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European Mouflon
The European mouflon (''Ovis aries musimon'') is a feral subspecies of the primitive domestic sheep. It was originally found only on the Mediterranean islands of Corsica and Sardinia, but has since been introduced into many other regions of Europe. It is not to be confused with ''Ovis gmelini'', also called the mouflon, which is found in Western Asia and is also ancestral to modern domestic sheep. Description Male mouflon are known as rams and the females as ewes. The young animals are known as lambs. Appearance European mouflon have a body length of up to 120 cm, a shoulder height of 90 cm, a weight of 25 to 40 kg for ewes, 35 to 55 kg for the ram. The European mouflon has a smooth hairy coat, the rams are fox red-brown in the summer, usually with a whitish saddle patch, the ewes are brownish. Both sexes are darker in winter. The rams have helix-shaped horns up to 80 cm long; females have no horns on Sardinia, but on Corsica they have smaller ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Simon Pallas
Peter Simon Pallas Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS FRSE (22 September 1741 – 8 September 1811) was a Prussian zoologist and botanist who worked in Russia between 1767 and 1810. Life and work Peter Simon Pallas was born in Berlin, the son of Professor of Surgery Simon Pallas. He studied with private tutors and took an interest in natural history, later attending the University of Halle and the University of Göttingen. In 1760, he moved to the University of Leiden and passed his doctor's degree at the age of 19. Pallas travelled throughout the Netherlands and to London, improving his medical and surgical knowledge. He then settled at The Hague, and his new system of animal classification was praised by Georges Cuvier. Pallas wrote ''Miscellanea Zoologica'' (1766), which included descriptions of several vertebrates new to science which he had discovered in the Dutch museum collections. A planned voyage to southern Africa and the East Indies fell through when his father reca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mixed Forests
Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. These forests are richest and most distinctive in central China and eastern North America, with some other globally distinctive ecoregions in the Caucasus, the Himalayas, Southern Europe, Australasia, Southwestern South America and the Russian Far East. Ecology The typical structure of these forests includes four layers. * The uppermost layer is the canopy composed of tall mature trees ranging from high. Below the canopy is the three-layered, shade-tolerant understory that is roughly shorter than the canopy. * The top layer of the understory is the sub-canopy composed of smaller mature trees, saplings, and suppressed juvenile canopy layer trees awaiting an opening in the canopy. * Below the sub-canopy is the shrub layer, composed of low growi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gestation Period
In mammals, pregnancy is the period of reproduction during which a female carries one or more live offspring from implantation in the uterus through gestation. It begins when a fertilized zygote implants in the female's uterus, and ends once it leaves the uterus. Fertilization and implantation During copulation, the male inseminates the female. The spermatozoon fertilizes an ovum or various ova in the uterus or fallopian tubes, and this results in one or multiple zygotes. Sometimes, a zygote can be created by humans outside of the animal's body in the artificial process of in-vitro fertilization. After fertilization, the newly formed zygote then begins to divide through mitosis, forming an embryo, which implants in the female's endometrium. At this time, the embryo usually consists of 50 cells. Development After implantation A blastocele is a small cavity on the center of the embryo, and the developing embryonary cells will grow around it. Then, a flat layer cell forms on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rutting Season
The rut (from the Latin ''rugire'', meaning "to roar") is the mating season of certain mammals, which includes ruminants such as deer, sheep, camels, goats, pronghorns, bison, giraffes and antelopes, and extends to others such as skunks and elephants. The rut is characterized in males by an increase in testosterone, exaggerated sexual dimorphisms, increased aggression, and increased interest in females. The males of the species may mark themselves with mud, undergo physiological changes or perform characteristic displays in order to make themselves more visually appealing to the females. Males also use olfaction to entice females to mate using secretions from glands and soaking in their own urine. During the rut (known as the ''rutting period'' and in domestic sheep management as '' tupping''), males often rub their antlers or horns on trees or shrubs, fight with each other, wallow in mud or dust, self-anoint and herd estrus females together. These displays make the male conspic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbivore
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthparts adapted to rasping or grinding. Horses and other herbivores have wide flat teeth that are adapted to grinding grass, tree bark, and other tough plant material. A large percentage of herbivores have mutualistic gut flora that help them digest plant matter, which is more difficult to digest than animal prey. This flora is made up of cellulose-digesting protozoans or bacteria. Etymology Herbivore is the anglicized form of a modern Latin coinage, ''herbivora'', cited in Charles Lyell's 1830 ''Principles of Geology''.J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner, eds. (2000) ''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. 8, p. 155. Richard Owen employed the anglicized term in an 1854 work on fossil teeth and skeletons. ''Herbivora'' is derived from Latin ''herba' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rut (mammalian Reproduction)
The rut (from the Latin ''rugire'', meaning "to roar") is the mating season of certain mammals, which includes ruminants such as deer, sheep, camels, goats, pronghorns, bison, giraffes and antelopes, and extends to others such as skunks and elephants. The rut is characterized in males by an increase in testosterone, exaggerated sexual dimorphisms, increased aggression, and increased interest in females. The males of the species may mark themselves with mud, undergo physiological changes or perform characteristic displays in order to make themselves more visually appealing to the females. Males also use olfaction to entice females to mate using secretions from glands and self-anointing in animals, soaking in their own urine. During the rut (known as the ''rutting period'' and in domestic sheep management as ''Glossary of sheep husbandry, tupping''), males often rub their antlers or horn (anatomy), horns on trees or shrubs, fight with each other, Wallowing in animals, wallow in mud o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extirpated
Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinctions. Local extinctions mark a change in the ecology of an area. In recent times, local extinction has sometimes been followed by a replacement of the species taken from other locations; wolf reintroduction is an example of this. The term "local extinction" is highly vernacular. The more proper biological term is ''extirpation''. Discussion Glaciation can lead to local extinction. This was the case during the Pleistocene glaciation event in North America. During this period, most of the native North American species of earthworm were killed in places covered by glaciation. This left them open for colonization by European earthworms brought over in soil from Europe. Species naturally become extirpated from islands over time. The number ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Göhrde State Forest
The Göhrde State Forest (german: Staatsforst Göhrde) is the largest contiguous mixed forest region in North Germany. It lies in the districts of Landkreis Lüchow-Dannenberg, Lüchow-Dannenberg and Landkreis Lüneburg, Lüneburg. Description The Göhrde includes the entire Göhrde (unincorporated area), unincorporated area of Göhrde, parts of the municipality of Göhrde (both in Lüchow-Dannenberg district) as well as parts of the municipalities of Nahrendorf and Boitze (Lüneburg district). The forest is also part of the Elbufer-Drawehn Nature Park and is located on a plateau with an average height of 80 metres above Normalnull, NN (roughly from 50 to 110 m NN) in the northwestern area of the Drawehn. Because the Göhrde region has no rivers it was never settled. The state forest of Göhrde is about 75 km² in area and at its heart has some very old stands of trees. Many of these giant trees (especially English Oaks) have been designated as natural monuments and are pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harz Mountains
The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German word ''Hardt'' or ''Hart'' (hill forest). The name ''Hercynia'' derives from a Celtic name and could refer to other mountain forests, but has also been applied to the geology of the Harz. The Brocken is the highest summit in the Harz with an elevation of above sea level. The Wurmberg () is the highest peak located entirely within the state of Lower Saxony. Geography Location and extent The Harz has a length of , stretching from the town of Seesen in the northwest to Eisleben in the east, and a width of . It occupies an area of , and is divided into the Upper Harz (''Oberharz'') in the northwest, which is up to 800 m high, apart from the 1,100 m high Brocken massif, and the Lower Harz (''Unterharz'') in the east which is up to aroun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurasian Lynx
The Eurasian lynx (''Lynx lynx'') is a medium-sized wild cat widely distributed from Northern, Central and Eastern Europe to Central Asia and Siberia, the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas. It inhabits temperate and boreal forests up to an elevation of . Despite its wide distribution, it is threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching and depletion of prey. Taxonomy ''Felis lynx'' was the scientific name used in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus in his work '' Systema Naturae''. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the following Eurasian lynx subspecies were proposed: The following were also proposed, but are not considered valid taxa: *Altai lynx (''L. l. wardi'') *Baikal lynx (''L. l. kozlovi'') *Amur lynx (''L. l. stroganovi'') *Sardinian lynx (''L. l. sardiniae'') Characteristics The Eurasian lynx has a relatively short, reddish or brown coat that is marked with black spots; their number and pattern are highly variable. The underparts, neck and chin are whitish. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Species Reintroduction
Species reintroduction is the deliberate release of a species into the wild, from captivity or other areas where the organism is capable of survival. The goal of species reintroduction is to establish a healthy, genetically diverse, self-sustaining population to an area where it has been extirpated, or to augment an existing population. Species that may be eligible for reintroduction are typically threatened or endangered in the wild. However, reintroduction of a species can also be for pest control; for example, wolves being reintroduced to a wild area to curb an overpopulation of deer. Because reintroduction may involve returning native species to localities where they had been extirpated, some prefer the term "reestablishment". Humans have been reintroducing species for food and pest control for thousands of years. However, the practice of reintroducing for conservation is much younger, starting in the 20th century. Methods for sourcing individuals There are a variety of appro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lusatia
Lusatia (german: Lausitz, pl, Łużyce, hsb, Łužica, dsb, Łužyca, cs, Lužice, la, Lusatia, rarely also referred to as Sorbia) is a historical region in Central Europe, split between Germany and Poland. Lusatia stretches from the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers in the east to the Pulsnitz and Black Elster rivers in the west, and is located within the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg as well as in the Polish voivodeships of Lower Silesia and Lubusz. Lusatia's central rivers are the Spree and the Lusatian Neisse, which constitutes the border between Germany and Poland since 1945 (Oder–Neisse line). The Lusatian Mountains (part of the Sudetes), separate Lusatia from Bohemia (Czech Republic) in the south. Lusatia is traditionally divided into Upper Lusatia (the hilly southern part) and Lower Lusatia (the flat northern part). The areas east and west along the Spree in the German part of Lusatia are home to the Slavic Sorbs, one of Germany's four officially recognized indige ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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