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Chestnut-rumped Thornbill
The chestnut-rumped thornbill (''Acanthiza uropygialis'') is a small passerine bird in the family Acanthizidae, endemic to Australia. Specially named for its pale-chestnut rump from mediaeval Latin ''uropygium'', the rump.Higgins, P. J., & Peter, J. M. (Eds.). (2002). ''Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds'' (Vol. 6, pp. 468-478). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Its other names include chestnut-tailed or chestnut-backed thornbill, tit or tit-warbler, chestnut-rumped tit or tit-warbler. A plain, pale thornbill, with pale eyes, it is widespread throughout inland Australia, west of the Great Dividing Range to the West Australian coast but is absent in the far north and humid southwest Western Australia.Pizzey, G., & Knight, F. (2012). ''The field guide to the birds of Australia'' (S. Pizzey Ed. 9 ed.). Sydney: Harper Collins. It is a cooperative breeder like some of the other thornbills Nicholls, J. A., Double, M. C., Rowell, D. M., & Magrath, R. D. (2000). Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gould
John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist. He published a number of monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, including Edward Lear, Henry Constantine Richter, Joseph Wolf and William Matthew Hart. He has been considered the father of bird study in Australia and the Gould League in Australia is named after him. His identification of the birds now nicknamed "Darwin's finches" played a role in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Gould's work is referenced in Charles Darwin's book, ''On the Origin of Species''. Early life Gould was born in Lyme Regis, the first son of a gardener. Both father and son probably had little education. After working on Dowager Lady Poulett's glass house, his father obtained a position on an estate near Guildford, Surrey, and then in 1818, Gould Snr became foreman in the Royal Gardens of Windsor. Gould then be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slaty-backed Thornbill
The slaty-backed thornbill (''Acanthiza robustirostris'') is a species of bird in the family Acanthizidae. It is endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ... to Australia. References slaty-backed thornbill Endemic birds of Australia slaty-backed thornbill Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Acanthizidae-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Victoria Desert
The Great Victoria Desert is a sparsely populated desert ecoregion and interim Australian bioregion in Western Australia and South Australia. History In 1875, British-born Australian explorer Ernest Giles became the first European to cross the desert. He named the desert after the then-reigning monarch, Queen Victoria. In 1891, David Lindsey's expedition traveled across this area from north to south. Frank Hann was looking for gold in this area between 1903 and 1908. Len Beadell explored the area in the 1960s. Location and description The Great Victoria is the largest desert in Australia, and consists of many small sandhills, grassland plains, areas with a closely packed surface of pebbles (called desert pavement or gibber plains), and salt lakes. It is over wide (from west to east) and covers an area of from the Eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia to the Gawler Ranges in South Australia. The Western Australian mulga shrublands ecoregion lies to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gibson Desert
The Gibson Desert is a large desert in Western Australia, largely in an almost "pristine" state. It is about in size, making it the fifth largest desert in Australia, after the Great Victoria, Great Sandy, Tanami and Simpson deserts. The Gibson Desert is both an interim Australian bioregion and desert ecoregion. Location and description The Gibson Desert is located between the saline Kumpupintil Lake and Lake Macdonald along the Tropic of Capricorn, south of the Great Sandy Desert, east of the Little Sandy Desert, and north of the Great Victoria Desert. The altitude rises to just above in places. As noted by early Australian explorers such as Ernest Giles large portions of the desert are characterized by gravel-covered terrains covered in thin desert grasses and it also contains extensive areas of undulating red sand plains and dunefields, low rocky/gravelly ridges and substantial upland portions with a high degree of laterite formation. The sandy soil of the laterit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pilbara
The Pilbara () is a large, dry, thinly populated region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Aboriginal peoples; its ancient landscapes; the red earth; and its vast mineral deposits, in particular iron ore. It is also a global biodiversity hotspot for subterranean fauna. Definitions of the Pilbara region At least two important but differing definitions of "the Pilbara" region exist. Administratively it is one of the nine regions of Western Australia defined by the '' Regional Development Commissions Act 1993''; the term also refers to the Pilbara shrublands bioregion (which differs in extent) under the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA). General The Pilbara region, as defined by the Regional Development Commissions Act 1993 and administered for economic development purposes by the Pilbara Development Commission, has an estimated population of 61,688 , and covers an area of . It contains some of Earth's oldest rock formati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nullarbor Plain
The Nullarbor Plain ( ; Latin: feminine of , 'no', and , 'tree') is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its north. It is the world's largest single exposure of limestone bedrock, and occupies an area of about . At its widest point, it stretches about from east to west across the border between South Australia and Western Australia. History Historically, the Nullarbor was seasonally occupied by Indigenous Australian people, the Mirning clans and Yinyila people. Traditionally, the area was called ''Oondiri'', which is said to mean "the waterless". The first Europeans known to have sighted and mapped the Nullarbor coast were Captain François Thijssen and Councillor of the Indies, Pieter Nuyts, on the Dutch East Indiaman '''t Gulden Zeepaert'' (the Golden Seahorse). In 1626–1627, they charted a stretch of the southern Australian coast ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wimmera
The Wimmera is a region of the Australian state of Victoria. The district is located within parts of the Loddon Mallee and the Grampians regions; and covers the dryland farming area south of the range of Mallee scrub, east of the South Australia border and north of the Great Dividing Range. It can also be defined as the land within the social catchment of Horsham, its main settlement. Most of the Wimmera is very flat, with only the Grampians and Mount Arapiles rising above vast plains and the low plateaux that form the Great Divide in this part of Victoria. The Grampians are very rugged and tilted, with many sheer sandstone cliffs on their eastern sides, but gentle slopes on the west. In the context of the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, the Wimmera is a sub-region of located within the Murray Darling Depression bioregion. The Wimmera is one of the nine districts in Victoria used for weather forecasting by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mallee (Victoria)
The Mallee covers the most northwesterly part of Victoria, bounded by the South Australian and New South Wales borders. Definitions of the south-eastern boundary vary, however, all are based on the historic Victorian distribution of mallee (habit), mallee eucalypts. These trees dominate the surviving vegetation through most of Mallee, (except for swamps and areas along waterways, and very rare stands of ''casuarina''). Its biggest settlements are Mildura and Swan Hill. At the Census in Australia#2011, 2011 census, the four Local government in Australia, local government areas (LGAs) that are usually thought to define the district had a combined population of . The area of these same four LGAs is . There is an adjacent area also once covered with mallee scrub called "the Mallee" in South Australia, which is alternatively called the Murray Mallee. Geography and climate The Mallee is, for all practical purposes, completely flat and very low-lying: in fact, for long geolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canberra
Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory at the northern tip of the Australian Alps, the country's highest mountain range. As of June 2021, Canberra's estimated population was 453,558. The area chosen for the capital had been inhabited by Indigenous Australians for up to 21,000 years, with the principal group being the Ngunnawal people. European settlement commenced in the first half of the 19th century, as evidenced by surviving landmarks such as St John's Anglican Church and Blundells Cottage. On 1 January 1901, federation of the colonies of Australia was achieved. Following a long dispute over whether Sydney or Melbourne should be the national capital, a compromise was reached: the new capital would be b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brown Thornbill
The brown thornbill (''Acanthiza pusilla'') is a passerine bird usually found in eastern and south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania. It can grow up to long, and feeds on insects. It is brown, grey and white. The species has five subspecies. Taxonomy The brown thornbill is a member of the order Passeriformes, the family Acanthizidae, and the genus ''Acanthiza''. It also has five subspecies: ''Acanthiza pusilla pusilla'', ''A. p. diemenensis'', ''A. p. zietzi'', ''A. p. archibaldi'', and ''A. p. dawsonensis''. The species was first described by George Shaw in 1790. The nominate subspecies ''A. p. pusilla'' was described by Shaw in 1790 and the subspecies ''A. p. diemenensis'' was first described by John Gould in 1838. ''A. p. zietzi'' was described by Alfred John North in 1904, ''A. p. dawsonensis'' was described by Archibald George Campbell in 1922, and ''A. p. archibaldi'' was described by Gregory Mathews in 1910. The generic name ''Acanthiza'' derives from Ancient Gree ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yellow-rumped Thornbill
The yellow-rumped thornbill (''Acanthiza chrysorrhoa'') is a species of passerine bird from the genus Acanthiza. The genus was once placed in the family Pardalotidae but that family was split and it is now in the family Acanthizidae. There are four subspecies of yellow-rumped thornbill. It is a small, brownish bird with a distinctive yellow rump and thin dark bill. It inhabits savannah, scrub and forests across most of Australia and eats insects. The species engages in cooperative breeding. Taxonomy The yellow-rumped thornbill was described as ''Saxicola chrysorrhoa'' by the French naturalists Jean René Constant Quoy and Joseph Paul Gaimard in 1830, from a specimen collected in King George Sound.Quoy, J.R.C. & Gaimard, J.P. in Dumont-d'Urville, J. (1830). ''Voyage de découvertes de l'Astrolabe exécuté par ordre du Roi, pendant les anneés 1826-1827-1828-1829, sous le commandement de M.J. Dumont-d'Urville''. ''Zoologie''. Paris: J. Tastu Vol. 1 i p197 The specific epithet der ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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