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Gongylomorphus Bojerii
Bojer's skink (''Gongylomorphus bojerii'', formerly ''Scelotes bojeri)'' is a small species of skink, a lizard in the family Scincidae. The species is endemic to Mauritius including some of its offshore islands. Etymology Both the specific name, ''bojerii'', and the common name, Bojer's skink, are in honor of Czech naturalist Wenceslas Bojer.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Gongylomorphus bojerii'', p. 31). Description ''G. bojerii'' is about in total length, including a tail. It has five digits on each extremity. Geographic range Bojer's skink occurs in patches of the Black River Gorges National Park and on some off-shore islands of Mauritius including Ilot Vacoas, Round Island, Serpent Island, Ilot Gabriel, Pigeon Rock, Flat Island, Gunner's Quoin, Ile aux Aigrettes, and Ile de la Passe. Habitat The preferred natural habitats of ''G. bojerii'' a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julien Desjardins
Julien François Desjardins (27 July 1799, Centre de Flacq – 18 April 1840, Paris) was a French zoologist, the son of Julien Jouan Desjardins (1766–1853) and Henriette Émilie Marcotte. He married Julie Renée Maréchal, his first cousin by his mother. He studied in Paris from 1822 to 1824 under Georges Cuvier, Cuvier, and was influenced by Louis Jacques Thénard (1777–1857), Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778–1850), Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833), René Desfontaines (1750–1831) and others. He embarked on a career in civil engineering, but soon realised that he should return to his original passion of natural history and studied at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. With Charles Telfair, Wenceslas Bojer, and Jacques Delisse, Desjardins took part in founding the ' on 11 August 1829. He was the first secretary of this Society and editor of the publication ' until 1839, when he left for France to publish his observations. His premature death led to the acquisition of his ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black River Gorges National Park
Black River Gorges National Park is a national park in the hilly south-western part of Mauritius. It was proclaimed on June 15, 1994 and is managed by the National Parks and Conservation Service. It covers an area of 67.54 km² including humid upland forest, drier lowland forest and marshy heathland. Facilities for visitors include two information centres, picnic areas and 60 kilometres of trails. There are four field stations in the park which are used for National Parks and Conservation Service and Mauritian Wildlife Foundation research and conservation projects. The park protects most of the island's remaining rainforest although much of this has been degraded by introduced plants such as Chinese guava and privet and animals such as rusa deer and wild pigs. Several areas have been fenced off and invasive species have been eradicated from them to preserve native wildlife. Many endemic plants and animals still occur in the park including the Mauritian flying fox and all o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invasive Species
An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native species that become harmful to their native environment after human alterations to its food webfor example the purple sea urchin (''Strongylocentrotus purpuratus'') which has decimated kelp forests along the northern California coast due to overharvesting of its natural predator, the California sea otter (''Enhydra lutris''). Since the 20th century, invasive species have become a serious economic, social, and environmental threat. Invasion of long-established ecosystems by organisms is a natural phenomenon, but human-facilitated introductions have greatly increased the rate, scale, and geographic range of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mauritian Wildlife Foundation
The Mauritian Wildlife Foundation (MWF) is an independent, non-governmental, non-profit conservation agency working in Mauritius to save threatened endemic local flora and fauna. History The Mauritian Wildlife Appeal Fund was established in 1984 under the initiative of naturalist Gerald Durrell and the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust principally to raise funds for the conservation of endemic Mauritius wildlife. The conservation work in Mauritius began as a species orientated program concentrating on a few critically endangered species, including the Mauritius kestrel and the pink pigeon. The initiation of the conservation program in 1976 was popularized by Gerald Durrell in his book ''Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons''. In 1996, the organization expanded its operations to habitat restoration, including the management of native forests and small islands. The evolution of MWF from a funding and administration organization to that of a hands-on conservation agency was reflected in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asian House Shrew
The Asian house shrew (''Suncus murinus'') is a shrew species native to South and Southeast Asia that has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 2008 because of its large population and wide distribution. It has been introduced in several West Asian and East African countries. It is considered an invasive species and implicated in the demise of several island lizard species. It is also called house shrew, grey musk shrew, Asian musk shrew or Indian musk shrew. The shrew is worshipped as the vehicle mount of the foremost god of Hinduism, Ganesha. Thus it is a taboo to kill a shrew among Hindus. Taxonomy ''Sorex murinus'' was the scientific name proposed by Carl Linnaeus in 1766 for a house shrew from Java. In the late 18th to early 20th centuries, several house shrew zoological specimens were described as distinct species that are considered synonyms today: *''Sorex myosurus'' by Peter Simon Pallas in 1781; *''Sorex viridescens'' by Edward Blyth in 1859 was a h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modes Of Reproduction
Animals make use of a variety of modes of reproduction to produce their young. Traditionally this variety was classified into three modes, oviparity (embryos in eggs), viviparity (young born live), and ovoviviparity (intermediate between the first two). However, each of those so-called traditional modes covered a wide range of diverse reproductive strategies. The biologist Thierry Lodé has accordingly proposed five modes of reproduction based on the relationship between the zygote (the fertilised egg) and the parents. His revised modes are ovuliparity, with external fertilisation; oviparity, with internal fertilisation of large eggs containing a substantial nutritive yolk; ovo-viviparity, that is oviparity where the zygotes are retained for a time in a parent's body, but without any sort of feeding by the parent; histotrophic viviparity, where the zygotes develop in the female's oviducts, but are fed on other tissues; and hemotrophic viviparity, where the developing embryos are fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terrestrial Locomotion
Terrestrial locomotion has evolved as animals adapted from aquatic to terrestrial environments. Locomotion on land raises different problems than that in water, with reduced friction being replaced by the increased effects of gravity. As viewed from evolutionary taxonomy, there are three basic forms of animal locomotion in the terrestrial environment: * legged – moving by using appendages *limbless locomotion – moving without legs, primarily using the body itself as a propulsive structure. *rolling – rotating the body over the substrate Some terrains and terrestrial surfaces permit or demand alternative locomotive styles. A sliding component to locomotion becomes possible on slippery surfaces (such as ice and snow), where location is aided by potential energy, or on loose surfaces (such as sand or scree), where friction is low but purchase (traction) is difficult. Humans, especially, have adapted to sliding over terrestrial snowpack and terrestrial ice by means of ice ska ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diurnality
Diurnality is a form of plant and ethology, animal behavior characterized by activity during daytime, with a period of sleeping or other inactivity at night. The common adjective used for daytime activity is "diurnal". The timing of activity by an animal depends on a variety of environmental factors such as the temperature, the ability to gather food by sight, the risk of predation, and the time of year. Diurnality is a cycle of activity within a 24-hour period; cyclic activities called circadian rhythms are endogenous cycles not dependent on external cues or environmental factors except for a zeitgeber. Animals active during twilight are crepuscular, those active during the night are nocturnal and animals active at sporadic times during both night and day are cathemerality, cathemeral. Plants that open their flowers during the daytime are described as diurnal, while those that bloom during nighttime are nocturnal. The timing of flower opening is often related to the time at which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forest
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a forest as, "Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds ''in situ''. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban use." Using this definition, '' Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020'' (FRA 2020) found that forests covered , or approximately 31 percent of the world's land area in 2020. Forests are the predominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth, and are found around the globe. More than half of the world's forests are found in only five countries (Brazil, Canada, China, Russia, and the United States). The largest share of forests (45 percent) are in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shrubland
Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It may be the mature vegetation type in a particular region and remain stable over time, or a transitional community that occurs temporarily as the result of a disturbance, such as fire. A stable state may be maintained by regular natural disturbance such as fire or browsing. Shrubland may be unsuitable for human habitation because of the danger of fire. The term was coined in 1903. Shrubland species generally show a wide range of adaptations to fire, such as heavy seed production, lignotubers, and fire-induced germination. Botanical structural form In botany and ecology a shrub is defined as a much-branched woody plant less than 8 m high and usually with many stems. Tall shrubs are mostly 2–8 m high, small shrubs 1–2 m high and su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grassland
A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica and are found in most ecoregions of the Earth. Furthermore, grasslands are one of the largest biomes on earth and dominate the landscape worldwide. There are different types of grasslands: natural grasslands, semi-natural grasslands, and agricultural grasslands. They cover 31–69% of the Earth's land area. Definitions Included among the variety of definitions for grasslands are: * "...any plant community, including harvested forages, in which grasses and/or legumes make up the dominant vegetation." * "...terrestrial ecosystems dominated by herbaceous and shrub vegetation, and maintained by fire, grazing, drought and/or freezing temperatures." (Pilot Assessment of Global Ecosystems, 2000) * "A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habitat
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ecological niche. Thus "habitat" is a species-specific term, fundamentally different from concepts such as environment or vegetation assemblages, for which the term "habitat-type" is more appropriate. The physical factors may include (for example): soil, moisture, range of temperature, and light intensity. Biotic factors will include the availability of food and the presence or absence of predators. Every species has particular habitat requirements, with habitat generalist species able to thrive in a wide array of environmental conditions while habitat specialist species requiring a very limited set of factors to survive. The habitat of a species is not necessarily found in a geographical area, it can be the interior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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