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Christmas Island Shrew
The Christmas Island shrew (''Crocidura trichura''), also known as the Christmas Island musk-shrew is an extremely rare or possibly extinct shrew from Christmas Island. It was variously placed as subspecies of the Asian gray shrew (''Crocidura attenuata'') or the Southeast Asian shrew (''Crocidura fuliginosa''), but morphological differences and the large distance between the species indicate that it is an entirely distinct species. Description The Christmas Island shrew, like other members of the genus ''Crocidura'', is a small short-legged mammal with a distinct pointed muzzle. It has a dark grey to reddish brown colouring. Like all other shrews, the Christmas Island shrew resembles a mouse and weighs in a range between 4.5g-6g. The Christmas Island shrew varies from other forms of the species in that it is beset with long fine hairs, and its tail is much greater in length. The typical lifespan for its genus is approximately one year, but Crocidurine shrews have been reported ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Edward Dobson
George Edward Dobson FRS FLS FZS (4 September 1848 at Edgeworthstown, County Longford, Ireland – 26 November 1895) was an Irish zoologist, photographer and army surgeon. He took a special interest in bats, describing many new species, and some species have been named after him. Biography Dobson was the eldest son of Parke Dobson Proceedings of the Royal Society. Volume 59. p 15. Royal Society. 1896 and was educated at the Royal School Enniskillen and then at Trinity College, Dublin. He gained the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in 1866, Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery and Master of Surgery in 1867 and Master of Arts in 1875. He became an army surgeon after 1867 serving in India and rose to the position of surgeon major. In 1868 he visited the Andaman Islands, collecting zoological specimens for the Indian Museum along with Wood-Mason, and in May 1872 he made ethnological and photographic studies of the Andamanese peoples. Around 1878, he became curator of the Royal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bulldog Rat
The bulldog rat (''Rattus nativitatis'') is an extinct species of rat formerly endemic to Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. It was one of two rats endemic to Christmas Island, alongside Maclear's rat. Description The head and body length was about , considerably larger than black rats, and their backs were covered in a two-centimetre thick layer of fat. They have been estimated to weigh . They had short, thick tails estimated to be around long. Their hair was described as being thick, coarse and dark reddish-brown in colour, with a slightly lighter underside. Despite being traditionally thought to be a part of the genus ''Rattus,'' the bulldog rat is now thought to be nested within ''Bunomys,'' a genus otherwise endemic to Sulawesi and the surrounding islands. Life history The rats lived on the higher hills and denser forests of the island. They lived in small colonies, in burrows among the roots of trees or under hollow logs of sago palms in primary forest An ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammals Of Oceania
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles (including birds) from which they diverged in the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. Around 6,400 extant species of mammals have been described divided into 29 orders. The largest orders, in terms of number of species, are the rodents, bats, and Eulipotyphla (hedgehogs, moles, shrews, and others). The next three are the Primates (including humans, apes, monkeys, and others), the Artiodactyla (cetaceans and even-toed ungulates), and the Carnivora (cats, dogs, seals, and others). In terms of cladistics, which reflects evolutionary history, mammals are the only living members of the Synapsida (synapsids); this clade, together with Saurops ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fauna Of Christmas Island
The wildlife of Christmas Island is composed of the flora and fauna of this isolated island in the tropical Indian Ocean. Christmas Island is the summit plateau of an underwater volcano. It is mostly clad in tropical rainforest and has karst, cliffs, wetlands, coasts and sea. It is a small island with a land area of , 63% of which has been declared a National park. Most of the rainforest remains intact and supports a large range of endemic species of animals and plants. Geography The island is about long and wide. The total land area is , with of coastline. The island is the flat summit of an underwater volcano more than high, with about being submerged and only about above the surface. Some basalt is exposed in places but most of the surface rock is limestone accumulated from coral growth. The karst terrain supports numerous anchialine pools. Steep cliffs along much of the coast rise abruptly to a central plateau. The island is mainly covered by tropical rainforest, much ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crocidura
The genus ''Crocidura'' is one of nine genus, genera of the shrew subfamily Crocidurinae. Members of the genus are commonly called white-toothed shrews or musk shrews, although both also apply to all of the species in the subfamily. With over 180 species, ''Crocidura'' contains the most species of any mammal genus. The name ''Crocidura'' means "woolly tail", because the tail of ''Crocidura'' species are covered in short hairs interspersed with longer ones. They are found throughout all tropical and temperate regions of the Old World, from South Africa north to Europe, and east throughout Asia, as far east as the Malay Archipelago. One species, the possibly extinct Christmas Island shrew (''C. trichura''), also inhabited Christmas Island. They likely originated in Africa or Anatolia, Asia Minor during the Miocene, spread to Europe by the early Pliocene, and spread to eastern Asia and the Mediterranean by the Pleistocene. List of species Extant species *Javan hidden shrew ('' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas Island Red Crab
The Christmas Island red crab (''Gecarcoidea natalis'') is a species of land crab that is endemic to Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean. Although restricted to a relatively small area, an estimated 43.7 million adult red crabs once lived on Christmas Island alone, but the accidental introduction of the yellow crazy ant is believed to have killed about 10–15 million of these in recent years. Christmas Island red crabs make an annual mass migration to the sea to lay their eggs in the ocean. Although its population is under great assault by the ants, as of 2020 the red crab had not been assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and it was not listed on their Red List. The crab's annual mass migration to the sea for spawning is described as an "epic" event. Millions emerge at the same time, halting road traffic and covering the ground in a thick carpet of crabs. Description Christmas Island red crabs are large crabs with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems.Adobe Systems IncorporatedPDF Reference, Sixth edition, version 1.23 (53 MB) Nov 2006, p. 33. Archiv/ref> Based on the PostScript language, each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, vector graphics, raster images and other information needed to display it. PDF has its roots in "The Camelot Project" initiated by Adobe co-founder John Warnock in 1991. PDF was standardized as ISO 32000 in 2008. The last edition as ISO 32000-2:2020 was published in December 2020. PDF files may contain a variety of content besides flat text and graphics including logical structuring elements, interactive elements such as annotations and form-fields, layers, rich media (including video con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Department Of The Environment, Water, Heritage And The Arts
The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts was an Australian Government department that existed between December 2007 and September 2010. Scope Information about the department's functions and/or government funding allocation could be found in the Administrative Arrangements Orders, the annual Portfolio Budget Statements and in the department's annual reports. According to the Administrative Arrangements Order (AAO) made at the department's establishment, the department dealt with: *Environment protection and conservation of biodiversity *Air quality *National fuel quality standards *Land contamination *Meteorology *Administration of the Australian Antarctic Territory, and the Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands *Natural, built and movable cultural heritage *Environmental research *Water policy and resources *Cultural affairs, including support for the arts **There was a domestic Return of Indigenous Cultural Property (RICP) program run by DEWHA, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maclear's Rat
Maclear's rat (''Rattus macleari'') is an extinct large rat endemic to Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. It was one of two species of rat native to Christmas Island, alongside the bulldog rat. Abundant, unfamiliar with and seemingly unafraid of humans, large numbers of the creatures emerged and foraged in all directions at night. Making querulous squeaks, the rats entered the ''Challenger'' expedition's tents and shelters in 1886, ran over sleepers, and upset everything in the search and fight for food. Maclear's rat might have been responsible for keeping the population of the Christmas Island red crab in check, as recent numbers of the crab are greater than in the past. It is thought that black rats inadvertently introduced by the expedition infected the Maclear's rats with a disease (possibly a trypanosome), which in turn could have contributed to the species' decline. The last recorded sighting was in 1903, although it is possible that Maclear's rats hybridized with black ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shrew
Shrews (family Soricidae) are small mole-like mammals classified in the order Eulipotyphla. True shrews are not to be confused with treeshrews, otter shrews, elephant shrews, West Indies shrews, or marsupial shrews, which belong to different families or orders. Although its external appearance is generally that of a long-nosed mouse, a shrew is not a rodent, as mice are. It is, in fact, a much closer relative of hedgehogs and moles; shrews are related to rodents only in that both belong to the Boreoeutheria magnorder. Shrews have sharp, spike-like teeth, whereas rodents have gnawing front incisor teeth. Shrews are distributed almost worldwide; among the major tropical and temperate land masses, only New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand have no native shrews; in South America shrews appeared only relatively recently, as a result of the Great American Interchange, and are present only in the northern Andes. The shrew family has 385 known species, making it the fourth-most spec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Rat
The black rat (''Rattus rattus''), also known as the roof rat, ship rat, or house rat, is a common long-tailed rodent of the stereotypical rat genus ''Rattus'', in the subfamily Murinae. It likely originated in the Indian subcontinent, but is now found worldwide. The black rat is black to light brown in colour with a lighter underside. It is a generalist omnivore and a serious pest to farmers because it feeds on a wide range of agricultural crops. It is sometimes kept as a pet. In parts of India, it is considered sacred and respected in the Karni Mata Temple in Deshnoke. Taxonomy ''Mus rattus'' was the scientific name proposed by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for the black rat. Three subspecies were once recognized, but today are considered invalid and are now known to be actually color morphs: *''Rattus rattus rattus'' – roof rat *''Rattus rattus alexandrinus'' – Alexandrine rat *''Rattus rattus frugivorus'' – fruit rat Characteristics A typical adult black rat is long, n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
