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Amphibians And Reptiles Of Wyoming
Wyoming is home to 12 amphibian species and 22 species of reptiles. Amphibians File:A tigrinum USGS.jpg, Tiger salamander File:Pseudacris maculata.jpg, Boreal chorus frog File:Spea bombifrons.jpg, Plains spadefoot toad File:Wyoming Toad.jpg, Wyoming toad File:Bufo woodhousii.jpg, Woodhouse's toad File:Bufo boreas 5629.JPG, Western toad File:Bufo cognatus1.jpg, Great Plains toad File:Spotted-frog-yellowstone-16173.jpg, Columbia Spotted frog File:Northern leopard frog 1.jpg, Northern Leopard frog File:North-American-bullfrog1.jpg, American bullfrog Tiger salamander The tiger salamander (''Ambystoma tigrinum'') is a species of mole salamander. Tiger salamanders are large, with a typical length of 6–8 inches. They can reach up to 14 inches in length, particularly neotenic individuals. Adults are usually blotchy with grey, green, or black, and have large, lidded eyes. They have short snouts, thick necks, sturdy legs, and long tails. Their diet consists largely of small in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Fence Lizard On Tree
Eastern may refer to: Transportation * China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 * Eastern Air Lines (2015), an American airline that began operations in 2015 * Eastern Airlines, LLC, previously Dynamic International Airways, a U.S. airline founded in 2010 * Eastern Airways, an English/British regional airline * Eastern Provincial Airways, a defunct Canadian airline that operated from 1949 to 1986 * Eastern Railway (other), various railroads *Eastern Avenue (other), various roads * Eastern Parkway (other), various parkways * Eastern Freeway, Melbourne, Australia *Eastern Freeway Mumbai, Mumbai, India *, a cargo liner in service 1946-65 Education * Eastern University (other) *Eastern College (other) Other uses * Eastern Broadcasting Limited, former name of Maritime Broadcasting System ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Basin Spadefoot
The Great Basin spadefoot (''Spea intermontana'') is an amphibian in the family Scaphiopodidae. It is 3.8 to 6.3 cm long and is usually colored gray, olive or brown. Great Basin spadefoot toads have adapted to life in dry habitats. They use the hard, keratinized spade on each foot to dig a burrow, where they spend long periods during cold and dry weather. They are opportunistic hunters and will eat anything they can subdue. While their tadpoles have numerous predators, adults are able to produce skin secretions that deter enemies. Identification The Great Basin spadefoot ranges from 3.8 to 6.3 cm long. It is usually gray, olive or brown colored. Gray streaks outline an hourglass shaped marking on the back. The skin is smooth compared with the bumpy skin of the true toads in the genus ''Bufo''. There is a spade present on the inside of each hind foot; it has sharp edges and is wedge-shaped. A glandular boss is present between the eyes. Eyes are catlike; pupils are ver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spade
A spade is a tool primarily for digging consisting of a long handle and blade, typically with the blade narrower and flatter than the common shovel. Early spades were made of riven wood or of animal bones (often shoulder blades). After the art of metalworking was developed, spades were made with sharper tips of metal. Before the introduction of metal spades manual labor was less efficient at moving earth, with picks being required to break up the soil in addition to a spade for moving the dirt. With a metal tip, a spade can both break and move the earth in most situations, increasing efficiency. A classic spade, with a narrow body and flat (or near flat) tip is suited for digging post holes, and is not to be confused with a "roundpoint" shovel, which has a wider body and tapered tip. Etymology English ''spade'' is from Old English ' (f.) or ' (m.). The same word is found in Old Frisian ' and Old Saxon '. High German ' only appears in Early Modern German, probably loaned from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. It is the southern and main part of the Interior Plains, which also include the tallgrass prairie between the Great Lakes and Appalachian Plateau, and the Taiga Plains and Boreal Plains ecozones in Northern Canada. The term Western Plains is used to describe the ecoregion of the Great Plains, or alternatively the western portion of the Great Plains. The Great Plains lies across both Central United States and Western Canada, encompassing: * The entirety of the U.S. states of Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota; * Parts of the U.S. states of Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming; * The southern portions of the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Spadefoot Toads
The Scaphiopodidae are a family of American spadefoot toads, which are native to North America. The family is small, comprising only seven different species. The American spadefoot toads are of typical shape to most fossorial (or burrowing) frogs. They are round, with short legs and protruding eyes. As suggested by their name, these frogs have hard, keratinous protrusions present on their feet, which help them to dig. Like most fossorial frogs, they dig backwards into the ground. They differ from true toads because they have vertical pupils and no parotoid gland. The American spadefoot toads are terrestrial when not underground. They are dully colored, usually a grey or dull green or brown, to aid in camouflage in their arid habitats. Taxonomy The American spadefoot toads were previously included in a broader circumscription of the family Pelobatidae, which then united Palaearctic and Neoarctic spadefoot toads in the same family. However, the American spadefoot genera were spl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. However, only about 14% of these had been described by 2011. All species (except viruses) 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 (in botanical nomenclature, also sometimes i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plains Spadefoot Toad
The plains spadefoot toad (''Spea bombifrons'') is a species of American spadefoot toad which ranges from southwestern Canada, throughout the Great Plains of the western United States, and into northern Mexico. Like other species of spadefoot toads, they get their name from a spade-like projections on their hind legs which allow them to dig into sandy soils. Their name, in part, comes from their keratinized metatarsals, which are wide instead of "sickle shaped". The species name translates as buzzing leaf shaped. This refers to the species distinguishing features; its buzzing mating call, and its leaf-shaped digging metatarsals. First described by Cope in 1863. Description The plains spadefoot toad generally grows from in length, has a round body, with relatively short legs. These toads are usually a tannish to dark brownish color with visible orange spots. They are one of the easiest toads to recognize in their region because of their appearance looking more like a frog. Someti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deserts
A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the Earth is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts". Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location. Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night put strains on the rocks, which consequently break in pieces. Although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter, and the resulting fragments and rubble strewn over the de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grasslands
A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica and are found in most ecoregions of the Earth. Furthermore, grasslands are one of the largest biomes on earth and dominate the landscape worldwide. There are different types of grasslands: natural grasslands, semi-natural grasslands, and agricultural grasslands. They cover 31–69% of the Earth's land area. Definitions Included among the variety of definitions for grasslands are: * "...any plant community, including harvested forages, in which grasses and/or legumes make up the dominant vegetation." * "...terrestrial ecosystems dominated by herbaceous and shrub vegetation, and maintained by fire, grazing, drought and/or freezing temperatures." (Pilot Assessment of Global Ecosystems, 2000) * "A r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sagebrush (plant)
Sagebrush is the common name of several woody and herbaceous species of plants in the genus ''Artemisia''. The best known sagebrush is the shrub ''Artemisia tridentata''. Sagebrushes are native to the North American west. Following is an alphabetical list of common names for various species of the genus ''Artemisia'', along with their corresponding scientific name. Many of these species are known by more than one common name, and some common names represent more than one species. * Alpine sagebrush—' * African sagebrush—''Artemisia afra'' * Basin sagebrush—''Artemisia tridentata'' * Big sagebrush—see Basin sagebrush * Bigelow sagebrush—''Artemisia bigelovii'' * Birdfoot sagebrush—'' Artemisia pedatifida'' * Black sagebrush—''Artemisia nova'' * Blue sagebrush—see Basin sagebrush * Boreal sagebrush—'' Artemisia norvegica'' * Budsage—''Artemisia spinescens'' * California sagebrush—''Artemisia californica'' * Carruth's sagebrush—'' Artemisia carruthii'' * C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shrubland
Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It may be the mature vegetation type in a particular region and remain stable over time, or a transitional community that occurs temporarily as the result of a disturbance, such as fire. A stable state may be maintained by regular natural disturbance such as fire or browsing. Shrubland may be unsuitable for human habitation because of the danger of fire. The term was coined in 1903. Shrubland species generally show a wide range of adaptations to fire, such as heavy seed production, lignotubers, and fire-induced germination. Botanical structural form In botany and ecology a shrub is defined as a much-branched woody plant less than 8 m high and usually with many stems. Tall shrubs are mostly 2–8 m high, small shrubs 1–2 m high and su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ponderosa Pine
''Pinus ponderosa'', commonly known as the ponderosa pine, bull pine, blackjack pine, western yellow-pine, or filipinus pine is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to mountainous regions of western North America. It is the most widely distributed pine species in North America.Safford, H.D. 2013. Natural Range of Variation (NRV) for yellow pine and mixed conifer forests in the bioregional assessment area, including the Sierra Nevada, southern Cascades, and Modoc and Inyo National Forests. Unpublished report. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region, Vallejo, CA/ref> ''Pinus ponderosa'' grows in various erect forms from British Columbia southward and eastward through 16 western U.S. states and has been successfully introduced in temperate regions of Europe, and in New Zealand. It was first documented in modern science in 1826 in eastern Washington near present-day Spokane (of which it is the official city tree). On that occasion, David Douglas misidenti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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