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Bitis Rubida
The red adder (''Bitis rubida'') is a viper species found only in Western Cape Province, South Africa. No subspecies are currently recognised. Like all other vipers, it is venomous. Taxonomy ''Bitis rubida'' was described as a new species in 1997 by William Roy "Bill" Branch. Prior to that time, specimens of this snake had been identified as belonging to several other species and subspecies of the genus ''Bitis'' (see "Synonyms" in "Taxobox"). The type locality given is "Jeep track above Farm Driehoek, Cederberg Mountains, Western Cape Province, South Africa; 32°25'44"S, 19°12'30"E, alt. 1380 m ,528 ft 3219AC." The common name is "red adder".Mallow D, Ludwig D, Nilson G. 2003. ''True Vipers: Natural History and Toxinology of Old World Vipers''. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company. 359 pp. .'' Description Maximum recorded total lengths (body + tail) are for females and for males. Distribution and habitat Several isolated populations are found in the northern Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Roy Branch
William Roy "Bill" Branch (12 May 1946, London, England – 14 October 2018, Port Elizabeth, South Africa) was a British-South-African herpetologist. Branch studied at the University of Southampton where he remained until completing his Ph.D. degree (''Studies on a foetal-specific alpha-globulin FPin the rabbit'' ). From 1972 he worked as a scientist in the Life Sciences Division of the Atomic Energy Board in Pretoria doing research on, inter alia, liver cancer, but returned to the University of Southampton in 1976 to take up a post-doctoral research fellowship in the Department of Biology studying the synthesis of chemicals in the liver of foetal rabbits. He started working at Port Elizabeth Museum in 1979 and retired in 2011, when he was appointed as Research Associate and Curator Emeritus. Over a period of almost 40 years he conducted field work in about 20 African countries and played a major role in building up the large reptile and amphibian collections at the Museum. Pub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venomous Snake
Venomous snakes are Species (biology), species of the Suborder (biology), suborder Snake, Serpentes that are capable of producing Snake venom, venom, which they use for killing prey, for defense, and to assist with digestion of their prey. The venom is typically delivered by injection using hollow or grooved fangs, although some venomous snakes lack well-developed fangs. Common venomous snakes include the Family (biology), families Elapidae, Viperidae, Atractaspididae, and some of the Colubridae. The toxicity of venom is mainly indicated by murine , while multiple factors are considered to judge the potential danger to humans. Other important factors for risk assessment include the likelihood that a snake will bite, the quantity of venom delivered with the bite, the efficiency of the delivery mechanism, and the location of a bite on the body of the victim. Snake venom may have both neurotoxic and hemotoxic properties. There are about 600 venomous snake species in the world. Evolu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snakes Of Africa
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, Dibamid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemic Reptiles Of South Africa
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 (ecology), 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, Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. ''Enidae, Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a Invasive species, 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 specie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bitis
''Bitis'' is a genus of venomous vipers found in Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. It includes the largest and the smallest vipers in the world. Members are known for their characteristic threat displays that involve inflating and deflating their bodies while hissing and puffing loudly. The type species for this genus is '' B. arietans'', which is also the most widely distributed viper in Africa. Currently, 18 species are recognized. Members of the genus are commonly known as African adders,Mallow D, Ludwig D, Nilson G. 2003. ''True Vipers: Natural History and Toxinology of Old World Vipers''. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company. 359 pp. . African vipers,Spawls S, Branch B. 1995. ''The Dangerous Snakes of Africa''. Dubai: Ralph Curtis Books. Oriental Press. 192 pp. . or puff adders. Description Size variation within this genus is extreme, ranging from the very small '' B. schneideri'', which grows to a maximum of and is perhaps the world's smallest viperid, to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government based in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town respectively. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of the population are Black South Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Fold Belt
The Cape Fold Belt is a fold and thrust belt of late Paleozoic age, which affected the sequence of sedimentary rock layers of the Cape Supergroup in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It was originally continuous with the Ventana Mountains near Bahía Blanca in Argentina, the Pensacola Mountains (East Antarctica), the Ellsworth Mountains (West Antarctica) and the Hunter-Bowen orogeny in eastern Australia. The rocks involved are generally sandstones and shales, with the shales (Bokkeveld Group) persisting in the valley floors while the erosion resistant sandstones (belonging to the Peninsula Formation) form the parallel ranges, the Cape Fold Mountains, which reach a maximum height of 2325 m at Seweweekspoortpiek ('Seven Weeks Defile Peak' in Afrikaans). The Cape Fold Mountains form a series of parallel ranges that run along the south-western and southern coastlines of South Africa for 850 km from the Cederberg 200 km to the north of the Cape Peninsula, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cederberg Mountains
The Cederberg mountains are located near Clanwilliam, approximately 300 km north of Cape Town, South Africa at about . The mountain range is named after the endangered Clanwilliam cedar (''Widdringtonia wallichii''), which is a tree endemic to the area. The mountains are noted for dramatic rock formations and San rock art. The Cederberg Wilderness Area is administered by CapeNature. ''Cederberg'' is now the generally accepted spelling for the area, which combines the English (Cedarberg) and Afrikaans (Sederberg) variants. Geography and climate The Cederberg mountains extend about 50 km north–south by 20 km east–west. They are bordered on the west by the Sandveld, the north by the Pakhuis Mountains, the east by the Springbok Flats and the south by the Kouebokkeveld Mountains and the Skurweberge. The main access road, the N7, runs to the west of the range. The nearest towns are Citrusdal to the southwest and Clanwilliam to the north. The area is sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Type Locality (biology)
In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the defining features of that particular taxon. In older usage (pre-1900 in botany), a type was a taxon rather than a specimen. A taxon is a scientifically named grouping of organisms with other like organisms, a set that includes some organisms and excludes others, based on a detailed published description (for example a species description) and on the provision of type material, which is usually available to scientists for examination in a major museum research collection, or similar institution. Type specimen According to a precise set of rules laid down in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) and the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN), the scientific name of every taxon is almost a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family (taxonomy), family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. ''Panthera leo'' (lion) and ''Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus ''Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomy (biology), taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species have subspecies, but for those that do there must be at least two. Subspecies is abbreviated subsp. or ssp. and the singular and plural forms are the same ("the subspecies is" or "the subspecies are"). In zoology, under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the subspecies is the only taxonomic rank below that of species that can receive a name. In botany and mycology, under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, other infraspecific ranks, such as variety, may be named. In bacteriology and virology, under standard bacterial nomenclature and virus nomenclature, there are recommendations but not strict requirements for recognizing other important infraspecific ranks. A taxonomist decides whether ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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