African Finfoot
The African finfoot (''Podica senegalensis'') is an aquatic bird from the family Heliornithidae (the finfoots and sungrebe). The species lives in the rivers and lakes of western, central, and southern Africa. Description The African finfoot is an underwater specialist with a long neck, a striking sharp beak, and bright red, lobed feet. The plumage varies by race, generally pale underneath and darker on top. The males are usually darker than the females. It superficially resembles South America's torrent duck. Habits and range The African finfoot can be found in a range of habitats across Africa, in areas where there are rivers, streams, and lakes with good cover on the banks. This range includes forest, wooded savannah, flooded forest, and even mangrove swamps. The finfoot feeds on aquatic invertebrates, including both adults and larval mayflies, dragonflies, crustaceans, also snails, fish and amphibians. They are thought to be highly opportunistic and take some of their pr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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René Primevère Lesson
René (''born again'' or ''reborn'' in French) is a common first name in French-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and German-speaking countries. It derives from the Latin name Renatus. René is the masculine form of the name (Renée being the feminine form). In some non-Francophone countries, however, there exists the habit of giving the name René (sometimes spelled without an accent) to girls as well as boys. In addition, both forms are used as surnames (family names). René as a first name given to boys in the United States reached its peaks in popularity in 1969 and 1983 when it ranked 256th. Since 1983 its popularity has steadily declined and it ranked 881st in 2016. René as a first name given to girls in the United States reached its peak in popularity in 1962 when it ranked 306th. The last year for which René was ranked in the top 1000 names given to girls in the United States was 1988. Persons with the given name * René, Duke of Anjou (1409–1480), titular king of Naples ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rainy Season
The rainy season is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. Rainy Season may also refer to: * ''Rainy Season'' (short story), a 1989 short horror story by Stephen King * "Rainy Season", a 2018 song by Monni * ''The Rainy Season'', a 1993 album by Marc Cohn * ''The Rainy Season'', a 1999 novel by James Blaylock James Paul Blaylock (born September 20, 1950) is an American fantasy author. He is noted for a distinctive, humorous style, as well as being one of the pioneers of the steampunk genre of science fiction. Blaylock has cited Jules Verne, H. G. Wel ... * ''Rainy Seasons'' (film), a 2010 Iranian film {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birds Of Sub-Saharan Africa
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming. Birds ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birds Of Southern Africa
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birds Of Africa
This is a list of the bird species recorded in Africa. The area covered by this list is the Africa region defined by the American Birding Association's listing rules. In addition to the continent itself, the area includes Madagascar, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Seychelles, Cape Verde, the Comoro Islands, Zanzibar and the Canary Islands, São Tomé and Príncipe and Annobón in the Gulf of Guinea. It does not include Socotra in the Arabian Sea, Madeira or the Azores. This list is that of the African Bird Club (ABC) supplemented by ''Bird Checklists of the World'' (Avibase) and ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World''.Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ Retrieved August 25, 2021 This list's taxonomic treatment (designation and sequenc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Habitat Fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat), causing population fragmentation and ecosystem decay. Causes of habitat fragmentation include geological processes that slowly alter the layout of the physical environment (suspected of being one of the major causes of speciation), and human activity such as land conversion, which can alter the environment much faster and causes the extinction of many species. More specifically, habitat fragmentation is a process by which large and contiguous habitats get divided into smaller, isolated patches of habitats. Definition The term habitat fragmentation includes five discrete phenomena: * Reduction in the total area of the habitat * Decrease of the interior: edge ratio * Isolation of one habitat fragment from other areas of habitat * Breaking up of one patch of habitat into several smaller patches * Decrease in the average size of each patch of habitat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants. Although environmental pollution can be caused by natural events, the word pollution generally implies that the contaminants have an anthropogenic source – that is, a source created by human activities. Pollution is often classed as point source or nonpoint source pollution. In 2015, pollution killed nine million people worldwide (one in six deaths). This remained unchanged in 2019, with little real progress against pollution being identifiable. Air pollution accounted for of these earlier deaths. Major forms of pollution include air pollution, light pollution, litter, noise pollution, plastic pollution, soil contamination, radioactiv ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wetland
A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from terrestrial land forms or Body of water, water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants, adapted to the unique anoxic hydric soils. Wetlands are considered among the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal species. Methods for assessing wetland functions, wetland ecological health, and general wetland condition have been developed for many regions of the world. These methods have contributed to wetland conservation partly by raising public awareness of the functions some wetlands provide. Wetlands occur naturally on every continent. The water in wetlands is either freshwater, brackish or seawater, saltwater. The main w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hunter
Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, bone/tusks, horn (anatomy), horn/antler, etc.), for recreation/taxidermy (see trophy hunting), to remove predators dangerous to humans or domestic animals (e.g. wolf hunting), to pest control, eliminate pest (organism), pests and nuisance animals that damage crops/livestock/poultry or zoonosis, spread diseases (see varmint hunting, varminting), for trade/tourism (see safari), or for conservation biology, ecological conservation against overpopulation and invasive species. Recreationally hunted species are generally referred to as the ''game (food), game'', and are usually mammals and birds. A person participating in a hunt is a hunter or (less commonly) huntsman; a natural area used for hunting is called a game reserve; an experienced hun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Conservation Status
The conservation status of a group of organisms (for instance, a species) indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Many factors are taken into account when assessing conservation status: not simply the number of individuals remaining, but the overall increase or decrease in the population over time, breeding success rates, and known threats. Various systems of conservation status exist and are in use at international, multi-country, national and local levels as well as for consumer use. International systems IUCN Red List of Threatened Species The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the best known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system. Species are classified by the IUCN Red List into nine groups set through criteria such as rate of decline, population size, area of geographic distribution, and degree of population and distribution fragmentation. Also included are species that have gone ext ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Masked Finfoot
The masked finfoot or Asian finfoot (''Heliopais personatus'') is a highly endangered aquatic bird that was formerly distributed throughout the fresh and brackish wetlands of the eastern Indian subcontinent, Indochina, Malaysia and Indonesia. Like the rest of the family, the African finfoot and the sungrebe, the relationship to other birds is poorly understood. Description The masked finfoot is an underwater specialist with a long neck, a striking sharp beak, and lobed feet which are green. Both males and females have a black mask and eyebrow that contrasts with a white eyering and lateral cervical stripe. The rest of the neck is grey, the breast is pale and the back, wings, and tail are a rich brown. The males have an all-black chin while the females have a white chin. Habits and range The masked finfoot can be found in a range of habitats across the eastern Indian subcontinent through to Malaysia and Indonesia in a variety of fresh to brackish wetlands, although due to habi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Avian Incubation
Egg incubation is the process by which an egg, of oviparous (egg-laying) animals, develops an embryo within the egg, after the egg's formation and ovipositional release. Egg incubation is done under favorable environmental conditions, possibly by brooding and hatching the egg. Multiple and various factors are vital to the incubation of various species of animal. In many species of reptile for example, no fixed temperature is necessary, but the actual temperature determines the sex ratio of the offspring. In birds in contrast, the sex of offspring is genetically determined, but in many species a constant and particular temperature is necessary for successful incubation. Especially in poultry, the act of sitting on eggs to incubate them is called brooding. The action or behavioral tendency to sit on a clutch of eggs is also called broodiness, and most egg-laying breeds of poultry have had this behavior selectively bred out of them to increase production. Avian incubation A wi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |