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Archispirostreptus Gigas
''Archispirostreptus gigas'', known as the giant African millipede or shongololo, is the largest extant species of millipede, growing up to in length, in circumference. It has approximately 256 legs, although the number of legs changes with each molting so it can vary according to each individual. It is a widespread species in lowland parts of East Africa, from Mozambique to Kenya, but rarely reaches altitudes above . It lives mostly in forests, but can also be found in areas of coastal habitat that contain at least a few trees. It is native to Southern Arabia, especially Dhofar. In general, giant millipedes have a life expectancy of about 7–10 years. Giant millipedes have two main modes of defence if they feel threatened: curling into a tight spiral exposing only the hard exoskeleton, and secretion of an irritating liquid from pores on their body. This liquid can be harmful if introduced into the eyes or mouth. Because of this defense, ''A. gigas'' is one of the few inverteb ...
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Wilhelm Peters
Wilhelm Karl Hartwich (or Hartwig) Peters (22 April 1815 in Koldenbüttel – 20 April 1883) was a German natural history, naturalist and explorer. He was assistant to the anatomist Johannes Peter Müller and later became curator of the Natural History Museum, Berlin, Berlin Zoological Museum. Encouraged by Müller and the explorer Alexander von Humboldt, Peters travelled to Mozambique via Angola in September 1842, exploring the coastal region and the Zambesi River. He returned to Berlin with an enormous collection of natural history specimens, which he then described in ''Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique... in den Jahren 1842 bis 1848 ausgeführt'' (1852–1882). The work was comprehensive in its coverage, dealing with mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, river fish, insects and botany. He replaced Martin Lichtenstein as curator of the museum in 1858, and in the same year he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In a few years, he g ...
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Exoskeleton
An exoskeleton (from Greek ''éxō'' "outer" and ''skeletós'' "skeleton") is an external skeleton that supports and protects an animal's body, in contrast to an internal skeleton (endoskeleton) in for example, a human. In usage, some of the larger kinds of exoskeletons are known as " shells". Examples of exoskeletons within animals include the arthropod exoskeleton shared by chelicerates, myriapods, crustaceans, and insects, as well as the shell of certain sponges and the mollusc shell shared by snails, clams, tusk shells, chitons and nautilus. Some animals, such as the turtle, have both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton. Role Exoskeletons contain rigid and resistant components that fulfill a set of functional roles in many animals including protection, excretion, sensing, support, feeding and acting as a barrier against desiccation in terrestrial organisms. Exoskeletons have a role in defense from pests and predators, support and in providing an attachment framework f ...
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Millipedes Of Africa
Millipedes are a group of arthropods that are characterised by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments; they are known scientifically as the class Diplopoda, the name derived from this feature. Each double-legged segment is a result of two single segments fused together. Most millipedes have very elongated cylindrical or flattened bodies with more than 20 segments, while pill millipedes are shorter and can roll into a tight ball. Although the name "millipede" derives from the Latin for "thousand feet", no species was known to have 1,000 or more until the discovery of ''Eumillipes persephone'', which can have over 1,300 legs. There are approximately 12,000 named species classified into 16 orders and around 140 families, making Diplopoda the largest class of myriapods, an arthropod group which also includes centipedes and other multi-legged creatures. Most millipedes are slow-moving detritivores, eating decaying leaves and other dead plant matter. Some eat fungi or d ...
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Spirostreptida
Spirostreptida is an order (biology), order of long, cylindrical millipedes. There are approximately 1000 described species, making Spirostreptida the third largest order of millipedes after Polydesmida and Chordeumatida. Description Spirostreptida are generally large, long and cylindrical, with 30 to 90 body rings. Eyes are present in most. This order contains the longest millipedes known: the giant African millipedes of the genus ''Archispirostreptus'' that may exceed . Distribution Spirostreptida contains mainly tropical species, and occurs in Africa, South Asia, Southern Asia to Japan, Australia, and the Western Hemisphere from the United States to Argentina. Evolutionary history Like most millipede groups, they have a fragmentary fossil record. The oldest record of the group is the extinct family Electrocambalidae, which is known from the Burmese amber of Myanmar, dating to the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous around 99 million years ago, which belongs to the subor ...
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About
About may refer to: * About (surname) * About.com, an online source for original information and advice * about.me, a personal web hosting service * ''abOUT'', a Canadian LGBT online magazine * ''About Magazine'', a Texas-based digital platform covering LGBT news * About URI scheme, an internal URI scheme * About box, a dialog box that displays information related to a computer software * About equal sign, symbol used to indicate values are approximately equal See also * About Face (other) * About Last Night (other) * About Time (other) * About us (other) * About You (other) * ''about to The ''going-to'' future is a grammatical construction used in English to refer to various types of future occurrences. It is made using appropriate forms of the expression ''to be going to''.Fleischman, Suzanne, ''The Future in Thought and Langua ...
'', one of the future constructions in English grammar * {{disambiguation ...
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Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium
Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium (PDZA) is the only combined zoo and aquarium in the Pacific Northwest, located in Tacoma, Washington, US, owned by Metro Parks Tacoma. Situated on in Tacoma's Point Defiance Park, the zoo and aquarium are home to over 9,000 specimens representing 367 animal species. The zoo was founded in 1905; the aquarium was founded in 1935 near Commencement Bay and relocated within the zoo in 1963. Both are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. In Pierce County, Washington, this is said to be one of the most popular tourist destinations. Bringing in over more than 600,000 visitors per year. History The Zoo was founded in 1905, and moved closer to its current location in 1914. The Point Defiance Park Aquarium opened on the waterfront in 1936 as an entity separate from the zoo. By the late 1940s, several Zoo buildings were in disrepair and had to be rebuilt. The 36-year-old animal house was demolished and a new one with sandstone walls and 3/4-inch- ...
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Giant African Millipede, Namibia
In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 from Robert of Gloucester's chronicle. It is derived from the ''Gigantes'' ( grc-gre, Γίγαντες) of Greek mythology. Fairy tales such as ''Jack the Giant Killer'' have formed the modern perception of giants as dimwitted ogres, sometimes said to eat humans, while other giants tend to eat the livestock. The antagonist in ''Jack and the Beanstalk'' is often described as a giant. In some more recent portrayals, like those of Jonathan Swift and Roald Dahl, some giants are both intelligent and friendly. Literary and cultural analysis Giants appear in the folklore of cultures worldwide as they represent a relatively simple concept. Representing the human body enlarged to the point of being monstrous, giants evoke terror and remind humans of ...
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Rosamond Gifford Zoo
The Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park is an AZA (Association of Zoos & Aquariums) zoo in Syracuse, New York. It is owned and operated by Onondaga County Parks with support from the Friends of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo. The zoo is home to more than 900 animals representing 216 species on . Some of the more popular animals include Asian elephants, Humboldt penguins, Amur tigers, a Komodo dragon and the only Giant Pacific octopus exhibit in Central New York. The zoo opened a new Animal Health Center in 2022 that is the largest zoological medical center in New York state outside of the Bronx Zoo. The Rosamond Gifford Zoo has been a continuously accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) since 1987. History Origins In 1900, Lyman Cornelius Smith donated $10,000 and zoological collection to establish a zoo. The first incarnation of the zoo was a small, four acre facility in Burnet Park owned and operated by the ''Syracuse Department of Parks and Recreatio ...
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Symbiosis
Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasitic. The organisms, each termed a symbiont, must be of different species. In 1879, Heinrich Anton de Bary defined it as "the living together of unlike organisms". The term was subject to a century-long debate about whether it should specifically denote mutualism, as in lichens. Biologists have now abandoned that restriction. Symbiosis can be obligatory, which means that one or more of the symbionts depend on each other for survival, or facultative (optional), when they can generally live independently. Symbiosis is also classified by physical attachment. When symbionts form a single body it is called conjunctive symbiosis, while all other arrangements are called disjunctive symbiosis."symbiosis." Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary. ...
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Mite
Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods). Mites span two large orders of arachnids, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari, but genetic analysis does not show clear evidence of a close relationship. Most mites are tiny, less than in length, and have a simple, unsegmented body plan. The small size of most species makes them easily overlooked; some species live in water, many live in soil as decomposers, others live on plants, sometimes creating galls, while others again are Predation, predators or Parasitism, parasites. This last type includes the commercially destructive ''Varroa'' parasite of honey bees, as well as scabies mites of humans. Most species are harmless to humans, but a few are associated with allergies or may transmit diseases. The scientific discipline devoted to the study of mites is called acarology. Evolution and taxonomy The mites are not a defined taxon, but is used for two disti ...
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Driver Ant
''Dorylus'', also known as driver ants, safari ants, or siafu, is a large genus of army ants found primarily in central and east Africa, although the range also extends to southern Africa and tropical Asia. The term siafu is a loanword from Swahili, and is one of numerous similar words from regional Bantu languages used by indigenous peoples to describe various species of these ants. Unlike the New World members of the former subfamily Ecitoninae (now Dorylinae), members of this genus form temporary subterranean bivouacs in underground cavities which they excavate and inhabit - either for a few days or up to three months. Also unlike some New World army ants, driver ants are not specialized predators of other species of ant, instead being more generalistic with a diet consisting of a diversity of arthropods. Colonies are enormous compared to other army ants and can contain over 20 million individuals. As with their American counterparts, workers exhibit caste polymorphism with th ...
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Oakland Zoo
The Oakland Zoo is a zoo located in the Grass Valley neighborhood of Oakland, California, United States. Established on June 6, 1922, it is managed by the Conservation Society of California, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of wildlife both locally and globally. The zoo is home to more than 850 native and exotic animals. It is recognized for its outstanding leadership in animal welfare, animal care, particularly its elephant care program, its rescue, rehabilitation and conservation programs and for its Leed-certified, 17,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art veterinary hospital—the largest wild animal veterinary facility in Northern California. Oakland Zoo is the recipient of numerous "Best of" awards, including 30 Best U.S. Zoos by ''U.S. News & World Report'' and "10 Best" by ''USA Today'' Reader’s Choice Awards. On July 12, 2018, the Oakland Zoo opened the California Trail, focusing on the state's remarkable native wildlife—both past and pre ...
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