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Nepean Island (Norfolk Island)
Nepean Island ( Norfuk: ''Nepeyan Ailen'') is a small uninhabited island located about south of Norfolk Island in the Southwest Pacific. The island is about in area. Nepean Island is uninhabited due to its small size and tall cliffs flanking it, making landfall nearly impossible for small boats. It is part of the Commonwealth of Australia's external territory of Norfolk Island, and is included in the Norfolk Island National Park as is nearby Phillip Island and about 10 percent of Norfolk Island proper. History Unlike Norfolk and Phillip Islands, Nepean is not volcanic in origin, but is Late Pleistocene limestone formed from wind blown sand dunes between the last two ice ages. Calcareous sand grains were bound by carbonate cement to form a calcarenite limestone. Although Polynesian people were known to have settled around Kingston, no evidence of Polynesian settlement has been found on Nepean Island. The island was first cleared during the First Settlement. Nepean was used ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norfuk Language
Norfuk ( pih, Norfuk) (increasingly spelt Norfolk) or Norf'k is the language spoken on Norfolk Island (in the Pacific Ocean) by the local residents. It is a blend of 18th-century English and Tahitian, originally introduced by Pitkern-speaking settlers from the Pitcairn Islands. Along with English, it is the co-official language of Norfolk Island. Norfuk has always been a linguistic cant.Donald Laycock (1989) 'The Status of Pitcairn-Norfolk: Creole, Dialect or Cant? In Ammon (ed.) ''Status and Function of Language and Language Varieties'', Walter de Gruyter As travel to and from Norfolk Island becomes more common, Norfuk is falling into disuse. Efforts are being made to restore the language to more common usage, such as the education of children, the publication of English–Norfuk dictionaries, the use of the language in signage, and the renaming of some tourist attractions – most notably the rainforest walk "" – to their Norfuk equivalents. In 2007, the United Nations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colony Of New South Wales
The Colony of New South Wales was a colony of the British Empire from 1788 to 1901, when it became a State of the Commonwealth of Australia. At its greatest extent, the colony of New South Wales included the present-day Australian states of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia, the Northern Territory as well as New Zealand. The first "responsible" self-government of New South Wales was formed on 6 June 1856 with Sir Stuart Alexander Donaldson appointed by Governor Sir William Denison as its first Colonial Secretary. History Formation On 18 January 1788, the First Fleet led by Captain Arthur Phillip founded the first British settlement in Australian history as a penal colony. Having set sail on 13 May 1787, Captain Arthur Phillip assumed the role of governor of the settlement upon arrival. On 18 January 1788, the first ship of the First Fleet, HMS ''Supply'', with Phillip aboard, reached Botany Bay. However, Botany Bay was found to be unsuita ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brown Noddy
The brown noddy or common noddy (''Anous stolidus'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. The largest of the noddies, it can be told from the closely related black noddy by its larger size and plumage, which is dark brown rather than black. The brown noddy is a tropical seabird with a worldwide distribution, ranging from Hawaii to the Tuamotu Archipelago and Australia in the Pacific Ocean, from the Red Sea to the Seychelles and Australia in the Indian Ocean and in the Caribbean to Tristan da Cunha in the Atlantic Ocean. The brown noddy is colonial, usually nesting on elevated situations on cliffs or in short trees or shrubs. It only occasionally nests on the ground. A single egg is laid by the female of a pair each breeding season. In India, the brown noddy is protected in the PM Sayeed Marine Birds Conservation Reserve. Taxonomy The first formal description of the brown noddy was by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''Systema Naturae'' u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wedge-tailed Shearwater
The wedge-tailed shearwater (''Ardenna pacifica'') is a medium-large shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. It is one of the shearwater species that is sometimes referred to as a muttonbird, like the sooty shearwater of New Zealand and the short-tailed shearwater of Australia. It ranges throughout the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans, roughly between latitudes 35°N and 35°S. It breeds on islands off Japan, on the Islas Revillagigedo, the Hawaiian Islands, the Seychelles, the Northern Mariana Islands, and off Eastern and Western Australia. Taxonomy The wedge-tailed shearwater was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's ''Systema Naturae''. He placed it with the petrels in the genus ''Procellaria'' and coined the binomial name ''Procellaria pacifica''. Gmelin based his description on the "Pacific petrel" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Noddy
The black noddy or white-capped noddy (''Anous minutus'') is a seabird from the family Laridae. It is a medium-sized species of tern with black plumage and a white cap. It closely resembles the lesser noddy (''Anous tenuirostris'') with which it was at one time considered conspecific. The black noddy has slightly darker plumage and dark rather than pale lores. Taxonomy The black noddy was first formally described by German naturalist and lawyer Friedrich Boie in 1844 under its current binomial name. The genus name ''Anous'' is ancient Greek for "stupid" or "foolish". The specific name ''minutus'' is the Latin for "small". There are seven subspecies: *''A. m. worcesteri'' (McGregor, 1911) – Cavilli Island and Tubbataha Reef ( Sulu Sea) *''A. m. minutus'' Boie, 1844 – northeast Australia and New Guinea to Tuamotu Archipelago *''A. m. marcusi'' (Bryan, 1903) – Marcus and Wake Islands through Micronesia to the Caroline Islands *''A. m. melanogenys'' Gray, 1846 – Hawaiian I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grey Noddy
The grey noddy or grey ternlet (''Anous albivitta'') is a seabird belonging to the Family (biology), family Laridae. It was once regarded as a pale morph (zoology), morph of the blue noddy (''Anous cerulea'') but is now usually considered to be a separate species. Taxonomy The first species description, formal description of the grey noddy was by the French ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1856 under the binomial name ''Procelsterna albivitta''. The specific name ''albivitta'' is from the Latin ''abus'' for "white" and ''vitta'' for "band" or "head-band". The grey noddy was formerly placed in the genus ''Procelsterna''. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2016 found that the five noddies formed a single clade with the grey noddy and blue noddy in ''Procelsterna'' nested within the species in the genus ''Anous''. The authors proposed that the noddies should be merged into a single genus ''Anous'' and that ''Procelsterna'' should be considered as a Synonym (taxo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Shearwater
The little shearwater (''Puffinus assimilis'') is a small shearwater in the petrel family Procellariidae. Despite the generic name, it is unrelated to the puffins, which are auks, the only similarity being that they are both burrow-nesting seabirds. Description This shearwater has the typically "shearing" flight of the genus, dipping from side to side on stiff wings with few beats, the wingtips almost touching the water, though in light winds it has a more flapping flight than that of its larger relatives. In flight it looks cross-shaped, with its wings held at right angles to the body, its colouration changing from black to white as the black upperparts and white underparts are alternately exposed as it travels low over the sea. At in length with a wingspan, it is like a small Manx shearwater but has proportionally shorter and broader wings, with a pale area on the inner flight feathers. Its bill is more slender than that of Manx, and its dark eye stands out against the surr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masked Booby
The masked booby (''Sula dactylatra''), also called the masked gannet or the blue-faced booby, is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae. First described by the French naturalist René-Primevère Lesson in 1831, the masked booby is one of six species of booby in the genus '' Sula''. It has a typical sulid body shape, with a long pointed yellowish bill, long neck, aerodynamic body, long slender wings and pointed tail. The adult is bright white with black wings, a black tail and a dark face mask; at long, it is the largest species of booby. The sexes have similar plumage. This species ranges across tropical oceans, except in the eastern Atlantic and eastern Pacific. In the latter, it is replaced by the Nazca booby (''Sula granti''), which was formerly regarded as a subspecies of masked booby. Nesting takes place in colonies, generally on islands and atolls far from the mainland and close to deep water required for foraging. Territorial when breeding, the masked ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juncus
''Juncus'' is a genus of monocotyledonous flowering plants, commonly known as rushes. It is the largest genus in the family Juncaceae, containing around 300 species. Description Rushes of the genus ''Juncus'' are herbaceous plants that superficially resemble grasses or sedges. They have historically received little attention from botanists; in his 1819 monograph, James Ebenezer Bicheno described the genus as "obscure and uninviting". The form of the flower differentiates rushes from grasses or sedges. The flowers of ''Juncus'' comprise five whorls of floral parts: three sepals, three petals (or, taken together, six tepals), two to six stamens (in two whorls) and a stigma with three lobes. The stems are round in cross-section, unlike those of sedges, which are typically somewhat triangular in cross-section. In ''Juncus'' section ''Juncotypus'' (formerly called ''Juncus'' subg. ''Genuini''), which contains some of the most widespread and familiar species, the leaves are reduced t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linum Marginale
''Linum marginale'', commonly known as native flax or wild flax, is a species of flowering plant in the family Linaceae and is endemic to Australia. It is a perennial herb with few branches, linear leaves, and blue flowers with five usually blue petals with darker veins. Description ''Linum marginale'' is a glabrous, often glaucous, perennial herb that typically grows to a height of and has a single stem or a few, branching at the base. The leaves are linear to narrow elliptic, long and wide with a single vein. The flowers are borne singly or in loose panicles on the ends of the stem, each flower on a pedicel long. The sepals are egg-shaped, long with thin edges, the petals are usually blue, rarely white, sometimes with darker veins, long and the anthers are white. Flowering occurs in spring and summer and the fruit is a more or less spherical capsule in diameter and containing brown seeds. Taxonomy ''Linum marginale'' was first formally described in 1825 by Allan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyperaceae
The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large, with some 5,500 known species described in about 90 genera, the largest being the "true sedges" genus ''Carex'' with over 2,000 species. These species are widely distributed, with the centers of diversity for the group occurring in tropical Asia and tropical South America. While sedges may be found growing in almost all environments, many are associated with wetlands, or with poor soils. Ecological communities dominated by sedges are known as sedgelands or sedge meadows. Some species superficially resemble the closely related rushes and the more distantly related grasses. Features distinguishing members of the sedge family from grasses or rushes are stems with triangular cross-sections (with occasional exceptions, a notable example being the tule which has a round cross-section) and leaves that are spirally arranged in three ranks. In comparison, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetragonia Tetragonioides
''Tetragonia tetragonioides'', commonly called New Zealand spinach, Warrigal greens and other local names, is a flowering plant in the fig-marigold family (Aizoaceae). It is often cultivated as a leafy vegetable. It is a widespread species, native to eastern Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. It has been introduced and is an invasive species in many parts of Africa, Europe, North America, and South America. Its natural habitat is sandy shorelines and bluffs, often in disturbed areas. It is a halophyte and grows well in saline ground. Description The plant has a trailing habit, and will form a thick carpet on the ground or climb through other vegetation and hang downwards. It can have erect growth when young. The leaves of the plant are 3–15 cm long, triangular in shape, and bright green. The leaves are thick, and covered with tiny papillae that look like waterdrops on the top and bottom of the leaves. The flowers of the plant are yellow, and the fruit is a small, hard c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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