1.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
2.
Animal
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Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
3.
Chordate
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Chordates are deuterostomes, as during the embryo development stage the anus forms before the mouth. They are also bilaterally symmetric coelomates, in the case of vertebrate chordates, the notochord is usually replaced by a vertebral column during development, and they may have body plans organized via segmentation. There are also additional extinct taxa, the Vertebrata are sometimes considered as a subgroup of the clade Craniata, consisting of chordates with a skull, the Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, the worlds largest and fastest animals, the blue whale and peregrine falcon respectively, are chordates, as are humans. Fossil chordates are known from at least as early as the Cambrian explosion, Hemichordata, which includes the acorn worms, has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but it now is usually treated as a separate phylum. The Hemichordata, along with the Echinodermata, form the Ambulacraria, the Chordata and Ambulacraria form the superphylum Deuterostomia, composed of the deuterostomes. Attempts to work out the relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. All of the earliest chordate fossils have found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial and it has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce family trees shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic. While this has been known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux. Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson, it was already in prevalent use by 1880, ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization, among the vertebrate sub-group of chordates the notochord develops into the spine, and in wholly aquatic species this helps the animal to swim by flexing its tail. In fish and other vertebrates, this develops into the spinal cord, the pharynx is the part of the throat immediately behind the mouth. In fish, the slits are modified to form gills, a muscular tail that extends backwards behind the anus. This is a groove in the wall of the pharynx. In filter-feeding species it produces mucus to gather food particles, which helps in transporting food to the esophagus and it also stores iodine, and may be a precursor of the vertebrate thyroid gland
4.
Reptile
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Reptiles are tetrapod animals in the class Reptilia, comprising todays turtles, crocodilians, snakes, amphisbaenians, lizards, tuatara, and their extinct relatives. The study of these traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of amphibians, is called herpetology. Because some reptiles are more related to birds than they are to other reptiles. For this reason, many scientists prefer to consider the birds part of Reptilia as well. Some early examples include the lizard-like Hylonomus and Casineria, in addition to the living reptiles, there are many diverse groups that are now extinct, in some cases due to mass extinction events. In particular, the K–Pg extinction wiped out the pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, ornithischians, and sauropods, as well as species of theropods, crocodyliforms. Modern non-avian reptiles inhabit every continent with the exception of Antarctica, several living subgroups are recognized, Testudines, approximately 400 species, Sphenodontia,1 species, Squamata, over 9,600 species, Crocodilia,25 species, and Aves,10,000 species. Reptiles are tetrapod vertebrates, creatures that either have four limbs or, unlike amphibians, reptiles do not have an aquatic larval stage. As amniotes, reptile eggs are surrounded by membranes for protection and transport, many of the viviparous species feed their fetuses through various forms of placenta analogous to those of mammals, with some providing initial care for their hatchlings. In the 18th century, the reptiles were, from the outset of classification, the terms reptile and amphibian were largely interchangeable, reptile being preferred by the French. Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti was the first to use the term Reptilia for an expanded selection of reptiles. Today, the two groups are commonly treated under the same heading as herptiles. He subsequently proposed the names of Sauropsida and Ichthyopsida for the two groups. In 1866, Haeckel demonstrated that vertebrates could be divided based on their strategies, and that reptiles, birds. The terms Sauropsida and Theropsida were used again in 1916 by E. S, Goodrich to distinguish between lizards, birds, and their relatives on the one hand and mammals and their extinct relatives on the other. Goodrich supported this division by the nature of the hearts and blood vessels in each group, according to Goodrich, both lineages evolved from an earlier stem group, Protosauria in which he included some animals today considered reptile-like amphibians, as well as early reptiles. Watson observed that the first two groups diverged very early in history, so he divided Goodrichs Protosauria between them. He also reinterpreted Sauropsida and Theropsida to exclude birds and mammals, thus his Sauropsida included Procolophonia, Eosuchia, Millerosauria, Chelonia, Squamata, Rhynchocephalia, Crocodilia, thecodonts, non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and sauropterygians
5.
Squamata
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The Squamata, or the scaled reptiles, are the largest recent order of reptiles, comprising all lizards and snakes. With over 10,000 species, it is also the second-largest order of extant vertebrates, after the perciform fish, members of the order are distinguished by their skins, which bear horny scales or shields. They also possess movable quadrate bones, making it possible to move the upper jaw relative to the neurocranium and this is particularly visible in snakes, which are able to open their mouths very wide to accommodate comparatively large prey. They are the most variably sized order of reptiles, ranging from the 16 mm dwarf gecko to the 5.21 m green anaconda and the now-extinct mosasaurs, among the other reptiles, squamates are most closely related to the tuatara, which strongly resembles lizards. Squamates are a sister group to the tuatara. The squamates and tuatara together are a group to crocodiles and birds. Fossils of the sister group, the Rhynchocephalia, appear in the Early Triassic. Also appearing in the Cretaceous are the polyglyphanodonts, a group of uncertain affinities, and the mosasaurs. At the end of the Cretaceous, squamates suffered a major extinction at the K-T boundary which wiped out polyglyphanodonts, mosasaurs, the relationships of squamates have been debated. From morphological data, the iguanians were long thought to be the most ancient branch of the tree, however, iguanians are now united with snakes and anguimorphs in a group called the Toxicofera. DNA also suggests that the various limbless groups- snakes, amphisbaenians, and dibamids- are unrelated, the male members of the group Squamata have hemipenes, which are usually held inverted within their bodies, and are everted for reproduction via erectile tissue like that in the human penis. Only one is used at a time, and some evidence indicates that males alternate use between copulations, the hemipenis has a variety of shapes, depending on the species. Often it bears spines or hooks, to anchor the male within the female, some species even have forked hemipenes. Due to being everted and inverted, hemipenes do not have a completely enclosed channel for the conduction of sperm and this is also the only reptile group in which both viviparous and ovoviviparous species are found, as well as the usual oviparous reptiles. Some species, such as the Komodo dragon, can reproduce asexually through parthenogenesis. There have been studies on how sexual selection manifests itself in snakes, snakes use a variety of tactics in acquiring mates. It is common for neck biting to occur while the snakes are entwined, parthenogenesis is a natural form of reproduction in which growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization. Agkistrodon contortrix and Agkistrodon piscivorus can reproduce by facultative parthenogenesis and that is, they are capable of switching from a sexual mode of reproduction to an asexual mode
6.
Iguania
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The Iguania are a suborder of the Squamata that contains the iguanas, chameleons, agamids, and New World lizards, such as anoles and phrynosomatids. Using morphological features as a guide to evolutionary relationships, the Iguania are believed to form the group to the remainder of the Squamata. However, molecular information has placed Iguania well within the Squamata as sister taxa to the Anguimorpha, iguanians are largely arboreal and have primitively fleshy, nonprehensile tongues, although the condition is highly modified in chameleons. The group has a record that extends back to the Early Jurassic. Showing the interrelationships of extinct and living iguanians
7.
Binomial nomenclature
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Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
8.
Spencer Fullerton Baird
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Spencer Fullerton Baird was an American naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist, herpetologist, and museum curator. Baird was the first curator to be named at the Smithsonian Institution and he would eventually serve as assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian from 1850 to 1878, and as Secretary from 1878 until 1887. He was dedicated to expanding the history collections of the Smithsonian which he increased from 6,000 specimens in 1850 to over 2 million by the time of his death. He published over 1,000 works during his lifetime, Spencer Fullerton Baird was born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1823. His father was also a big influence on Bairds interest in nature, taking Baird on walks and he died of cholera when Baird was ten years old. As a young boy he attended Nottingham Academy in Port Deposit, Maryland and public school in Carlisle, Baird attended Dickinson College and earned his bachelors and masters degrees, finishing the former in 1840. After graduation he moved to New York City with an interest in studying medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and he returned to Carlisle two years later. He taught natural history at Dickinson starting in 1845, while at Dickinson, he did research, participated in collecting trips, did specimen exchanges with other naturalists, and traveled frequently. He married Mary Helen Churchill in 1846, in 1848, their daughter, Lucy Hunter Baird, was born. He was awarded a grant, in 1848, from the Smithsonian Institution to explore bone caves, in 1849 he was given $75 by the Smithsonian Institution to collect, pack and transport specimens for them. It was during this time that he met Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry, the two would become close friends and colleagues. Throughout the 1840s Baird traveled extensively throughout the northeastern and central United States, often traveling by foot, Baird hiked more than 2,100 miles in 1842 alone. Upon his arrival in Washington, he brought two railroad box cars worth of his personal collection, Baird would create a museum program for the Smithstonian, requesting that the organization focus on natural history in the United States. His program also allowed him to create a network of collectors through an exchange system and he would ask that members of the Army and Navy collect rare animals and plant specimens from west of the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In order to balance the collection, Baird sent duplicate specimens to museums around the country. During the 1850s he described over 50 new species of reptiles, some by himself and their 1853 catalog of the Smithsonians snake collection is a benchmark work in North American herpetology. Baird also was a mentor to herpetologist Robert Kennicott who died prematurely, eventually, he became the Assistant Secretary, serving under Joseph Henry. As Assistant, Baird would help develop a publication and journal exchange and he supported the work of William Stimpson, Robert Kennicott, Henry Ulke and Henry Bryant
9.
Lizard
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Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 6,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic as it excludes the snakes which are also squamates, Lizards typically have four legs feet and external ears, though some are legless, while snakes lack both of these characteristics. Lizards and snakes share a movable quadrate bone, distinguishing them from the sphenodonts, Lizards form about 60% of all the species of extant non-avian reptiles. Some extinct varanids reached great size, The giant monitor Megalania is estimated to have reached up to 7 m long, vision, including color vision, is particularly well developed in most lizards. Most lizards communicate using body language, using specific postures, gestures, and movements to define territory, resolve disputes, some species of lizards also use pheromones or bright colors, such as the iridescent patches on the belly of Sceloporus. These colors are visible to predators, so are often hidden on the underside or between scales and only revealed when necessary. The particular innovation in this respect is the dewlap, a colored patch of skin on the throat. When a display is needed, a lizard can erect the hyoid bone of its throat, anoles are particularly famous for this display, with each species having specific colors, including patterns only visible under ultraviolet light, as many lizards can see UV light. Lizard tails are often a different and dramatically more vivid color than the rest of the body so as to potential predators to strike for the tail first. Many lizards, including geckos and skinks, are capable of shedding part of their tails through a process called autotomy. This is an example of the pars pro toto principle, sacrificing a part for the whole, the detached tail writhes and wiggles, creating a deceptive sense of continued struggle, distracting the predators attention from the fleeing prey animal. The lizard partially regenerates its tail over a period of weeks, a 2014 research identified 326 genes involved in the regeneration of lizard tails. The new section contains cartilage rather than bone, and the skin may be discolored compared to the rest of the body, most lizards are oviparous, though in some species the eggs are retained until the live young emerge. Parthenogenesis occurs in at least 50 species and may be more widespread in the group. Sexual selection in lizards shows evidence of mate choice, favouring males display fitness indicators. However, doubt has been raised over the age of Tikiguania because it is almost indistinguishable from modern agamid lizards, the Tikiguania remains may instead be late Tertiary or Quaternary in age, having been washed into much older Triassic sediments. Lizards are most closely related to the Rhynchocephalia, which appeared in the Late Triassic, mitochondrial phylogenetics suggest that the first lizards evolved in the late Permian. It had been thought on the basis of data that iguanid lizards diverged from other squamates very early on
10.
Arizona
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Arizona is a state in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the Western United States and the Mountain West states and it is the sixth largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix, Arizona is one of the Four Corners states. It has borders with New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California, and Mexico, Arizonas border with Mexico is 389 miles long, on the northern border of the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California. Arizona is the 48th state and last of the states to be admitted to the Union. Historically part of the territory of Alta California in New Spain, after being defeated in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded much of this territory to the United States in 1848. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase, Southern Arizona is known for its desert climate, with very hot summers and mild winters. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff, Alpine, in addition to the Grand Canyon National Park, there are several national forests, national parks, and national monuments. To the European settlers, their pronunciation sounded like Arissona, the area is still known as alĭ ṣonak in the Oodham language. Another possible origin is the Basque phrase haritz ona, as there were numerous Basque sheepherders in the area, There is a misconception that the states name originated from the Spanish term Árida Zona. See also lists of counties, islands, rivers, lakes, state parks, national parks, Arizona is in the Southwestern United States as one of the Four Corners states. Arizona is the sixth largest state by area, ranked after New Mexico, of the states 113,998 square miles, approximately 15% is privately owned. The remaining area is public forest and park land, state trust land, Arizona is well known for its desert Basin and Range region in the states southern portions, which is rich in a landscape of xerophyte plants such as the cactus. This regions topography was shaped by volcanism, followed by the cooling-off. Its climate has hot summers and mild winters. The state is well known for its pine-covered north-central portion of the high country of the Colorado Plateau. Like other states of the Southwest United States, Arizona has an abundance of mountains, despite the states aridity, 27% of Arizona is forest, a percentage comparable to modern-day France or Germany. The worlds largest stand of pine trees is in Arizona
11.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
12.
Idaho
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Idaho is a state in the northwestern region of the United States. It borders the state of Montana to the east and northeast, Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, to the north, it shares a small portion of the Canadian border with the province of British Columbia. With a population of around 1.7 million people and an area of 83,569 square miles, Idaho is the 14th largest, the states capital and largest city is Boise. Idaho prior to European settlement was inhabited solely by Native American peoples, in the early 19th century, Idaho was considered part of the Oregon Country, an area disputed between the U. S. and the United Kingdom. Idaho was eventually admitted to the Union on July 3,1890, forming part of the Pacific Northwest, Idaho is divided into several distinct geographic and climatic regions. In the states north, the relatively isolated Idaho Panhandle is closely linked with Eastern Washington, the states south includes the Snake River Plain, while the south-east incorporates part of the Great Basin. Idaho is quite mountainous, and contains several stretches of the Rocky Mountains, additionally, around 38 percent of Idahos land is held by the United States Forest Service, the most of any state. Industries significant for the economy include manufacturing, agriculture, mining, forestry. Idahos agricultural sector supplies a number of different products, but the state is best known for its potato crop, the official state nickname is the Gem State, which references Idahos reputation for gemstones and, more broadly, its many wilderness areas. The exact origin of the remains a mystery. Willing later claimed that he had invented the name. Congress ultimately decided to name the area Colorado Territory when it was created in February 1861, thinking they would get a jump on the name, locals named a community in Colorado Idaho Springs. However, the name Idaho did not fall into obscurity, the same year Congress created Colorado Territory, a county called Idaho County was created in eastern Washington Territory. The county was named after a steamship named Idaho, which was launched on the Columbia River in 1860 and it is unclear whether the steamship was named before or after Willings claim was revealed. Regardless, a portion of Washington Territory, including Idaho County, was used to create Idaho Territory in 1863. Despite this lack of evidence for the origin of the name, the name Idaho may be derived from the Plains Apache word ídaahę́, which means enemy. The Comanches used this word to refer to the Idaho Territory, a 1956 Idaho history textbook says, Idaho is a Shoshoni Indian exclamation. The word consists of three parts, the first is Ee, which in English conveys the idea of coming down
13.
Nevada
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Nevada is a state in the Western, Mountain West, and Southwestern regions of the United States of America. Nevada is the 7th most extensive, the 34th most populous, nearly three-quarters of Nevadas people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area where three of the states four largest incorporated cities are located. Nevada is officially known as the Silver State because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the Battle Born State, because it achieved statehood during the Civil War, as the Sage-brush State, for the plant of the same name. Nevada borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, Nevada is largely desert and semi-arid, much of it located within the Great Basin. Areas south of the Great Basin are located within the Mojave Desert, while Lake Tahoe, about 86% of the states land is managed by various jurisdictions of the U. S. federal government, both civilian and military. Before European contact, Native Americans of the Paiute, Shoshone, the first Europeans to explore the region were Spanish. They called the region Nevada because of the snow covered the mountains in winter. The area formed part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the United States annexed the area in 1848 after its victory in the Mexican–American War, and it was incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode in 1859 led to a boom that became an impetus to the creation of Nevada Territory out of western Utah Territory in 1861. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31,1864, as the second of two added to the Union during the Civil War. Nevada has a reputation for its libertarian laws, in 1940, with a population of just over 110,000 people, Nevada was by far the least-populated state, with less than half the population of the next least-populated state. However, legalized gambling and lenient marriage and divorce laws transformed Nevada into a major tourist destination in the 20th century, Nevada is the only U. S. state where prostitution is legal, though it is illegal in Clark County, Washoe County and Carson City. The tourism industry remains Nevadas largest employer, with mining continuing as a sector of the economy. The name Nevada comes from the Spanish nevada, meaning snow-covered, most Nevadans pronounce the second syllable of their state name using the vowel of trap. Many from outside the Western United States pronounce it with the vowel of father, although the latter pronunciation is closer to the Spanish pronunciation, it is not the pronunciation preferred by most Nevadans. State Assemblyman Harry Mortenson proposed a bill to recognize the alternate pronunciation of Nevada, though the bill was not supported by most legislators, the Nevadan pronunciation is the de facto official one, since it is the one used by the state legislature. Nevada is almost entirely within the Basin and Range Province, and is broken up by many mountain ranges
14.
Oregon
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Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Oregon is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by Washington, on the south by California, on the east by Idaho, the Columbia River delineates much of Oregons northern boundary, and the Snake River delineates much of the eastern boundary. The parallel 42° north delineates the boundary with California and Nevada. Oregon was inhabited by indigenous tribes before Western traders, explorers. An autonomous government was formed in the Oregon Country in 1843 before the Oregon Territory was created in 1848, Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14,1859. Today, at 98,000 square miles, Oregon is the ninth largest and, with a population of 4 million, the capital of Oregon is Salem, the second most populous of its cities, with 164,549 residents. Portland is Oregons most populous city, with 632,309 residents, Portlands metro population of 2,389,228 ranks the 23rd largest metro in the nation. The Willamette Valley in western Oregon is the states most densely populated area, the tall conifers, mainly Douglas fir, along Oregons rainy west coast contrast with the lighter-timbered and fire-prone pine and juniper forests covering portions to the east. Abundant alders in the west fix nitrogen for the conifers, stretching east from central Oregon are semi-arid shrublands, prairies, deserts, steppes, and meadows. At 11,249 feet, Mount Hood is the states highest point, Oregons only national park, Crater Lake National Park, comprises the caldera surrounding Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. The state is home to the single largest organism in the world, Armillaria ostoyae. Because of its landscapes and waterways, Oregons economy is largely powered by various forms of agriculture, fishing. It is also the top timber-producer of the lower 48 states, Technology is another one of the states major economic forces, which began in the 1970s with the establishment of the Silicon Forest and the expansion of Tektronix and Intel. Sportswear company Nike, Inc. headquartered in Beaverton, is the states largest public corporation with a revenue of $30.6 billion. The earliest evidence of the name Oregon has Spanish origins and this chronicle is the first topographical and linguistic source with respect to the place name Oregon. There are also two other sources with Spanish origins such as the name Oregano which grows in the part of the region. Another early use of the name, spelled Ouragon, was in a 1765 petition by Major Robert Rogers to the Kingdom of Great Britain, the term referred to the then-mythical River of the West. By 1778 the spelling had shifted to Oregon, in his 1765 petition, Rogers wrote, The rout. is from the Great Lakes towards the Head of the Mississippi, and from thence to the River called by the Indians Ouragon
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Utah
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Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4,1896, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, and 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million, approximately 80% of whom live along the Wasatch Front, Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast, approximately 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS, which greatly influences Utahn culture and daily life. The LDS Churchs world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City, Utah is the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. The state is a center of transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, in 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated that Utah had the second fastest-growing population of any state. St. George was the metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah also has the 14th highest median income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the best state to live in based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, the name Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means people of the mountains in the Ute language, according to other sources Utah is derived from the Apache name Yudah which means Tall. These Native American tribes are subgroups of the Ute-Aztec Native American ethnicity and were sedentary, the Ancestral Pueblo people built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century, in the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived, the southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California, the expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature, in 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California. European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada, the city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, in late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the salinity of its waters, Bridger thought he had found the Pacific Ocean
16.
Washington (state)
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It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State or the State of Washington to distinguish it from Washington, Washington is the 18th largest state with an area of 71,362 square miles, and the 13th most populous state with over 7 million people. Washington is the second most populous state on the West Coast and in the Western United States, Mount Rainier, an active stratovolcano, is the states highest elevation at almost 14,411 feet and is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States. Washington is a leading lumber producer and its rugged surface is rich in stands of Douglas fir, hemlock, ponderosa pine, white pine, spruce, larch, and cedar. Manufacturing industries in Washington include aircraft and missiles, shipbuilding and other equipment, lumber, food processing, metals and metal products, chemicals. Washington has over 1,000 dams, including the Grand Coulee Dam, built for a variety of purposes including irrigation, power, flood control, the Washington Territory was named after George Washington, the first President of the United States. The area was part of a region called the Columbia District after the Columbia River. The area was renamed Washington in order to avoid confusion with the District of Columbia, Washington is the only U. S. state named after a president. To distinguish it from the U. S. capital, which is named for George Washington, Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State, or, in more formal contexts. Washingtonians and other residents of the Pacific Northwest refer to the state simply as Washington, calling the nations capital Washington, D. C. or, often, Washington is the northwestern-most state of the contiguous United States. Washington is bordered by Oregon to the south, with the Columbia River forming the western part, to the west of Washington lies the Pacific Ocean. The high mountains of the Cascade Range run north-south, bisecting the state, from the Cascade Mountains westward, Western Washington has a mostly marine west coast climate, with mild temperatures and wet winters, autumns and springs, and relatively dry summers. The Cascade Range contains several volcanoes, which reach altitudes significantly higher than the rest of the mountains, from the north to the south, these major volcanoes are Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Adams. Mount Rainier, the tallest mountain in the state, is 50 miles south of the city of Seattle and it is also covered with more glacial ice than any other peak in the contiguous 48 states. Western Washington also is home of the Olympic Mountains, far west on the Olympic Peninsula and these deep forests, such as the Hoh Rainforest, are among the only temperate rainforests in the continental United States. Eastern Washington – the part of the state east of the Cascades – has a dry climate. It includes large areas of steppe and a few truly arid deserts lying in the rain shadow of the Cascades. Farther east, the climate becomes less arid, with annual rainfall increasing as one goes east to 21.2 inches in Pullman, the Okanogan Highlands and the rugged Kettle River Range and Selkirk Mountains cover much of the northeastern quadrant of the state
17.
Mexico
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Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States, to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean, to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers, Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area, Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district that is also its capital and most populous city. Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, pre-Columbian Mexico was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colonys Mexican War of Independence. The tumultuous post-independence period was characterized by instability and many political changes. The Mexican–American War led to the cession of the extensive northern borderlands, one-third of its territory. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, the dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the countrys current political system. Mexico has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity, the Mexican economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement partners, especially the United States. Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts. By 2050, Mexico could become the fifth or seventh largest economy. The country is considered both a power and middle power, and is often identified as an emerging global power. Due to its culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas. Mexico is a country, ranking fourth in the world by biodiversity. In 2015 it was the 9th most visited country in the world, Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus and the Pacific Alliance. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely, the Valley of Mexico, and its people, the Mexica and this became the future State of Mexico as a division of New Spain prior to independence. It is generally considered to be a toponym for the valley became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result. After New Spain won independence from Spain, representatives decided to name the new country after its capital and this was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan
18.
Genus
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A genus is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms in biology. In the hierarchy of classification, genus comes above species. In binomial nomenclature, the name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. Felis catus and Felis silvestris are two species within the genus Felis, Felis is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by a taxonomist, the standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. Moreover, genera should be composed of units of the same kind as other genera. The term comes from the Latin genus, a noun form cognate with gignere, linnaeus popularized its use in his 1753 Species Plantarum, but the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort is considered the founder of the modern concept of genera. The scientific name of a genus may be called the name or generic epithet. It plays a role in binomial nomenclature, the system of naming organisms. The rules for the names of organisms are laid down in the Nomenclature Codes. The standard way of scientifically describing species and other lower-ranked taxa is by binomial nomenclature, the generic name forms its first half. For example, the gray wolfs binomial name is Canis lupus, with Canis being the name shared by the wolfs close relatives. The specific name is written in lower-case and may be followed by names in zoology or a variety of infraspecific names in botany. Especially with these names, when the generic name is known from context. Because animals are typically only grouped within subspecies, it is written as a trinomen with a third name. Dog breeds, meanwhile, are not scientifically distinguished, there are several divisions of plant species and therefore their infraspecific names generally include contractions explaining the relation. For example, the genus Hibiscus includes hundreds of other species apart from the Rose of Sharon or common garden hibiscus, Rose of Sharon doesnt have subspecies but has cultivars that carry desired traits, such as the bright white H. syriaca Diana. Hawaiian hibiscus, meanwhile, includes several separate species, since not all botanists agree on the divisions or names between species, it is common to specify the source of the name using author abbreviations
19.
Iguanidae
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The Iguanidae are a family of lizards composed of iguanas and related species. Several classification schemes have been used to define the structure of this family, the historical classification recognized all New World iguanians, plus Brachylophus and the Madagascar oplurines, as informal groups and not as formal subfamilies. Frost and Etheridge formally recognized these informal groupings as families and this view is not generally accepted. The phylogenetic classification of Iguania from this work is the current and most generally accepted classification of iguanid lizards
20.
Species
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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
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Clade
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A clade is a group of organisms that consists of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants, and represents a single branch on the tree of life. The common ancestor may be an individual, a population, a species, clades are nested, one in another, as each branch in turn splits into smaller branches. These splits reflect evolutionary history as populations diverged and evolved independently, over the last few decades, the cladistic approach has revolutionized biological classification and revealed surprising evolutionary relationships among organisms. Increasingly, taxonomists try to avoid naming taxa that are not clades, the term clade was coined in 1957 by the biologist Julian Huxley to refer to the result of cladogenesis, a concept Huxley borrowed from Bernhard Rensch. Many commonly named groups are clades, for example, rodents or insects, because in each case, their name refers to a common ancestor with all its descendant branches. Rodents, for example, are a branch of mammals that split off after the end of the period when the clade Dinosauria stopped being the dominant terrestrial vertebrates 66 million years ago, the original population and all its descendants are a clade. The rodent clade corresponds to the order Rodentia, and insects to the class Insecta and these clades include smaller clades, such as chipmunk or ant, each of which consists of even smaller clades. The clade rodent is in included in the mammal, vertebrate. The phenomenon of convergent evolution is, however, responsible for cases where there are misleading similarities in the morphology of groups that evolved from different lineages. The publication of Darwins theory of evolution in 1859 gave this view increasing weight, thomas Henry Huxley, an early advocate of evolutionary theory, proposed a revised taxonomy based on clades. For example, he grouped birds with reptiles, based on fossil evidence, german biologist Emil Hans Willi Hennig is considered to be the founder of cladistics. Taxonomists have increasingly worked to make the taxonomic system reflect evolution, when it comes to naming, however, this principle is not always compatible with the traditional rank-based nomenclature. For these and other reasons, phylogenetic nomenclature has been developed, a clade is by definition monophyletic, meaning that it contains one ancestor and all its descendants. The ancestor can be known or unknown, any and all members of a clade can be extant or extinct, the science that tries to reconstruct phylogenetic trees and thus discover clades is called phylogenetics or cladistics, the latter term coined by Ernst Mayr, derived from clade. The results of analyses are tree-shaped diagrams called cladograms, they. Three methods of defining clades are featured in phylogenetic nomenclature, node-, stem-, the relationship between clades can be described in several ways, A clade located within a clade is said to be nested within that clade. In the diagram, the clade, i. e. the apes. Two clades are sisters if they have a common ancestor
22.
Subspecies
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In biological classification, subspecies is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, or a taxonomic unit in that rank. A subspecies cannot be recognized independently, a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or at least two, in zoology, under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the subspecies is the only taxonomic rank below that of species that can receive a name. In botany and mycology, under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, in bacteriology and virology, under standard bacterial nomenclature and virus nomenclature, there are recommendations but not strict requirements for recognizing other important infraspecific ranks. A taxonomist decides whether to recognize a subspecies or not, the differences between subspecies are usually less distinct than the differences between species. In zoology, the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature accepts only one rank below that of species, other groupings, infrasubspecific entities do not have names regulated by the ICZN. Such forms have no official ICZN status, though they may be useful in describing altitudinal or geographical clines, pet breeds, transgenic animals, etc. While the scientific name of a species is a binomen, the name of a subspecies is a trinomen - a binomen followed by a subspecific name. A tigers binomen is Panthera tigris, so for a Sumatran tiger the trinomen is, for example, names published before 1992 in the rank of variety are taken to be names of subspecies. In botany, subspecies is one of many ranks below that of species, such as variety, subvariety, form, the subspecific name is preceded by subsp. or ssp. as Schoenoplectus californicus ssp. tatora. A botanical name consists of at most three parts, an infraspecific name includes the species binomial, and one infraspecific epithet, such as subspecies or variety. For example, Motacilla alba alba is the subspecies of the white wagtail. The subspecies name that repeats the name is referred to in botanical nomenclature as the subspecies autonym. When zoologists disagree over whether a population is a subspecies or a full species. A subspecies is a rank below species – the only recognized rank in the zoological code. Botanists and mycologists have the choice of ranks lower than subspecies, such as variety or form, in biological terms, rather than in relation to nomenclature, a polytypic species has two or more subspecies, races, or more generally speaking, populations that need a separate description. These are separate groups that are distinct from one another and do not generally interbreed. These subspecies, races, or populations, can be named as subspecies by zoologists, a monotypic species has no distinct population or races, or rather one race comprising the whole species. A taxonomist would not name a subspecies within such a species, monotypic species can occur in several ways, All members of the species are very similar and cannot be sensibly divided into biologically significant subcategories
23.
Courtship
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Courtship is the period in a couples relationship which precedes their engagement and marriage, or establishment of an agreed relationship of a more enduring kind. During courtship, a couple get to each other and decide if there will be an engagement or other such agreement. A courtship may be an informal and private matter between two people or may be an affair, or a formal arrangement with family approval. The average duration of courtship varies considerably throughout the world, furthermore, there is vast individual variation between couples. Courtship may be omitted, as in cases of some arranged marriages where the couple do not meet before the wedding. Regarding duration between proposal and wedding, the UK poll above gave an average of 2 years and 3 months, while the date is fairly casual in most European-influenced cultures, in some traditional societies, courtship is a highly structured activity, with very specific formal rules. In some societies, the parents or community propose potential partners, in Japan, there is a such type of courtship called Omiai, with similar practices called Xiangqin in the Greater China Area. Parents will hire a matchmaker to provide pictures and résumés of potential mates, the matchmaker and parents will often exert pressure on the couple to decide whether they want to marry or not after a few dates. Courtship in the Philippines is one known form of courtship. Unlike what is seen in other societies, it takes a far more subdued. It is complex in that it involves stages, and it is considered normal for courtship to last a year or longer and it is common to see the male showing off by sending love letters and love poems, singing romantic songs and buying gifts for the female. The parents are seen as part of the courtship practice, as their approval is commonly needed before courtship may begin. In more closed societies, courtship is virtually eliminated altogether by the practice of arranged marriages, in the earlier 1800s, young adults were expected to court with the intention of finding a marriage partner, rather than for social reasons. She further states that with courtship, commitment happens before intimacy, in America, in the 1820s, the phrase date was most closely associated with prostitution. However, by the Jazz Age of the 1920s, dating for fun was becoming a cultural expectation and this form of dating, though, was usually more chaste than is seen today, since premarital sex was not considered the norm. The concept of dating was initially seen as frustrating and mocked the moralistic values of traditional courtship. One of the reasons there was this disagreement was that they did not want their children growing up doing what many did during the revolution in the 60’s. The act of dating is seen to be temporary, with such acts seeming as if they are “on one day”
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Anatomical terms of location
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Standard anatomical terms of location deal unambiguously with the anatomy of animals, including humans. All vertebrates have the basic body plan – they are strictly bilaterally symmetrical in early embryonic stages. That is, they have left and right halves if divided down the centre. For these reasons, the directional terms can be considered to be those used in vertebrates. By extension, the terms are used for many other organisms as well. While these terms are standardized within specific fields of biology, there are unavoidable, sometimes dramatic, for example, differences in terminology remain a problem that, to some extent, still separates the terminology of human anatomy from that used in the study of various other zoological categories. The vertebrates and Craniata share a heritage and common structure. To avoid ambiguities this terminology is based on the anatomy of each animal in a standard way, for humans, one type of vertebrate, anatomical terms may differ from other forms of vertebrates. Thus what is on top of a human is the head, whereas the top of a dog may be its back, for example, many species are not even bilaterally symmetrical. In these species, terminology depends on their type of symmetry, all descriptions are with respect to the organism in its standard anatomical position, even when the organism in question has appendages in another position. This helps avoid confusion in terminology when referring to the organism in different postures. In humans, this refers to the body in a position with arms at the side. While the universal vertebrate terminology used in medicine would work in human medicine. Many anatomical terms can be combined, either to indicate a position in two axes simultaneously or to indicate the direction of a movement relative to the body, for example, anterolateral indicates a position that is both anterior and lateral to the body axis. There is no limit to the contexts in which terms may be modified to qualify each other in such combinations. Generally the modifier term is truncated and an o or an i is added in prefixing it to the qualified term, where desirable three or more terms may be agglutinated or concatenated, as in anteriodorsolateral. Such terms sometimes used to be hyphenated, but the tendency is to omit the hyphen. There is however little basis for any rule to interfere with choice of convenience in such usage
25.
Eastern fence lizard
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The eastern fence lizard is a medium-sized species of lizard found along forest edges, rock piles, and rotting logs or stumps in the eastern United States. It is sometimes referred to as the lizard, fence swift, gray lizard. It is also referred to colloquially as the horn-billed lizard, the generic name, Sceloporus, is derived from the Greek skelos/σκελος, meaning leg, and the Latin porus, meaning hole, referring to the enlarged femoral pores found in this genus of lizards. The specific name, undulatus, is Latin for wave, referring to the dark crossbars on the backs of these lizards. Until 2002,10 subspecies of S. undulatus were recognized and these were reclassified as four distinct evolutionary species. The narrowed redefinition of S. undulatus has been suggested to contain two subspecies divided by the Appalachian Mountains. There are isolated populations outside this range in southeastern New York, the eastern fence lizard can grow from 4.0 to 7.5 inches long. It is typically colored in shades of gray or brown, and has keeled scales, a female is usually gray and has a series of dark, wavy lines across her back. The belly is white with black flecks, with pale blue on the throat. The male is brown, and during the summer, has a more greenish-blue and black coloration on the sides of the belly. The young look like the females, but are darker and duller and they closely resemble the western fence lizard, but differ slightly in coloration and live in a different area and habitat. Red fire ants serve a problem towards the eastern fence lizards as they occupy their microhabitats, moreover, according to a study published in 2016, artificial eastern fence lizard nests have shown that predation caused by the fire ants were much more vulnerable. Eastern fence lizards mate in spring, and lay 3 to 16 eggs in spring or early summer. The young hatch in summer and fall, male fence lizards often do push-ups to attract mates and to warn other males encroaching on their territory. Species Sceloporus undulatus at The Reptile Database Pictures and resource information on the eastern fence lizards Care sheet for pet owners of the fence lizard
26.
Sagebrush lizard
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The sagebrush lizard is a common species of phrynosomatid lizard found at mid to high altitudes in the western United States of America. It belongs to the genus Sceloporus in the Phrynosomatidae family of reptiles, named after the sagebrush plants near which it is commonly found, the sagebrush lizard has keeled and spiny scales running along its dorsal surface. It is similar to the fence lizard, another Sceloporus species found in the western US. The sagebrush lizard can be distinguished from the fence lizard in that the former is on average smaller and has finer scales. The keeled dorsal scales are typically gray or tan, but can be a variety of colors, the main color is broken by a lighter gray or tan stripe running down the center of the back and two light stripes, one on either side of the lizard. This lizard will sometimes have orange markings on its sides, the sagebrush lizard is usually 4. 7-8.9 cm in length when fully grown. Hatchlings are about 25 mm from snout to vent in length, the lizard looks very similar to the western fence lizard, but differs in that it is typically smaller and has an increased number of scales. In appearance, the lizards are grey, brown or olive, with hints of blue or green on the surface during the light phase. They also often display a bar on the shoulder. The scales on the portion of the thigh are small and granular, while the armpit. Females have white or yellow bellies, and males have blue patches on the abdomen and throat. Males also have enlarged scales, and two areas of swelling at the base of the tail. During the breeding season, males may develop orange breeding colors, young lizards look similar to adults, but lack the dark blue markings. This lizard’s distribution includes much of the western United States and they can be found throughout Utah, Nevada, southern Idaho, northern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, Texas, and western Colorado. They are also distributed throughout areas of Wyoming, Oregon, California. Isolated populations can be found in North Dakota and Nebraska, the lizard has been found to live at elevations ranging from 500 to 10,500 ft. True to its name, the sagebrush lizard prefers to live in sagebrush, but is found in pine or fir forests, redwood forests, brushlands. They can often be found sunning on logs or sedimentary rock outcroppings, loss of habitat due to agriculture, intensive grazing, and oil developments has affected the species in the shortgrass prairie badlands of North Dakota and other western states
27.
Side-blotched lizard
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Side-blotched lizards are lizards of the genus Uta. They are some of the most abundant and commonly observed lizards in the deserts of western North America and their cycle among three colorized breeding patterns has achieved notoriety and is best described in the common side-blotched lizard. They commonly grow to six including the tail, with the males normally being the larger sex. Males often have bright throat colors and these lizards are prey for many desert species. Snakes, larger lizards, and birds all make formidable predators to side-blotched lizards, larger lizard species, such as collared, leopard, and spiny lizards, and roadrunners are the main predators. In turn, the lizards eat arthropods, such as insects, spiders. As a result of their high rate, these lizards are very prolific breeders. From April to June they breed, with the young emerging as early as late May and these inch-long young appear all through the summer, and into September. The diploid chromosome number in most if not all species is 34, side-blotched lizards are notable for having the highest number of distinct male and female morphs or genders within a species, three male and two female. Reproductively the males have testes and the females have ovaries, however they show a diversity of behaviors associated with reproduction, which are often referred to as alternative reproductive tactics. Orange-throated males are ultra-dominant, high testosterone, who establish large territories, blue-throated males are less aggressive and guard only one female, they can fend off the yellow stripe-throated males but cannot withstand attacks by orange-throated males. Orange-throated females lay small eggs and are very territorial. Yellow-throated females lay fewer, larger eggs, and are tolerant of each other. This is called the rock paper scissors effect, borrowed from the name of the playground game, because the outcome of the mating success shows that one morph of the lizard takes advantage over another but not over the third. The orange and blue-throated males can sometimes be seen approaching a human intruder, one speculation is that he could be giving the female a chance to escape, but whether he is defending the female has not been documented. Another speculation is that he is motivated to engage whenever he sees movement on his territory. The systematics and phylogeny of the lizards is very confusing, with many local forms. U. encantadae, U. lowei, and U. tumidarostra might be subspecies of a distinct species, similarly, U. auriculata and U. clarionensis might be subspecies of a single species, the Revillagigedo side-blotched lizard
28.
Seattle
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Seattle is a seaport city on the west coast of the United States and the seat of King County, Washington. With an estimated 684,451 residents as of 2015, Seattle is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In July 2013, it was the major city in the United States. The city is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about 100 miles south of the Canada–United States border, a major gateway for trade with Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2015. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, the settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named Seattle in 1852, after Chief Siahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Logging was Seattles first major industry, but by the late-19th century, growth after World War II was partially due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing. The Seattle area developed as a technology center beginning in the 1980s, in 1994, Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle. The stream of new software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, Seattle has a noteworthy musical history. From 1918 to 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District, to the Central District, the jazz scene developed the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Seattle is also the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix and the alternative rock subgenre grunge, archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the people occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay, the first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 1791–95 expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest. In 1851, a party led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party, members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28,1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland, Oregon, after a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement Duwamps. For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, david Swinson Doc Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement after Chief Sealth of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The name Seattle appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23,1853, in 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14,1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of managing the city
29.
Columbia River Gorge
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The Columbia River Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The gorge holds federally protected status as a National Scenic Area called the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area and is managed by the Columbia River Gorge Commission, the gorge is a popular recreational destination. Each river has created a gorge through the Cascade Mountain Range, the Columbia River Gorge marks the state line between Oregon and Washington. The wide range of elevation and precipitation makes the Columbia River Gorge an extremely diverse, isolated micro-habitats have allowed for many species of endemic plants and animals to prosper, including at least 13 endemic wildflowers. The Gorge transitions between temperate rainforest to dry grasslands in only 80 miles, hosting a dramatic change in scenery while driving down I-84, in the western, temperate rainforest areas, forests are marked by bigleaf maples, Douglas Fir, and Western hemlock, all covered in epiphytes. In the transition zone, vegetation turns to Oregon white oak, Ponderosa pine, at the eastern end, the forests make way for expansive grasslands, with occasional pockets of lodgepole pine and Ponderosa pine. It also creates the conditions for snow and ice storms during the winter months which also draws very cold east winds at the mouth of the gorge on the west end. The Gorge is a destination for hiking, biking, sight-seeing, fishing. The area is known for its concentration of waterfalls, with over 90 on the Oregon side of the Gorge alone. Many are along the Historic Columbia River Highway, including the notable 620-foot -high Multnomah Falls, trails and day use sites are maintained by the Forest Service and many Oregon and Washington state parks. The Columbia River Gorge began forming as far back as the Miocene, during this period the Cascades Range was forming, which slowly moved the Columbia Rivers delta about 100 miles north to its current location. This quick erosion left many layers of rock exposed. The gorge has supported human habitation for over 13,000 years, evidence of the Folsom and Marmes people, who crossed the Bering land bridge from Asia, were found in archaeological digs. Excavations near Celilo Falls, a few miles east of The Dalles, the gorge has provided a transportation corridor for thousands of years. Native Americans would travel through the Gorge to trade at Celilo Falls, in 1805, the route was used by the Lewis and Clark Expedition to reach the Pacific. Early European and American settlers subsequently established steamboat lines and railroads through the gorge, today, the BNSF Railway runs freights along the Washington side of the river, while its rival, the Union Pacific Railroad, runs freights along the Oregon shore. Until 1997, Amtraks Pioneer also used the Union Pacific tracks, the Portland segment of the Empire Builder uses the BNSF tracks that pass through the gorge. The Columbia River Highway, built in the early 20th century, was the first major paved highway in the Pacific Northwest
30.
Baja California
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Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico, before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of Baja California. It has an area of 70,113 km2, or 3. 57% of the mass of Mexico and comprises the northern half of the Baja California Peninsula, north of the 28th parallel. The mainland portion of the state is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by Sonora, the U. S. State of Arizona, and the Gulf of California and its northern limit is the U. S. state of California. The state has an population of 3,165,776 much more than the sparsely populated Baja California Sur to the south. Over 75% of the lives in the capital city, Mexicali, in Ensenada. Other important cities include San Felipe, Rosarito and Tecate, additionally, there is a large immigrant population from the United States due to its proximity to San Diego and the cheaper cost of living compared to San Diego. There is also a significant population from Central America, many immigrants moved to Baja California for a better quality of life and the number of higher paying jobs in comparison to the rest of Mexico and Latin America. Baja California is the twelfth largest state by area in Mexico and its geography ranges from beaches to forests and deserts. The backbone of the state is the Sierra de Baja California, where the Picacho del Diablo and this mountain range effectively divides the weather patterns in the state. In the northwest, the weather is semi-dry and mediterranean, in the narrow center, the weather changes to be more humid due to altitude. It is in area where a few valleys can be found, such as the Valle de Guadalupe. To the east of the range, the Sonoran Desert dominates the landscape. In the south, the weather becomes drier and gives way to the Vizcaino Desert, the state is also home to numerous islands off both of its shores. In fact, the westernmost point in Mexico, the Guadalupe Island, is part of Baja California, the Coronado, Todos Santos and Cedros Islands are also on the Pacific Shore. On the Gulf of California, the biggest island is the Angel de la Guarda, separated from the peninsula by the deep, the first people came to the peninsula at least 11,000 years ago. At that time two main groups are thought to have been present on the peninsula. In the south were the Cochimí, in the north were several groups belonging to the Yuman language family, including the Kiliwa, Paipai, Kumeyaay, Cocopa, and Quechan
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Chaparral
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Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U. S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico. Chaparral covers 5 percent of the state of California, and associated Mediterranean shrubland an additional 3.5 percent, the name comes from the Spanish word for scrub oak, chaparro. In its natural state, chaparral is characterized by infrequent fires, mature chaparral is characterized by nearly impenetrable, dense thickets. They grow as woody shrubs with hard and small leaves, are non-leaf-dropping, after the first rains following a fire, the landscape is dominated by soft-leaved non-woody annual plants, known as fire followers, which die back with the summer dry period. According to the California Academy of Sciences, Mediterranean shrubland contains more than 20 percent of the plant diversity. The word chaparral is a word from Spanish chaparro, meaning both small and dwarf evergreen oak, which itself comes from the Basque word txapar, with exactly the same meaning. In Central and Southern California chaparral forms a dominant habitat, the following is a short list of birds which are an integral part of the cismontane chaparral ecosystems. Transmontane chaparral features xeric desert climate, not Mediterranean climate habitats, Desert chaparral is a regional ecosystem subset of the deserts and xeric shrublands biome, with some plant species from the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion. Unlike cismontane chaparral, which forms dense, impenetrable stands of plants, desert chaparral is open, individual shrubs can reach up to 10 feet in height. Transmontane chaparral or desert chaparral is found on the slopes of major mountain range systems on the western sides of the deserts of California. It is distinguished from the cismontane chaparral found on the side of the mountains. Naturally, desert chaparral experiences less rainfall than cismontane chaparral. Plants in this community are characterized by small, hard evergreen leaves, Desert chaparral grows above Californias desert cactus scrub plant community and below the pinyon-juniper woodland. It is further distinguished from the deciduous sub-alpine scrub above the pinyon-juniper woodlands on the side of the Peninsular ranges. Transmontane chaparral typically grows on the northern slopes of the southern Transverse Ranges. It can also be found in higher-elevation sky islands in the interior of the deserts, there is overlap of animals with those of the adjacent desert and pinyon-juniper communities. Canis latrans, coyotes Lynx rufus, bobcats Neotoma sp, the Chaparral area receives about 38–100 cm of precipitation a year. This makes the chaparral most vulnerable to fire in the late summer, the chaparral ecosystem as a whole is adapted to be able to recover from infrequent wildfires, indeed, chaparral regions are known culturally and historically for their impressive fires
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Predation
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In an ecosystem, predation is a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey. Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on it, but the act of predation often results in the death of the prey, thus predation is often, though not always, carnivory. Other categories of consumption are herbivory, fungivory, and detritivory, all of these are consumer-resource systems. It can often be difficult to separate various types of feeding behaviors. For example, some parasites prey on their host and then lay their eggs on it, for their offspring to feed on it while it continues to live, the key characteristic of predation is the predators direct impact on the prey population. Selective pressures imposed on one another leads to an evolutionary arms race between prey and predator, resulting in various antipredator adaptations. Ways of classifying predation include grouping by trophic level or diet, by specialization, Predators can be classified by their interactions with their prey. Two factors are considered here, how close the predator and prey are, and whether the prey is killed by the predator. A true predator is one that kills and eats another living thing, Predators may hunt actively for prey in pursuit predation, or sit and wait for prey to approach within striking distance, as in ambush predators. Some predation entails venom that subdues a prey before the predator ingests it, as in the box jellyfish, or disables it, in some cases, the venom contributes to the digestion of the prey, as in rattlesnakes and some spiders. In contrast, baleen whales eat millions of microscopic plankton at once, seed and egg predation are true predation, as seeds and eggs are potential organisms. Predators need not eat prey entirely, for example, some predators cannot digest bones, some may eat only part of an organism, but still consistently cause its death. Grazing organisms do not often kill their prey, while some herbivores like zooplankton live on unicellular phytoplankton and therefore, by the individualized nature of the organism, kill their prey, many others only eat a small part of the plant. Grazing livestock may pull some grass out at the roots, but most is simply grazed upon, kelp is frequently grazed in subtidal kelp forests, but regrows at the base of the blade continuously to cope with browsing pressure. Animals may also be grazed upon, female mosquitos land on hosts briefly to gain sufficient proteins for the development of their offspring, starfish may be grazed on, being capable of regenerating lost arms. Parasites can at times be difficult to distinguish from grazers and their feeding behavior is similar in many ways, however they are noted for their close association with their host species. This close living arrangement may be described by the symbiosis, living together. Parasitic organisms range from the mistletoe, a parasitic plant
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Shrew
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A shrew or shrew mouse is a small mole-like mammal classified in the order Eulipotyphla. True shrews are not to be confused with West Indies shrews, treeshrews, otter shrews, or elephant shrews. Although its external appearance is generally that of a long-nosed mouse and it is in fact a much closer relative of moles, and related to rodents only in that both belong to the Boreoeutheria Magnorder. Shrews have sharp, spike-like teeth, not the familiar gnawing front incisor teeth of rodents, all shrews are comparatively small, most no larger than a mouse. They have small eyes and generally poor vision, but have excellent senses of hearing and they are very active animals, with voracious appetites. Shrews have unusually high rates, above that expected in comparable small mammals. Shrews in captivity can eat 1/2 to 2 times their own weight in food daily. They do not hibernate, but are capable of entering torpor, in winter, many species undergo morphological changes that drastically reduce their body weight. Shrews can lose between 30% and 50% of their weight, shrinking the size of bones, skull. Apart from the first pair of incisors, which are long and sharp, and the molars at the back of the mouth, the teeth of shrews are small and peg-like. The dental formula of shrews is,3.1. 1-3. 31-2. 0-1.1.3 Shrews are fiercely territorial, driving off rivals, many species dig burrows for caching food and hiding from predators, although this is not universal. Female shrews can have up to 10 litters a year, in the tropics, they breed all year round, in temperate zones, Shrews have gestation periods of 17–32 days. The female often becomes pregnant within a day or so of giving birth, Shrews live 12 to 30 months. Shrews are unusual among mammals in a number of respects, unlike most mammals, some species of shrews are venomous. Shrew venom is not conducted into the wound by fangs, the venom contains various compounds, and the contents of the venom glands of the American short-tailed shrew are sufficient to kill 200 mice by intravenous injection. The saliva of the northern short-tailed shrew contains soricidin, a peptide which has studied for use in treating ovarian cancer. Also, along with the bats and toothed whales, some species of shrews use echolocation, unlike most other mammals, shrews lack zygomatic bones, so have incomplete zygomatic arches. The only terrestrial mammals known to echolocate are two genera of shrews, the tenrecs of Madagascar, rats and the solenodons and these include the Eurasian or common shrew and the American vagrant shrew and northern short-tailed shrew
34.
Thermoregulation
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Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, the internal thermoregulation process is one aspect of homeostasis, a state of dynamic stability in an organisms internal conditions, maintained far from thermal equilibrium with its environment. If the body is unable to maintain a temperature and it increases significantly above normal. For humans, this occurs when the body is exposed to constant temperatures of approximately 55 °C, humans may also experience lethal hyperthermia when the wet bulb temperature is sustained above 35 °C for six hours. The opposite condition, when temperature decreases below normal levels, is known as hypothermia. It was not until the introduction of thermometers that any data on the temperature of animals could be obtained. Hence it is important to identify the parts of the body that most closely reflect the temperature of the internal organs, also, for such results to be comparable, the measurements must be conducted under comparable conditions. The rectum has traditionally been considered to reflect most accurately the temperature of internal parts, or in cases of sex or species. Occasionally the temperature of the urine as it leaves the urethra may be of use in measuring body temperature, more often the temperature is taken in the mouth, axilla, ear or groin. Some animals undergo one of forms of dormancy where the thermoregulation process temporarily allows the body temperature to drop. Examples include hibernating bears and torpor in bats, thermoregulation in organisms runs along a spectrum from endothermy to ectothermy. Endotherms create most of their heat via metabolic processes, and are referred to as warm-blooded. Ectotherms use external sources of temperature to regulate their body temperatures and they are colloquially referred to as cold-blooded despite the fact that body temperatures often stay within the same temperature ranges as warm-blooded animals. Ectotherms are the opposite of endotherms when it comes to regulating internal temperatures, in ectotherms, the internal physiological sources of heat are of negligible importance, the biggest factor that enables them to maintain adequate body temperatures is due to environmental influences. Vaporization, Evaporation of sweat and other bodily fluids, convection, Increasing blood flow to body surfaces to maximize heat loss. Conduction, Losing heat by being in contact with a colder surface, for instance, Lying on cool ground. Staying wet in a river, lake or sea, radiation, releasing heat by radiating it away from the body. Convection, Climbing to higher ground up trees, ridges, rocks, entering a warm water or air current
35.
Hibernation
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Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in endotherms. Hibernation refers to a season of heterothermy that is characterized by low temperature, slow breathing and heart rate. Many experts believe that the processes of daily torpor and hibernation form a continuum, the equivalent during the summer months is known as aestivation. Some reptile species are said to brumate, or undergo brumation, some insects, such as the wasp Polistes exclamans, hibernate by aggregating together in groups in protected places called hibernacula. Often associated with low temperatures, the function of hibernation is to conserve energy during a period when sufficient food is unavailable, to achieve this energy saving, an endotherm will first decrease its metabolic rate, which then decreases body temperature. Hibernation may last several days, weeks, or months depending on the species, ambient temperature, time of year, before entering hibernation, animals need to store enough energy to last through the entire winter. Larger species become hyperphagic and eat a large amount of food, in many small species, food caching replaces eating and becoming fat. Some species of mammals hibernate while gestating young, which are born while the mother hibernates or shortly afterwards. For example, the polar bear goes into hibernation during the cold winter months to give birth to her offspring. She loses 15–27% of her weight and uses stored fats for energy during times of food scarcity. It is evident that pregnant female polar bears significantly increase body mass prior to hibernation, the fat accumulation prior to hibernation in female polar bears enables them to provide a sufficient and warm, nurturing environment for their newborns. Malagasy winter temperatures sometimes rise to over 30 °C, so hibernation is not exclusively an adaptation to low ambient temperatures, dausmann found that hypometabolism in hibernating animals is not necessarily coupled to a low body temperature. Hibernating bears are able to recycle their proteins and urine, allowing both to stop urinating for months and to avoid muscle atrophy. Obligate hibernators are animals that spontaneously, and annually, enter hibernation regardless of ambient temperature and these undergo what has been traditionally called hibernation, the physiological state where the body temperature drops to near ambient temperature, and heart and respiration rates slow drastically. The cause and purpose of these arousals is still not clear, the question of why hibernators may experience the periodic arousals has plagued researchers for decades, and while there is still no clear-cut explanation, there are myriad hypotheses on the topic. One favored hypothesis is that hibernators build a sleep debt during hibernation and this has been supported by evidence in the Arctic ground squirrel. Another theory states that the periods of high body temperature during hibernation are used by the animal to restore its available energy sources. Yet another theory states that the frequent returns to high body temperature allow mammals to initiate an immune response, historically there was a question of whether or not bears truly hibernate, since they experience only a modest decline in body temperature compared with what other hibernators undergo
36.
Bacterium
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Bacteria constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a number of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods, Bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria inhabit soil, water, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, Bacteria also live in symbiotic and parasitic relationships with plants and animals. Most bacteria have not been characterised, and only half of the bacterial phyla have species that can be grown in the laboratory. The study of bacteria is known as bacteriology, a branch of microbiology, There are typically 40 million bacterial cells in a gram of soil and a million bacterial cells in a millilitre of fresh water. There are approximately 5×1030 bacteria on Earth, forming a biomass which exceeds that of all plants, Bacteria are vital in many stages of the nutrient cycle by recycling nutrients such as the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere. The nutrient cycle includes the decomposition of bodies and bacteria are responsible for the putrefaction stage in this process. In March 2013, data reported by researchers in October 2012, was published and it was suggested that bacteria thrive in the Mariana Trench, which with a depth of up to 11 kilometres is the deepest known part of the oceans. Other researchers reported related studies that microbes thrive inside rocks up to 580 metres below the sea floor under 2.6 kilometres of ocean off the coast of the northwestern United States. According to one of the researchers, You can find microbes everywhere—theyre extremely adaptable to conditions, the vast majority of the bacteria in the body are rendered harmless by the protective effects of the immune system, though many are beneficial particularly in the gut flora. However several species of bacteria are pathogenic and cause diseases, including cholera, syphilis, anthrax, leprosy. The most common fatal diseases are respiratory infections, with tuberculosis alone killing about 2 million people per year. In developed countries, antibiotics are used to treat infections and are also used in farming, making antibiotic resistance a growing problem. Once regarded as constituting the class Schizomycetes, bacteria are now classified as prokaryotes. Unlike cells of animals and other eukaryotes, bacterial cells do not contain a nucleus and these evolutionary domains are called Bacteria and Archaea. The ancestors of modern bacteria were unicellular microorganisms that were the first forms of life to appear on Earth, for about 3 billion years, most organisms were microscopic, and bacteria and archaea were the dominant forms of life. In 2008, fossils of macroorganisms were discovered and named as the Francevillian biota, however, gene sequences can be used to reconstruct the bacterial phylogeny, and these studies indicate that bacteria diverged first from the archaeal/eukaryotic lineage. Bacteria were also involved in the second great evolutionary divergence, that of the archaea, here, eukaryotes resulted from the entering of ancient bacteria into endosymbiotic associations with the ancestors of eukaryotic cells, which were themselves possibly related to the Archaea
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Integrated Taxonomic Information System
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The Integrated Taxonomic Information System is an American partnership of federal agencies designed to provide consistent and reliable information on the taxonomy of biological species. The database draws from a community of taxonomic experts. Primary content staff are housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the primary focus of ITIS is North American species, but many groups are worldwide and ITIS continues to collaborate with other international agencies to increase its global coverage. ITIS provides a reference database of scientific and common names for species. As of May 2016, it contains over 839,000 scientific names, synonyms, and common names for terrestrial, marine, data presented in ITIS are considered public information, and may be freely distributed and copied, though appropriate citation is requested. ITIS is frequently used as the de facto source of data in biodiversity informatics projects. It presents the names in a classification that contains author, date, distributional. In addition, common names are available through ITIS in the official languages of the Americas. ITIS and its partner, Species 2000, cooperate to annually produce the Catalogue of Life. The Catalogue of Lifes goal was to complete the global checklist of 1.9 million species by 2011. As of May 2012, the Catalogue of Life has reached 1.4 million species—a major milestone in its quest to complete the first up-to-date comprehensive catalogue of all living organisms, ITIS and the Catalogue of Life are core to the Encyclopedia of Life initiative announced May 2007. EOL will be largely on various Creative Commons licenses. The newer material has been checked to higher standards of taxonomic credibility, biological taxonomy is not fixed, and opinions about the correct status of taxa at all levels, and their correct placement, are constantly revised as a result of new research. Many aspects of classification remain a matter of scientific judgment, the ITIS database is updated to take account of new research as it becomes available, and the information it yields is likely to represent a fair consensus of modern taxonomic opinion. Records within ITIS include information about how far it has been possible to check and its information should be checked against other sources where these are available, and against the primary research scientific literature where possible
