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Nycteris Grandis
The large slit-faced bat (''Nycteris grandis'') is a species of slit-faced bat with a broad distribution in forest and savanna habitats in West, Central, and East Africa. ''N. marica'' (Kershaw, 1923), is the available name for the southern savanna species if it is recognized as distinct from this species. Description This bat is long and weighs less than (same for male and female). The name of this species comes from the furrow down its face. The furrow is partially covered by its nose-leaf. It has a reddish brown to gray fur on the back and upper areas. The torso is pale grey. Phylogeny The phylogeny of ''N. grandis'' is relatively unstable, but its closest relatives are ''N. hispida'' and ''N. aurita''. ''N. grandis'' can be easily distinguished by its size, as it is substantially larger than other members of the Nycteridae family. It has been suggested that there be a species subdivision established between ''N. grandis'' in Tanzania and Central Africa (''N. marica'') and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilhelm Peters
Wilhelm Karl Hartwich (or Hartwig) Peters (22 April 1815 in Koldenbüttel – 20 April 1883) was a German natural history, naturalist and explorer. He was assistant to the anatomist Johannes Peter Müller and later became curator of the Natural History Museum, Berlin, Berlin Zoological Museum. Encouraged by Müller and the explorer Alexander von Humboldt, Peters travelled to Mozambique via Angola in September 1842, exploring the coastal region and the Zambesi River. He returned to Berlin with an enormous collection of natural history specimens, which he then described in ''Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique... in den Jahren 1842 bis 1848 ausgeführt'' (1852–1882). The work was comprehensive in its coverage, dealing with mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, river fish, insects and botany. He replaced Martin Lichtenstein as curator of the museum in 1858, and in the same year he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In a few years, he g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slit-faced Bat
''Nycteris'' comprises a genus of bats commonly called slit-faced or hollow-faced bats. They are grouped in the family Nycteridae. The bats are found in East Malaysia, Indonesia, and many parts of Africa. Description They are small bats, from in body length, and with grey, brown, or reddish fur. The skull is distinguished by a characteristic interorbital concavity, externally connected to a long slit that runs down the centre of their faces from between the eyes to the nostrils, and probably assists in echolocation. They have large ears, and a complex nose-leaf. Their tails end in a T-shape, formed from cartilage, a unique feature among mammals. Their dental formula is: Nycterids have a reduction of the hand phalanges: the 2nd digit has only metacarpus, and the 3rd only two phalanges. The pectoral girdle has parallel features to birds. The sternum is strongly developed and the mesosternum has a keel. Habitat and biology Slit-faced bats inhabit rainforests and savanna, and r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Savanna
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses. According to '' Britannica'', there exists four savanna forms; ''savanna woodland'' where trees and shrubs form a light canopy, ''tree savanna'' with scattered trees and shrubs, ''shrub savanna'' with distributed shrubs, and ''grass savanna'' where trees and shrubs are mostly nonexistent.Smith, Jeremy M.B.. "savanna". Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 Sep. 2016, https://www.britannica.com/science/savanna/Environment. Accessed 17 September 2022. Savannas maintain an open canopy despite a high tree density. It is often believed that savannas feature widely spaced, scattered trees. However, in many savannas, tree densities are higher and trees are more regularly spaced than in for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Furrow
A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or steel frame, with a blade attached to cut and loosen the soil. It has been fundamental to farming for most of history. The earliest ploughs had no wheels; such a plough was known to the Romans as an ''aratrum''. Celtic peoples first came to use wheeled ploughs in the Roman era. The prime purpose of ploughing is to turn over the uppermost soil, bringing fresh nutrients to the surface while burying weeds and crop remains to decay. Trenches cut by the plough are called furrows. In modern use, a ploughed field is normally left to dry and then harrowed before planting. Ploughing and cultivating soil evens the content of the upper layer of soil, where most plant-feeder roots grow. Ploughs were initially powered by humans, but the use of farm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nose-leaf
A nose-leaf, or leaf nose, is an often large, lance-shaped nose, found in bats of the Phyllostomidae, Hipposideridae The Hipposideridae are a family of bats commonly known as the Old World leaf-nosed bats. While it has often been seen as a subfamily, Hipposiderinae, of the family Rhinolophidae, it is now more generally classified as its own family.Simmons, 20 ..., and Rhinolophidae families. Because these bats echolocate nasally, this nose-leaf is thought to serve some role in modifying and directing the echolocation call. The shape of the nose-leaf can be an important for identifying and classifying bats. Furthermore, the shape of the nose-leaf can identify behavior of the bat itself; by example, in the families that have the nose-leaf, experiments have shown it to act as a baffle and focus their emission beams. References {{bat-stub Bats Nose ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acacia Aldiba
''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus name is New Latin, borrowed from the Greek (), a term used by Dioscorides for a preparation extracted from the leaves and fruit pods of ''Vachellia nilotica'', the original type of the genus. In his ''Pinax'' (1623), Gaspard Bauhin mentioned the Greek from Dioscorides as the origin of the Latin name. In the early 2000s it had become evident that the genus as it stood was not monophyletic and that several divergent lineages needed to be placed in separate genera. It turned out that one lineage comprising over 900 species mainly native to Australia, New Guinea, and Indonesia was not closely related to the much smaller group of African lineage that contained ''A. nilotica''—the type species. This meant that the Australasian lineage (by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adansonia Digitata
''Adansonia digitata'', the African baobab, is the most widespread tree species of the genus ''Adansonia'', the baobabs, and is native to the African continent and the southern Arabian Peninsula (Yemen, Oman). These are long-lived pachycauls; radiocarbon dating has shown some individuals to be over 2,000 years old. They are typically found in dry, hot savannas of sub-Saharan Africa, where they dominate the landscape and reveal the presence of a watercourse from afar. They have traditionally been valued as sources of food, water, health remedies or places of shelter and are a key food source for many animals. They are steeped in legend and superstition. In recent years, many of the largest, oldest trees have died, possibly due to climate change. Common names for the baobab include monkey-bread tree, upside-down tree, and cream of tartar tree. Description African baobabs are trees that often grow as solitary individuals, and are large and distinctive elements of savanna or scrubla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mitragyna Stipulosa
''Mitragyna stipulosa'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. It is found in Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Uganda, and Zambia. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical swamps. It is threatened by habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby .... Sources Naucleeae Vulnerable plants Flora of West Tropical Africa Flora of West-Central Tropical Africa Flora of Chad Flora of Sudan Flora of Angola Flora of Zambia {{Cinchonoideae-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sun Spider
Solifugae is an order of animals in the class Arachnida known variously as camel spiders, wind scorpions, sun spiders, or solifuges. The order includes more than 1,000 described species in about 147 genera. Despite the common names, they are neither true scorpions (order Scorpiones), nor true spiders (order Araneae). Most species of Solifugae live in dry climates and feed opportunistically on ground-dwelling arthropods and other small animals. The largest species grow to a length of , including legs. A number of urban legends exaggerate the size and speed of the Solifugae, and their potential danger to humans, which is negligible. Anatomy Solifuges are moderately small to large arachnids (a few millimeters to several centimeters in body length), with the larger species reaching in length, including legs. In practice, the respective lengths of the legs of various species differ drastically, so the resulting figures are often misleading. More practical measurements refer primaril ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammals Described In 1865
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles (including birds) from which they diverged in the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. Around 6,400 extant species of mammals have been described divided into 29 orders. The largest orders, in terms of number of species, are the rodents, bats, and Eulipotyphla (hedgehogs, moles, shrews, and others). The next three are the Primates (including humans, apes, monkeys, and others), the Artiodactyla (cetaceans and even-toed ungulates), and the Carnivora (cats, dogs, seals, and others). In terms of cladistics, which reflects evolutionary history, mammals are the only living members of the Synapsida (synapsids); this clade, together with Sauropsida ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bats Of Africa
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out digits covered with a thin membrane or patagium. The smallest bat, and arguably the smallest extant mammal, is Kitti's hog-nosed bat, which is in length, across the wings and in mass. The largest bats are the flying foxes, with the giant golden-crowned flying fox, ''Acerodon jubatus'', reaching a weight of and having a wingspan of . The second largest order of mammals after rodents, bats comprise about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with over 1,400 species. These were traditionally divided into two suborders: the largely fruit-eating megabats, and the echolocating microbats. But more recent evidence has supported dividing the order into Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochirop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
