|
Niabi Zoo
Niabi Zoo is a public Zoological Park in Coal Valley, Illinois, serving the Quad Cities Area. This 40 acre zoo is nestled inside its 287 acre forest preserve. The exploration of this picturesque setting guides guests through the discovery of more than 600 (previously 800) animals representing nearly 200 animal species from around the world. Niabi Zoo is open for general admission April–October annually and offers robust education and outreach programs year round. Niabi is one of six facilities owned and operated by the Rock Island County Forest Preserve District. History The zoo's name "Niabi" comes from the Native Americans language of the Wazhazhe (Osage Nation) and means "the fawn spared by the hunter." This meaning gives an insight into human nature and the power of choice. As the choice is made to spare the fawn to preserve it for the future, people are faced with the same choice when it comes to the conservation of species, habitats and global ecosystems. Niabi Zoo w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snow Leopard
The snow leopard (''Panthera uncia''), also known as the ounce, is a Felidae, felid in the genus ''Panthera'' native to the mountain ranges of Central Asia, Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable species, Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because the global population is estimated to number fewer than 10,000 mature individuals and is expected to decline about 10% by 2040. It is threatened by poaching and habitat destruction following infrastructural developments. It inhabits Alpine climate, alpine and subalpine zones at elevations of , ranging from eastern Afghanistan, the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau to southern Siberia, Mongolia and western China. In the northern part of its range, it also lives at lower elevations. Taxonomy (biology), Taxonomically, the snow leopard was long classified in the monotypic genus ''Uncia''. Since Phylogenetics, phylogenetic studies revealed the relationships among ''Panthera'' species, it has been considered a member of that Genus ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gibbon
Gibbons () are apes in the family Hylobatidae (). The family historically contained one genus, but now is split into four extant genera and 20 species. Gibbons live in subtropical and tropical rainforest from eastern Bangladesh to Northeast India to southern China and Indonesia (including the islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Java). Also called the lesser apes, gibbons differ from great apes ( bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and humans) in being smaller, exhibiting low sexual dimorphism, and not making nests. Like all apes, gibbons are tailless. Unlike most of the great apes, gibbons frequently form long-term pair bonds. Their primary mode of locomotion, brachiation, involves swinging from branch to branch for distances up to , at speeds as fast as . They can also make leaps up to , and walk bipedally with their arms raised for balance. They are the fastest of all tree-dwelling, nonflying mammals. Depending on the species and sex, gibbons' fur coloration varies from dar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamarin
The tamarins are squirrel-sized New World monkeys from the family Callitrichidae in the genus ''Saguinus''. They are the first offshoot in the Callitrichidae tree, and therefore are the sister group of a clade formed by the lion tamarins, Goeldi's monkeys and marmosets. Taxonomy and evolutionary history Hershkovitz (1977) recognised ten species in the genus ''Saguinus'', further divided into 33 morphotypes based on facial pelage. A later classification into two clades was based on variations in dental measurements. A taxonomic review (Rylands et al., 2016) showed the tamarins are a sister group to all other callitrichids, branching off 15–13 million years ago. Within this clade, six species groups are historically recognised, ''nigricollis'', ''mystax'', ''midas'', ''inustus'', ''bicolor'' and ''oedipus'', five of which were shown to be valid with ''Sanguinus inustus'' placed within the ''midas'' group. The review noted that the smaller-bodied ''nigricollis'' group began dive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invertebrate
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate subphylum Vertebrata. Familiar examples of invertebrates include arthropods, mollusks, annelids, echinoderms and cnidarians. The majority of animal species are invertebrates; one estimate puts the figure at 97%. Many invertebrate taxa have a greater number and variety of species than the entire subphylum of Vertebrata. Invertebrates vary widely in size, from 50 μm (0.002 in) rotifers to the 9–10 m (30–33 ft) colossal squid. Some so-called invertebrates, such as the Tunicata and Cephalochordata, are more closely related to vertebrates than to other invertebrates. This makes the invertebrates paraphyletic, so the term has little meaning in taxonomy. Etymology The word "invertebrate" comes from the Latin word ''vertebra'', whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Rhinoceros
The white rhinoceros, white rhino or square-lipped rhinoceros (''Ceratotherium simum'') is the largest extant species of rhinoceros. It has a wide mouth used for grazing (behaviour), grazing and is the most social of all rhino species. The white rhinoceros consists of two subspecies: the southern white rhinoceros, with an estimated 19,682–21,077 wild-living animals in the year 2015, and the much rarer northern white rhinoceros. The northern subspecies has very few remaining individuals, with only two confirmed left in 2018 (two females: Fatu, 18 and Najin, 29), both in captivity. Sudan (rhinoceros), Sudan, the world's last known male Northern white rhinoceros, died in Kenya on 19 March 2018 at age 45. Naming A popular albeit widely discredited theory of the origins of the name "white rhinoceros" is a mistranslation from Dutch to English. The English word "white" is said to have been derived by mistranslation of the Dutch word "wijd", which means "wide" in English. The word " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zoological Association Of America
The Zoological Association of America (ZAA) is a non-profit organization founded in 2005 dedicated to responsible wildlife management, conservation, and education. The ZAA is headquartered in Punta Gorda, Florida, and accredits zoos and aquariums within the United States. History In 1987, former Sedgewick County Zoo director Ron Blakely invited experts on animal care and zookeeping from public and private institutions to form an organization in opposition to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), which resulted in the formation of the International Society of Zooculturists (ISZ). In February 2005, the ISZ and sister organization United Zoological Association (UZA) merged to form the ZAA. Former Lowry Park Zoo CEO Lex Salisbury would host the ZAA in 2007, and use the zoo's facilities to run the organization in 2008. Accreditation and activities The ZAA operates on a membership, which must be applied for before the accreditation process. In order to apply for accreditati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whale Shark
The whale shark (''Rhincodon typus'') is a slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest known extant fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of .McClain CR, Balk MA, Benfield MC, Branch TA, Chen C, Cosgrove J, Dove ADM, Gaskins LC, Helm RR, Hochberg FG, Lee FB, Marshall A, McMurray SE, Schanche C, Stone SN, Thaler AD. 2015. "Sizing ocean giants: patterns of intraspecific size variation in marine megafauna". ''PeerJ'' 3:e715 . The whale shark holds many records for size in the animal kingdom, most notably being by far the largest living nonmammalian vertebrate. It is the sole member of the genus ''Rhincodon'' and the only extant member of the family Rhincodontidae, which belongs to the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. Before 1984 it was classified as ''Rhiniodon'' into Rhinodontidae. The whale shark is found in open waters of the tropical oceans and is rarely found in water below . Studies looking at vertebral growth bands and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozambique to the east. The capital and largest city is Harare. The second largest city is Bulawayo. A country of roughly 15 million people, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English, Shona language, Shona, and Northern Ndebele language, Ndebele the most common. Beginning in the 9th century, during its late Iron Age, the Bantu peoples, Bantu people (who would become the ethnic Shona people, Shona) built the city-state of Great Zimbabwe which became one of the major African trade centres by the 11th century, controlling the gold, ivory and copper trades with the Swahili coast, which were connected to Arab and Indian states. By the mid 15th century, the city-state had been abandoned. From there, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe was established, fol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Painted Dog
The African wild dog (''Lycaon pictus''), also called the painted dog or Cape hunting dog, is a wild canine which is a native species to sub-Saharan Africa. It is the largest wild canine in Africa, and the only extant member of the genus '' Lycaon'', which is distinguished from ''Canis'' by dentition highly specialised for a hypercarnivorous diet, and by a lack of dewclaws. It is estimated that about 6,600 adults (including 1,400 mature individuals) live in 39 subpopulations that are all threatened by habitat fragmentation, human persecution, and outbreaks of disease. As the largest subpopulation probably comprises fewer than 250 individuals, the African wild dog has been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1990. The species is a specialised diurnal hunter of antelopes, which it catches by chasing them to exhaustion. Its natural enemies are lions and spotted hyenas: the former will kill the dogs where possible, whilst hyenas are frequent kleptoparasites. Like other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snow Leopard Trust
The Snow Leopard Trust is the largest and oldest organization working solely to protect the endangered snow leopard (''Panthera uncia'') and its habitat in 12 countries of Central Asia. The trust is a non-profit organization with its headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The present total population of snow leopards in the wild is estimated at between 3,920 and 6,390. History The trust was founded in 1981 by Helen Elaine Freeman. Working as a volunteer at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, Freeman became fascinated with the snow leopards there and learned about their endangered plight. She later joined the staff of the zoo and was motivated to set up the trust to protect the snow leopard in the wild, and its habitat. She also began the trust’s philosophy of helping the people sharing the snow leopard’s habitat improve their standard of living in exchange for protecting the animal. Snow leopard conservation programs The trust performs scientific research projects, manages comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Wolf
The red wolf (''Canis rufus'') is a canine native to the southeastern United States. Its size is intermediate between the coyote (''Canis latrans'') and gray wolf (''Canis lupus''). The red wolf's taxonomic classification as being a separate species, a subspecies of the gray wolf ''Canis lupus rufus'', or a coywolf (a genetic admixture of wolf and coyote) has been contentious for nearly a century. Because of this, it is sometimes excluded from endangered species lists, despite its critically low numbers. Under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service currently recognizes the red wolf as an endangered species and grants protected status. Since 1996, the IUCN has listed the red wolf as a Critically Endangered species; however, it is not listed in the CITES Appendices of endangered species. History Red wolves were originally distributed throughout the southeastern and south-central United States from the Atlantic Ocean to central Texas, southeastern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Painted Dog")
