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Barkudia Insularis
''Barkudia insularis'' commonly known as the Madras spotted skink is a critically endangered limbless skink which was described in 1917 by Nelson Annandale and rediscovered in the wild in 2003. Little is known about the species but it was previously believed to be found only in the mangrove habitats near Barkuda Island in Chilka Lake, Odisha, India. Later observations in adjoining parts of Odisha indicate a larger range within the state. The lizard looks like a large earthworm and lives in the subsoil and probably feeds on small arthropods. The holotype was found in loose earth near the roots of a banyan tree of Badakuda Island of Chilka lake in 1917. Only four reports of the species have been made since its description, all within Odisha: observations in 1917 and 2003 at Barkuda Island in Chilka Lake, a 1979 observation in Nandankanan Zoological Park, and a 2022 observation made near the vicinity of Buguda. The 2022 observation marked the first photograph taken of a live ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nelson Annandale
Thomas Nelson Annandale CIE FRSE (15 June 1876, in Edinburgh – 10 April 1924, in Calcutta) was a British zoologist, entomologist, anthropologist, and herpetologist. He was the founding director of the Zoological Survey of India. Life The eldest son of Thomas Annandale, the regius professor of clinical surgery at the University of Edinburgh. His maternal grandfather was a publisher, William Nelson. Thomas was educated at Rugby School, Balliol College, Oxford where he studied under Ray Lankester and E. B. Tylor (doing better in anthropology than zoology), and at the University of Edinburgh where he studied anthropology, receiving a D.Sc. (1905). As a student he made visits to Iceland and the Faeroe Islands. In 1899 he travelled with Herbert C. Robinson as part of the Skeat Expedition to the northern part of the Malay Peninsula. Annandale went to India in 1904 as Deputy Superintendent under A.W. Alcock of the Natural History Section of the Indian Museum. He was a deputy dir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthropod
Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arthropod cuticle, cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate. The arthropod body plan consists of segments, each with a pair of appendages. Arthropods are bilaterally symmetrical and their body possesses an exoskeleton, external skeleton. In order to keep growing, they must go through stages of moulting, a process by which they shed their exoskeleton to reveal a new one. Some species have wings. They are an extremely diverse group, with up to 10 million species. The haemocoel, an arthropod's internal cavity, through which its haemolymph – analogue of blood – circulates, accommodates its interior Organ (anatomy), organs; it has an open circulatory system. Like their exteriors, the internal or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reptiles Of India
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 originate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barkudia
''Barkudia'' is a little-known genus of skinks endemic to India. These lizards are thought to be semi-fossorial, and living in coastal areas of the east coast of India. Almost nothing is known about the natural history of this genus, except for classical taxonomic texts. There are two species: *''Barkudia insularis'' Annandale, 1917 — Madras spotted skink, distributed in the Circar Coast (type species) *'' Barkudia melanosticta'' (Schneider, 1801) — Visakhapatnam limbless skink, Russell's legless skink, distributed in parts of Coromandel Coast The Coromandel Coast is the southeastern coastal region of the Indian subcontinent, bounded by the Utkal Plains to the north, the Bay of Bengal to the east, the Kaveri delta to the south, and the Eastern Ghats to the west, extending over an ... References Barkudia Lizard genera Endemic fauna of India Taxa named by Nelson Annandale {{Skink-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederic Henry Gravely
Frederic Henry Gravely (7 December 1885 – 1965) was an eminent British arachnologist, entomologist, botanist, zoologist and student of archaeology, who conducted pioneering research and wrote extensively on various subjects during his tenure at the Indian Museum, Calcutta, and the Government Museum, Madras. Early life Gravely was born in 1885 in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England to Arthur Frederic Gravely and Margaret Hutchinson, the eldest of four children. The family were Quakers and although the father was a businessman, he was interested in natural history. His mother came from a farming family which also produced Sir Jonathan Hutchinson. At the age of nine he moved to a boarding school in Sheffield. He then studied at Ackworth and Bootham (both Quaker schools) before moving to Manchester University to study zoology.Aiyappan, A. (1951) Madras Government Museum Centenary Souvenir (1851-1951). pp. 39-50. Indian Museum, Calcutta Gravely graduated in 1906 and became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buguda
Buguda is a town in the Ghumusara area of Ganjam district in the state of Odisha, India. Buguda is approximately 70 kilometres from Berhampur, a major city in Odisha. Geography Buguda is located at . It has an average elevation of 84 meteres (275 feet). Demographics 's India census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ..., Buguda had a population of 13,253. Males constituted 51% of the population and females 49%. Buguda has an average literacy rate of 67%, higher than the national average of 59.5%; with a male literacy rate of 76% and a female literacy rate of 58%. 14% of the population is under 6 years of age. Climate and regional setting Maximum summer temperature is 37 °C; minimum winter temperature is 14 °C. The mean daily temperature vari ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nandankanan Zoological Park
Nandankanan Zoological Park is a zoo and botanical garden in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. Established in 1960, it was opened to the public in 1979 and became the first zoo in India to join World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) in 2009. It also contains a botanical garden and part of it has been declared a sanctuary. Nandankanan, literally meaning ''The Garden of Heaven'', is located near the capital city, Bhubaneswar, in the environs of the Chandaka forest, and includes the Kanjia lake. A major upgrade was done in 2000 (after the damage caused by the super-cyclone of 1999 in coastal Odisha). More than 2.6 million visitors visit Nandankanan every year. History Forest officials decided in 1960 that including rare plants and animals in the Odisha pavilion at the World Agricultural Fair in Delhi would help increase attendance. Word was sent to the forest department to capture as many small animals as possible for the display. In all, the forest department managed to cap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several examples, but explicitly designated as the holotype. Under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), a holotype is one of several kinds of name-bearing types. In the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) and ICZN, the definitions of types are similar in intent but not identical in terminology or underlying concept. For example, the holotype for the butterfly '' Plebejus idas longinus'' is a preserved specimen of that subspecies, held by the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In botany, an isotype is a duplicate of the holotype, where holotype and isotypes are often pieces from the same individual plant or samples from the same gathering. A holotype is not necessarily "typ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earthworm
An earthworm is a terrestrial invertebrate that belongs to the phylum Annelida. They exhibit a tube-within-a-tube body plan; they are externally segmented with corresponding internal segmentation; and they usually have setae on all segments. They occur worldwide where soil, water, and temperature allow. Earthworms are commonly found in soil, eating a wide variety of organic matter. This organic matter includes plant matter, living protozoa, rotifers, nematodes, bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. An earthworm's digestive system runs the length of its body. An earthworm respires (breathes) through its skin. It has a double transport system made of coelomic fluid that moves within the fluid-filled coelom and a simple, closed circulatory system. It has a central and peripheral nervous system. Its central nervous system consists of two ganglia above the mouth, one on either side, connected to a nerve running along its length to motor neurons and sensory cells in each s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chilika Lake
Chilika Lake is a brackish water lagoon, spread over the Puri, khordha and Ganjam districts of Odisha state on the east coast of India, at the mouth of the Daya River, flowing into the Bay of Bengal, covering an area of over . It is the biggest lake of India after Vembanad Lake. This lake is the largest coastal lagoon in India and the largest brackish water lagoon in the world after The New Caledonian barrier reef. It has been listed as a tentative UNESCO World Heritage site. It is a salt water lake. It is the largest wintering ground for migratory birds on the Indian sub-continent. The lake is home to a number of threatened species of plants and animals. The lake is an ecosystem with large fishery resources. It sustains more than 150,000 fisher–folk living in 132 villages on the shore and islands. The lagoon hosts over 160 species of birds in the peak migratory season. Birds from as far as the Caspian Sea, Lake Baikal, Aral Sea and other remote parts of Russia, Kirg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73–55 ka.", "Modern human beings—''Homo sapiens''—originated in Africa. Then, int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Odisha
Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of Scheduled Tribes in India. It neighbours the states of Jharkhand and West Bengal to the north, Chhattisgarh to the west, and Andhra Pradesh to the south. Odisha has a coastline of along the Bay of Bengal in Indian Ocean. The region is also known as Utkala and is also mentioned in India's national anthem, " Jana Gana Mana". The language of Odisha is Odia, which is one of the Classical Languages of India. The ancient kingdom of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka (which was again won back from them by King Kharavela) in 261 BCE resulting in the Kalinga War, coincides with the borders of modern-day Odisha. The modern boundaries of Odisha were demarcated by the British Indian government when Orissa Province wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
