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Malagasy Shelduck
The Malagasy shelduck (''Alopochen sirabensis''), also known as the Sirabe shelduck, is an extinct species of waterfowl in the shelduck subfamily, described from Late Pleistocene fossils found at Antsirabe in central Madagascar. It is related to the extant Egyptian goose, which is widespread in mainland Africa, and to the extinct Réunion and Mauritius shelducks from the Mascarene Islands. The reason for the extinction of the Malagasy shelduck is unknown. Further findings in the Pleistocene sites of Ampasambazimba and Ampoza, and also in the Holocene site of Beloha (where remains were carbon dated to only 1380 ± 90 years BP, 480-660 CE), show that the species was once widespread in Madagascar, inhabiting different biomes, and that it survived the arrival of humans to the island. References Malagasy shelduck Extinct birds of Madagascar Holocene extinctions Malagasy shelduck The Malagasy shelduck (''Alopochen sirabensis''), also known as the Sirabe shelduck, is an ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. The Holocene has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1. It is considered by some to be an interglacial period within the Pleistocene Epoch, called the Flandrian interglacial.Oxford University Press – Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever (book) – "Holocene Humanity" section https://books.google.com/books?id=7P0_sWIcBNsC The Holocene corresponds with the rapid proliferation, growth and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all of its written history, technological revolutions, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition towards urban living in the present. The human impact on modern-era Earth and its ecosystems may be considered of global si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mascarene Islands
The Mascarene Islands (, ) or Mascarenes or Mascarenhas Archipelago is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar consisting of the islands belonging to the Republic of Mauritius as well as the French department of Réunion. Their name derives from the Portuguese navigator Pedro Mascarenhas, who first visited them in April 1512. The islands share a common geologic origin in the volcanism of the Réunion hotspot beneath the Mascarene Plateau and form a distinct ecoregion with a unique flora and fauna. Geography The archipelago comprises three large islands, Mauritius, Réunion, and Rodrigues, plus a number of volcanic remnants in the tropics of the southwestern Indian Ocean, generally between 700 and 1500 kilometres east of Madagascar. The terrain includes a variety of reefs, atolls, and small islands. They present various topographical and edaphic regions. On the largest islands these gave rise to unusual biodiversity. The climate is oceanic and tropical. Mau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinct Birds Of Madagascar
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryote globally, and possibly many times more if microorganisms, like bacteria, are included. Notable extinct animal species include non-avian dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, dodos, m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alopochen
''Alopochen'' is a genus of the bird family Anatidae, part of the subfamily Tadorninae along with the shelducks. It contains one extant species, the Egyptian goose (''Alopochen aegyptiaca''), and two or three species which became extinct in the last 1000 years or so. The Egyptian goose is native to mainland Africa, and the extinct species are from Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands. mtDNA cytochrome ''b'' sequence data suggest that the relationships of ''Alopochen'' to ''Tadorna'' need further investigation. Species * Egyptian goose, ''Alopochen aegyptiaca'' The extinct species of the genus are: * Malagasy shelduck or Madagascar shelduck, ''Alopochen sirabensis'' (Andrews 1897) (may be subspecies of ''A. mauritiana'') – Madagascar, prehistoric: see Late Quaternary prehistoric birds * Mauritius sheldgoose, ''Alopochen mauritiana'' (Newton & Gadow 1893)– Mauritius, late 1690s * Réunion sheldgoose or Kervazo's Egyptian goose, ''Alopochen kervazoi'' (Cowles 1994) Mourer-Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Madagascar
The history of Madagascar is distinguished clearly by the early isolation of the landmass from the ancient supercontinent containing Africa and India, and by the island's late colonization by human settlers from the Sunda islands (Malay Archipelago) and from East Africa. These two factors facilitated the evolution and survival of thousands of endemic plant and animal species, some of which have gone extinct or are currently threatened with extinction. Trade in the Indian Ocean at the time of first colonization of Madagascar was dominated by Indonesian ships, probably of Borobudur ship and K'un-lun po types. Over the past two thousand years the island has received waves of settlers of diverse origins including Austronesian, Bantu, Arab, South Asian, Chinese, and European. The majority of the population of Madagascar today is a mixture of Austronesian and Bantu settlers. Despite popular belief, there has been no genetic input from Arabs or Indians, although one tribe, the Ant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biome
A biome () is a biogeographical unit consisting of a biological community that has formed in response to the physical environment in which they are found and a shared regional climate. Biomes may span more than one continent. Biome is a broader term than habitat and can comprise a variety of habitats. While a biome can cover large areas, a microbiome is a mix of organisms that coexist in a defined space on a much smaller scale. For example, the human microbiome is the collection of bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms that are present on or in a human body. A biota is the total collection of organisms of a geographic region or a time period, from local geographic scales and instantaneous temporal scales all the way up to whole-planet and whole-timescale spatiotemporal scales. The biotas of the Earth make up the biosphere. Etymology The term was suggested in 1916 by Clements, originally as a synonym for '' biotic community'' of Möbius (1877). Later, it gained its c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Era
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the original Anno Domini (AD) and Before Christ (BC) notations used for the same calendar era. The two notation systems are numerically equivalent: " CE" and "AD " each describe the current year; "400 BCE" and "400 BC" are the same year. The expression traces back to 1615, when it first appeared in a book by Johannes Kepler as the la, annus aerae nostrae vulgaris (), and to 1635 in English as " Vulgar Era". The term "Common Era" can be found in English as early as 1708, and became more widely used in the mid-19th century by Jewish religious scholars. Since the later 20th century, BCE and CE have become popular in academic and scientific publications because BCE and CE are religiously neutral terms. They are used by others who wish to be sensit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Before Present
Before Present (BP) years, or "years before present", is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use 1 January 1950 as the commencement date (epoch) of the age scale. The abbreviation "BP" has been interpreted retrospectively as "Before Physics", which refers to the time before nuclear weapons testing artificially altered the proportion of the carbon isotopes in the atmosphere, which scientists must now account for. In a convention that is not always observed, many sources restrict the use of BP dates to those produced with radiocarbon dating; the alternative notation RCYBP stands for the explicit "radio carbon years before present". Usage The BP scale is sometimes used for dates established by means other than radiocarbon dating, such as stratigraphy. This usage differs from t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radiocarbon Dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was developed in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby. It is based on the fact that radiocarbon () is constantly being created in the Earth's atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide, which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis; animals then acquire by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of it contains begins to decrease as the undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of in a sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone, provides information that can be used to calc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beloha
Beloha is a town in Androy Region, Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa .... It is situated along the unpaved Route nationale 10. {{Androy-geo-stub Androy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mauritius Sheldgoose
The Mauritius sheldgoose (''Alopochen mauritiana''), also known as the Mauritius shelduck, is an extinct species of sheldgoose that was endemic to the island of Mauritius. While geese were mentioned by visitors to Mauritius in the 17th century, few details were provided by these accounts. In 1893, a carpometacarpus wing-bone and a pelvis from the Mare aux Songes swamp were used to name a new species of comb duck, ''Sarcidiornis mauritianus''. These bones were connected to the contemporary accounts of geese and later determined to belong to a species related to the Egyptian goose, and placed in the sheldgoose genus ''Alopochen''. The Mauritius and Réunion sheldgoose may have descended from Egyptian geese that colonised the Mascarene islands. One contemporary account states that the Mauritius sheldgoose had wings that were half black and half white, and that they were not very large. It may also be depicted in one illustration. Fossil elements show that it was smaller than the Eg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles William Andrews
Charles William Andrews (30 October 1866 – 25 May 1924) F.R.S., was a British palaeontologist whose career as a vertebrate paleontologist, both as a curator and in the field, was spent in the services of the British Museum, Department of Geology. Biography Andrews was born in Hampstead, Middlesex . A graduate of the University of London, Andrews was awarded an assistant's position at the British Museum, after a competitive exam, in 1892. His first concerns were with fossil birds, and he described '' Aepyornis titan'', the extinct "Elephant Bird" of Madagascar (1894). He noticed the connections among widely separated flightless rails of Mauritius, the Chatham Islands and New Zealand and deduced that their flightless character had been independently evolved on the spot. Alfred Nicholson Leeds' gifts to the British Museum of Jurassic marine reptiles from the Oxford Clay of Peterborough elicited his interest in plesiosaurs and other sea-reptiles which culminated in a catalo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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