Arizona Night Lizard
The Arizona night lizard (''Xantusia arizonae'') is a species of small smooth-skinned gray-brown lizards with dark spots that sometimes form partial lines down the back. The lizard has a slightly flattened head. The scales of the underside and tail are larger than those of the upper side. The lizard grows to a length of 6 to 10 cm.Bezy, Robert L"The Night Lizards (''Xantusia'') of Arizona" . Sonoran Herpetologist. Retrieved 30 December 2011Arizona Game and Fish Department. 2003 "Xantusia arizonae". Unpublished abstract compiled and edited by the Heritage Data Management System, Arizona Game and Fish Department, Phoenix, AZ. 1-2 pp. Despite its name, the Arizona night lizard is primarily active during the day. The lizard's range extends across west-central Arizona. It is usually found in rock crevices or under plant debris. Its diet consists of insects and spiders. The young of the lizard are born live, usually one or two around August or September. As the lizard tends not to m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Laurence Monroe Klauber
Laurence Monroe Klauber (December 21, 1883 in San Diego, California – May 8, 1968), was an American herpetology, herpetologist and the foremost authority on rattlesnakes. He was the first curator of reptiles and amphibians at the San Diego Natural History Museum and Consulting Curator of Reptiles for the San Diego Zoo. He was also a businessman, inventor, and contributed to mathematics in his study of the distribution of prime numbers. Biography The youngest of Theresa Epstein and Abraham Klauber , Abraham Klauber's twelve children, Klauber was born on December 21, 1883 in San Diego, California. He received his A.B. degree (Electrical Engineering) from Stanford University in 1908 and completed a Westinghouse graduate apprenticeship course in 1910. He married Grace Gould in 1911, and in that same year began his career with San Diego Gas & Electric Company. He received an honorary LL.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1941. Klauber died on May 8, 1968 in San Dieg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Four Corners region with Utah to the north, Colorado to the northeast, and New Mexico to the east; its other neighboring states are Nevada to the northwest, California to the west and the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California to the south and southwest. Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, achieving statehood on February 14, 1912. Historically part of the territory of in New Spain, it became part of independent Mexico in 1821. After being defeated in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded much of this territory to the United States in 1848. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase. Southern Arizona is known for its desert cl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Exfoliating Granite
Exfoliating granite is a granite undergoing exfoliation, or onion skin weathering (desquamation). The external delaminated layers of granite are gradually produced by the cyclic variations of temperature at the surface of the rock in a process also called spalling. Frost and ice expansion in the joints during the winter accelerate the alteration process while the most unstable loosen external layers are removed by gravity assisted by runoff water. Geology Homogeneous granitic plutons are created in high-pressure environments and slowly solidify beneath the earth's crust. Vertical compression of overburden releases through erosion, or removal of overlying rocks resulting in unloading.Petersen, James F., Dorthy Sack, and Robert E. Gabler. "Pg. 292." Fundamentals of Physical Geography. 1st ed. Belmont: Brooks/Cole, 2010. 292-93. Print.Lutgens, Frederick K., and Edward J. Tarbuck. "Entire Book." Essentials Of Geology. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. 118 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neotoma
A pack rat or packrat, also called a woodrat or trade rat, are any species in the North and Central American rodent genus ''Neotoma''. Pack rats have a rat-like appearance, with long tails, large ears, and large, black eyes. Pack rats are noticeably larger than deer mice, harvest mice, and grasshopper mice, and are usually somewhat larger than cotton rats. Species ''Neotoma'' includes three subgenera: * Subgenus ''Neotoma'' ** '' Neotoma albigula'' - white-throated woodrat *** ''Neotoma albigula varia'' - Turner Island woodrat ** '' Neotoma angustapalata'' - Tamaulipan woodrat ** ''Neotoma bryanti'' - Bryant's woodrat *** '' Neotoma bryanti anthonyi'' - Anthony's woodrat † *** '' Neotoma bryanti bunkeri'' - Bunker's woodrat † *** '' Neotoma bryanti martinensis'' - San Martín Island woodrat † ** ''Neotoma chrysomelas'' - Nicaraguan woodrat ** '' Neotoma devia'' - Arizona woodrat ** ''Neotoma findleyi'' - Findley's woodrat † ** '' Neotoma floridana'' - eastern woodrat ( ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yucca Baccata
''Yucca baccata'' (datil yucca or banana yucca, also known as Spanish bayonet and broadleaf yucca) is a common species of yucca native to the deserts of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, from southeastern California north to Utah, east to western Texas and south to Sonora and Chihuahua. It is also reported in the wild in Colombia. The species gets its common name "banana yucca" from its banana-shaped fruit. The specific epithet ''baccata'' means 'with berries'. Banana yucca is closely related to the ''Yucca schidigera'', the Mojave yucca, with which it is interspersed where their ranges overlap; hybrids between them occur. Description ''Yucca baccata'' is recognized by having leaves long with a blue-green color, and short or nonexistent trunks. It flowers in the spring, starting in April to July depending on locality (altitude), and the flowers range from long, in six segments, white to cream-coloured with purple shades. The flower stalk is not especi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Xantusia
''Xantusia'' is one of three genera of night lizards (family '' Xantusiidae''). Species of ''Xantusia'' are small to medium-sized, viviparous (live-bearing) lizards found in the U.S. Southwest and in northern Mexico. Taxonomy and etymology The names and descriptions of the genus ''Xantusia'' and the type species ''X. vigilis'' were published in 1859 by Spencer Fullerton Baird, the generic name commemorating the naturalist John Xantus. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (Genus ''Xantusia'', p. 291). Species The following is a list of species in the genus. *'' Xantusia arizonae'' Klauber, 1931 – Arizona night lizard *'' Xantusia bezyi'' Papenfuss, Macey & J.A. Schulte, 2001 – Bezy's night lizard *'' Xantusia bolsonae'' Webb, 1970 – bolsón night lizard *'' Xantusia extorris'' Webb, 1965 – Durango night lizard *'' Xantusia gilberti'' Van Denburg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reptiles Of The United States
Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians (tuatara). As of March 2022, the Reptile Database includes about 11,700 species. In the traditional Linnaean classification system, birds are considered a separate class to reptiles. However, crocodilians are more closely related to birds than they are to other living reptiles, and so modern cladistic classification systems include birds within Reptilia, redefining the term as a clade. Other cladistic definitions abandon the term reptile altogether in favor of the clade Sauropsida, which refers to all amniotes more closely related to modern reptiles than to mammals. The study of the traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of modern amphibians, is called herpetology. The earliest known proto-reptiles originated around 31 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Endemic Fauna Of The United States
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can be also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or in scientific literature as an ''endemite''. For example '' Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. '' Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a non-indigenous species from South America belonging to a different genus. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fauna Of The Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert ( es, Desierto de Sonora) is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States (in Arizona and California). It is the hottest desert in both Mexico and the United States. It has an area of . In phytogeography, the Sonoran Desert is within the Sonoran Floristic province of the Madrean Region of southwestern North America, part of the Holarctic realm of the northern Western Hemisphere. The desert contains a variety of unique endemic plants and animals, notably, the saguaro (''Carnegiea gigantea'') and organ pipe cactus (''Stenocereus thurberi''). The Sonoran Desert is clearly distinct from nearby deserts (e.g., the Great Basin, Mojave, and Chihuahuan deserts) because it provides subtropical warmth in winter and two seasons of rainfall (in contrast, for example, to the Mojave's dry summers and cold winters). This creates an ext ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fauna Of The Southwestern United States
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. Zoologists and paleontologists use ''fauna'' to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess Shale fauna". Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of faunal stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils. The study of animals of a particular region is called faunistics. Etymology ''Fauna'' comes from the name Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, and the related forest spirits called Fauns. All three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan, and ''panis'' is the Greek equivalent of fauna. ''Fauna'' is also the word for a book that catalogues the animals in such a manner. The term was first used ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reptiles Described In 1931
Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates ( lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians (tuatara). As of March 2022, the Reptile Database includes about 11,700 species. In the traditional Linnaean classification system, birds are considered a separate class to reptiles. However, crocodilians are more closely related to birds than they are to other living reptiles, and so modern cladistic classification systems include birds within Reptilia, redefining the term as a clade. Other cladistic definitions abandon the term reptile altogether in favor of the clade Sauropsida, which refers to all amniotes more closely related to modern reptiles than to mammals. The study of the traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of modern amphibians, is called herpetology. The earliest known proto-reptiles originated ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |