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Pantherophis
''Pantherophis'' is a genus of nonvenomous colubrid snakes endemic to central and eastern regions of North America. It consists of the North American ratsnakes, the foxsnakes, and the cornsnakes. The genus, which contains 10 recognized species, first appeared in the fossil record in the Middle Miocene around 16.3 million years ago. They are a large terrestrial snake genus that lack subocular scales. Originally classified in the genus ''Elaphe'', phylogenetic studies have found this taxon to be closely related to '' Pituophis''. As with all snakes ''Pantherophis'' is an obligate faunivore with a diet that consists of small mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, and even insects. While many species conservation status is categorized as "least concern", many local populations in some species have declined where some places have them listed as federally protected. The corn snake (''P. guttatus'') is a popular pet reptile, due to the availability of captive-bred animals, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rat Snake
Rat snakes are members – along with kingsnakes, milk snakes, vine snakes and indigo snakes – of the subfamily Colubrinae of the family Colubridae. They are medium to large constrictors and are found throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere. They feed primarily on rodents. Many species make attractive and docile pets and one, the corn snake, is one of the most popular reptile pets in the world. As with all snakes, they can be defensive when approached too closely, handled, or restrained. However, rat snake bites are not dangerous to humans. Like nearly all colubrids, rat snakes pose no threat to humans. Rat snakes were long believed to be completely nonvenomous, but recent studies have shown that some Old World species do possess small amounts of venom, though the amount is negligible relative to humans. Previously, most rat snakes were assigned to the genus ''Elaphe'', but many have been since renamed following mitochondrial DNA analysis performed in 2002. For the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elaphe
''Elaphe'' is a genus of snakes in the family Colubridae. ''Elaphe'' is one of the main genera of the rat snakes, which are found in many regions of the northern hemisphere. ''Elaphe'' species are medium to large constrictors by nature. Although all of the species in ''Elaphe'' are nonvenomous, bites from rat snakes are still irritably painful and can potentially cause bacterial infections, especially due to the saliva."Rat snakes – lifecycle, predation, diet, bites, hibernation, pictures and videos." Ratsnake.org. (2010-09-23). Based on the mitochondrial DNA analysis results, many species of ''Elaphe'' have been moved to the genera '' [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fox Snake
Fox snake or foxsnake is the common name given to some North American rat snake Rat snakes are members – along with kingsnakes, milk snakes, vine snakes and indigo snakes – of the subfamily Colubrinae of the family Colubridae. They are medium to large constrictors and are found throughout much of the Northern Hemi ...s of the genus '' Pantherophis''. It is generally agreed that there are two such species, but three candidate species names have arisen for them: * '' Pantherophis gloydi'' (eastern fox snake), originally described by Conant in 1940, merged with ''P. vulpinus'' in 2011 * '' Pantherophis vulpinus'' (foxsnake or western fox snake or eastern fox snake), originally described by Baird and Girard in 1853 * '' Pantherophis ramspotti'' (western fox snake), originally described by Crother, White, Savage, Eckstut, Graham and Gardner in 2011 {{Animal common name Colubrids Set index articles on snakes Snake common names ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colubridae
Colubridae (, commonly known as colubrids , from la, coluber, 'snake') is a family of snakes. With 249 genera, it is the largest snake family. The earliest species of the family date back to the Oligocene epoch. Colubrid snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica. Description While most colubrids are not venomous (or have venom that is not known to be harmful to humans) and are mostly harmless, a few groups, such as genus ''Boiga'', can produce medically significant injuries. In addition, the boomslang The boomslang (, , or ; ''Dispholidus typus'') is a large, highly venomous snake in the family Colubridae. Taxonomy and etymology Its common name means "tree snake" in Afrikaans and Dutch – ''boom'' meaning "tree", and ''slang'' meaning "sna ..., the twig snakes, and the Asian genus ''Rhabdophis'' have caused human fatalities. Some colubrids are described as snake dentition, opisthoglyphous (often called "rear-fanged"), meaning they have elongated, grooved teet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snakes
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads ( cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spencer Fullerton Baird
Spencer Fullerton Baird (; February 3, 1823 – August 19, 1887) was an American naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist, herpetologist, and museum curator. Baird was the first curator to be named at the Smithsonian Institution. He eventually served as assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian from 1850 to 1878, and as Secretary from 1878 until 1887. He was dedicated to expanding the natural history collections of the Smithsonian which he increased from 6,000 specimens in 1850 to over 2 million by the time of his death. He published over 1,000 works during his lifetime. Early life and education Spencer Fullerton Baird was born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1823. His mother was a member of the prominent Philadelphia Biddle family; he was a nephew of Speaker of the Pennsylvania Senate Charles B. Penrose and a first cousin, once removed, of U.S. Senator Boies Penrose and his distinguished brothers, Richard, Spencer, and Charles. He became a self-trained naturalist as a young man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insects
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes and one pair of antennae. Their blood is not totally contained in vessels; some circulates in an open cavity known as the haemocoel. Insects are the most diverse group of animals; they include more than a million described species and represent more than half of all known living organisms. The total number of extant species is estimated at between six and ten million; In: potentially over 90% of the animal life forms on Earth are insects. Insects may be found in nearly all environments, although only a small number of species reside in the oceans, which are dominated by another arthropod group, crustaceans, which recent research has indicated insects are nested within. Nearly all insects hatch from eggs. Inse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amphibians
Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arboreal or freshwater aquatic ecosystems. Thus amphibians typically start out as larvae living in water, but some species have developed behavioural adaptations to bypass this. The young generally undergo metamorphosis from larva with gills to an adult air-breathing form with lungs. Amphibians use their skin as a secondary respiratory surface and some small terrestrial salamanders and frogs lack lungs and rely entirely on their skin. They are superficially similar to reptiles like lizards but, along with mammals and birds, reptiles are amniotes and do not require water bodies in which to breed. With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are often ecological indicators; in recent decades there has been a dramati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reptiles
Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates ( lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( tuatara). As of March 2022, the Reptile Database includes about 11,700 species. In the traditional Linnaean classification system, birds are considered a separate class to reptiles. However, crocodilians are more closely related to birds than they are to other living reptiles, and so modern cladistic classification systems include birds within Reptilia, redefining the term as a clade. Other cladistic definitions abandon the term reptile altogether in favor of the clade Sauropsida, which refers to all amniotes more closely related to modern reptiles than to mammals. The study of the traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of modern amphibians, is called herpetology. The earliest known proto-reptiles origi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birds
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimmin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammals
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 S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faunivore
A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other soft tissues) whether through hunting or scavenging. Nomenclature Mammal order The technical term for mammals in the order Carnivora is ''carnivoran'', and they are so-named because most member species in the group have a carnivorous diet, but the similarity of the name of the order and the name of the diet causes confusion. Many but not all carnivorans are meat eaters; a few, such as the large and small cats ( felidae) are ''obligate'' carnivores (see below). Other classes of carnivore are highly variable. The Ursids, for example: While the Arctic polar bear eats meat almost exclusively (more than 90% of its diet is meat), almost all other bear species are omnivorous, and one species, the giant panda, is nearly exclusively herbiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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