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Mercury Island
:''not to be confused with the Mercury Islands of New Zealand'' Mercury Island is a small rocky island off The Diamond Coast, Namibia. Despite its small size it is recognised by BirdLife International and other global conservation groups as an Important Bird Area (IBA) for its important coastal seabird breeding. Situation Mercury Island is situated 800 metres offshore in Spencer Bay, 110 kilometres north of Lüderitz. The island is only 750 metres long (North-South) and about 270 metres wide, reaching a height of 38 metres above the sea. Steep, rocky, without vegetation, covered in a thick layer of bird guano, and riddled with a number of caves (one of which completely bisects the island), Mercury Island's name comes from the shaking that reverberates through the island during westerly wave action. Its nearest neighbour and like bird habitat is Ichaboe Island, about 65 kilometres to the south. Ichaboe and Mercury are the two most important island seabird breeding sites along the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe and Asia from the "New World" of the Americas in the European perception of the World. The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and North and South America to the west. As one component of the interconnected World Ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The Atlantic Ocean is divided in two parts, by the Equatorial Counter Current, with the North(ern) Atlantic Ocean and the South(ern) Atlantic Ocean split at about 8°N. Scientific explorations of the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Gannet
The Cape gannet (''Morus capensis'') is a large seabird of the gannet family, Sulidae. They are easily identified by their large size, black and white plumage and distinctive yellow crown and hindneck. The pale blue bill is pointed with fine serrations near the tip; perhaps because of the depth and speed of the gannet's dive when fishing (depending on altitude, gannets hit the water at speeds of between ), its beak has no external nostrils into which the water might be forced. Taxonomy German naturalist Hinrich Lichtenstein described the Cape gannet in 1823. The Sulidae, the gannets and boobies, appeared about 30 million years ago. Early Sulidae fossils most resembled the boobies, although they were more aquatic, with the gannets splitting off later, about 16 million years ago. The gannets evolved in the northern hemisphere, later colonising the southern oceans. The most ancient extant species may be the Abbott's booby, possibly the sole survivor of an otherwise extinct sepa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Demography Unit
The Animal Demography Unit (ADU) is a formally recognized research unit of the University of Cape Town (UCT) located within the Department of Biological Sciences of UCT. (The Department of Biological Sciences was formed from the merger of the Department of Botany and the Department of Zoology at the start of the 2013 academic year). The Animal Demography Unit, popularly known as the ADU, was responsible for the management of the First and Second Southern African Bird Atlas Projects SABAP1 and SABAP2. The unit has submitted over eight million georeferenced biodiversity records to GBIF The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the .... History The Animal Demography Unit (formerly the Avian Demography Unit), or ADU as it is mostly known in the vernacular, is a research unit of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penguin Islands
The Penguin Islands ( af, Pikkewyn-eilande, german: Pinguininseln) are a historical group of mostly scattered islands and rocks situated along a stretch of along the coastline of Namibia. Not forming a geographic whole, the Namibian government formally lists them as the ''Off-Shore islands''. Their name comes from the presence of African penguins which inhabit the coastal region surrounding Namibia and South Africa. Geography The islands are scattered over a long coastal region. Although a few of them form small clusters or groups, such as the islands in Lüderitz Bay, the Penguin Islands lack the mutual proximity of a natural archipelago or island chain. The largest island is Possession Island with in area. Hollam's Bird Island is the most northern and, at a distance of , the farthest from the coast. All islands together measure in area. Islands Listed from the most northern to the most southern, the islands include the Penguin Islands (in the historic, narrower sense ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SS Point Pleasant Park
SS ''Point Pleasant Park'' was a merchant steamship constructed for Canada's Merchant Navy in 1942 during the Second World War as part of Canada's Park ship program. She carried a variety of wartime cargoes to Atlantic and Indian Ocean ports until the sank her off the coast of South Africa on 23 February 1945 as ''Point Pleasant Park'' was sailing independently from Saint John, New Brunswick to Cape Town. ''Point Pleasant Park'' was the last vessel sunk in South African waters during the Second World War. Construction ''Point Pleasant'' was built by the Canadian Park Steamship Company Limited, a Crown Corporation set up in 1942 to aid the Allied war effort by building and operating cargo ships to replace those lost to enemy action and ensure an ample flow of supplies to Allied forces. The ship was a 10,000 ton version of the Canadian Park ship program, a design similar to the American Liberty ships. She was built at Davie Ship Building & Repair Co. Ltd. at Lauzon, Quebec and ent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold Rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, the United States, and Canada while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere. In the 19th century, the wealth that resulted was distributed widely because of reduced migration costs and low barriers to entry. While gold mining itself proved unprofitable for most diggers and mine owners, some people made large fortunes, and merchants and transportation facilities made large profits. The resulting increase in the world's gold supply stimulated global trade and investment. Historians have written extensively about the mass migration, trade, colonization, and environmental history associated with gold rushes. Gold rushes were typically marked by a general buoyant feeling of a "free-for-all" in income mob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guano
Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. Guano was also, to a lesser extent, sought for the production of gunpowder and other explosive materials. The 19th-century seabird guano trade played a pivotal role in the development of modern input-intensive farming. The demand for guano spurred the human colonization of remote bird islands in many parts of the world. Unsustainable seabird guano mining processes can result in permanent habitat destruction and the loss of millions of seabirds. Bat guano is found in caves throughout the world. Many cave ecosystems are wholly dependent on bats to provide nutrients via their guano which supports bacteria, fungi, invertebrates, and vertebrates. The loss of bats from a cave can result in the extinction of species that rely on their guano. U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West African Coast
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance languages (''ouest'' in French, ''oest'' in Catalan, ''ovest'' in Italian, ''oeste'' in Spanish and Portuguese). As in other languages, the word formation stems from the fact that west is the direction of the setting sun in the evening: 'west' derives from the Indo-European root ''*wes'' reduced from ''*wes-pero'' 'evening, night', cognate with Ancient Greek ἕσπερος hesperos 'evening; evening star; western' and Latin vesper 'evening; west'. Examples of the same formation in other languages include Latin occidens 'west' from occidō 'to go down, to set' and Hebrew מַעֲרָב maarav 'west' from עֶרֶב erev 'evening'. Navigation To go west using a compass for navigation (in a place where magnetic north is the same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Right Whale
The southern right whale (''Eubalaena australis'') is a baleen whale, one of three species classified as right whales belonging to the genus ''Eubalaena''. Southern right whales inhabit oceans south of the Equator, between the latitudes of 20° and 60° south. In 2009 the global population was estimated to be approximately 13,600. Taxonomy Right whales were first classified in the genus ''Balaena'' in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus, who at the time considered all right whales (including the bowhead) to be a single species. In the 19th and 20th centuries the family Balaenidae was the subject of great taxonometric debate. Authorities have repeatedly recategorised the three populations of right whale plus the bowhead whale, as one, two, three or four species, either in a single genus or in two separate genera. In the early whaling days, they were all thought to be a single species, ''Balaena mysticetus''. The southern right whale was initially described as ''Balaena australis'' by Des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humpback Whale
The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with long pectoral fins and tubercles on its head. It is known for breaching and other distinctive surface behaviors, making it popular with whale watchers. Males produce a complex song typically lasting 4 to 33 minutes. Found in oceans and seas around the world, humpback whales typically migrate up to each year. They feed in polar waters and migrate to tropical or subtropical waters to breed and give birth. Their diet consists mostly of krill and small fish, and they use bubbles to catch prey. They are promiscuous breeders, with both sexes having multiple partners. Orcas are the main natural predators of humpback whales. Like other large whales, the humpback was a target for the whaling industry. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phalacrocorax Neglectus
The bank cormorant (''Phalacrocorax neglectus''), also known as Wahlberg's cormorant, is a medium-sized cormorant that is endemic to Namibia and the western seaboard of South Africa, living in and around coastal waters; it is rarely recorded more than 15 km offshore. Description The bank cormorant is a heavy-bodied bird, roughly 75 cm in length. It is generally black in appearance with a bronze sheen, though the wings are a dark brown rather than a true black. Adults have a small crest on their heads, and normally have a white rump. Pale eye in an all black face is considered to be diagnostic for adults, with immature birds having a dark eye.Princeton Illustrated Checklists-Birds of Southern Africa-Ber Van Perlo, 1999 Ecology A prime food for these birds is the cape rock lobster ''Jasus lalandii'', and their feeding distribution closely matches the kelp beds where these lobsters live, though the birds will also take a variety of other crustacean and fish prey, notably ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
