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Bibymalagasia
''Plesiorycteropus'', also known as the bibymalagasy or Malagasy aardvark, is a recently extinct eutherian mammalian genus from Madagascar. Upon its description in 1895, it was classified with the aardvark, but more recent molecular evidence instead suggests that it is most closely related to the tenrecs (a group extant on the island). Two species are currently recognized, the larger ''P. madagascariensis'' and the smaller ''P. germainepetterae''. They probably overlapped in distribution, as subfossil remains of both species have been found in the same site. Knowledge of the skeletal anatomy is limited, as only limb, partial pelvis, and skull bones have been recovered to date. ''Plesiorycteropus'' was probably a digging animal that fed on insects such as termites and ants. It also shows adaptations for climbing and sitting. Estimates of its mass range from . When and why it became extinct remains unknown. One bone has been radiocarbon dating, radiocarbon dated to 200&nb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aardvark
The aardvark ( ; ''Orycteropus afer'') is a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa. It is the only living species of the order Tubulidentata, although other prehistoric species and genera of Tubulidentata are known. Unlike most other insectivores, it has a long pig-like snout, which is used to sniff out food. It roams over most of the southern two-thirds of the African continent, avoiding areas that are mainly rocky. A nocturnal feeder, it subsists on ants and termites, which it will dig out of their hills using its sharp claws and powerful legs. It also digs to create burrows in which to live and rear its young. The animal is listed as "least concern" by the IUCN, although its numbers are decreasing. Aardvarks are afrotheres, a clade which also includes elephants, manatees, and hyraxes. Name and taxonomy Name The aardvark is sometimes colloquially called the "African ant bear", "anteater" (not to be confused with the anteater, South American anteater), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. The Holocene has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1. It is considered by some to be an interglacial period within the Pleistocene Epoch, called the Flandrian interglacial.Oxford University Press – Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever (book) – "Holocene Humanity" section https://books.google.com/books?id=7P0_sWIcBNsC The Holocene corresponds with the rapid proliferation, growth and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all of its written history, technological revolutions, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition towards urban living in the present. The human impact on modern-era Earth and its ecosystems may be considered of global si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subfossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in amber, hair, petrified wood and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils is known as the ''fossil record''. Paleontology is the study of fossils: their age, method of formation, and evolutionary significance. Specimens are usually considered to be fossils if they are over 10,000 years old. The oldest fossils are around 3.48 billion years old to 4.1 billion years old. Early edition, published online before print. The observation in the 19th century that certain fossils were associated with certain rock strata led to the recognition of a geological timescale and the relative ages of different fossils. The development of radiometric dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed scientists to quantitatively measure the absolute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daubentonia Robusta
The giant aye-aye (''Daubentonia robusta'') is an extinct relative of the aye-aye, the only other species in the genus ''Daubentonia''. It lived in Madagascar, appears to have disappeared less than 1,000 years ago, is entirely unknown in life, and is only known from subfossil remains. As of 2004 giant aye-aye remains consisted of 4 incisors, a tibia The tibia (; ), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outside of the tibia); it connects ..., and other postcranial material. Subfossils of this species have been found in the southern and southeastern portion of Madagascar, outside the range of extant aye-aye. Giant aye-ayes are believed to be very similar morphologically to the aye-aye, but 2 to 2.5 times larger, based upon jaw and incisor measurements. References *Nilsson, G. (1983). ''The Endangered Species Handbook.' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Votsovotsa
The Malagasy giant rat (''Hypogeomys antimena''), also known as the votsotsa or votsovotsa, is a nesomyid rodent found only in the Menabe region of Madagascar. It is an endangered species due to habitat loss, slow reproduction, and limited range (200 square kilometres north of Morondava, between the rivers Tomitsy and Tsiribihina) Pairs are monogamous and females bear only one or two young per year. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Hypogeomys''; another species, ''Hypogeomys australis'', is known from subfossil remains a few thousand years old. Physical description Malagasy giant rats have an appearance somewhat similar to rabbits, though maintaining many rat-like features especially in the face. Males and females both grow to roughly rabbit-size, around and , though with an additional of dark tail. They have a coarse coat which varies from gray to brown to reddish, darkening around the head and fading to white on the belly. They also have prominent, pointed ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Femur
The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates with the tibia (shinbone) and patella (kneecap), forming the knee joint. By most measures the two (left and right) femurs are the strongest bones of the body, and in humans, the largest and thickest. Structure The femur is the only bone in the upper leg. The two femurs converge medially toward the knees, where they articulate with the proximal ends of the tibiae. The angle of convergence of the femora is a major factor in determining the femoral-tibial angle. Human females have thicker pelvic bones, causing their femora to converge more than in males. In the condition ''genu valgum'' (knock knee) the femurs converge so much that the knees touch one another. The opposite extreme is ''genu varum'' (bow-leggedness). In the general populatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nematode
The nematodes ( or grc-gre, Νηματώδη; la, Nematoda) or roundworms constitute the phylum Nematoda (also called Nemathelminthes), with plant-Parasitism, parasitic nematodes also known as eelworms. They are a diverse animal phylum inhabiting a broad range of environments. Less formally, they are categorized as Helminths, but are taxonomically classified along with Arthropod, arthropods, Tardigrade, tardigrades and other moulting animalia, animals in the clade Ecdysozoa, and unlike platyhelminthe, flatworms, have tubular digestion, digestive systems with openings at both ends. Like tardigrades, they have a reduced number of Hox genes, but their sister phylum Nematomorpha has kept the ancestral protostome Hox genotype, which shows that the reduction has occurred within the nematode phylum. Nematode species can be difficult to distinguish from one another. Consequently, estimates of the number of nematode species described to date vary by author and may change rapidly over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Preoccupied Name
In biology, a homonym is a name for a taxon that is identical in spelling to another such name, that belongs to a different taxon. The rule in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is that the first such name to be published is the senior homonym and is to be used (it is " valid"); any others are junior homonyms and must be replaced with new names. It is, however, possible that if a senior homonym is archaic, and not in "prevailing usage," it may be declared a ''nomen oblitum'' and rendered unavailable, while the junior homonym is preserved as a ''nomen protectum''. :For example: :*Cuvier proposed the genus ''Echidna'' in 1797 for the spiny anteater. :*However, Forster had already published the name ''Echidna'' in 1777 for a genus of moray eels. :*Forster's use thus has priority, with Cuvier's being a junior homonym. :*Illiger published the replacement name ''Tachyglossus'' in 1811. Similarly, the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (IC ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morphology (anatomy)
Morphology is a branch of biology dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features. This includes aspects of the outward appearance (shape, structure, colour, pattern, size), i.e. external morphology (or eidonomy), as well as the form and structure of the internal parts like bones and organs, i.e. internal morphology (or anatomy). This is in contrast to physiology, which deals primarily with function. Morphology is a branch of life science dealing with the study of gross structure of an organism or taxon and its component parts. History The etymology of the word "morphology" is from the Ancient Greek (), meaning "form", and (), meaning "word, study, research". While the concept of form in biology, opposed to function, dates back to Aristotle (see Aristotle's biology), the field of morphology was developed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1790) and independently by the German anatomist and physiologist Karl Friedrich Burdach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Lamberton
Charles Lamberton (23 April 18768 October 1960) was a French paleontologist who lived and studied on the island of Madagascar between 1911 and 1948 and specialized in the recently extinct subfossil lemurs. He made significant contributions towards fixing misattributions of skeletal remains and poor interpretations of subfossil lemur behavior. His paleontological expeditions during the 1930s led to the discovery of a new species of ''Mesopropithecus'', a type of sloth lemur. Three species—one mammal and two reptiles—were named after him, although one is now considered a taxonomic synonym. Career Charles Lamberton lived on the island of Madagascar between 1911 and 1948, where he was employed as a Professor at Gallieni College and as a Secretary for the Malagasy Academy. During much of his career, which spanned from 1912 to 1956, he wrote extensively about the recently extinct, subfossil fauna of Madagascar. For nearly 50 years, Lamberton studied the subfossil lemurs, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Specific Name (zoology)
In zoological nomenclature, the specific name (also specific epithet or species epithet) is the second part (the second name) within the scientific name of a species (a binomen). The first part of the name of a species is the name of the genus or the generic name. The rules and regulations governing the giving of a new species name are explained in the article species description. For example, the scientific name for humans is ''Homo sapiens'', which is the species name, consisting of two names: ''Homo'' is the " generic name" (the name of the genus) and ''sapiens'' is the "specific name". Historically, ''specific name'' referred to the combination of what are now called the generic and specific names. Carl Linnaeus, who formalized binomial nomenclature, made explicit distinctions between specific, generic, and trivial names. The generic name was that of the genus, the first in the binomial, the trivial name was the second name in the binomial, and the specific the proper term for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic period (), and the Classical period (). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language. From the Hellenistic period (), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek, which is regarded as a separate historical stage, although its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek, of which Attic Greek developed into Koine. Dia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
