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Réunion Scops Owl
The Réunion scops owl (''Otus grucheti''), also known as the Réunion owl or Réunion lizard owl, was a small owl that occurred on the Mascarene island of Réunion, but became extinct before any living birds were described; it is only known from subfossil bones. One of the three Mascarene owls, it was formerly classified in the genus ''Mascarenotus'', and most likely was similar to a long-eared owl in size and appearance, but with nearly naked legs. However, according to recent studies, it and its relatives belong to the genus ''Otus'', and is likely descended from the '' Otus sunia'' lineage. Compared to the Mauritius scops owl and the Rodrigues scops owl, it was the most terrestrial species of the genus, with long legs and possibly somewhat reduced flight capability; more probably though it was simply smaller than the Mauritius bird – between that species and the one from Rodrigues in size – but had equally long legs: the only suitable food available in quantity on Réun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cécile Mourer-Chauviré
Cécile Mourer-Chauviré (born 1939) is a French paleontologist specializing in birds of the Eocene and the Oligocene. In her early career, she discovered with her husband the Laang Spean cave site of prehistoric humans in Cambodia. Career Cécile Chauviré was born on 5 November 1939 in Lyon, France. She studied at University of Lyon. Her early work was on large Quaternary mammals. She then proceeded in 1961 to a doctorate in Centre national de la recherche scientifique focusing on Pleistocene birds, a topic few at the time studied in France or Europe. Following her marriage in 1964 to Roland Mourer, she relocated to Cambodia where he was assigned by the French military as a "coopérant" in Kampong Chhnang (city), Kampong Chhnang. In 1965 she was appointed as a geology professor at Royal University of Phnom Penh, a post she held until the civil war in 1970. During this time she discovered with her husband the Laang Spean cave site of prehistoric humans.Sophady, Heng, et al. "La ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodrigues (island)
Rodrigues (french: Île Rodrigues, link=yes ; Creole: ) is a autonomous outer island of the Republic of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, about east of Mauritius. It is part of the Mascarene Islands, which include Mauritius and Réunion. Rodrigues is of volcanic origin and is surrounded by coral reef, and some tiny uninhabited islands lie just off its coast. The island used to be the tenth District of Mauritius; it gained autonomous status on 10 December 2002, and it is governed by the Rodrigues Regional Assembly. The capital of the island is Port Mathurin. The islands of Rodrigues, Agaléga and Saint Brandon form part of the larger territory of the Republic of Mauritius. Its inhabitants are Mauritian citizens. , the island's population was about 41,669, according to Statistics Mauritius. Most of the inhabitants are of African descent. Its economy is based mainly on fishing, farming, handicraft and a developing tourism sector. Etymology and history The uninhabited island w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birds Described In 1994
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight Bird skeleton, skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the Common ostrich, 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 Flightless bird, loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemism, endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birds Of Réunion
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 swimming. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holocene Extinctions
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. The Holocene has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1. It is considered by some to be an interglacial period within the Pleistocene Epoch, called the Flandrian interglacial.Oxford University Press – Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever (book) – "Holocene Humanity" section https://books.google.com/books?id=7P0_sWIcBNsC The Holocene corresponds with the rapid proliferation, growth and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all of its written history, technological revolutions, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition towards urban living in the present. The human impact on modern-era Earth and its ecosystems may be considered of global sig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinct Birds Of Indian Ocean Islands
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryote globally, and possibly many times more if microorganisms, like bacteria, are included. Notable extinct animal species include non-avian dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, dodos, mam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otus (bird)
Scops owls are typical owls in family Strigidae belonging to the genus ''Otus'' and are restricted to the Old World. ''Otus'' is the largest genus of owls with 59 species. Scops owls are colored in various brownish hues, sometimes with a lighter underside and/or face, which helps to camouflage them against the bark of trees. Some are polymorphic, occurring in a greyish- and a reddish-brown morph. They are small and agile, with both sexes being compact in size and shape. Female scops owls are usually larger than males. For most of the 20th century, this genus included the American screech owls, which are now again separated in ''Megascops'' based on a range of behavioral, biogeographical, morphological and DNA sequence data. Taxonomy The genus ''Otus'' was introduced in 1769 by the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant for the Indian scops owl (''O. bakkamoena''). The name is derived from the Latin word ' and the Greek word ''ōtos'' meaning horned or eared owl (cf. οὖς, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sieur Dubois
Sieur Dubois () or Sieur D. B. was a French traveller who reached the islands of Madagascar and Réunion at the time of early colonization by France. He wrote a book in French, published in 1674, about his journeys and the wildlife he saw including details of several species of birds endemic to Réunion that have since become extinct, such as the Réunion ibis, Réunion swamphen, and Réunion rail.Dubois (1674) Captain Samuel Pasfield Oliver Samuel Pasfield Oliver (1838–1907) was an English artillery officer, geographer and antiquary. Life Born at Bovinger, Essex, on 30 October 1838, he was the eldest and only surviving son of William Macjanley Oliver, rector of Bovinger, by his wi ... translated and edited the original French version into an English version, which was published in 1897.Dubois (translated and edited by Oliver) (1897). Editor's preface References Cited texts * * French explorers French travel writers French naturalists 17th-century pseudonymous writers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state geographically located within the tropics. Hawaii comprises nearly the entire Hawaiian archipelago, 137 volcanic islands spanning that are physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania. The state's ocean coastline is consequently the fourth-longest in the U.S., at about . The eight main islands, from northwest to southeast, are Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lānai, Kahoolawe, Maui, and Hawaii—the last of these, after which the state is named, is often called the "Big Island" or "Hawaii Island" to avoid confusion with the state or archipelago. The uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands make up most of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the United States' largest protected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grallistrix
The stilt-owls (''Grallistrix'') is an extinct genus of true owls which contains four species, all of which lived on the Hawaiian Islands. ''Grallistrix'' can be loosely translated as "owl on stilts". The genus received this name due to the long legs and terrestrial habits which they evolved in the absence of mammalian predators on their island homes. They fed on smaller birds such as Hawaiian honeycreepers. They were also able to fly. The owls were never seen alive by scientists and are known only from subfossil bones. Species * Kaua‘i stilt-owl, ''Grallistrix auceps'' * Maui stilt-owl, ''Grallistrix erdmani'' * Moloka‘i stilt-owl, ''Grallistrix geleches'' * O‘ahu stilt-owl, ''Grallistrix orion'' See also *''Tyto pollens'' *''Ornimegalonyx'' *Late Quaternary prehistoric birds *List of extinct birds *List of fossil birds *List of extinct animals *Flightless birds Flightless birds are birds that through evolution lost the ability to fly. There are over 60 extan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convergent Evolution
Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last common ancestor of those groups. The cladistic term for the same phenomenon is homoplasy. The recurrent evolution of flight is a classic example, as flying insects, birds, pterosaurs, and bats have independently evolved the useful capacity of flight. Functionally similar features that have arisen through convergent evolution are ''analogous'', whereas '' homologous'' structures or traits have a common origin but can have dissimilar functions. Bird, bat, and pterosaur wings are analogous structures, but their forelimbs are homologous, sharing an ancestral state despite serving different functions. The opposite of convergence is divergent evolution, where related species evolve different traits. Convergent evolution is similar to parallel evo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mauritius
Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Agaléga and St. Brandon. The islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues, along with nearby Réunion (a French overseas department), are part of the Mascarene Islands. The main island of Mauritius, where most of the population is concentrated, hosts the capital and largest city, Port Louis. The country spans and has an exclusive economic zone covering . Arab sailors were the first to discover the uninhabited island, around 975, and they called it ''Dina Arobi''. The earliest discovery was in 1507 by Portuguese sailors, who otherwise took little interest in the islands. The Dutch took possession in 1598, establishing a succession of short-lived settlements over a period of about ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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