Duck eggs are oily, the domestic hens egg has around 7500 pores. The shape of eggs varies considerably across bird species, ranging from near-spherical to highly pyriform or conical with the shape of the chicken egg lying in between. Early scientific investigators of egg shape suggested that the shape of eggs was caused by the egg being forced through the oviduct by peristalsis. The calcification of the egg in the shell gland/uterus then fixes it in shape. These observations cannot be explained by peristalsis and it has been proposed that the egg acquires its shape as it is forced through the narrow isthmus, but this assertion has not been thoroughly verified. Cliff-nesting birds often have highly conical eggs and they are less likely to roll off, tending instead to roll around in a tight circle, this trait is likely to have arisen due to evolution via natural selection. In contrast, many hole-nesting birds have nearly spherical eggs, a pointed egg will tend to sit on its side, with the big end tipped upward. The big end contains the air sac and its shell is pierced by a density of pores than the more pointed end. Tipping the big end upwards improves oxygen flow to the head, with the physiologically demanding eyes and brain. Egg size tends to be proportional to the size of the adult bird, kiwis have disproportionately large eggs, up to 20% of the females body weight
Bird egg
–
Guillemot eggs
Bird egg
–
Almost spherical bird egg (
Senegal parrot)
Bird egg
–
Long, "elliptical" bird egg (
Common murre)
Bird egg
–
Eggs of: ostrich, emu, kiwi and chicken
19.
German language
–
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
German language
–
Old Frisian (Alt-Friesisch)
German language
–
The widespread popularity of the
Bible translated into German by
Martin Luther helped establish modern German
German language
–
Examples of German language in
Namibian everyday life
German language
–
German-language newspapers in the U.S. in 1922
20.
Dutch language
–
It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after English and German. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English and is said to be roughly in between them, Dutch vocabulary is mostly Germanic and incorporates more Romance loans than German but far fewer than English. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, the official name for Dutch is Nederlands, and its dialects have their own names, e. g. Hollands, West-Vlaams. The use of the word Vlaams to describe Standard Dutch for the variations prevalent in Flanders and used there, however, is common in the Netherlands, the Dutch language has been known under a variety of names. It derived from the Old Germanic word theudisk, one of the first names used for the non-Romance languages of Western Europe. It literarily means the language of the people, that is. The term was used as opposed to Latin, the language of writing. In the first text in which it is found, dating from 784, later, theudisca appeared also in the Oaths of Strasbourg to refer to the Germanic portion of the oath. This led inevitably to confusion since similar terms referred to different languages, owing to Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and 17th centuries, the English term came to refer exclusively to the Dutch. A notable exception is Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a West Central German variety called Deitsch by its speakers, Jersey Dutch, on the other hand, as spoken until the 1950s in New Jersey, is a Dutch-based creole. In Dutch itself, Diets went out of common use - although Platdiets is still used for the transitional Limburgish-Ripuarian Low Dietsch dialects in northeast Belgium, Nederlands, the official Dutch word for Dutch, did not become firmly established until the 19th century. This designation had been in use as far back as the end of the 15th century, one of them was it reflected a distinction with Hoogduits, High Dutch, meaning the language spoken in Germany. The Hoog was later dropped, and thus, Duits narrowed down in meaning to refer to the German language. g, in English, too, Netherlandic is regarded as a more accurate term for the Dutch language, but is hardly ever used. Old Dutch branched off more or less around the same time Old English, Old High German, Old Frisian and Old Saxon did. During that period, it forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, on the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in nowadays France and Germany. The division in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, one of the few moments linguists can detect somewhat of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in the pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age, the Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups, East, West, and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots, Frisian, Low German and High German
Dutch language
–
The Utrecht baptismal vow Forsachistu diobolae...
Dutch language
–
Distribution of the Dutch language and its dialects in
Western Europe
Dutch language
–
Second edition of this column decorated with a title of
Charles V 's portrait, with archaic Dutch inscriptions
Dutch language
–
Dutch language street sign in the Netherlands
21.
Swedish language
–
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken natively by more than 9 million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is currently the largest of the North Germanic languages by number of speakers, Standard Swedish, spoken by most Swedes, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the rural dialects still exist. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages, V2, Swedish morphology is similar to English, that is, words have comparatively few inflections. There are two genders, no cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are inflected according to gender, number. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes, complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles, the prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme. Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, by many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, the dialects of Old East Norse that were spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish while the dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish. The dialects are described as runic because the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, from 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain, there was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr dead
Swedish language
–
The initial page of the first complete copy of
Västgötalagen, the
law code of
Västergötland, from c. 1280. It is one of the earliest texts in Swedish written in the
Latin script.
Swedish language
–
Major Swedish-speaking areas
Swedish language
–
Front page of
Gustav Vasa 's Bible from 1541, using
Fraktur. The title translated to English reads: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in
Uppsala. 1541".
Swedish language
–
August Strindberg, one of the most influential writers in modern Swedish literature.
22.
Old French
–
Old French was the Gallo-Romance dialect continuum spoken from the 9th century to the 14th century. In the 14th century, these came to be collectively known as the langues doïl. The mid-14th century is taken as the period to Middle French. The areal of Old French in contemporary terms corresponded to the parts of the Kingdom of France, Upper Burgundy. As part of the emerging Gallo-Romance dialect continuum, the langues doïl were contrasted with the langue doc, in these examples, we notice a clear consequence of bilingualism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words. Pope estimated that perhaps still 15% of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources, at the third Council of Tours in 813, priests were ordered to preach in the vernacular language, since the common people could no longer understand formal Latin. The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence, which is important for reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling. The Capetians langue doïl, the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of all of France, however, until after the French Revolution. In the Late Middle Ages, the Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct langues doïl, during the Early Modern period, French now becomes established as the official language of the Kingdom of France throughout the realm, also including the langue doc-speaking territories in the south. Old French gives way to Middle French in the mid-14th century, the earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, but very few texts before the 11th century have survived. The first literary works written in Old French were saints lives, the Canticle of Saint Eulalie, written in the second half of the 9th century, is generally accepted as the first such text. The first of these is the area of the chansons de geste. More than one hundred chansons de geste have survived in three hundred manuscripts. The oldest and most celebrated of the chansons de geste is The Song of Roland, a fourth grouping, not listed by Bertrand, is the Crusade cycle, dealing with the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath. Jean Bodels other two categories—the Matter of Rome and the Matter of Britain—concern the French romance or roman, around a hundred verse romances survive from the period 1150–1220. From around 1200 on, the tendency was increasingly to write the romances in prose, the most important romance of the 13th century is the Romance of the Rose which breaks considerably from the conventions of the chivalric adventure story. The Occitan or Provençal poets were called troubadours, from the word trobar to find, lyric poets in Old French are called trouvères. By the late 13th century, the tradition in France had begun to develop in ways that differed significantly from the troubadour poets
Old French
–
Map of France in 1180, at the height of the
feudal system. The
possessions of the French king are in light blue, vassals to the French king in green,
Angevin possessions in red. Shown in white is the
Holy Roman Empire to the east, the western fringes of which, including
Upper Burgundy and
Lorraine were also part of the Old French areal.
23.
Latin
–
Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
Latin
–
Latin inscription, in the
Colosseum
Latin
–
Julius Caesar 's
Commentarii de Bello Gallico is one of the most famous classical Latin texts of the Golden Age of Latin. The unvarnished, journalistic style of this
patrician general has long been taught as a model of the urbane Latin officially spoken and written in the floruit of the
Roman republic.
Latin
–
A multi-volume Latin dictionary in the
University Library of Graz
Latin
–
Latin and Ancient Greek Language - Culture - Linguistics at
Duke University in 2014.
24.
Greek language
–
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
Greek language
–
Idealized portrayal of
Homer
Greek language
–
regions where Greek is the official language
Greek language
–
Greek language road sign, A27 Motorway, Greece
25.
Trumpeter swan
–
The trumpeter swan is a species of swan found in North America. The heaviest living bird native to North America, it is also the largest extant species of waterfowl with a wingspan that may exceed 10 ft. It is the American counterpart and a relative of the whooper swan of Eurasia. Careful reintroductions by wildlife agencies and the Trumpeter Swan Society gradually restored the North American wild population to over 46,000 birds by 2010, the trumpeter swan is the largest extant species of waterfowl. Adults usually measure 138–165 cm long, though males can exceed 180 cm in total length. The weight of birds is typically 7–13.6 kg. Possibly due to seasonal variation based on access and variability due to age, average weights in males have been reported to range from 10.9 to 12.7 kg. It is one of the heaviest living birds or animals capable of flight, the trumpeter swans wingspan ranges from 185 to 250 cm, with the wing chord measuring 60–68 cm. The largest known male trumpeter attained a length of 183 cm, a wingspan of 3.1 m, the adult trumpeter swan is all white in plumage. Like mute swans cygnets, the cygnets of the trumpeter swan have light grey plumage and pinkish legs, as with a whooper swan, this species has upright posture and generally swims with a straight neck. The trumpeter swan has a large, wedge-shaped black bill that can, in some cases, the bill, measuring 10. 5–12 cm, is up to twice the length of a Canada gooses bill and is the largest of any waterfowl. The legs are gray-pink in color, though in some birds can appear gray to even black. The mute swan, introduced to North America, is scarcely smaller, however, it can easily be distinguished by its orange bill and different physical structure. The tundra swan more closely resembles the trumpeter, but is significantly smaller, the neck of a male trumpeter may be twice as long as the neck of a tundra swan. The tundra swan can be distinguished by its yellow lores. However, some trumpeter swans have yellow lores, many of these appear to be leucistic and have paler legs than typical trumpeters. Trumpeter swans have similar calls to whooper swans and Bewicks swans and they are loud and somewhat musical creatures, with their cry sounding similar to a trumpet, which gave the bird its name. Beginning in 1968, repeated in 1975, and then conducted at 5-year intervals, from 1968 to 2010 the population has increased from 3,722 to approximately 46,225 birds, in large part due to re-introductions to its historic range
Trumpeter swan
–
Trumpeter swan
Trumpeter swan
–
Juvenile at the
Cincinnati Zoo
Trumpeter swan
–
Its black bill is useful in distinguishing the trumpeter swan from other species
Trumpeter swan
–
Plate 406 of the
Birds of America by
John James Audubon, depicting the trumpeter swan
26.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
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Jackson Hole is a valley between the Teton Mountain Range and the Gros Ventre Range in Wyoming. These low-lying valleys surrounded by mountains and containing rivers and streams are habitat for beaver and other fur-bearing animals. The town of Jackson was named in late 1893 by Margaret Simpson and she named the town in order for easterners to be able to forward mail west. Jackson, which incorporated in 1914, was named after David Edward Davey Jackson who trapped beaver in the area in the late 1820s while a partner in the firm of Smith. Davy Jackson was one of the first white men to spend a winter in the Valley of the Teton Mountains. Though used by Native Americans for hunting and ceremonial purposes, the valley was not known to harbor year-round human settlement prior to the 1870s. Descriptions of the valley and its features were recorded in the journals of John Colter, after returning to the Rocky Mountains, Colter entered the region in 1807 in the vicinity of Togwotee Pass and became the first white American to see the valley. His reports of the valley, the Teton Range and the Yellowstone region to the north were viewed by people of the day with skepticism, the first people to settle the region were Native Americans, then fur trappers, and then homesteaders. Because the soil is not ideal for raising crops, the valley was used for cattle, tourism quickly became popular with the establishment of dude ranches. The only incorporated town in the valley is Jackson, also called Jackson Hole, other communities in the valley include Wilson, Teton Village, Moran Junction, Hoback, Moose, and Kelly. West of Jackson, Teton Pass crosses the end of the Teton Range, providing access to Victor and Driggs in eastern Idaho and Alta, Wyoming. This area was known as Pierres Hole and hosted a major Rendezvous in 1832, numerous elk use the valley as grazing range during the winter, and sleigh rides are offered to tourists. The Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Snow King and Grand Targhee Resort ski areas, the valley is formed by the Teton Range on the western side and the Gros Ventre Range on the eastern side. Grand Teton National Park occupies the part of the valley encompassing much of the Teton Range as well as Jackson Lake. The town of Jackson is at the southern end. Between them lies, on U. S. Route 26, Glacier View Turnout offering a view of Teton Glacier on the north of Grand Teton, and the National Elk Refuge, home of the largest elk herd on earth. The Snake River threads through the valley from its headwater in Yellowstone in the north to the mouth of the Snake River Canyon at the southern tip of the valley. Blacktail Butte is a prominent landform rising from the valley floor, the average elevation of the valley is over 6,500 feet above sea level
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
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Viewed from Jackson Hole valley looking west, the high peaks of the
Teton Range rise more than 7,000 feet (2,135 m) above the valley floor.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
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The "Sleeping Indian" is a series of rock formations on
Sheep Mountain in the
Gros Ventre Range on the east side of Jackson Hole
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
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Elk in wild
27.
Whooper swan
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The Whooper Swan, pronounced hooper swan, is a large Northern Hemisphere swan. It is the Eurasian counterpart of the North American trumpeter swan, francis Willughby and John Ray’s Ornithology of 1676 referred to this swan as “the Elk, Hooper, or wild Swan”. The scientific name is from cygnus, the Latin for “swan”, the whooper swan is similar in appearance to the Bewicks swan. It is larger, however, at a length of 140–165 cm, weight typically is in the range of 7. 4–14 kg, with an average of 9. 8–11.4 kg for males and 8. 2–9.2 kg for females. The verified record mass was 15.5 kg for a male from Denmark. It is considered to be amongst the heaviest flying birds, among standard measurements, the wing chord is 56. 2–63.5 cm, the tarsus is 10. 4–13 cm and the bill is 9. 2–11.6 cm. It has an angular head shape and a more variable bill pattern that always shows more yellow than black. Like their close relatives, whooper swans are vocal birds with a similar to the trumpeter swan. Whooper swans require large areas of water to live in, especially when they are still growing, the whooper swan spends much of its time swimming, straining the water for food, or eating plants that grow on the bottom. Whooper swans have a deep honking call and, despite their size, are powerful fliers, Whooper swans can migrate hundreds or even thousands of miles to their wintering sites in southern Europe and eastern Asia. They breed in subarctic Eurasia, further south than Bewicks in the taiga zone. They are rare breeders in northern Scotland, particularly in Orkney, and no more than five pairs have bred there in recent years and this bird is an occasional vagrant to the Indian Subcontinent and western North America. Icelandic breeders overwinter in the United Kingdom and Ireland, especially in the nature reserves of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and of the Wildfowl. Whooper swans pair for life, and their cygnets stay with them all winter and their preferred breeding habitat is wetland, but semi-domesticated birds will build a nest anywhere close to water. Both the male and female build the nest, and the male will stand guard over the nest while the female incubates. The female will usually lay 4–7 eggs, the cygnets hatch after about 36 days and have a grey or brown plumage. The cygnets can fly at an age of 120 to 150 days, when whooper swans prepare to go on a flight as a flock, they use a variety of signaling movements to communicate with each other. These movements include head bobs, head shakes, and wing flaps and influence whether the flock will take flight and if so, Whooper swans that signaled with these movements in large groups were found to be able to convince their flock to follow them 61% of the time
Whooper swan
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Whooper swan
Whooper swan
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Three whooper swans and one
mute swan
Whooper swan
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Eggs, Collection
Museum Wiesbaden
Whooper swan
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Whooper swan in
Regent's Park, London, England
28.
Plumage
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Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies, and may vary with age classes, within species there can be different colour morphs. The placement of feathers on a bird are not haphazzard, but rather emerge in organized, overlapping rows and groups, most birds moult, usually before and after breeding, resulting in a breeding or nuptial plumage and a basic plumage. Many ducks and some species such as the red junglefowl have males wearing a bright nuptial plumage while breeding. The painted buntings juveniles have two inserted moults in their first autumn, each yielding plumage like an adult females, the first starts a few days after fledging replacing the juvenile plumage with an auxiliary formative plumage, the second a month or so later giving the formative plumage. Abnormal plumages include a variety of conditions, albinism, total loss of colour, is rare, but partial loss of colours is more common. Some species are polymorphic, having two or more colour variants. A few species have special types of polymorphism, as in the male ruff which has an assortment of different colours around the head, hen feathering is an inherited plumage character in domestic fowl controlled by a single gene. Plumology is the name for the science that is associated with the study of feathers, almost all species of birds moult at least annually, usually after the breeding season, known as the pre-basic moult. This resulting covering of feathers, which will last either until the breeding season or until the next annual moult, is known as the basic plumage. Many species undertake another moult prior to the season known as the pre-alternate moult. The alternate plumage is brighter than the basic plumage, for the purposes of sexual display. The Humphrey-Parkes terminology requires some attention to detail to name moults, many ducks have bright, colourful plumage, exhibiting strong sexual dimorphism. However, they moult into a dull plumage after breeding in mid-summer and this drab, female-like appearance is called eclipse plumage. When they shed feathers to go into eclipse, the ducks become flightless for a period of time. Although mainly found in the Anatidae, a few species, including related red junglefowl, most fairywrens. There are hereditary as well as variations in plumage that are rare. Melanism refers to an excess of black or dark colours, erythromelanism or erythrism is the result of excessive reddish brown erythromelanin deposition in feathers that normally lack melanin
Plumage
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The differences in plumage of a
blue grosbeak, from top to bottom, between a breeding male (alternate plumage), a non-breeding male (basic plumage), a female, and the related
indigo bunting
Plumage
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Mandarin duck (male) in eclipse plumage
Plumage
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Axanthic
budgerigar
Plumage
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An albino
African penguin.
29.
Black swan
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The black swan is a large waterbird, a species of swan, which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. The species was introduced to New Zealand in the 1860s, within Australia they are nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon climatic conditions. Black swans are large birds with black plumage and red bills. They are monogamous breeders that share incubation duties and cygnet rearing between the sexes, Black swans were introduced to various countries as an ornamental bird in the 1800s, but have escaped and formed stable populations. A small population of black swans exists on the River Thames at Marlow, described scientifically by English naturalist John Latham in 1790, the black swan was formerly placed into a monotypic genus, Chenopis. Black swans can be singly, or in loose companies numbering into the hundreds or even thousands. Black swans are popular birds in zoological gardens and bird collections, Black swans are mostly black-feathered birds, with white flight feathers. The bill is red, with a pale bar and tip. Cobs are slightly larger than pens, with a longer and straighter bill, cygnets are a greyish-brown with pale-edged feathers. A mature black swan measures between 110 and 142 centimetres in length and weighs 3. 7–9 kilograms and its wing span is between 1.6 and 2 metres. The neck is long and curved in an S-shape, the black swan utters a musical and far reaching bugle-like sound, called either on the water or in flight, as well as a range of softer crooning notes. It can also whistle, especially when disturbed while breeding and nesting, when swimming, black swans hold their necks arched or erect and often carry their feathers or wings raised in an aggressive display. The black swan is unlike any other Australian bird, although in poor light, however, the black swan can be distinguished by its much longer neck and slower wing beat. One captive population of swans in Lakeland, Florida has produced a few individuals which are a light mottled grey color instead of black. The black swan is common in the wetlands of southwestern and eastern Australia and it is uncommon in central and northern Australia. The black swans preferred habitat extends across fresh, brackish and salt lakes, swamps and rivers with underwater and emergent vegetation for food. Permanent wetlands are preferred, including lakes, but black swans can also be found in flooded pastures and tidal mudflats. Black swans were once thought to be sedentary, but the species is now known to be highly nomadic, there is no set migratory pattern, but rather opportunistic responses to either rainfall or drought
Black swan
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Black swan
Black swan
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Side view of mature adult showing characteristic "S" neck
Black swan
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Adult with a cygnet in New Zealand
Black swan
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Black swan on Vacha reservoir, Bulgaria
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"Swan". Encyclopædia Britannica. 26 (11th ed.). 1911.
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