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Sims Island
Sims Island is a small but conspicuous, largely ice-free, volcanic island lying south of Smyley Island, between the Rydberg Peninsula and Case Island, in the southern part of Carroll Inlet, off the coast of Palmer Land in the Bellingshausen Sea, Antarctica. It was discovered by pilot Ashley Snow of the United States Antarctic Service Expedition (1939–1941) on an aircraft flight on December 22, 1940. It was named for Lieutenant L.S. Sims of the United States Marine Corps (USMC), a surgeon on the expedition. Important Bird Area The whole of the 70 ha island has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports a colony of about 15,000 pairs of Adélie penguins, based on 2012 satellite imagery, which breed along the beach on the north-eastern coast. South polar skua The south polar skua (''Stercorarius maccormicki'') is a large seabird in the skua family, Stercorariidae. An older name for the bird is MacCormick's skua, after explor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palmer Land
Palmer Land () is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica that lies south of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This application of Palmer Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names and the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee, in which the name Antarctic Peninsula was approved for the major peninsula of Antarctica, and the names Graham Land and Palmer Land for the northern and southern portions, respectively. The line dividing them is roughly 69° S. Boundaries In its southern extreme, the Antarctic Peninsula stretches west, with Palmer Land eventually bordering Ellsworth Land along the 80° W line of longitude. Palmer Land is bounded in the south by the ice-covered Carlson Inlet, an arm of the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, which crosses the 80° W line. This is the base of Cetus Hill. This feature is named after Nathaniel Palmer, an American sealer who explored the Antarctic Peninsula area southward of Deceptio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Important Bird Area
An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife International. There are over 13,000 IBAs worldwide. These sites are small enough to be entirely conserved and differ in their character, habitat or ornithological importance from the surrounding habitat. In the United States the Program is administered by the National Audubon Society. Often IBAs form part of a country's existing protected area network, and so are protected under national legislation. Legal recognition and protection of IBAs that are not within existing protected areas varies within different countries. Some countries have a National IBA Conservation Strategy, whereas in others protection is completely lacking. History In 1985, following a specific request from the European Economic Community, Birdlife International ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penguin Colonies
Penguins ( order Sphenisciformes , family Spheniscidae ) are a group of aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage and flippers for swimming. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid and other forms of sea life which they catch with their bills and swallow it whole while swimming. A penguin has a spiny tongue and powerful jaws to grip slippery prey. They spend roughly half of their lives on land and the other half in the sea. The largest living species is the emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri''): on average, adults are about tall and weigh . The smallest penguin species is the little blue penguin (''Eudyptula minor''), also known as the fairy penguin, which stands around tall and weighs . Today, larger penguins generally inhabit colder regions, and smaller penguins in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Important Bird Areas Of Antarctica
Importance is a property of entities that matter or make a difference. For example, World War II was an important event and Albert Einstein was an important person because of how they affected the world. There are disagreements in the academic literature about what type of difference is required. According to the causal impact view, something is important if it has a big causal impact on the world. This view is rejected by various theorists, who insist that an additional aspect is required: that the impact in question makes a value difference. This is often understood in terms of how the important thing affects the well-being of people. So on this view, World War II was important, not just because it brought about many wide-ranging changes but because these changes had severe negative impacts on the well-being of the people involved. The difference in question is usually understood counterfactually as the contrast between how the world actually is and how the world would have bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Polar Skua
The south polar skua (''Stercorarius maccormicki'') is a large seabird in the skua family, Stercorariidae. An older name for the bird is MacCormick's skua, after explorer and naval surgeon Robert McCormick, who first collected the type specimen. This species and the other large skuas, such as the great skua, are sometimes placed in a separate genus ''Catharacta''. Description The south polar skua is a large bird (though small compared to other skuas sometimes placed in ''Catharacta'') that measures around in length. Adults are greyish brown above, and have a whitish (pale morph) or straw-brown (intermediate morph) head and underparts, and the contrast between head and body makes it easy to separate from similar species with good views. Juveniles and adult dark morphs are harder to distinguish from their relatives, and more subjective or difficult-to-observe criteria, such as the colder brown plumage and blue bill base, must be used. Identification Distinguishing this skua from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adélie Penguin
The Adélie penguin (''Pygoscelis adeliae'') is a species of penguin common along the entire coast of the Antarctic continent, which is the only place where it is found. It is the most widespread penguin species, and, along with the emperor penguin, is the most southerly distributed of all penguins. It is named after Adélie Land, in turn named for Adèle Dumont d'Urville, who was married to French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville, who first discovered this penguin in 1840. Adélie penguins obtain their food by both predation and foraging, with a diet of mainly krill and fish. Taxonomy and systematics The first Adélie penguin specimens were collected by crew members of French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville on his expedition to Antarctica in the late 1830s and early 1840s. Jacques Bernard Hombron and Honoré Jacquinot, two French surgeons who doubled as naturalists on the journey, described the bird for science in 1841, giving it the scientific name ''Catarrhactes adelià ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding important sites for birds, maintaining and restoring key bird habitats, and empowering conservationists worldwide. It has a membership of more than 2.5 million people across 116 country partner organizations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Wild Bird Society of Japan, the National Audubon Society and American Bird Conservancy. BirdLife International has identified 13,000 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas and is the official International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List authority for birds. As of 2015, BirdLife International has established that 1,375 bird species (13% of the total) are threatened with extinction ( critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable). BirdLife International p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combined arms, implementing its own infantry, artillery, aerial, and special operations forces. The U.S. Marine Corps is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. The Marine Corps has been part of the U.S. Department of the Navy since 30 June 1834 with its sister service, the United States Navy. The USMC operates installations on land and aboard sea-going amphibious warfare ships around the world. Additionally, several of the Marines' tactical aviation squadrons, primarily Marine Fighter Attack squadrons, are also embedded in Navy carrier air wings and operate from the aircraft carriers. The history of the Marine Corps began when two battalions of Continental Marines were formed on 10 November 1775 in Philadelphia as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe, and has an area of . Most of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, with an average thickness of . Antarctica is, on average, the coldest, driest, and windiest of the continents, and it has the highest average elevation. It is mainly a polar desert, with annual precipitation of over along the coast and far less inland. About 70% of the world's freshwater reserves are frozen in Antarctica, which, if melted, would raise global sea levels by almost . Antarctica holds the record for the lowest measured temperature on Earth, . The coastal regions can reach temperatures over in summer. Native species of animals include mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Where vegetation o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Antarctic Service Expedition
The United States Antarctic Service Expedition (1939–1941), often referred to as Byrd’s Third Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition jointly sponsored by the United States Navy, State Department, Department of the Interior and The Treasury. Although a U.S.-government sponsored expedition, additional support came from donations and gifts by private citizens, corporations and institutions. Description of expedition Background, orders and goals Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd donated many of the supplies that he had gathered for his own expedition, the largest item being the ''Bear of Oakland'', commissioned as the USS ''Bear'' (AG-29) on 11 September 1939. A second ship, the USMS ''North Star'', a 1434-ton wooden ice ship built for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was supplied by the Department of the Interior. A total of 125 men departed from the United States in the two ships of the United States Antarctic Service Expedition. Most of the men who made up the expedition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bellingshausen Sea
The Bellingshausen Sea is an area along the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula between 57°18'W and 102°20'W, west of Alexander Island, east of Cape Flying Fish on Thurston Island, and south of Peter I Island (there the southern ''Vostokkysten''). In the south are, from west to east, Eights Coast, Bryan Coast and English Coast (west part) of West Antarctica. To the west of Cape Flying Fish it joins the Amundsen Sea. Bellingshausen Sea has an area of and reaches a maximum depth of . It contains the undersea plain Bellingshausen Plain. It takes its name from Admiral Thaddeus Bellingshausen, who explored in the area in 1821. In the late Pliocene Epoch, about 2.15 million years ago, the Eltanin asteroid (about 1-4 km in diameter) impacted at the edge of the Bellingshausen sea (at the South Pacific Ocean South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
