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Cylindraspis Vosmaeri Paris
''Cylindraspis'' is a genus of recently extinct giant tortoises. All of its species lived in the Mascarene Islands (Mauritius, Rodrigues and Réunion) in the Indian Ocean and all are now extinct due to hunting and introduction of non-native predators. They are not closely related to any extant group of tortoises, having diverged from the largely African clade including ''Chelonoidis'', ''Geochelone'', and ''Astrochelys'' around 40 million years ago during the Eocene, most likely in Africa. The split between species within the genus is also deep, with the split between '' C. triserrata'' and all other members of the genus being estimated at around 28 million years ago, during the Oligocene, before the current Mascarene Islands were even formed, meaning that the genus must have colonised the Mascarenes by island hopping from now submerged paleoislands formed by the Réunion hotspot as part of the Mascarene Plateau, including the Saya de Malha Bank and Nazareth Bank. Human settlers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cylindraspis Vosmaeri
The saddle-backed Rodrigues giant tortoise (''Cylindraspis vosmaeri)'' is an extinct species of giant tortoise in the family Testudinidae. The species was endemic to Rodrigues. Human exploitation caused the extinction of this species around 1800. Etymology The specific name, ''vosmaeri'', is in honor of Dutch naturalist Arnout Vosmaer (1720–1799). Taxonomy Both ''Cylindraspis vosmaeri'' and its smaller domed relative, ''Cylindraspis peltastes'', were descended from an ancestral species on Mauritius (an ancestor of '' Cylindraspis inepta''), which colonised Rodrigues by sea many millions of years ago, and then gradually differentiated into the two Rodrigues species. Description The saddle-backed Rodrigues giant tortoise was an exceptionally tall species of giant tortoise, with a long, raised neck and an upturned carapace, which gave it a giraffe-like body shape almost similar to that of a sauropod dinosaur. It lived by browsing the taller vegetation, while its much smaller ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domed Mauritius Giant Tortoise
The domed Mauritius giant tortoise (''Cylindraspis triserrata'') is an extinct species of giant tortoise. It was endemic to Mauritius. Description One of two different giant tortoise species which were endemic to Mauritius, this domed species seems to have specialised in grazing of grass, as well as fallen leaves and fruit on forest floors. Its sister species was likely a browser of higher branches, and although similarly sized, the two species differed substantially in their body shape and bone structure. The domed species had a flatter, rounder shape, with thinner bones and shell. The species name ''triserrata'' actually refers to the three bony ridges on this animal's mandibles - possibly a specialisation for its diet. Extinction This species was previously numerous throughout Mauritius - both on the main island and on all of the surrounding islets. As Mauritius was the first of the Mascarene Islands to be settled, it was also the first to face the extermination of its bio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fauna Of The Mascarene Islands
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. Zoologists and paleontologists use ''fauna'' to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess Shale fauna". Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of faunal stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils. The study of animals of a particular region is called faunistics. Etymology ''Fauna'' comes from the name Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, and the related forest spirits called Fauns. All three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan, and ''panis'' is the Greek equivalent of fauna. ''Fauna'' is also the word for a book that catalogues the animals in such a manner. The term was first used b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cylindraspis
''Cylindraspis'' is a genus of recently extinct giant tortoises. All of its species lived in the Mascarene Islands (Mauritius, Rodrigues and Réunion) in the Indian Ocean and all are now extinct due to hunting and introduction of non-native predators. They are not closely related to any extant group of tortoises, having diverged from the largely African clade including ''Chelonoidis'', ''Geochelone'', and ''Astrochelys'' around 40 million years ago during the Eocene, most likely in Africa. The split between species within the genus is also deep, with the split between '' C. triserrata'' and all other members of the genus being estimated at around 28 million years ago, during the Oligocene, before the current Mascarene Islands were even formed, meaning that the genus must have colonised the Mascarenes by island hopping from now submerged paleoislands formed by the Réunion hotspot as part of the Mascarene Plateau, including the Saya de Malha Bank and Nazareth Bank. Human settler ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saddle-backed Rodrigues Giant Tortoise
The saddle-backed Rodrigues giant tortoise (''Cylindraspis vosmaeri)'' is an extinct species of giant tortoise in the family Testudinidae. The species was endemic to Rodrigues. Human exploitation caused the extinction of this species around 1800. Etymology The specific name, ''vosmaeri'', is in honor of Dutch naturalist Arnout Vosmaer (1720–1799). Taxonomy Both ''Cylindraspis vosmaeri'' and its smaller domed relative, ''Cylindraspis peltastes'', were descended from an ancestral species on Mauritius (an ancestor of ''Cylindraspis inepta''), which colonised Rodrigues by sea many millions of years ago, and then gradually differentiated into the two Rodrigues species. Description The saddle-backed Rodrigues giant tortoise was an exceptionally tall species of giant tortoise, with a long, raised neck and an upturned carapace, which gave it a giraffe-like body shape almost similar to that of a sauropod dinosaur. It lived by browsing the taller vegetation, while its much smaller r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domed Mauritius Giant Tortoise
The domed Mauritius giant tortoise (''Cylindraspis triserrata'') is an extinct species of giant tortoise. It was endemic to Mauritius. Description One of two different giant tortoise species which were endemic to Mauritius, this domed species seems to have specialised in grazing of grass, as well as fallen leaves and fruit on forest floors. Its sister species was likely a browser of higher branches, and although similarly sized, the two species differed substantially in their body shape and bone structure. The domed species had a flatter, rounder shape, with thinner bones and shell. The species name ''triserrata'' actually refers to the three bony ridges on this animal's mandibles - possibly a specialisation for its diet. Extinction This species was previously numerous throughout Mauritius - both on the main island and on all of the surrounding islets. As Mauritius was the first of the Mascarene Islands to be settled, it was also the first to face the extermination of its bio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domed Rodrigues Giant Tortoise
The domed Rodrigues giant tortoise (''Cylindraspis peltastes'') is an extinct species of giant tortoise in the family Testudinidae. It was endemic to Rodrigues. It appears to have become extinct around 1800, as a result of human exploitation. Description The domed Rodrigues giant tortoise was one of the smallest of the giant tortoises of the Indian Ocean, reaching a length of just over 40 cm and an estimated weight of around 12 kg. A low grazer of grasses, it shared Rodrigues Island with its much larger relative, the saddle-backed Rodrigues giant tortoise, which browsed the taller vegetation. Both species were descended from an ancestral species on Mauritius (an ancestor of '' Cylindraspis inepta''), which colonised Rodrigues by sea many millions of years ago, and then differentiated into the two Rodrigues species. Ecology and extinction At the time of the arrival of human settlers, dense giant tortoise herds of many thousands were reported on Rodrigues. Like man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saddle-backed Mauritius Giant Tortoise
The saddle-backed Mauritius giant tortoise (''Cylindraspis inepta'') is an extinct species of giant tortoise in the family Testudinidae. It was endemic to Mauritius. The last records of this tortoise date to the early 18th century. Description One of two different giant tortoise species which were endemic to Mauritius, this saddle-backed species seems to have specialized in browsing higher bushes and low-hanging branches of trees. Its lower, flatter sister species grazed on grass, as well as fallen leaves and fruit on forest floors. Although similarly sized, the two species differed substantially in their body shape and bone structure. This species in particular seems to have been the ancestor of all the other four species of '' Cylindraspis'' giant tortoise of the Mascarene Islands, and to have accidentally drifted to the surrounding islands of Reunion and Rodrigues in order to do so. Its species name of ''"inepta"'' is due to its supposed propensity for falling into the oc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Réunion Giant Tortoise
The Reunion giant tortoise (''Cylindraspis indica'') is an extinct species of giant tortoise in the family Testudinidae. It was endemic to Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean. This giant tortoise was numerous in the 17th and early 18th centuries. They were killed in vast numbers by European sailors, and finally became extinct in the 1840s. Description The Réunion giant tortoise was 50 to 110 cm long. It was the largest of the ''Cylindraspis'' giant tortoise species of the Mascarenes. It was roughly the same size as modern Aldabra giant and Galapagos giant tortoises, though it was a longer and more elongated animal. It had long legs and a long neck which supported a large head with powerful, strongly-serrated jaws. The species was sexually dimorphic, in that males were noticeably larger than females. It was also a highly variable species. A problem arises when identifying this species because it appears there were domed variants as well as saddle-backed variants. Distr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazareth Bank
Nazareth Bank is a large submerged bank in the Indian Ocean. Geography It lies about 1,040 km east of northern Madagascar and 280 km south of the Saya de Malha Bank. The closest land is Cargados Carajos shoals, a small and remote dependency of Mauritius located 140 km to the southwest. The Nazareth Bank is part of the vast undersea Mascarene Plateau and of the Reunion hotspot track. The center of the bank is at . Its extent is about 176 km north–south and up to 87 km east–west, with a surface of about 11,000 km2. This undersea bank is administered by Mauritius. See also * Hawkins Bank * Saya de Malha Bank *Soudan Banks Soudan may refer to: * The French name (and former English name) for the country of Sudan * The French name for French Sudan (present-day Mali) * Archaic spelling for the region of Sudan * Soudan, Minnesota, an unincorporated town near Tower ... References External links Mauritius District and Dependencies - Nazareth Bank Landform ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saya De Malha Bank
The Saya de Malha Bank (also the Sahia de Malha Bank, modern Portuguese: ''saia de malha'', English: ''mesh skirt'') or Mesh Skirt Bank, is one of the largest submerged ocean banks in the world, a part of the vast undersea Mascarene Plateau. Geography The Saya de Malha Bank lies northeast of Madagascar, southeast of Seychelles, and north of Nazareth Bank, the Cargados Carajos Shoals, and the island of Mauritius, and currently falls mostly under international waters. The closest land is tiny Agaléga (one of the Outer Islands of Mauritius), some further west, followed by the southern Seychellois island of Coëtivy, some northwest. Mauritius administers the whole Saya de Malha Bank as a portion of it lies within its exclusive economic zone. The bank covers an area of , and is composed of two separate structures, the smaller North Bank (also called Ritchie Bank), and the huge South Bank. If the South Bank were recognized as a submerged atoll structure, it would be the larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mascarene Plateau
The Mascarene Plateau is a submarine plateau in the Indian Ocean, north and east of Madagascar. The plateau extends approximately , from Seychelles in the north to Réunion in the south. The plateau covers an area of over of shallow water, with depths ranging from , plunging to to the abyssal plain at its edges. It is the second-largest oceanic plateau in the Indian Ocean after the Kerguelen Plateau. Geography The northern part of the Mascarene Plateau includes the Agaléga Islands and the Seychelles Islands. The southern part of the Mascarene Plateau includes Hawkins Bank, the Mascarene Islands, Nazareth Bank, the Saya de Malha Bank, and the Soudan Banks. The Mascarene Islands are the mountainous islands of the Cargados Carajos Shoals, Mauritius, Réunion, and Rodrigues. Geology The Indian subcontinent was at one time next to the east coast of Seychelles, but seafloor spreading has moved the landmass to its current position, where it has collided and fused with the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
