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Arizona Mountains Forests
The Arizona Mountains forests are a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion of the southwest United States with a rich variety of woodland habitats and wildlife. Setting This is a landscape of steep mountains and high stony plateaus with rocky outcrops from the Kaibab Plateau in northern Arizona south to the Mogollon Plateau and eastwards across into southwestern New Mexico. Elevations range from , with some peaks higher than that. Specific areas include the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico. Flora Trees of the area include some of the spruce, fir and quaking aspen (''Populus tremuloides'') trees typical of the Rocky Mountains further north along with typically Mexican trees such as Chihuahua pine (''Pinus leiophylla''), Apache pine (''Pinus engelmannii'') and the Arizona pine of the Gila Wilderness and elsewhere. The lower elevations have a mixed pinyon pine-juniper-oak woodland. Finally the rivers and their banks are important habitats for specific wildlife and fish. Fauna Wildli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Piceoideae. Spruces are large trees, from about 20 to 60 m (about 60–200 ft) tall when mature, and have whorled branches and conical form. They can be distinguished from other members of the pine family by their needles (leaves), which are four-sided and attached singly to small persistent peg-like structures (pulvini or sterigmata) on the branches, and by their cones (without any protruding bracts), which hang downwards after they are pollinated. The needles are shed when 4–10 years old, leaving the branches rough with the retained pegs. In other similar genera, the branches are fairly smooth. Spruce are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (moth and butterfly) species, such as the eastern spruce budwo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invertebrates
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate subphylum Vertebrata. Familiar examples of invertebrates include arthropods, mollusks, annelids, echinoderms and cnidarians. The majority of animal species are invertebrates; one estimate puts the figure at 97%. Many invertebrate taxa have a greater number and variety of species than the entire subphylum of Vertebrata. Invertebrates vary widely in size, from 50 μm (0.002 in) rotifers to the 9–10 m (30–33 ft) colossal squid. Some so-called invertebrates, such as the Tunicata and Cephalochordata, are more closely related to vertebrates than to other invertebrates. This makes the invertebrates paraphyletic, so the term has little meaning in taxonomy. Etymology The word "invertebrate" comes from the Latin word ''vertebra'', whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Centipede
Centipedes (from New Latin , "hundred", and Latin , " foot") are predatory arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda (Ancient Greek , ''kheilos'', lip, and New Latin suffix , "foot", describing the forcipules) of the subphylum Myriapoda, an arthropod group which includes millipedes and other multi-legged animals. Centipedes are elongated segmented (metameric) creatures with one pair of legs per body segment. All centipedes are venomous and can inflict painful bites, injecting their venom through pincer-like appendages known as forcipules. Despite the name, centipedes can have a varying number of legs, ranging from 30 to 382. Centipedes always have an odd number of pairs of legs; no centipede has exactly 100. Like spiders and scorpions, centipedes are predominantly carnivorous. Their size ranges from a few millimetres in the smaller lithobiomorphs and geophilomorphs to about in the largest scolopendromorphs. Centipedes can be found in a wide variety of environments. They ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guadalupe Mountains
The Guadalupe Mountains ( es, Sierra de Guadalupe) are a mountain range located in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The range includes the highest summit in Texas, Guadalupe Peak, , and the "signature peak" of West Texas, El Capitan, both of which are located within Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The Guadalupe Mountains are bordered by the Pecos River valley and Llano Estacado to the east and north, Delaware Mountains to the south, and Sacramento Mountains to the west. One of the clearest exposures of a prehistoric reef is preserved in the mountain range's bedrock geology. Bedrock contains fossils of reef-dwelling organisms from the Permian period, and the geology is widely studied, mostly by stratigraphers, paleontologists, and Paleoecologists (see geology section). History Archaeological evidence has shown that people lived over 10,000 years ago in and among the many caves and alcoves. The first humans to live here were hunter-gatherers who followed large game ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Montezuma Quail
The Montezuma quail (''Cyrtonyx montezumae'') is a stubby, secretive New World quail of Mexico and some nearby parts of the United States. It is also known as Mearns's quail, the harlequin quail (for the male's striking pattern), and the fool quail (for its behavior). Taxonomy The Montezuma quail was formally described in 1830 by Irish zoologist Nicholas Aylward Vigors under the binomial name ''Ortyx montezumae'' based on a specimen collected in Mexico. This species is now placed in the genus ''Cyrtonyx'' that was introduced in 1844 by English ornithologist John Gould, with Montezuma quail as the type species. The specific epithet ''montezumae'' is from the name of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma Xocoyotzin. The southern populations are sometimes considered a separate species, ''Cyrtonyx sallei''. The Montezuma quail, though, is sometimes considered conspecific with the very similar ocellated quail, ''Cyrtonyx ocellatus'', which replaces it from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Saw-whet Owl
The northern saw-whet owl (''Aegolius acadicus'') is a species of small owl in the family Strigidae. The species is native to North America. Saw-whet owls of the genus ''Aegolius'' are some of the smallest owl species in North America. They can be found in dense thickets, often at eye level, although they can also be found some up. Saw-whets are often in danger of being preyed upon by larger birds of prey. The northern saw-whet owl is a migratory bird without any strict pattern. Taxonomy The northern saw-whet owl was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's ''Systema Naturae''. He placed it with the other owls in the genus ''Strix'' and coined the binomial name ''Strix acadicus''. Gmelin based his description on the "Acadian owl" from Nova Scotia that had been described and illustrated in 1781 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his multi-volume work ''A General Synopsis of Birds'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juniper
Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa, throughout parts of West Asia, western, Central Asia, central and South Asia, southern Asia, east to eastern Tibet in the Old World, and in the mountains of Central America. The highest-known juniper forest occurs at an altitude of in southeastern Tibet and the northern Himalayas, creating one of the highest tree lines on earth. Description Junipers vary in size and shape from tall trees, tall, to columnar or low-spreading shrubs with long, trailing branches. They are evergreen with needle-like and/or scale-like leaves. They can be either monoecious or dioecious. The female Conifer cone, seed cones are very distinctive, with fleshy, fruit-like coalescing scales which fuse together to form Juniper berry, a&n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinyon Pine
The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in southwestern North America, especially in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. The trees yield edible nuts, which are a staple food of Native Americans, and widely eaten as a snack and as an ingredient in New Mexican cuisine. The name comes from the Spanish ''pino piñonero'', a name used for both the American varieties and the stone pine common in Spain, which also produces edible nuts typical of Mediterranean cuisine. Harvesting techniques of the prehistoric American Indians are still used today to collect the pinyon seeds for personal use or for commercialization. The pinyon nut or seed is high in fats and calories. Pinyon wood, especially when burned, has a distinctive fragrance, making it a common wood to burn in chimeneas. Pinyon pine trees are also known to influence the soil in which they grow by increasing concentrations of both macronutrients and micronutrients. Some of the species are known to hybridize, the most notable ones being ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arizona Pine
''Pinus arizonica'', commonly known as the Arizona pine, is a medium-sized pine in northern Mexico, southeast Arizona, southwest New Mexico, and western Texas in the United States. It is a tree growing to 25–35 m tall, with a trunk diameter of up . The needles are in bundles of 3, 4, or 5, with 5-needle fascicles being the most prevalent. This variability may be a sign of hybridization with the closely related ponderosa pine (''Pinus ponderosa''). The cones are single, paired, or in whorls of three, and 5–11 cm long. Taxonomy The Arizona pine was commonly thought to be a variant of Ponderosa pine, but since at least 1997 it is now recognized as a distinct species by most authorities. Three varieties are described; * ''Pinus arizonica'' var. ''arizonica'', primarily in the Sierra Madre Occidental from Arizona and New Mexico south through Chihuahua to Durango and Zacatecas, west to Sonora and Sinaloa, and east through Coahuila to Nuevo León. * ''Pinus arizonica'' var. ''s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinus Engelmannii
''Pinus engelmannii'', commonly known as the Apache pine, is a tree of Northern Mexico, in the Sierra Madre Occidental with its range extending a short distance into the United States in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. This pine is a medium-sized species with a height of and a trunk diameter of . The branches are sparse and very stout, giving the tree a distinct appearance. The needles, among the longest of any pine, are in bundles of three (occasionally five), long, stout, and spreading to slightly drooping. The cones are long, green or purple when growing, maturing glossy brown, moderately oblique with stoutly spined scales on the outer side (facing away from the branch). The Apache pine sometimes shows a grass stage like the related Michoacan pine (''P. devoniana'') and also longleaf pine (''P. palustris''). The English name refers to the species' occurrence in the lands of the Apache Native Americans, while the scientific name commemorates the pioneerin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chihuahua Pine
''Pinus leiophylla'', commonly known as Chihuahua pine, smooth-leaf pine,''Pinus leiophylla'' was originally described and published in ''Linnaea'' 6:354. 1831. and yellow pine (in Mexico, tlacocote and ocote chino), is a tree with a range primarily in Mexico, with a small extension into the United States in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico. The Mexican range extends along the Sierra Madre Occidental and Sierra Madre del Sur from Chihuahua to Oaxaca, from 29° North Lat. to 17°, between 1600 and 3000 meters altitude. It requires about a rainfall 600 to 1000 mm a year, mostly in summer. It tolerates frosts in winter. Description This member of family Pinaceae grows to the height of with a trunk diameter of . The needles are in bundles of three to five, long, or rarely to , and are a bright glossy green to yellowish-green. The cones are ovoid, long, or rarely to , and borne on a long stalk; they are unusual in taking about 30–32 months to mature, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
