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Green-headed Hillstar
The green-headed hillstar (''Oreotrochilus stolzmanni'') is a species of hummingbird found in the Andes of southern Ecuador and northern and central Peru.Handbook of the Birds of the World. Vol. 5, J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott & J. Sargatal (eds.), Barcelona, 1999. It is one of 6 species in the genus ''Oreotrochilus'', and can be distinguished from its relatives by subtle differences in plumage coloration. The green-headed hillstar received its name due to its bronze and green crown and gorget of bright emerald green plumage. The species was first discovered by English ornithologist Osbert Salvin in 1895 and named after Polish ornithologist Jean Stanislaus Stolzmann. Hillstars of this genus are distinct among the hummingbird family Trochilidae because of their preference for high-elevation environments, and the development of many behavioral and physiological adaptations in order to survive the cold climate of the high Andes. Description The green-headed hillstar is a species of Sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osbert Salvin
Osbert Salvin FRS (25 February 1835 – 1 June 1898) was an English naturalist, ornithologist, and herpetologist best known for co-authoring ''Biologia Centrali-Americana'' (1879–1915) with Frederick DuCane Godman. This was a 52 volume encyclopedia on the natural history of Central America. Biography Osbert Salvin was born in Finchley, north London, the second son of the architect Anthony Salvin, of Hawksfold, Sussex. He was educated at Westminster and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, taking his degree in 1857. Shortly afterwards he accompanied his second cousin by marriage, Henry Baker Tristram, in a natural history exploration of Tunisia and eastern Algeria. Their account of this trip was published in ''The Ibis'' in 1859 and 1860. In the autumn of 1857, he made the first of several visits to Guatemala, returning there with Frederick DuCane Godman in 1861. It was during this journey that the ''Biologia Centrali-Americana'' was planned. In 1871 Salvin became editor of ''The Ibis'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wedge-tailed Hillstar
The wedge-tailed hillstar (''Oreotrochilus adela'') is a species of hummingbird in the "coquettes", tribe Lesbiini of subfamily Lesbiinae. It is found in Argentina and Bolivia.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world'' Version 5. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v5_Dec20.zip xls zipped 1 MBretrieved 27 May 2021 Taxonomy and systematics The wedge-tailed hillstar is monotypic. Description The wedge-tailed hillstar is long and weighs . Adults have a medium length slightly decurved black bill. Both sexes' upperparts are gray-brown with a bronzy cast. The adult male has a glittering green gorget and chestnut underparts with a bold black stripe down the center. The tail is graduated and mostly blue-black; all but the central feathers have cinnamon inner webs. The adult female's throat is white with grayish and gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous member state of the European Union. Warsaw is the nation's capital and largest metropolis. Other major cities include Kraków, Wrocław, Łódź, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Szczecin. Poland has a temperate transitional climate and its territory traverses the Central European Plain, extending from Baltic Sea in the north to Sudeten and Carpathian Mountains in the south. The longest Polish river is the Vistula, and Poland's highest point is Mount Rysy, situated in the Tatra mountain range of the Carpathians. The country is bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the south, and Germany to the west. It also shares maritime boundaries with Denmark and Sweden. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Ornithologists' Union
The International Ornithologists' Union, formerly known as the International Ornithological Committee, is a group of about 200 international ornithologists, and is responsible for the International Ornithological Congress and other international ornithological activities, undertaken by its standing committees. International Ornithological Congress The International Ornithological Congress series forms the oldest and largest international series of meetings of ornithologists. It is organised by the International Ornithologists' Union. The first meeting was in 1884; subsequent meetings were irregular until 1926 since when meetings have been held every four years, except for two missed meetings during and in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Meetings See also * '' Birds of the World: Recommended English Names'', a book written by Frank Gill Frank Gill may refer to: * Frank Gill (Australian footballer) (1908–1970), Australian rules footballer with Carlton * Fran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding important sites for birds, maintaining and restoring key bird habitats, and empowering conservationists worldwide. It has a membership of more than 2.5 million people across 116 country partner organizations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Wild Bird Society of Japan, the National Audubon Society and American Bird Conservancy. BirdLife International has identified 13,000 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas and is the official International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List authority for birds. As of 2015, BirdLife International has established that 1,375 bird species (13% of the total) are threatened with extinction ( critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable). BirdLife International p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is only a small portion of the DNA in a eukaryotic cell; most of the DNA can be found in the cell nucleus and, in plants and algae, also in plastids such as chloroplasts. Human mitochondrial DNA was the first significant part of the human genome to be sequenced. This sequencing revealed that the human mtDNA includes 16,569 base pairs and encodes 13 proteins. Since animal mtDNA evolves faster than nuclear genetic markers, it represents a mainstay of phylogenetics and evolutionary biology. It also permits an examination of the relatedness of populations, and so has become important in anthropology and biogeography. Origin Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA are thought to be of separate evolutionary origin, with the mtDNA being derived ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plumage
Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can be different colour morphs. The placement of feathers on a bird is not haphazard, but rather emerge in organized, overlapping rows and groups, and these are known by standardized names. Most birds moult twice a year, resulting in a breeding or ''nuptial plumage'' and a ''basic plumage''. Many ducks and some other species such as the red junglefowl have males wearing a bright nuptial plumage while breeding and a drab ''eclipse plumage'' for some months afterward. The painted bunting's juveniles have two inserted moults in their first autumn, each yielding plumage like an adult female. The first starts a few days after fledging replacing the ''juvenile plumage'' with an ''auxiliary formative plumage''; the second a month or so l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar working in the 19th century in Brno, was the first to study genetics scientifically. Mendel studied "trait inheritance", patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring over time. He observed that organisms (pea plants) inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term, still used today, is a somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene. Trait inheritance and molecular inheritance mechanisms of genes are still primary principles of genetics in the 21st century, but modern genetics has expanded to study the function and behavior of genes. Gene structure and function, variation, and distribution are studied within the context of the cell, the organism (e.g. dominance), and within the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treeswift
Treeswifts or crested swifts are a family, the Hemiprocnidae, of aerial near passerine birds, closely related to the true swifts. The family contains a single genus, ''Hemiprocne'', with four species. They are distributed from India and Southeast Asia through Indonesia to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Treeswifts are small to medium-sized swifts, ranging in length from 15 to 30 cm. They have long wings, with most of the length coming from the length of the primaries; their arms are actually quite short. They visibly differ from the other swifts in matters of plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ..., which is softer, and they have crests or other facial ornaments, and long, forked tails. Anatomically they are separated from the true swifts by skeletal det ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swift (bird)
The swifts are a family, Apodidae, of highly aerial birds. They are superficially similar to swallows, but are not closely related to any passerine species. Swifts are placed in the order Apodiformes with hummingbirds. The treeswifts are closely related to the true swifts, but form a separate family, the Hemiprocnidae. Resemblances between swifts and swallows are due to convergent evolution, reflecting similar life styles based on catching insects in flight. The family name, Apodidae, is derived from the Greek ἄπους (''ápous''), meaning "footless", a reference to the small, weak legs of these most aerial of birds.Jobling (2010) pp. 50–51.Kaufman (2001) p. 329. The tradition of depicting swifts without feet continued into the Middle Ages, as seen in the heraldic martlet. Taxonomy Taxonomists have long classified swifts and treeswifts as relatives of the hummingbirds, a judgment corroborated by the discovery of the Jungornithidae (apparently swift-like hummingbird-relati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apodiformes
Traditionally, the bird order Apodiformes contained three living families: the swifts (Apodidae), the treeswifts (Hemiprocnidae), and the hummingbirds (Trochilidae). In the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, this order is raised to a superorder Apodimorphae in which hummingbirds are separated as a new order, Trochiliformes. With nearly 450 species identified to date, they are the most diverse order of birds after the passerines. Description As their name ("footless" in Greek) suggests, their legs are small and have limited function aside from perching. The feet are covered with bare skin rather than the scales (scutes) that other birds have. Another shared characteristic is long wings with short, stout humerus bones. The evolution of these wing characteristics has provided the hummingbird with ideal wings for hovering.Mayr, Gerald (2003): Phylogeny of early tertiary swifts and hummingbirds (Aves: Apodiformes). ''Auk'' 120(1): 145–151.PDF fulltext The hummingbirds, swifts, and cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue-throated Hillstar
The blue-throated hillstar (''Oreotrochilus cyanolaemus'') is a hummingbird found only in a small portion of the southwestern Andes in Ecuador. It was discovered in 2017. Taxonomy and evolution The species name "cyanolaemus" is based on the Latinized Greek words for ultramarine blue (kuanos) and throat (laimos). Based on a sequences of a single mitochondrial gene, ND2, the species was found to be closely related to a clade composed of the black-breasted hillstar (''O. melanogaster'') and the green-headed hillstar (''O. stolzmanni''). Description The top of the head of the male blue-throated hillstar is iridescent emerald green, which extends from the forehead to the base of the crown. The iridescent highlights are blue-green. The nape of the neck, mantle, lower portion of the back, rump, and upperwing coverts are bright emerald green. Some feathers in these regions have blue-green edging, and some have bronze highlights. The uppertail coverts are emerald blue-green. The upper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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