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Peters's Squirrel
Peters's squirrel (''Sciurus oculatus'') is a tree squirrel in the genus ''Sciurus'' endemic to Mexico. It was first described by the German naturalist and explorer Wilhelm Peters in 1863. Three subspecies are recognised. It is a common species, and the IUCN has rated its conservation status as being of "least concern". Description Peters's squirrel is a large, mainly arboreal squirrel. The head-and-body length is with a tail of about , and a weight of around . The colouring varies somewhat between the subspecies but it is generally grey dorsally, the hairs having dark brown or black bases, and white or cream ventrally. The upper part of the tail is blackish while the underside is dark with white tips to the hairs. There is a pale ring of skin around the eyes, and an important identifying feature is the dentition, with one fewer upper premolars than other related species. Distribution and habitat This squirrel is endemic to Mexico where it is found in the provinces of Guanajuat ... [...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] |
San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of San Luis Potosí ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de San Luis Potosí), is one of the 32 states which compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is San Luis Potosí City. Located in Central Mexico, San Luis Potosí is bordered by seven other Mexican states: Nuevo León to the north; Tamaulipas to the north-east; Veracruz to the east; Hidalgo, Querétaro and Guanajuato to the south; and Zacatecas to north-west. In addition to the capital city, other major cities in the state include Ciudad Valles, Matehuala, Rioverde, and Tamazunchale. History In pre-Columbian times, the territory now occupied by the state of San Luis Potosí contained parts of the cultural areas of Mesoamerica and Aridoamerica. Its northern and western-central areas were inhabited by the Otomi and Chichimeca tribes. These indigenous groups were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Although many indigenou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammals Described In 1863
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, pinniped, 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] |
Least Concern Biota Of Mexico
Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. In languages that have it, the comparative construction expresses quality, quantity, or degree relative to ''some'' other comparator(s). The superlative construction expresses the greatest quality, quantity, or degree—i.e. relative to ''all'' other comparators. The associated grammatical category is degree of comparison. The usual degrees of comparison are the ''positive'', which simply denotes a property (as with the English words ''big'' and ''fully''); the ''comparative'', which indicates ''greater'' degree (as ''bigger'' and ''more fully''); and the ''superlative'', which indicates ''greatest'' degree (as ''biggest'' and ''most fully''). Some languages have forms indicating a very large degree of a particular quality (called ''elative'' in Semiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodents Of North America
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are native to all major land masses except for New Zealand, Antarctica, and several oceanic islands, though they have subsequently been introduced to most of these land masses by human activity. Rodents are extremely diverse in their ecology and lifestyles and can be found in almost every terrestrial habitat, including human-made environments. Species can be arboreal, fossorial (burrowing), saltatorial/richochetal (leaping on their hind legs), or semiaquatic. However, all rodents share several morphological features, including having only a single upper and lower pair of ever-growing incisors. Well-known rodents include mice, rats, squirrels, prairie dogs, porcupines, beavers, guinea pigs, and hamsters. Rabbits, hares, and pikas, whose ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fauna Of The Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. Zoologists and paleontologists use ''fauna'' to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess Shale fauna". Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of faunal stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils. The study of animals of a particular region is called faunistics. Etymology ''Fauna'' comes from the name Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, and the related forest spirits called Fauns. All three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan, and ''panis'' is the Greek equivalent of fauna. ''Fauna'' is also the word for a book that catalogues the animals in such a manner. The term was first used by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemic Mammals Of Mexico
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 s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Flying Squirrel
The southern flying squirrel or the assapan (''Glaucomys volans'') is one of three species of the genus '' Glaucomys'' and one of three flying squirrel species found in North America. It is found in deciduous and mixed woods in the eastern half of North America, from southeastern Canada to Florida. Disjunct populations of this species have been recorded in the highlands of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Description and ecology Southern flying squirrels have grey-brown fur on top with darker flanks and are a cream color underneath. They have large dark eyes and flattened tails. They have a furry membrane called a patagium that extends between the front and rear legs and is used to glide through the air. Total length (including tail) is . The tail can be . Southern flying squirrels are nocturnal. They feed on fruit and nuts from trees such as red and white oak, hickory, and beech. They store food, especially acorns, for winter consumption. They also dine on insects, buds, mush ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mexican Gray Squirrel
The Mexican gray squirrel (or red-bellied squirrel) (''Sciurus aureogaster'') is a tree squirrel in the genus ''Sciurus'' native to Guatemala and eastern and southern Mexico. It has been introduced to the Florida Keys. The alternate name should not be confused with the Indonesian red-bellied squirrel (''Rubrisciurus rubriventer'') or the Asian red-bellied tree squirrel (''Callosciurus erythraeus''). Behaviour Since the introduction of the species to Florida in the late 1930s, its nesting locations have become more irregular, nesting in varying species of trees and even choosing to nest in hurricane debris. Ecology ''Sciurus aureogaster'' has had an extremely negative impact on ''Thrinax radiata'' populations on Elliot Key. It uses palm fibers as nesting materials and consumes the palm itself, often killing the plant. Subspecies The two subspecies each have many synonyms associated with them: * The subspecies ''S. a. aureogaster'' was also known as ''S. a. chrysogaster'', ''S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plum
A plum is a fruit of some species in ''Prunus'' subg. ''Prunus''''.'' Dried plums are called prunes. History Plums may have been one of the first fruits domesticated by humans. Three of the most abundantly cultivated species are not found in the wild, only around human settlements: ''Prunus domestica'' has been traced to East European and Caucasian mountains, while ''Prunus salicina'' and '' Prunus simonii'' originated in China. Plum remains have been found in Neolithic age archaeological sites along with olives, grapes and figs. According to Ken Albala, plums originated in Iran. They were brought to Britain from Asia. An article on plum tree cultivation in Andalusia (southern Spain) appears in Ibn al-'Awwam's 12th-century agricultural work, ''Book on Agriculture''. Etymology and names The name plum derived from Old English ''plume'' "plum, plum tree", borrowed from Germanic or Middle Dutch, derived from Latin ' and ultimately from Ancient Greek ''proumnon'', itself belie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ficus
''Ficus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The common fig (''F. carica'') is a temperate species native to southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region (from Afghanistan to Portugal), which has been widely cultivated from ancient times for its fruit, also referred to as figs. The fruit of most other species are also edible though they are usually of only local economic importance or eaten as bushfood. However, they are extremely important food resources for wildlife. Figs are also of considerable cultural importance throughout the tropics, both as objects of worship and for their many practical uses. Description ''Ficus'' is a pantropical genus of trees, shrubs, and vines occupying a wide variety of ecological niches; most are evergreen, bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acorn
The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'' and '' Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne in a cup-shaped cupule. Acorns are long and on the fat side. Acorns take between 5 and 24 months (depending on the species) to mature; see the list of ''Quercus'' species for details of oak classification, in which acorn morphology and phenology are important factors. Etymology The word ''acorn'' (earlier ''akerne'', and ''acharn'') is related to the Gothic name ''akran'', which had the sense of "fruit of the unenclosed land". The word was applied to the most important forest produce, that of the oak. Chaucer spoke of "achornes of okes" in the 14th century. By degrees, popular etymology connected the word both with "corn" and "oak-horn", and the spelling changed accordingly. The current spelling (emerged 15c.-16c.), derives from asso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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