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Asiatic Wildcat
The Asiatic wildcat (''Felis lybica ornata''), also known as the Asian steppe wildcat and the Indian desert cat, is an African wildcat subspecies that occurs from the eastern Caspian Sea north to Kazakhstan, into western India, western China and southern Mongolia. There is no information on current status or population numbers across the Asiatic wildcat's range as a whole, but populations are thought to be declining. Taxonomy ''Felis ornata'' was the scientific name used by John Edward Gray in the early 1830s as a caption to an illustration of an Indian wildcat from Thomas Hardwicke's collection. In subsequent years, several naturalists described spotted wildcat zoological specimens from Asian range countries and proposed names, including the following: *''Chaus caudatus'' by Gray in 1874 was a skin and skull from the Bukhara Region in Uzbekistan. *''Felis shawiana'' by William Thomas Blanford in 1876 was a pale wildcat skin from Yarkand in Xinjiang, western China. *''Felis ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Edward Gray
John Edward Gray, FRS (12 February 1800 – 7 March 1875) was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of zoologist George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray (1766–1828). The same is used for a zoological name. Gray was keeper of zoology at the British Museum in London from 1840 until Christmas 1874, before the natural history holdings were split off to the Natural History Museum. He published several catalogues of the museum collections that included comprehensive discussions of animal groups and descriptions of new species. He improved the zoological collections to make them amongst the best in the world. Biography Gray was born in Walsall, but his family soon moved to London, where Gray studied medicine. He assisted his father in writing ''The Natural Arrangement of British Plants'' (1821). After being blackballed by the Linnean Society of London, Gray shifted his interest from botany to zoology. He began his zoolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Konstantin Satunin
Konstantin Alekseevich Satunin (20 May 1863–10 November 1915) was a Russian zoologist who studied and described many mammals found in Russia and Central Asia. Satunin graduated from Moscow University in 1890. From 1893 he worked at a sericulture station in the Caucasus. He became a senior specialist at the Department of Agriculture in 1907, concentrating on applied zoology and hunting in the Caucasus. He continued in this post until his death in 1915. He principally studied the mammals of Russia and Central Asia, and was responsible for describing many new species. He published many works on the fauna of the Caucasus, mainly in the field of mammalogy but also entomology, herpetology, ichthyology, ornithology, sericulture, zoogeography, game management science and fishing. For example, he gave descriptions of a tiger from Prishibinskoye, comparing it to a horse.Geptner, V. G., Sludskij, A. A. (1972). ''Mlekopitajuščie Sovetskogo Soiuza.'' Vysšaia Škola, Moskva. (In Russian; E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tian Shan Mountains
The Tian Shan,, , otk, 𐰴𐰣 𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃, , tr, Tanrı Dağı, mn, Тэнгэр уул, , ug, تەڭرىتاغ, , , kk, Тәңіртауы / Алатау, , , ky, Теңир-Тоо / Ала-Тоо, , , uz, Tyan-Shan / Tangritog‘, , also known as the Tengri Tagh or Tengir-Too, meaning the ''Mountains of Heaven'' or the ''Heavenly Mountain'', is a large system of mountain ranges located in Central Asia. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Jengish Chokusu, at high. Its lowest point is the Turpan Depression, which is below sea level. One of the earliest historical references to these mountains may be related to the Xiongnu word ''Qilian'' ( zh, s=祁连, t=祁連, first=t, p=Qílián) – according to Tang commentator Yan Shigu, ''Qilian'' is the Xiongnu word for sky or heaven. Sima Qian in the ''Records of the Grand Historian'' mentioned ''Qilian'' in relation to the homeland of the Yuezhi and the term is believed to refer to the Tian Shan rather than the Qili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former Soviet Union, Soviet republics of the Soviet Union, republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, which are colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as the countries all have names ending with the Persian language, Persian suffix "-stan", meaning "land of". The current geographical location of Central Asia was formerly part of the historic region of Turkestan, Turkistan, also known as Turan. In the pre-Islamic and early Islamic eras ( and earlier) Central Asia was inhabited predominantly by Iranian peoples, populated by Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians, Khwarezmian language, Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Dahae. After expansion by Turkic peop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-largest Muslim population just behind Indonesia. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country in the world by area and 2nd largest in South Asia, spanning . It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China to the northeast. It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in the north, and also shares a maritime border with Oman. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is its largest city and financial centre. Pakistan is the site of several ancient cultures, including the 8,500-year-old Neolithic site of Mehrgarh in Balochistan, the Indus Valley civilisation of the Bronze Age, the most extens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History Museum, London
The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 80 million items within five main collections: botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology. The museum is a centre of research specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Charles Darwin. The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons and ornate architecture—sometimes dubbed a ''cathedral of nature''—both exemplified by the large ''Diplodocus'' cast that dom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reginald Innes Pocock
Reginald Innes Pocock Fellow of the Royal Society, F.R.S. (4 March 1863 – 9 August 1947) was a British zoologist. Pocock was born in Clifton, Bristol, the fourth son of Rev. Nicholas Pocock (historian), Nicholas Pocock and Edith Prichard. He began showing interest in natural history at St Edward's School, Oxford, St. Edward's School, Oxford. He received tutoring in zoology from Sir Edward Poulton, and was allowed to explore comparative anatomy at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford Museum. He studied biology and geology at University College, Bristol, under Conwy Lloyd Morgan and William Johnson Sollas. In 1885, he became an assistant at the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum, and worked in the section of entomology for a year. He was put in charge of the collections of Arachnida and Myriapoda. He was also given the task to arrange the British birds collections, in the course of which he developed a lasting interest in ornithology. The 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. Its capital and largest city is Bishkek. Ethnic Kyrgyz make up the majority of the country's seven million people, followed by significant minorities of Uzbeks and Russians. The Kyrgyz language is closely related to other Turkic languages. Kyrgyzstan's history spans a variety of cultures and empires. Although geographically isolated by its highly mountainous terrain, Kyrgyzstan has been at the crossroads of several great civilizations as part of the Silk Road along with other commercial routes. Inhabited by a succession of tribes and clans, Kyrgyzstan has periodically fallen under larger domination. Turkic nomads, who trace their ancestry to many Turkic states. It was first established as the Yenisei Kyrgyz Khaganate later in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Issyk-Kul
Issyk-Kul (also Ysyk-Köl, ky, Ысык-Көл, lit=warm lake, translit=Ysyk-Köl, , zh, 伊塞克湖) is an endorheic lake (i.e., without outflow) in the Northern Tian Shan mountains in Eastern Kyrgyzstan. It is the seventh-deepest lake in the world, the tenth-largest lake in the world by volume (though not in surface area) and the second-largest saline lake after the Caspian Sea. Issyk-Kul means "warm lake" in the Kyrgyz language; although it is located at a lofty elevation of and subject to severe cold during winter, it never freezes. The lake is a Ramsar site of globally significant biodiversity and forms part of the Issyk-Kul Biosphere Reserve. Geography Issyk-Kul Lake is long, up to wide and its area is . It is the second-largest mountain lake in the world behind Lake Titicaca in South America. It is at an altitude of and reaches in depth. About 118 rivers and streams flow into the lake; the largest are the Jyrgalang and Tüp. It is fed by springs, includi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergey Ognev
Sergey Ivanovich Ognev (russian: Серге́й Ива́нович Огнёв) (17 November 1886 in Moscow – 20 December 1951 in Moscow) was a scientist, zoologist and naturalist, remembered for his work on mammalogy. He graduated from Moscow University in 1910, the same year in which he published his first monograph. In 1928, he became a professor at the Moscow State Pedagogical University. He published a variety of textbooks in zoology and ecology. His masterpiece, magnum opus, ''Mammals of Russia and adjacent territories'', was never completed. References 1886 births 1951 deaths Zoologists from the Russian Empire Soviet zoologists Scientists from Moscow Moscow State University faculty {{biologist-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lower Mesopotamia
Lower Mesopotamia is a historical region of Mesopotamia. It's located in the alluvial plain of Iraq from the Hamrin Mountains to the Faw Peninsula near the Persian Gulf. In the Middle Ages it was also known as the ''Sawad'' and al-Jazira al-sflia ("Lower Jazira"), which strictly speaking designated only the southern alluvial plain, and ''al-ʻIrāq al-ʻArabi'' ("Arabian Irāq"), as opposed to " Persian Iraq", the Jibal. Lower Mesopotamia was home to Sumer and Babylonia. Regions of Iraq Delimitation The medieval Arab geographers placed the northern border between Iraq and Upper Mesopotamia (the ''Jazirah'') in a line running from Anbar on the Euphrates to Tikrit on the Tigris, although later it was shifted to a line running due west from Tikrit, thus including several towns on the Euphrates past Anbar into Iraq. Geography An alluvial plain begins north of Tikrit Near Hamrin Mountains and extends to the Persian Gulf. Here the Tigris and Euphrates lie above the level of the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geok Tepe
Geok Tepe ( tk, Gökdepe) is a city in and the administrative center of Gökdepe District, Ahal province, Turkmenistan, north-west of Ashgabat. The city is built around a former fortress of the Turkmens which bore the same name. The city lies along the M37 highway and the Trans-Caspian Railway. History Battle of Geok Tepe The fortress of Geok Tepe consisted of a walled enclosure in circuit, the wall being high and thick. In December 1880 in the Siege of Geoktepe it was attacked by 6,000 Russians under General Mikhail Skobelev against 25,000 defenders. The siege of Geok Tepe lasted 23 days, after which the fort was taken by storm. The Russian forces encountered heavy resistance and finally broke in by digging a tunnel under the wall, then detonating a mine under the wall on January 12 ( 24th new style), 1881. Once the fortress was breached, the Russian troops stormed in. Several hundred defenders died in the explosion, and many more died in the fighting that ensued. Eventuall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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