Merida Small-eared Shrew
   HOME
*





Merida Small-eared Shrew
The Merida small-eared shrew (''Cryptotis meridensis'') is a species of shrew that is endemic to Venezuela. Description ''C. meridensis'' is one of the largest small-eared shrews, with a head-body length of and a tail long. Males and females are of similar size, with adults weighing between . The fur is long, and chocolate brown over most of the body, fading to olive brown on the underside. Both the eyes and the ears are relatively small and are indistinct on external examination. The forepaws are large compared with other shrews, and have long claws. However, the species may be most easily distinguished from other small-eared shrews living in the same area by its upper canine teeth, which are unusually small, and are missing on one or both sides of the mouth in about 25% of individuals. Females have four teats, located on the inguinal region, while males have small, indistinct, scent glands on the flanks. Distribution and habitat Merida small-eared shrews are found only in m ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Oldfield Thomas
Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist. Career Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for the first time. He was appointed to the museum secretary's office in 1876, transferring to the zoological department in 1878. In 1891, Thomas married Mary Kane, daughter of Sir Andrew Clark, heiress to a small fortune, which gave him the finances to hire mammal collectors and present their specimens to the museum. He also did field work himself in Western Europe and South America. His wife shared his interest in natural history, and accompanied him on collecting trips. In 1896, when William Henry Flower took control of the department, he hired Richard Lydekker Richard Lydekker (; 25 July 1849 – 16 April 1915) was an English naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history. Biography Richard Lydekker was born at Tavistock Square in London. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Spider
Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all orders of organisms. Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every land habitat. , 50,356 spider species in 132 families have been recorded by taxonomists. However, there has been debate among scientists about how families should be classified, with over 20 different classifications proposed since 1900. Anatomically, spiders (as with all arachnids) differ from other arthropods in that the usual body segments are fused into two tagmata, the cephalothorax or prosoma, and the opisthosoma, or abdomen, and joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel, however, as there is currently neither paleontological nor embryological evidence that spiders ever had ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Taxonomy Articles Created By Polbot
Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification (general theory), classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. Among other things, a taxonomy can be used to organize and index knowledge (stored as documents, articles, videos, etc.), such as in the form of a library classification system, or a Taxonomy for search engines, search engine taxonomy, so that users can more easily find the information they are searching for. Many taxonomies are hierarchy, hierarchies (and thus, have an intrinsic tree structure), but not all are. Originally, taxonomy referred only to the categorisation of organisms or a particular categorisation of organisms. In a wider, more general sense, it may refer to a categorisation of things or concepts, as well as to the principles underlying such a categorisation. Taxonomy organizes taxonomic uni ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Páramo Fauna
Páramo () can refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range, South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrower term classifies the páramo according to its regional placement in the northern Andes of South America and adjacent southern Central America. The páramo is the ecosystem of the regions above the continuous forest line, yet below the permanent snowline. It is a "Neotropical high mountain biome with a vegetation composed mainly of giant rosette plants, shrubs and grasses". According to scientists, páramos may be "evolutionary hot spots", that meaning that it's among the fastest evolving regions on Earth. Location The Northern Andean Páramo global ecoregion includes the Cordillera Central páramo (Ecuador, Peru), Santa Marta páramo (Colombia), Cordillera de Merida páramo (Venezuela) and Northern Andean páramo (Colombia, Ecuador) ter ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Cryptotis
The genus ''Cryptotis'' is a group of relatively small shrews with short ears, which are usually not visible, and short tails, commonly called small-eared shrews. They have 30 teeth and are members of the red-toothed shrew subfamily. Since 1992, Neal Woodman (in cooperation with Robert Timm) at the United States National Museum has been in the process of revising the genus. To date, this has resulted in an increase in the number of species from 12 to 30. Members of the genus are found mainly in Central America; the North American least shrew, ''C. parva'', is the only species found north of Mexico. The genus occurs as far south as northern Peru and as far east as western Venezuela in South America. It is the only soricomorph genus found south of Guatemala. The limited diversity and restricted northern distribution of shrews in South America implies that the group entered the continent relatively recently from Central America, where they are more diverse, presumably as part of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Endemic Fauna Of Venezuela
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can be also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or in scientific literature as an ''endemite''. For example '' Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. '' Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a non-indigenous species from South America belonging to a different genus. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Mammals Of Venezuela
The fauna of Venezuela consists of a huge variety of animals. Venezuela's diverse wildlife includes manatees, Amazon river dolphins, and Orinoco crocodiles, which have been reported to reach up to in length. Some 23% of reptilian and 50% of amphibian species that inhabit the country are endemic to Venezuela. Overall, around 8,000 species (the world's 5th highest total) are endemic to the country. Venezuela hosts a total of 1,417 bird species, more than 351 mammals, 341 reptiles, 315 amphibians and more than 2,000 freshwater and marine fishes. Invertebrates groups have not been inventoried exhaustively, but among the well known groups there are around 900 species of marine molluscs, 1,600 butterflies, over 120 dung beetles species and 39 species of blowflies.Capelo, Juan C., Buitrago, Joaquín. 1998: Distribución geográfica de los moluscos marinos en el oriente de Venezuela. Memoria de la Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales La Salle, LXIII(150):109-160 Birds There are 1,416 bird s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Nasuella
Mountain coatis are two species of procyonid mammals from the genus ''Nasuella''. Unlike the larger coatis from the genus ''Nasua'', mountain coatis only weigh and are endemic to the north Andean highlands in South America. Genetics and taxonomy Genetic evidence indicates that the genus ''Nasua'' is only monophyletic if it also includes the mountain coatis. Based on cytochrome b sequences, ''Nasua nasua'' is the sister taxon to a clade consisting of ''Nasua narica'' plus both species of ''Nasuella''. Until recently only a single species with three subspecies was recognized. In 2009 this species was split into two species, the eastern mountain coati (''N. meridensis'') from Venezuela, and the western mountain coati (''N. olivacea'', with subspecies ''quitensis'') from Colombia and Ecuador. After a genetic analysis in 2020, the American Society of Mammalogists currently considers ''N. meridensis'' a synonym of ''N. olivacea''. Range and description Externally, the two species ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Long-tailed Weasel
The long-tailed weasel (''Neogale frenata''), also known as the bridled weasel, masked ermine, or big stoat, is a species of Mustelidae, mustelid distributed from southern Canada throughout all the United States and Mexico, southward through all of Central America and into northern South America. It is distinct from the Stoat, short-tailed weasel (''Mustela erminea''), also known as a "stoat", a close relation in the genus ''Mustela'' that originated in Eurasia and crossed into North America some half million years ago; the two species are visually similar, especially the black tail tip. Taxonomy Originally described in the genus ''Mustela'', a 2021 study reclassified it into the genus ''Neogale'' along with 2 other former ''Mustela'' species, as well as the two species formerly classified in ''Neovison''. Evolution The long-tailed weasel is the product of a process begun 5–7 million years ago, when northern forests were replaced by open grassland, thus prompting an explosiv ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Didelphis
''Didelphis'' is a genus of New World marsupials. The six species in the genus ''Didelphis'', commonly known as Large American opossums, are members of the ''opossum'' order, Didelphimorphia. The genus ''Didelphis'' is composed of cat-sized omnivorous species, which can be recognized by their prehensile tails and their tendency to feign death when cornered. The largest species, the Virginia opossum (''Didelphis virginiana''), is the only marsupial to be found in North America north of Mexico. The Virginia opossum has opposable toes on their two back feet. Phylogeny Cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to d ... of living large American opossums, the genus ''Didelphis'': Species References External links Opossums Marsupial genera Taxa named by Carl ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Barn Owl
The barn owl (''Tyto alba'') is the most widely distributed species of owl in the world and one of the most widespread of all species of birds, being found almost everywhere except for the polar and desert regions, Asia north of the Himalayas, most of Indonesia, and some Pacific Islands. It is also known as the common barn owl, to distinguish it from the other species in its family, Tytonidae, which forms one of the two main lineages of living owls, the other being the typical owls (''Strigidae''). There are at least three major lineages of barn owl: the western barn owl of Europe, western Asia, and Africa; the eastern barn owl of southeastern Asia and Australasia; and the American barn owl of the Americas. Some taxonomic authorities classify barn owls differently, recognising up to five separate species; and further research needs to be done to resolve the disparate taxonomies. There is considerable variation of size and colour among the approximately 28 subspecies, but most ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Snail
A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have a coiled shell that is large enough for the animal to retract completely into. When the word "snail" is used in this most general sense, it includes not just land snails but also numerous species of sea snails and freshwater snails. Gastropods that naturally lack a shell, or have only an internal shell, are mostly called '' slugs'', and land snails that have only a very small shell (that they cannot retract into) are often called ''semi-slugs''. Snails have considerable human relevance, including as food items, as pests, and as vectors of disease, and their shells are used as decorative objects and are incorporated into jewelry. The snail has also had some cultural significance, tending to be associated with lethargy. The sn ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]