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Antillean Cave Rail
The Antillean cave rail (''Nesotrochis debooyi''), also known as DeBooy's rail, is an extinct species of flightless bird which occurred on Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. Bone fragments of this species were first unearthed by archaeologist Theodoor de Booy in kitchen midden deposits on the Richmond estate near Christiansted, U.S. Virgin Islands in July 1916 and described by Alexander Wetmore Frank Alexander Wetmore (June 18, 1886 – December 7, 1978) was an American ornithologist and avian paleontologist. He was the sixth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Early life and education The son of a Country Physician, Frank Al ... in 1918. The Antillean cave rail might have become extinct before the arrival of the Europeans but stories heard by Alexander Wetmore on Puerto Rico in 1912 about an easy-to-catch bird named carrao might refer to this species. The Antillean cave rail was flightless and was hunted as food by the aborigines. References *Wetmore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, the era covers the history of Indigenous cultures until significant influence by Europeans. This may have occurred decades or even centuries after Columbus for certain cultures. Many pre-Columbian civilizations were marked by permanent settlements, cities, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, major earthworks, and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first permanent European colonies (c. late 16th–early 17th centuries), and are known only through archaeological investigations and oral history. Other civilizations were contemporary with the colonial period and were described in European historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya civilization, had their own wri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Wetmore
Frank Alexander Wetmore (June 18, 1886 – December 7, 1978) was an American ornithologist and avian paleontologist. He was the sixth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Early life and education The son of a Country Physician, Frank Alexander Wetmore was born in North Freedom, Wisconsin. Developing an interest in birds at an early age, he made his first field journal entry (a pelican seen while on vacation in 1894) at the age of eight. By 1900, Wetmore published his first paper "My Experience with a Red-headed Woodpecker," in the magazine Bird-Lore. To further his education Wetmore enrolled at the University of Kansas in 1905. During his studies there he did a stint as an assistant in the University Museum, under the direction of Charles D. Bunker. Alexander Wetmore later received his BA from the University of Kansas in 1912; finally receiving his MS in 1916 & PhD in 1920 from George Washington University. Wetmore began federal service in 1910, working for the Biological ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated territories of the United States, unincorporated territory of the United States. It is located in the northeast Caribbean Sea, approximately southeast of Miami, Florida, between the Dominican Republic and the United States Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, and includes the eponymous main island and several smaller islands, such as Isla de Mona, Mona, Culebra, Puerto Rico, Culebra, and Vieques, Puerto Rico, Vieques. It has roughly 3.2 million residents, and its Capital city, capital and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, most populous city is San Juan, Puerto Rico, San Juan. Spanish language, Spanish and English language, English are the official languages of the executive branch of government, though Spanish predominates. Puerto Rico ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Virgin Islands
The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory of the United States. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles to the east of Puerto Rico and west of the British Virgin Islands. The U.S. Virgin Islands consist of the main islands of Saint Croix, Saint John, and Saint Thomas and 50 other surrounding minor islands and cays. The total land area of the territory is . The territory's capital is Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas. Previously known as the Danish West Indies of the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway (from 1754 to 1814) and the independent Kingdom of Denmark (from 1814 to 1917), they were sold to the United States by Denmark for $25,000,000 in the 1917 Treaty of the Danish We ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theodoor De Booy
Theodoor Hendrik Nikolaas de Booy (December 5, 1882 – February 18, 1919) was a Dutch-born American archaeologist. Biography De Booy was born as son of a vice admiral in Hellevoetsluis, Netherlands. He was educated at the Royal Naval Institute. At the age of 23, he migrated to the United States where he married Elizabeth Hamilton Smith on March 29, 1909.They had two children. In 1916 he became an American citizen. In 1911 he went to the Bahamas with his wife. During their archaeological fieldwork in the caves and middens they made remarkable discoveries (e.g. a paddle or pottery) from the Pre-Columbian culture of the Lucayan. In the following years he worked for the Heye Museum in New York City. His fieldwork in the Caribbean and in Venezuela made him a prolific expert for the history of the Pre-Columbian Arawak culture. He died from influenza in his home in Yonkers, New York on February 18, 1919. Alexander Wetmore Frank Alexander Wetmore (June 18, 1886 – December 7, 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midden
A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation. These features provide a useful resource for archaeologists who wish to study the diets and habits of past societies. Middens with damp, anaerobic conditions can even preserve organic remains in deposits as the debris of daily life are tossed on the pile. Each individual toss will contribute a different mix of materials depending upon the activity associated with that particular toss. During the course of deposition sedimentary material is deposited as well. Different mechanisms, from wind and water to animal digs, create a matrix which can also be analysed to provide seasonal and climatic information. In some middens individual dumps of material can be discerned and analysed. Shells A shell mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rallidae
The rails, or Rallidae, are a large cosmopolitan family of small- to medium-sized, ground-living birds. The family exhibits considerable diversity and includes the crakes, coots, and gallinules. Many species are associated with wetlands, although the family is found in every terrestrial habitat except dry deserts, polar regions, and alpine areas above the snow line. Members of the Rallidae occur on every continent except Antarctica. Numerous island species are known. The most common rail habitats are marshland and dense forest. They are especially fond of dense vegetation.Horsfall & Robinson (2003): pp. 206–207 Name "Rail" is the anglicized respelling of the French ''râle'', from Old French ''rasle''. It is named from its harsh cry, in Vulgar Latin *''rascula'', from Latin ''rādere'' ("to scrape"). Morphology The rails are a family of small to medium-sized, ground-living birds. They vary in length from and in weight from . Some species have long necks and in many ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holocene Extinctions
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. The Holocene has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1. It is considered by some to be an interglacial period within the Pleistocene Epoch, called the Flandrian interglacial.Oxford University Press – Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever (book) – "Holocene Humanity" section https://books.google.com/books?id=7P0_sWIcBNsC The Holocene corresponds with the rapid proliferation, growth and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all of its written history, technological revolutions, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition towards urban living in the present. The human impact on modern-era Earth and its ecosystems may be considered of global sig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birds Described In 1918
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] |
Extinct Birds Of The Caribbean
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryote globally, and possibly many times more if microorganisms, like bacteria, are included. Notable extinct animal species include non-avian dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, dodos, mam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinct Flightless Birds
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryote globally, and possibly many times more if microorganisms, like bacteria, are included. Notable extinct animal species include non-avian dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, dodos, m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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