Bronze Sunbird
The bronzy sunbird (''Nectarinia kilimensis'') is a species of bird in the family Nectariniidae. They are located mostly in parts of southern Africa. Description Bronzy sunbirds have a long, thin, well-curved bill. Males have bronze-and-green undertones but most often look black in light. While the male has the undertones, the female however has a pale eyebrow and an added yellowish park below the belly with fine streaking. On some subspecies specifically located in Angola there is a splash of odd green, but it does not overlap in range with malachite or scarlet-tufted sunbirds in similar areas which do not have this green streaking. Male sunbirds lack any purple tones to the plumage which is found on female species. Vocalizations Bronzy sunbirds use a jumble of twittering notes followed by cleaner whistle sounds. These sounds are most often heard during the early morning and mid day. Distribution and habitat The bronzy sunbird can be found in Africa. While not very ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Leonotis
''Leonotis'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae.Raymond M. Harley, Sandy Atkins, Andrey L. Budantsev, Philip D. Cantino, Barry J. Conn, Renée J. Grayer, Madeline M. Harley, Rogier P.J. de Kok, Tatyana V. Krestovskaja, Ramón Morales, Alan J. Paton, and P. Olof Ryding. 2004. "Labiatae" pages 167-275. In: Klaus Kubitzki (editor) and Joachim W. Kadereit (volume editor). ''The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants'' volume VII. Springer-Verlag: Berlin; Heidelberg, Germany. One species, ''Leonotis nepetifolia'', is native to tropical Africa and southern India. It is naturalized throughout most of the tropics. The other species are endemic to southern + eastern Africa.Mattias Iwarsson and Yvette Harvey. 2003. "Monograph of the genus ''Leonotis'' (Pers.) R.Br. (Lamiaceae)". ''Kew Bulletin'' 58(3):597-645. ''Leonotis'' was named by Robert Brown in 1810 in Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen.Robert Brown. 1810. ''Prodromus Florae Novae Holland ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Beetle
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 described species, is the largest of all orders, constituting almost 40% of described insects and 25% of all known animal life-forms; new species are discovered frequently, with estimates suggesting that there are between 0.9 and 2.1 million total species. Found in almost every habitat except the sea and the polar regions, they interact with their ecosystems in several ways: beetles often feed on plants and fungi, break down animal and plant debris, and eat other invertebrates. Some species are serious agricultural pests, such as the Colorado potato beetle, while others such as Coccinellidae (ladybirds or ladybugs) eat aphids, scale insects, thrips, and other plant-sucking insects that damage crops. Beetles typically have a particularly hard e ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birds Of Sub-Saharan Africa
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming. Birds ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nectarinia
''Nectarinia'' is a genus of birds in the sunbird family, Nectariniidae. What species belong to it has been highly contentious for many decades. Towards the late 20th century, the dominant trend was to use it to group all "typical" sunbirds. More recently taxonomists have divided the Nectarinia into eight genera which are now considered distinct from Nectarinia: ''Leptocoma, Anabathmis, Chalcomitra, Cinnyris ''Cinnyris'' is a genus of sunbirds. Its members are sometimes included in '' Nectarinia''. They are generally known as double-collared sunbirds because the fringe of their bib usually includes a band of contrastingly coloured feathers. The sun ..., Cyanomitra, Dreptes, Anthobaphes,'' and Drepanorhynchus. Species The genus now contains six species: References Bird genera Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Nectariniidae-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nectar
Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries or nectarines, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualists, which in turn provide herbivore protection. Common nectar-consuming pollinators include mosquitoes, hoverflies, wasps, bees, butterflies and moths, hummingbirds, honeyeaters and bats. Nectar plays a crucial role in the foraging economics and evolution of nectar-eating species; for example, nectar foraging behavior is largely responsible for the divergent evolution of the African honey bee, ''A. m. scutellata'' and the western honey bee. Nectar is an economically important substance as it is the sugar source for honey. It is also useful in agriculture and horticulture because the adult stages of some predatory insects feed on nectar. For example, a number of parasitoid wasps (e.g. the social wasp species ''Apoica flavissima'') rely ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Protea
''Protea'' () is a genus of South African flowering plants, also called sugarbushes (Afrikaans: ''suikerbos''). Etymology The genus ''Protea'' was named in 1735 by Carl Linnaeus, possibly after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his form at will, possibly because they have such a wide variety of forms. Linnaeus's genus was formed by merging a number of genera previously published by Herman Boerhaave, although precisely which of Boerhaave's genera were included in Linnaeus's ''Protea'' varied with each of Linnaeus's publications. Taxonomy The family Proteaceae to which ''Protea'' species belong is an ancient one among angiosperms. Evidence from pollen fossils suggests Proteaceae ancestors grew in Gondwana, in the Upper Cretaceous, 75–80 million years ago. The Proteaceae are divided into two subfamilies: the Proteoideae, best represented in southern Africa, and the Grevilleoideae, concentrated in Australia and South America and the other smaller segments of Gondwana that ar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Termite
Termites are small insects that live in colonies and have distinct castes (eusocial) and feed on wood or other dead plant matter. Termites comprise the infraorder Isoptera, or alternatively the epifamily Termitoidae, within the order Blattodea (along with cockroaches). Termites were once classified in a separate order from cockroaches, but recent phylogenetic studies indicate that they evolved from cockroaches, as they are deeply nested within the group, and the sister group to wood eating cockroaches of the genus ''Cryptocercus''. Previous estimates suggested the divergence took place during the Jurassic or Triassic. More recent estimates suggest that they have an origin during the Late Jurassic, with the first fossil records in the Early Cretaceous. About 3,106 species are currently described, with a few hundred more left to be described. Although these insects are often called "white ants", they are not ants, and are not closely related to ants. Like ants and some bees a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hymenoptera
Hymenoptera is a large order (biology), order of insects, comprising the sawfly, sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are Parasitoid wasp, parasitic. Females typically have a special ovipositor for inserting eggs into hosts or places that are otherwise inaccessible. This ovipositor is often modified into a stinger. The young develop through holometabolism (complete metamorphosis (biology), metamorphosis)—that is, they have a wormlike larval stage and an inactive pupal stage before they mature. Etymology The name Hymenoptera refers to the wings of the insects, but the original derivation is ambiguous. All references agree that the derivation involves the Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek wikt:πτερόν, πτερόν (''pteron'') for wing. The Ancient Greek wikt:ὑμήν, ὑμήν (''hymen'') for membrane provides a plausible etymology for the term bec ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hemiptera
Hemiptera (; ) is an order (biology), order of insects, commonly called true bugs, comprising over 80,000 species within groups such as the cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, Reduviidae, assassin bugs, Cimex, bed bugs, and shield bugs. They range in size from to around , and share a common arrangement of piercing-sucking Insect mouthparts, mouthparts. The name "true bugs" is often limited to the suborder Heteroptera. Entomologists reserve the term ''bug'' for Hemiptera or Heteroptera,Gilbert Waldbauer. ''The Handy Bug Answer Book.'' Visible Ink, 1998p. 1. which does not include other arthropods or insects of other orders such as Ant, ants, Bee, bees, Beetle, beetles, or Butterfly, butterflies. In some variations of English, all Terrestrial animal, terrestrial arthropods (including non-insect arachnids, and myriapods) also fall under the Colloquialism, colloquial understanding of ''bug''. Many insects with "bug" in their common name, especially in American English, belo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes and one pair of antennae. Their blood is not totally contained in vessels; some circulates in an open cavity known as the haemocoel. Insects are the most diverse group of animals; they include more than a million described species and represent more than half of all known living organisms. The total number of extant species is estimated at between six and ten million; In: potentially over 90% of the animal life forms on Earth are insects. Insects may be found in nearly all environments, although only a small number of species reside in the oceans, which are dominated by another arthropod group, crustaceans, which recent research has indicated insects are nested within. Nearly all insects hatch from eggs. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Ernest Shelley
Captain George Ernest Shelley (15 May 1840 – 29 November 1910) was an English geologist and ornithologist. He was a nephew of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley was educated at the Lycée de Versailles and served a few years in the Grenadier Guards "Shamed be whoever thinks ill of it." , colors = , colors_label = , march = Slow: " Scipio" , mascot = , equipment = , equipment .... His books included ''A Monograph of the Cinnyridae, or Family of Sun Birds'' (1878), ''A Handbook to the Birds of Egypt'' (1872) and ''The Birds of Africa'' (5 volumes, 1896–1912) illustrated by J. G. Keulemans. (with bibliography of publications by G. E. Shelley) References External links * Illustrations appearing in Handbook to the Birds of Egypt 1840 births 1910 deaths English geologists English ornithologists Grenadier Guards officers Place of birth missing ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Spider
Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all orders of organisms. Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every land habitat. , 50,356 spider species in 132 families have been recorded by taxonomists. However, there has been debate among scientists about how families should be classified, with over 20 different classifications proposed since 1900. Anatomically, spiders (as with all arachnids) differ from other arthropods in that the usual body segments are fused into two tagmata, the cephalothorax or prosoma, and the opisthosoma, or abdomen, and joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel, however, as there is currently neither paleontological nor embryological evidence that spiders ever had ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |