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Burchell's Sandgrouse
Burchell's sandgrouse (''Pterocles burchelli'') is a species of bird in the family Pteroclidae. It is found in arid and semi-arid regions of southern Africa. The name of this bird commemorates the English naturalist William John Burchell. Description Burchell's sandgrouse is a plump bird about the size of a pigeon with a small head and short legs. The body is light brown, mottled with darker shades and white speckles. In males, the eye is surrounded by bare yellow skin and the cheeks and throat are pale grey. The male grows to about long and the female is a little smaller. Distribution and habitat Burchell's sandgrouse is found in Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. It is normally resident but moves about to a limited extent depending on the availability of water and the seeds it mainly eats. It is widespread and common in much of its range.BirdLife International 2004''Pterocles burchelli'' [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Lutley Sclater
William Lutley Sclater (23 September 1863 – 4 July 1944) was a British zoologist and museum director. He was the son of Philip Lutley Sclater and was named after his paternal grandfather, also William Lutley Sclater. Life William's mother, Jane Anne Eliza, was the daughter of Sir David Hunter-Blair, 3rd Baronet and a sister-in-law of Sir Walter Elliot the Indian naturalist. Sclater received his Master of Arts degree in Natural Science from Keble College at Oxford in 1885. He worked for two years as a Demonstrator at Cambridge under Professor Adam Sedgwick and went on a collecting trip to British Guiana in 1886. He published about birds in ''The Ibis'' in 1887. In the same year, he received an appointment as a deputy superintendent of the Indian Museum in Calcutta from 1887 until 1891, when he joined the science faculty of Eton College. It was at Eton that he met his future wife, Charlotte Mellen Stephenson, an American divorcée whose two sons attended the school. The coupl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird
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. B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pteroclidae
Sandgrouse is the common name for Pteroclidae , a family of sixteen species of bird, members of the order Pterocliformes . They are traditionally placed in two genera. The two central Asian species are classified as '' Syrrhaptes'' and the other fourteen species, from Africa and Asia, are placed in the genus ''Pterocles''. They are ground dwelling birds restricted to treeless, open country, such as plains, savannahs, and semi-deserts. They are distributed across northern, southern, and eastern Africa, Madagascar, the Middle East, and India through central Asia. The ranges of the black-bellied sandgrouse and the pin-tailed sandgrouse even extend into the Iberian Peninsula and France, and Pallas's sandgrouse occasionally breaks out in large numbers from its normal range in Asia. Description Sandgrouse have small, pigeon-like heads and necks and sturdy compact bodies. They range in size from in length and from in weight. The adults are sexually dimorphic with the males being sli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William John Burchell
__NOTOC__ William John Burchell (23 July 1781 – 23 March 1863) was an English explorer, naturalist, traveller, artist, and author. His thousands of plant specimens, as well as field journals from his South African expedition, are held by Kew Gardens, and his insect collection by the Oxford University Museum. Early life and education William John Burchell was born in Fulham, London, the son of Matthew Burchell, botanist and owner of Fulham Nursery, and his wife. His father owned nine and a half acres of land adjacent to the gardens of Fulham Palace. Burchell served a botanical apprenticeship at Kew and was elected F.L.S. (Fellow of the Linnaen Society) in 1803. At about this time, he became enamoured of Lucia Green of Fulham, but faced strong disapproval from his parents when he broached the idea of an engagement. Career On 7 August 1805 Burchell at the age of 24 sailed for St. Helena aboard the East Indiaman intending to set up there as a merchant with a partner from Lond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pigeon
Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily feed on seeds, fruits, and plants. The family occurs worldwide, but the greatest variety is in the Indomalayan and Australasian realms. The family contains 344 species divided into 50 genera. Thirteen of the species are extinct. In English, the smaller species tend to be called "doves" and the larger ones "pigeons". However, the distinction is not consistent, and does not exist in most other languages. Historically, the common names for these birds involve a great deal of variation between the terms. The bird most commonly referred to as just "pigeon" is the domestic pigeon, which is common in many cities as the feral pigeon. Doves and pigeons build relatively flimsy nests, often using sticks and other debris, which may be placed on bra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angola
, national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = Portuguese , languages2_type = National languages , languages2 = , ethnic_groups = , ethnic_groups_ref = , ethnic_groups_year = 2000 , demonym = , government_type = Unitary dominant-party presidential republic , leader_title1 = President , leader_name1 = João Lourenço , leader_title2 = Vice President , leader_name2 = Esperança da CostaInvestidura do Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. Although Kazungula, it does not border Zimbabwe, less than 200 metres (660 feet) of the Botswanan right bank of the Zambezi, Zambezi River separates the two countries. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations (UN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and the Commonwealth of Nations. The driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia has been inhabited since pre-historic times by the San people, San, Damara people, Damara and Nama people. Around the 14th century, immigration, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived as part of the Bantu expansion. Since ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. It is connected to Zambia across the short Zambezi River border by the Kazungula Bridge. A country of slightly over 2.3 million people, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. About 11.6 percent of the population lives in the capital and largest city, Gaborone. Formerly one of the world's poorest countries—with a GDP per capita of about US$70 per year in the late 1960s—it has since transformed itself into an upper-middle-income country, with one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Modern-day humans first inhabited the country over 200,000 years ago. The Tswana ethnic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the northeast, Malawi to the east, Mozambique to the southeast, Zimbabwe and Botswana to the south, Namibia to the southwest, and Angola to the west. The capital city of Zambia is Lusaka, located in the south-central part of Zambia. The nation's population of around 19.5 million is concentrated mainly around Lusaka in the south and the Copperbelt Province to the north, the core economic hubs of the country. Originally inhabited by Khoisan peoples, the region was affected by the Bantu expansion of the thirteenth century. Following the arrival of European exploration of Africa, European explorers in the eighteenth century, the British colonised the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozambique to the east. The capital and largest city is Harare. The second largest city is Bulawayo. A country of roughly 15 million people, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English, Shona language, Shona, and Northern Ndebele language, Ndebele the most common. Beginning in the 9th century, during its late Iron Age, the Bantu peoples, Bantu people (who would become the ethnic Shona people, Shona) built the city-state of Great Zimbabwe which became one of the major African trade centres by the 11th century, controlling the gold, ivory and copper trades with the Swahili coast, which were connected to Arab and Indian states. By the mid 15th century, the city-state had been abandoned. From there, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe was established, fol ... [...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] |
Precocial
In biology, altricial species are those in which the young are underdeveloped at the time of birth, but with the aid of their parents mature after birth. Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. Precocial species are normally nidifugous, meaning that they leave the nest shortly after birth or hatching. These categories form a continuum, without distinct gaps between them. Altriciality Etymology The word is derived from the Latin root ''alere'', meaning "to nurse, to rear, or to nourish" and indicates the need for young to be fed and taken care of for a long duration. By contrast, species whose young are immediately or quickly mobile are called ''precocial''. Precociality Etymology The word "precocial" is derived from the same root as ''precocious'', implying early maturity in both cases. Superprecociality Extremely precocial species are called "superprecocial". Examples are the megapode birds, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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