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Blue-bellied Roller
The blue-bellied roller (''Coracias cyanogaster'') is a member of the roller family of birds which breeds across Africa in a narrow belt from Senegal to northeast Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is resident, apart from some local seasonal movements, in mature moist savannah dominated by ''Isoberlinia'' trees. Taxonomy The blue-bellied roller was given the binomial name ''Coracias cyanogaster'' in 1816 by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier based on "Le Rollier à ventre bleu" that had been described and illustrated by François Levaillant in 1806. The specific epithet combines the Ancient Greek ''kuanos'' meaning "dark-blue" with ''gastēr'' meaning "belly". Levaillant mistaken believed that the specimen had been collected on the island of Java. The species is resident in West-Africa and the type location was later designated as Senegal. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. Description The blue-bellied roller is a large bird, nearly the size of a jackda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georges Cuvier
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in natural sciences research in the early 19th century and was instrumental in establishing the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils. Cuvier's work is considered the foundation of vertebrate paleontology, and he expanded Linnaean taxonomy by grouping classes into phyla and incorporating both fossils and living species into the classification. Cuvier is also known for establishing extinction as a fact—at the time, extinction was considered by many of Cuvier's contemporaries to be merely controversial speculation. In his ''Essay on the Theory of the Earth'' (1813) Cuvier proposed that now-extinct species had been wiped out by periodic catastrophic flooding events. In this way, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
