Sinai Baton Blue
''Pseudophilotes sinaicus'', the Sinai baton blue, one of the world's smallest butterflies, lives only on mountainside patches of Sinai thyme in an arid corner of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt called Saint Katherine Protectorate. Life cycle The female butterfly lays about 20–30 eggs in spring, a day after mating, on the young buds of its host plant, Sinai thyme (''Thymus decussatus''). After an incubation period of a few days, the eggs hatch into small larvae which feed on the buds and flowers of Sinai thyme. These larvae make an appeasement relationship with one type of ant ('' Lepisiota obtusa''). The larva has two organs that it uses in its relationship with ants; the dorsal nectary organ (which secretes droplets of simple sugars and amino acids for this ant species) and the tentacular organ (which produces volatile secretions that attract and alert attendant ants if a caterpillar is alarmed). However, larvae are also heavily preyed upon by another species of ant, ''Cre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thymus Decussatus
The thymus is a specialized primary Lymphatic system#Structure, lymphoid organ of the immune system. Within the thymus, T cell, thymus cell lymphocytes or ''T cells'' mature. T cells are critical to the adaptive immune system, where the body adapts to specific foreign invaders. The thymus is located in the upper front part of the chest, in the anterior Mediastinum#Superior mediastinum, superior mediastinum, behind the sternum, and in front of the heart. It is made up of two lobes, each consisting of a central medulla and an outer cortex, surrounded by a capsule. The thymus is made up of immature T cells called thymocytes, as well as lining cells called epithelial cells which help the thymocytes develop. T cells that successfully develop react appropriately with Major histocompatibility complex, MHC immune receptors of the body (called ''positive selection'') and not against proteins of the body (called ''negative selection''). The thymus is largest and most active during the neo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Africa. Sinai has a land area of about (6 percent of Egypt's total area) and a population of approximately 600,000 people. Administratively, the vast majority of the area of the Sinai Peninsula is divided into two Governorates of Egypt, governorates: the South Sinai Governorate and the North Sinai Governorate. Three other governorates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt: Suez Governorate on the southern end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia Governorate in the center, and Port Said Governorate in the north. In the classical era the region was known as Arabia Petraea. The peninsula acquired the name Sinai in modern times due to the assumption that a mountain near Saint Catherine's Monastery is the Biblical ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip of Palestine and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northeast separates Egypt from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt, while Alexandria, the second-largest city, is an important industrial and tourist hub at the Mediterranean coast. At approximately 100 million inhabitants, Egypt is the 14th-most populated country in the world. Egypt has one of the longest histories of any country, tracing its heritage along the Nile Delta back to the 6th–4th millennia BCE. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt saw some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, ur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Saint Katherine Protectorate
St Katherine Protectorate is an Egyptian national park in the south of Sinai. It encloses most of the mountainous area of central South Sinai, including the country's highest mountain, Mount Catherine at above sea level. In 2002, a 640 km2 area demarcated by the ‘Ring Dykke’ within the Protectorate core was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The listed area includes the highest mountains in the Protectorate, including Mount Sinai and the Saint Catherine's Monastery. In September 2001 a delegation from ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS; french: links=no, Conseil international des monuments et des sites) is a professional association that works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places around the worl ...) conducted a site review and the site and their recommendations are included in the listing memorandum. A site visit by IUCN, the administrative agency for Natura ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lepisiota
''Lepisiota'' is an Old World genus of ants in the subfamily Formicinae. They nest in rotten wood, in standing trees or in the ground, generally in less forested areas. Species *''Lepisiota acuta'' Xu, 1994 *''Lepisiota affinis'' (Santschi, 1937) *''Lepisiota ajjer'' (Bernard, 1953) *'' Lepisiota albata'' (Santschi, 1935) *''Lepisiota alexis'' (Santschi, 1937) *''Lepisiota ambigua'' (Santschi, 1935) *''Lepisiota angolensis'' (Santschi, 1937) *''Lepisiota annandalei'' (Mukerjee, 1930) *''Lepisiota arabica'' (Collingwood, 1985) *''Lepisiota arenaria'' (Arnold, 1920) *''Lepisiota arnoldi'' (Forel, 1913) *''Lepisiota aurea'' (Karavaiev, 1933) *''Lepisiota bipartita'' (Smith, 1861) *''Lepisiota cacozela'' (Stitz, 1916) *''Lepisiota canescens'' (Emery, 1897) *''Lepisiota capensis'' (Mayr, 1862) *''Lepisiota capitata'' (Forel, 1913) *'' Lepisiota carbonaria'' (Emery, 1892) *'' Lepisiota chapmani'' (Wheeler, 1935) *'' Lepisiota crinita'' (Mayr, 1895) *'' Lepisiota curta'' (Emery, 1897) ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lepisiota Obtusa
''Lepisiota'' is an Old World genus of ants in the subfamily Formicinae. They nest in rotten wood, in standing trees or in the ground, generally in less forested areas. Species *'' Lepisiota acuta'' Xu, 1994 *'' Lepisiota affinis'' (Santschi, 1937) *'' Lepisiota ajjer'' (Bernard, 1953) *'' Lepisiota albata'' (Santschi, 1935) *'' Lepisiota alexis'' (Santschi, 1937) *'' Lepisiota ambigua'' (Santschi, 1935) *'' Lepisiota angolensis'' (Santschi, 1937) *'' Lepisiota annandalei'' (Mukerjee, 1930) *'' Lepisiota arabica'' (Collingwood, 1985) *'' Lepisiota arenaria'' (Arnold, 1920) *'' Lepisiota arnoldi'' (Forel, 1913) *'' Lepisiota aurea'' (Karavaiev, 1933) *'' Lepisiota bipartita'' (Smith, 1861) *'' Lepisiota cacozela'' (Stitz, 1916) *'' Lepisiota canescens'' (Emery, 1897) *'' Lepisiota capensis'' (Mayr, 1862) *'' Lepisiota capitata'' (Forel, 1913) *''Lepisiota carbonaria'' (Emery, 1892) *''Lepisiota chapmani'' (Wheeler, 1935) *''Lepisiota crinita'' (Mayr, 1895) *'' Lepisiota curta' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Honeydew (secretion)
Honeydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids and some scale insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the anus of the aphid. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in hemipteran insects and is often the basis for trophobiosis. Some caterpillars of Lycaenidae butterflies and some moths also produce honeydew. Honeydew producing insects, like cicadas, pierce phloem ducts to access the sugar rich sap. The sap continues to bleed after the insects have moved on, leaving a white sugar crust called manna. Ants may collect, or "milk", honeydew directly from aphids and other honeydew producers, which benefit from their presence due to their driving away predators such as lady beetles or parasitic wasps—see ''Crematogaster peringueyi''. Animals and plants in a mutually symbiotic arrangement with ants are called Myrmecophiles. In Madagascar, some gecko species in the genera ''Ph ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Crematogaster Aegyptiaca
''Crematogaster aegyptiaca'' is an uncommon species of ant found mostly in Egypt. References * External links * Insects described in 1862 aegyptiaca Manetho (; grc-koi, Μανέθων ''Manéthōn'', ''gen''.: Μανέθωνος) is believed to have been an Egyptian priest from Sebennytos ( cop, Ϫⲉⲙⲛⲟⲩϯ, translit=Čemnouti) who lived in the Ptolemaic Kingdom in the early third ... Taxa named by Gustav Mayr {{Crematogaster-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Metapopulation
A metapopulation consists of a group of spatially separated populations of the same species which interact at some level. The term metapopulation was coined by Richard Levins in 1969 to describe a model of population dynamics of insect pests in agricultural fields, but the idea has been most broadly applied to species in naturally or artificially fragmented habitats. In Levins' own words, it consists of "a population of populations". A metapopulation is generally considered to consist of several distinct populations together with areas of suitable habitat which are currently unoccupied. In classical metapopulation theory, each population cycles in relative independence of the other populations and eventually goes extinct as a consequence of demographic stochasticity (fluctuations in population size due to random demographic events); the smaller the population, the more chances of inbreeding depression and prone to extinction. Although individual populations have finite life-spa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bedouin
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and Arabian Desert but spread across the rest of the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa after the spread of Islam. The English word ''bedouin'' comes from the Arabic ''badawī'', which means "desert dweller", and is traditionally contrasted with ''ḥāḍir'', the term for sedentary people. Bedouin territory stretches from the vast deserts of North Africa to the rocky sands of the Middle East. They are traditionally divided into tribes, or clans (known in Arabic as ''ʿašāʾir''; or ''qabāʾil'' ), and historically share a common culture of herding camels and goats. The vast majority of Bedouins adhere to Islam, although there are some fewer numbers of Christian Bedouins present in the Fertile Crescent. Bedouins have been referred ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wadi
Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water only when heavy rain occurs. Etymology The term ' is very widely found in Arabic toponyms. Some Spanish toponyms are derived from Andalusian Arabic where ' was used to mean a permanent river, for example: Guadalcanal from ''wādī al-qanāl'' ( ar, وَادِي الْقَنَال, "river of refreshment stalls"), Guadalajara from ''wādī al-ḥijārah'' ( ar, وَادِي الْحِجَارَة, "river of stones"), or Guadalquivir, from ''al-wādī al-kabīr'' ( ar, اَلْوَادِي الْكَبِير, "the great river"). General morphology and processes Wadis are located on gently sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts; commonly they begin on the distal portions of alluvial fans and extend to inland sabkhas or dry lakes. In basin and r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Polyommatini
Polyommatini is a tribe of lycaenid butterflies in the subfamily of Polyommatinae. These were extensively studied by Russian novelist and lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov. Genera Genera in this tribe include: * ''Actizera'' * ''Acytolepis'' * ''Afarsia'' * '' Agriades'' * ''Alpherakya'' * '' Aricia'' – arguses * ''Azanus'' – babul blues * ''Bothrinia'' * '' Brephidium'' * '' Cacyreus'' * ''Caerulea'' * '' Caleta'' * ''Callenya'' * ''Callictita'' * ''Castalius'' – Pierrots * '' Catochrysops'' * '' Catopyrops'' * '' Cebrella'' * ''Celastrina'' * '' Celatoxia'' * '' Chilades'' – jewel blues * '' Cupido'' * ''Cupidopsis'' – meadow blues * ''Cyaniris'' * '' Cyclargus'' * '' Danis'' * '' Discolampa'' * '' Echinargus'' * '' Eicochrysops'' * '' Eldoradina'' * '' Elkalyce'' * '' Epimastidia'' * ''Erysichton'' * '' Euchrysops'' – Cupids * ''Eumedonia'' * ''Euphilotes'' * '' Famegana'' * ''Freyeria'' * '' Glabroculus'' * ''Glaucopsyche'' * '' Grumiana'' * ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |