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Brachyramphus
''Brachyramphus'' is a small genus of seabirds from the North Pacific. ''Brachyramphus'' is from Ancient Greek ''brakhus'', "short", and ''rhamphos'', "bill". In English the species are named as "murrelets"; this is a diminutive of "murre", a word of uncertain origins, but which may imitate the call of the common guillemot. Taxonomy The genus ''Brachyramphus'' was introduced in 1837 by the German born naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt. The type genus was subsequently designated by George Robert Gray as the marbled murrelet. The genus name combines Ancient Greek ''brakhus'' meaning "short" with ''rhamphos'' meaning "bill". The genus contains three species: These are unusual members of the auk family, often nesting far inland in forests or on mountain tops. The long-billed murrelet was considered conspecific with the marbled murrelet until 1998, when Friesen ''et al.'' showed that the mtDNA variation was greater between these two forms than between marbled and Kittlitz' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brachyramphus Perdix0
''Brachyramphus'' is a small genus of seabirds from the North Pacific. ''Brachyramphus'' is from Ancient Greek ''brakhus'', "short", and ''rhamphos'', "bill". In English the species are named as "murrelets"; this is a diminutive of "murre", a word of uncertain origins, but which may imitate the call of the common guillemot. Taxonomy The genus ''Brachyramphus'' was introduced in 1837 by the German born naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt. The type genus was subsequently designated by George Robert Gray as the marbled murrelet. The genus name combines Ancient Greek ''brakhus'' meaning "short" with ''rhamphos'' meaning "bill". The genus contains three species: These are unusual members of the auk family, often nesting far inland in forests or on mountain tops. The long-billed murrelet was considered conspecific with the marbled murrelet until 1998, when Friesen ''et al.'' showed that the mtDNA variation was greater between these two forms than between marbled and Kittlitz's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Long-billed Murrelet
The long-billed murrelet (''Brachyramphus perdix'') is a small seabird from the North Pacific. The genus name ''Brachyramphus'' is from Ancient Greek ''brakhus'', "short", and ''rhamphos'', "bill". The species name ''perdix'' is Latin for "partridge" Pallas described this auk as ''Magnitudine Perdicis''. "Murrelet" is a diminutive of "murre", a word of uncertain origins, but which may imitate the call of the common guillemot. This auk is an unusual member of the auk family, often nesting far inland in old growth forests. The long-billed murrelet, like its cousins the marbled and Kittlitz's murrelets, is thought to have experienced a decline in numbers recently. It closely resembles the marbled murrelet, of which it was considered a subspecies until 1998, when Friesen ''et al.'' showed that the mtDNA variation was greater between these two forms than between marbled and Kittlitz's murrelets. This species is found from Kamchatka to the Sea of Okhotsk. Most birds winter in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kittlitz's Murrelet
Kittlitz's murrelet (''Brachyramphus brevirostris'') is a small alcid found in the waters off Alaska and Eastern Siberia. This near threatened species is, like the closely related marbled murrelet, unusual for seabirds in not being colonial, nesting instead in isolated locations on mountain tops, where the nests were known to Native Americans for many years before skeptical ornithologists described and photographed them. It is a poorly known and little studied species, although concern over its status and that of the closely related marbled murrelet has led to a recent increase in research. The common name of this species commemorates the German zoologist Heinrich von Kittlitz, who first collected this species. Description and range The Kittlitz's murrelet is, like the marbled murrelet, a small compact auk, long with tiny legs and cryptic plumage during the breeding season. The colour of the breeding plumage, greyish-brown, reflects its habit of breeding on bare ground near sn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seabird
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations. The first seabirds evolved in the Cretaceous period, and modern seabird families emerged in the Paleogene. In general, seabirds live longer, breed later and have fewer young than other birds do, but they invest a great deal of time in their young. Most species nest in colonies, which can vary in size from a few dozen birds to millions. Many species are famous for undertaking long annual migrations, crossing the equator or circumnavigating the Earth in some cases. They feed both at the ocean's surface and below it, and even feed on each other. Seabirds can be highly pelagic, coastal, or in some cases spend a part of the year away from the sea entirely. Seabirds and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Krill
Krill are small crustaceans of the order Euphausiacea, and are found in all the world's oceans. The name "krill" comes from the Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ... word ', meaning "small fry of fish", which is also often attributed to species of fish. Krill are considered an important trophic level connection – near the bottom of the food chain. They feed on phytoplankton and (to a lesser extent) zooplankton, yet also are the main source of food for many larger animals. In the Southern Ocean, one species, the Antarctic krill, ''Euphausia superba'', makes up an estimated biomass (ecology), biomass of around 379,000,000 tonnes, making it among the species with the largest total biomass. Over half of this biomass is eaten by whales, Pinniped, seals, pen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fossil
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Diego Formation
The San Diego Formation is a geologic formation in southwestern San Diego County in southern California (United States), and northwestern Baja California (México). Geology It is a coastal transitional marine and non-marine pebble and cobble conglomerate deposit and marine sandstone rock with marine fossils, from a former bay, deposited during the Middle Pliocene to Late Pliocene ages (2–3 million years ago), of the Pliocene period during the Cenozoic Era. This formation is found from the south side of Mount Soledad in San Diego County to Rosarito Beach in northern Baja California, including Tijuana, Mexico, and the southwestern corner of San Diego County from San Ysidro to Pacific Beach. San Diego Formation deposits were formed in a large, open, crescent-shaped bay similar in size to Monterey Bay that existed on the coast in Pliocene times. Aquifer The formation contains the San Diego Formation Basin, a large aquifer under Imperial Beach, Chula Vista, National City, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plumage
Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can be different colour morphs. The placement of feathers on a bird is not haphazard, but rather emerge in organized, overlapping rows and groups, and these are known by standardized names. Most birds moult twice a year, resulting in a breeding or ''nuptial plumage'' and a ''basic plumage''. Many ducks and some other species such as the red junglefowl have males wearing a bright nuptial plumage while breeding and a drab ''eclipse plumage'' for some months afterward. The painted bunting's juveniles have two inserted moults in their first autumn, each yielding plumage like an adult female. The first starts a few days after fledging replacing the ''juvenile plumage'' with an ''auxiliary formative plumage''; the second a month or so l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conifer
Conifers are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class (biology), class, Pinopsida. All Neontology, extant conifers are perennial plant, perennial woody plants with secondary growth. The great majority are trees, though a few are shrubs. Examples include Cedrus, cedars, Pseudotsuga, Douglas-firs, Cupressaceae, cypresses, firs, junipers, Agathis, kauri, larches, pines, Tsuga, hemlocks, Sequoioideae, redwoods, spruces, and Taxaceae, yews.Campbell, Reece, "Phylum Coniferophyta". Biology. 7th. 2005. Print. P. 595 As of 1998, the division Pinophyta was estimated to contain eight families, 68 genera, and 629 living species. Although the total number of species is relatively small, conifers are ecology, ecologically important. They are the dominant plants over large areas of land, most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plankton
Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) that are unable to propel themselves against a Ocean current, current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they provide a crucial source of food to many small and large aquatic organisms, such as bivalves, fish and whales. Marine plankton include bacteria, archaea, algae, protozoa and drifting or floating animals that inhabit the saltwater of oceans and the brackish waters of estuaries. Freshwater plankton are similar to marine plankton, but are found in the freshwaters of lakes and rivers. Plankton are usually thought of as inhabiting water, but there are also airborne versions, the aeroplankton, that live part of their lives drifting in the atmosphere. These include plant spores, pollen and wind-scattered seeds, as well as microorganisms swept into the air from terrestrial dust storms and oceanic plankton swept into the air ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the animal hatches. Most arthropods such as insects, vertebrates (excluding live-bearing mammals), and mollusks lay eggs, although some, such as scorpions, do not. Reptile eggs, bird eggs, and monotreme eggs are laid out of water and are surrounded by a protective shell, either flexible or inflexible. Eggs laid on land or in nests are usually kept within a warm and favorable temperature range while the embryo grows. When the embryo is adequately developed it hatches, i.e., breaks out of the egg's shell. Some embryos have a temporary egg tooth they use to crack, pip, or break the eggshell or covering. The largest recorded egg is from a whale shark and was in size. Whale shark eggs typically hatch within the mother. At and up to , the o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
