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Bonelli's Eagle
The Bonelli's eagle (''Aquila fasciata'') is a large bird of prey. The common name of the bird commemorates the Italian ornithologist and collector Franco Andrea Bonelli. Bonelli is credited with gathering the type specimen, most likely from an exploration of Sardinia.Aimassi, G. (2015). ''The original description of Bonelli’s Eagle Aquila fasciata Vieillot (Aves: Accipitridae)''. Zoological Bibliography, 4(1), 1-15. Some antiquated texts also refer to this species as the crestless hawk-eagle. Like all eagles, Bonelli's eagle belongs to the family Accipitridae. Its feathered legs marked it as member of the Aquilinae or booted eagle subfamily. This species breeds from Southern Europe, Africa on the montane perimeter of the Sahara Desert and across the Indian Subcontinent to Indonesia. On Eurasia, this species may be found as far west as Portugal and as far east as southeastern China and Thailand. It is usually a resident breeder. The Bonelli's eagle is often found in hilly or mou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot
Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collected himself in the West Indies and North America and South American species discovered but not formally named by Félix de Azara and his translator Sonnini de Manoncourt. He was among the first ornithologists to study changes in plumage and one of the first to study live birds. At least 77 of the genera erected by Vieillot are still in use. Biography Vieillot was born in Yvetot. He represented his family's business interests in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) on Hispaniola, but fled to the United States during the Haitian rebellions that followed the French Revolution. On Buffon's advice, he collected material for the ''Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de l'Amérique Septentrionale,'' the first two volumes of which were published in France beginning i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Rabbit
The European rabbit (''Oryctolagus cuniculus'') or coney is a species of rabbit native to the Iberian Peninsula (including Spain, Portugal, and southwestern France), western France, and the northern Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa. It has been widely introduced elsewhere, often with devastating effects on local biodiversity. Its decline in its native range due to myxomatosis, rabbit calicivirus, overhunting and habitat loss has caused the decline of the Iberian lynx (''Lynx pardinus'') and Spanish imperial eagle (''Aquila adalberti''). It is known as an invasive species because it has been introduced to countries on all continents with the exception of Antarctica, and has caused many problems within the environment and ecosystems; in particular, European rabbits in Australia have had a devastating impact, due in part to the lack of natural predators there. The European rabbit is well known for digging networks of burrows, called warrens, where it spends most of its tim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allopatric Speciation
Allopatric speciation () – also referred to as geographic speciation, vicariant speciation, or its earlier name the dumbbell model – is a mode of speciation that occurs when biological populations become geographically isolated from each other to an extent that prevents or interferes with gene flow. Various geographic changes can arise such as the movement of continents, and the formation of mountains, islands, bodies of water, or glaciers. Human activity such as agriculture or developments can also change the distribution of species populations. These factors can substantially alter a region's geography, resulting in the separation of a species population into isolated subpopulations. The vicariant populations then undergo genetic changes as they become subjected to different selective pressures, experience genetic drift, and accumulate different mutations in the separated populations' gene pools. The barriers prevent the exchange of genetic information betwe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lumpers And Splitters
Lumpers and splitters are opposing factions in any discipline that has to place individual examples into rigorously defined categories. The lumper–splitter problem occurs when there is the desire to create classifications and assign examples to them, for example schools of literature, biological taxa and so on. A "lumper" is a person who assigns examples broadly, assuming that differences are not as important as signature similarities. A "splitter" is one who makes precise definitions, and creates new categories to classify samples that differ in key ways. Origin of the terms The earliest known use of these terms was by Charles Darwin, in a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1857: ''It is good to have hair-splitters & lumpers''. They were introduced more widely by George G. Simpson in his 1945 work ''The Principles of Classification and a Classification of Mammals''. As he put it: A later use can be found in the title of a 1969 paper "On lumpers and splitters ..." by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Hawk-eagle
The African hawk-eagle (''Aquila spilogaster'') is a large bird of prey. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family ''Accipitridae''. This species’ feathered legs mark it as a member of the Aquilinae subfamily.Lerner, H., Christidis, L., Gamauf, A., Griffiths, C., Haring, E., Huddleston, C.J., Kabra, S., Kocum, A., Krosby, M., Kvaloy, K., Mindell, D., Rasmussen, P., Rov, N., Wadleigh, R., Wink, M. & Gjershaug, J.O. (2017). ''Phylogeny and new taxonomy of the Booted Eagles (Accipitriformes: Aquilinae)''. Zootaxa, 4216(4), 301-320. The African hawk-eagle breeds in tropical Sub-Saharan Africa. It is a bird of assorted woodland, including both savanna and hilly areas but the tend to occur in woodland that is typically dry. The species tends to be rare in areas where their preferred habitat type is absent. This species builds a stick nest of around across in a large tree. The clutch is generally one or two eggs. The African hawk-eagle is powerfully built and hunts small to medium s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monophyly
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic groups are typically characterised by shared derived characteristics ( synapomorphies), which distinguish organisms in the clade from other organisms. An equivalent term is holophyly. The word "mono-phyly" means "one-tribe" in Greek. Monophyly is contrasted with paraphyly and polyphyly as shown in the second diagram. A ''paraphyletic group'' consists of all of the descendants of a common ancestor minus one or more monophyletic groups. A '' polyphyletic group'' is characterized by convergent features or habits of scientific interest (for example, night-active primates, fruit trees, aquatic insects). The features by which a polyphyletic group is differentiated from others are not inherited from a common ancestor. These definitions have taken ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, imprisonment, internment, fear or pain are all factors that may establish persecution, but not all suffering will necessarily establish persecution. The threshold of severity has been a source of much debate. International law As part of the Nuremberg Principles, crimes against humanity are part of international law. Principle VI of the Nuremberg Principles states that Telford Taylor, who was Counsel for the Prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials wrote " tthe Nuremberg war crimes trials, the tribunals rebuffed several efforts by the prosecution to bring such 'domestic' atrocities within the scope of international law as 'crimes against humanity". Several subsequent international treaties i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electricity Pylon
A transmission tower, also known as an electricity pylon or simply a pylon in British English and as a hydro tower in Canadian English, is a tall structure, usually a steel lattice tower, used to support an overhead power line. In electrical grids, they are generally used to carry high-voltage transmission lines that transport bulk electric power from generating stations to electrical substations; utility poles are used to support lower-voltage subtransmission and distribution lines that transport power from substations to electric customers. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Typical height ranges from , though the tallest are the towers of a span between the islands Jintang and Cezi in China's Zhejiang province. The longest span of any hydroelectric crossing ever built belongs to the powerline crossing of Ameralik fjord with a length of . In addition to steel, other materials may be used, including concrete and wood. There are four major categories of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electrocution
Electrocution is death or severe injury caused by electric shock from electric current passing through the body. The word is derived from "electro" and "execution", but it is also used for accidental death. The term "electrocution" was coined in 1889 in the US just before the first use of the electric chair and originally referred to only electrical execution and not other electrical deaths. However, since no English word was available for non-judicial deaths due to electric shock, the word "electrocution" eventually took over as a description of all circumstances of electrical death from the new commercial electricity. Origins In the Netherlands in 1746 Pieter van Musschenbroek's lab assistant, Andreas Cuneus, received an extreme shock while working with a leyden jar, the first recorded injury from man-made electricity. By the mid-19th century high-voltage electrical systems came into use to power arc lighting for theatrical stage lighting and lighthouses leading to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habitat Destruction
Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby reducing biodiversity and species abundance. Habitat destruction is the leading cause of biodiversity loss. Fragmentation and loss of habitat have become one of the most important topics of research in ecology as they are major threats to the survival of endangered species. Activities such as harvesting natural resources, industrial production and urbanization are human contributions to habitat destruction. Pressure from agriculture is the principal human cause. Some others include mining, logging, trawling, and urban sprawl. Habitat destruction is currently considered the primary cause of species extinction worldwide. Environmental factors can contribute to habitat destruction more indirectly. Geological processes, climate change, introdu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Local Extinction
Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinctions. Local extinctions mark a change in the ecology of an area. In recent times, local extinction has sometimes been followed by a replacement of the species taken from other locations; wolf reintroduction is an example of this. The term "local extinction" is highly vernacular. The more proper biological term is ''extirpation''. Discussion Glaciation can lead to local extinction. This was the case during the Pleistocene glaciation event in North America. During this period, most of the native North American species of earthworm were killed in places covered by glaciation. This left them open for colonization by European earthworms brought over in soil from Europe. Species naturally become extirpated from islands over time. The number ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in data gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, and education. IUCN's mission is to "influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable". Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to sustainable development in its projects. IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation. It tries to influence the actions of governments, business and other stakeholders by providing information and advice and through building partnerships. The organization is best known to the wider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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