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Otocryptis Wiegmanni
''Otocryptis wiegmanni'', commonly called the brown-patched kangaroo lizard, Sri Lankan kangaroo lizard or Wiegmann's agama, is a small, ground-dwelling agamid lizard endemic to Sri Lanka. Etymology The specific name, ''wiegmanni'', is in honour of German herpetologist Arend Friedrich August Wiegmann.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Otocryptis wiegmanni'', p. 285). Habitat The preferred habitat of ''O. wiegmanni'' is the wet zone forests and lower mountain forests (rainfall >2000 mm), up to , of Sri Lanka. It is commonly seen in the leaf litter of shady rain forests. Defensive behaviour When perceiving danger, ''O. wiegmanni'' spurts away quickly on its large hind legs and might eventually climb up a sapling or tree. Diet ''O. wiegmanni'' feeds on small insects, grubs, and tender shoots. Deraniyagala PEP (1953). ''A Colored Atlas of some Vertebrat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Georg Wagler
Johann Georg Wagler (28 March 1800 – 23 August 1832) was a German herpetologist and ornithologist. Wagler was assistant to Johann Baptist von Spix, and gave lectures in zoology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich after it was moved to Munich. He worked on the extensive collections brought back from Brazil by Spix, and published partly together with him books on reptiles from Brazil. Wagler wrote ''Monographia Psittacorum'' (1832), which included the correct naming of the blue macaws. In 1832, Wagler died of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound while out collecting in München-Moosach. Life Johann Georg Wagler was a German naturalist and scientist in the 19th century, whose works primarily focused on herpetology and ornithology (Beolens, Watkins & Grayson, 2011). Johan Georg Wagler was born on the 28th of March 1800, in the city of Nuremberg, where the Chancellor of the City Court was Wagler's father (Wagler, 1884). After taking up gymnastics at Nuremberg, J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otocryptis Beddomii
''Agasthyagama beddomii'', commonly known as the Indian kangaroo lizard, is a diurnal, terrestrial, insectivorous agamid lizard, endemic to the Western Ghats of South India. Etymology The specific name, ''beddomii'', is in honor of British army officer and botanist Richard Henry Beddome (1830–1911). The common name, Indian kangaroo lizard, is derived from the lizard's habit of running on its hind legs with the body held upright. Geographic range ''A. beddomii'' is endemic to Western Ghats, where it is known from Sivagiri Hills ( type locality), Agasthyamalai, Cardamom Hills and Travancore hills in Tamil Nadu and Kerala states. Description From snout to vent ''A. beddomii'' is about long with a tail of about . The head is covered in scales that have a sharp keel running along the centre, a feature also found in the Sri Lankan species ('' O. nigristigma'' and '' O. wiegmanni'' ). The scales on the head between the eyes are smaller and form about two or three longitudi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemic Fauna Of Sri Lanka
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reptiles Of Sri Lanka
This is a list of reptiles of Sri Lanka. The reptilian diversity in Sri Lanka is higher than the diversity of other vertebrates such as mammals and fish with 181 reptile species. All extant reptiles are well documented through research by many local and foreign scientists and naturalists. Sri Lankan herpetologist, Anslem de Silva largely studied the biology and ecology of Sri Lanka snakes, where he documented 96 species of land and sea snakes. Five genera are endemic to Sri Lanka - ''Aspidura'', ''Balanophis'', ''Cercaspis'', ''Haplocercus'', and ''Pseudotyphlops''. Out of them only five of the land snakes are considered potentially deadly and life threatening to humans. Among snakes, 54 are endemic to Sri Lanka. The total increased to 107 with new descriptions of ''Dendrelaphis'', ''Rhinophis'', ''Aspidura'' and ''Dryocalamus''. Lizard diversity in the island has been documented and studied by many local scientists and researchers such as Imesh Nuwan Bandara, Kalana Maduwage, Anj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otocryptis
''Otocryptis'' is a genus of Agamidae, agamid lizards from the Indian subcontinent. It is the sister group for the clade formed by ''Sitana'' and ''Sarada (lizard), Sarada''. The divergence is estimated to have occurred about 12 million years ago. ''Otocryptis'' are terrestrial lizards that can use bipedal locomotion. Species There are two species: *''Otocryptis nigristigma'' Bahir and Silva, 2005 *''Otocryptis wiegmanni'' Wagler, 1830 – Wiegmann's agama References * * Otocryptis Lizard genera Taxa named by Johann Georg Wagler {{Agamidae-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malcolm Arthur Smith
Malcolm Arthur Smith (1875 in New Malden, Surrey – 1958 in Ascot) was a herpetologist and physician working in the Malay Peninsula. Early life Smith was interested in reptiles and amphibians from an early age. After completing a degree in medicine and surgery in London in 1898, he left for the then Kingdom of Siam (today Thailand) as a doctor to the British Embassy in Bangkok. In 1921 he married Eryl Glynne of Bangor, who as well as being medically trained, made significant collections of ferns from Thailand and later worked at RBG Kew. She was killed in a car crash near Bangkok in 1930. The couple had three children including the mountaineer Cymryd "Cym" Smith, also killed in a road accidenEryl was the elder sister of the mountaineer and plant pathologist Mary Dilys Glynne. Work Smith went on to become the physician in the royal court of Siam and was a close confidant and a doctor to the royal family. He published his observations on the reptiles and amphibians during hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Albert Boulenger
George Albert Boulenger (19 October 1858 – 23 November 1937) was a Belgian-British zoologist who described and gave scientific names to over 2,000 new animal species, chiefly fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Boulenger was also an active botanist during the last 30 years of his life, especially in the study of roses. Life Boulenger was born in Brussels, Belgium, the only son of Gustave Boulenger, a Belgian public notary, and Juliette Piérart, from Valenciennes. He graduated in 1876 from the Free University of Brussels with a degree in natural sciences, and worked for a while at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, as an assistant naturalist studying amphibians, reptiles, and fishes. He also made frequent visits during this time to the ''Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle'' in Paris and the British Museum in London. In 1880, he was invited to work at the Natural History Museum, then a department of the British Museum, by Dr. Albert C. L. G. Günther a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Territory (animal)
In ethology, territory is the sociographical area that an animal consistently defends against conspecific competition (or, occasionally, against animals of other species) using agonistic behaviors or (less commonly) real physical aggression. Animals that actively defend territories in this way are referred to as being territorial or displaying territorialism. Territoriality is only shown by a minority of species. More commonly, an individual or a group of animals occupies an area that it habitually uses but does not necessarily defend; this is called its home range. The home ranges of different groups of animals often overlap, and in these overlap areas the groups tend to avoid each other rather than seeking to confront and expel each other. Within the home range there may be a ''core area'' that no other individual group uses, but, again, this is as a result of avoidance. Function The ultimate function of animals inhabiting and defending a territory is to increase the indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gular Sac
Gular skin (throat skin), in ornithology, is an area of featherless skin on birds that joins the lower mandible of the beak (or ''bill'') to the bird's neck. Other vertebrate taxa may have a comparable anatomical structure that is referred to as either a gular sac, throat sac, vocal sac or gular fold. In birds Gular skin can be very prominent, for example in members of the order Phalacrocoraciformes as well as in pelicans (which likely share a common ancestor). In many species, the gular skin forms a flap, or gular pouch, which is generally used to store fish and other prey while hunting. In cormorants, the gular skin is often colored, contrasting with the otherwise plain black or black-and-white appearance of the bird. This presumably serves some function in social signalling, since the colors become more pronounced in breeding adults. In frigatebirds, the gular skin (or gular sac or throat sac) is used dramatically. During courtship display, the male forces air into the sac, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South India
South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry, comprising 19.31% of India's area () and 20% of India's population. Covering the southern part of the peninsular Deccan Plateau, South India is bounded by the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and the Indian Ocean in the south. The geography of the region is diverse with two mountain ranges – the Western and Eastern Ghats – bordering the plateau heartland. The Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri, Tungabhadra, Periyar, Bharathappuzha, Pamba, Thamirabarani, Palar, and Vaigai rivers are important perennial rivers. The majority of the people in South India speak at least one of the four major Dravidian languages: Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada (all 4 of which are among the 6 Classic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala
Paulus Edward Pieris Deraniyagala (1900–1976) was a Sri Lankan paleontologist, zoologist, and artist. Early life and education He was born in Colombo, the son of Paul Edward Pieris and Lady Hilda Obeyesekere Pieris. He had two younger brothers, Justin Pieris Deraniyagala, Ralph St. Louis Pieris Deraniyagala, and a sister, Miriam Pieris Deraniyagala. He was educated at S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained a BA in 1922 and an Oxbridge MA in 1923. He entered Harvard University for a year, where he was awarded a Master of Arts in 1924. Career He specialised in fauna and human fossils of the Indian subcontinent. From 1939 to 1963, he was the director of the National Museum of Ceylon, and from 1961 to 1964, he was also the dean of the Faculty of Arts at the Vidyodaya University. He described several fossils and proposed scientific names for species and subspecies, with several now identified as dubious, including: *Sri Lankan rhinoceros ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arend Friedrich August Wiegmann
Arend Friedrich August Wiegmann (2 June 1802 – 15 January 1841) was a German zoology, zoologist and Herpetology, herpetologist born in Braunschweig. He studied medicine and philology at the University of Leipzig, and afterwards was an assistant to Martin Lichtenstein (1780–1857) in Berlin. In 1828 he became a professor at Cologne, and two years later was an extraordinary professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Wiegmann specialized in the study of herpetology and mammalogy. In 1835, he founded, together with other scholars, the zoological periodical ''Archiv für Naturgeschichte'', also known as "Wiegmann's Archive". With Johann Friedrich Ruthe (1788–1859) he wrote an important textbook of zoology called ''Handbuch der Zoologie'', and in 1834 Wiegmann published ''Herpetologia Mexicana'', a monograph on the reptiles of Mexico. In 1841 he died of tuberculosis at the age of 38 in Berlin. His father Arend Friedrich Wiegmann (1771–1853) a German researcher in botany. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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