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Typhlosaurus Lomiae
Lomi's blind legless skink (''Typhlosaurus lomiae'') is a species of lizard in the family Scincidae. The species is endemic to Little Namaqualand in South Africa. Etymology The specific name ''lomiae'' honours Miss Lomi Wessels Brown, Collection Manager of lower vertebrates and invertebrates at the Transvaal Museum since 1976. Taxonomy In 1986 South African herpetologist Wulf Dietrich Haacke originally named this species ''Typhlosaurus lomii'', which is masculine (genitive singular). In 2004 J. Pieter Michels and Aaron Matthew Bauer corrected the specific name to ''lomiae'', which is feminine (genitive singular) because it honors a woman.Michels JP, Bauer AM (2004). "Some corrections to the scientific names of amphibians and reptiles". ''Bonner Zoologische Beiträge'' 52: 83–94. Description ''T. lomiae'' is limbless. It is blind, slender, and small. The usual snout-to-vent length (SVL) of adults is . Dorsally, it is bright goldish pink. Ventrally, it is whitish and almost t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wulf Dietrich Haacke
''Wulf'' (Common Germanic "wolf") was one of the most prolific elements in early Germanic names. It could figure as the first element in dithematic names, as in '' Wulfstan'', but especially as second element, in the form ''-ulf, -olf'' as in ''Cynewulf'', '' Rudolph'', ''Ludolf'', ''Adolf'' etc., it was extremely common. Förstemann explains this as originally motivated by the wolf as an animal sacred to Wodanaz, but notes that the large number of names indicates that the element had become a meaningless suffix of male names at an early time (and was therefore not anymore considered a "pagan" element at the time of Christianisation. Some early missionaries among Germanic folk still used it, like bishop Wulfilas however his family had been adopted earlier by the Goths. By the tenth century, there was clearly no "pagan" connotation left with such names, and saints and bishops bore names such as Wulfstan or Wolfgang). Förstemann counts 381 names in ''-ulf, -olf'', among which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorsum (anatomy)
Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position provides a definition of what is at the front ("anterior"), behind ("posterior") and so on. As part of defining and describing terms, the body is described through the use of anatomical planes and anatomical axes. The meaning of terms that are used can change depending on whether an organism is bipedal or quadrupedal. Additionally, for some animals such as invertebrates, some terms may not have any meaning at all; for example, an animal that is radially symmetrical will have no anterior surface, but can still have a description that a part is close to the middle ("proximal") or further from the middle ("distal"). International organisations have determined vocabularies that are often used as standard vocabularies for subdisciplines of anatom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemic Reptiles Of South Africa
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 (ecology), 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, Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. ''Enidae, Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a Invasive species, 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 specie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skinks Of Africa
Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae, a family in the infraorder Scincomorpha. With more than 1,500 described species across 100 different taxonomic genera, the family Scincidae is one of the most diverse families of lizards. Skinks are characterized by their smaller legs in comparison to typical lizards and are found in different habitats except arctic and subarctic regions. Description Skinks look like lizards of the family Lacertidae (sometimes called ''true lizards''), but most species of skinks have no pronounced neck and relatively small legs. Several genera (e.g., ''Typhlosaurus'') have no limbs at all. This is not true for all skinks, however, as some species such as the red-eyed crocodile skink have a head that is very distinguished from the body. These lizards also have legs that are relatively small proportional to their body size. Skinks' skulls are covered by substantial bony scales, usually matching up in shape and size, while overlapping. Other g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Typhlosaurus
''Typhlosaurus'' is a genus of African lizards, one of a number of genera of limbless lizards in the skink family ( Scincidae). This group was recently revised with most species formerly attributed to ''Typhlosaurus'' now placed in ''Acontias''. The current definition of ''Typhlosaurus'' includes five attenuate body legless lizards from southwestern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Angola). This is the sister genus to ''Acontias'', which together form the well supported Afrotropical subfamily Acontinae. Species Five species are recognized as being valid. www.reptile-database.org. *'' Typhlosaurus braini'' Haacke, 1964 – Haacke's legless skink, Brain's legless skink, Brain's blind legless skink *'' Typhlosaurus caecus'' ( Cuvier, 1817) – southern blind legless skink, Cuvier's legless skink *'' Typhlosaurus lomiae'' Haacke, 1986 – Lomi's blind legless skink *'' Typhlosaurus meyeri'' Boettger, 1894 – Meyer's blind legless skink, variable blind legless skink *' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arend Friedrich August Wiegmann
Arend Friedrich August Wiegmann (2 June 1802 – 15 January 1841) was a German zoology, zoologist and Herpetology, herpetologist born in Braunschweig. He studied medicine and philology at the University of Leipzig, and afterwards was an assistant to Martin Lichtenstein (1780–1857) in Berlin. In 1828 he became a professor at Cologne, and two years later was an extraordinary professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Wiegmann specialized in the study of herpetology and mammalogy. In 1835, he founded, together with other scholars, the zoological periodical ''Archiv für Naturgeschichte'', also known as "Wiegmann's Archive". With Johann Friedrich Ruthe (1788–1859) he wrote an important textbook of zoology called ''Handbuch der Zoologie'', and in 1834 Wiegmann published ''Herpetologia Mexicana'', a monograph on the reptiles of Mexico. In 1841 he died of tuberculosis at the age of 38 in Berlin. His father Arend Friedrich Wiegmann (1771–1853) a German researcher in botany. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viviparity
Among animals, viviparity is development of the embryo inside the body of the parent. This is opposed to oviparity which is a reproductive mode in which females lay developing eggs that complete their development and hatch externally from the mother. The term 'viviparity' and its adjective form 'viviparous' derive from the Latin ''vivus'' meaning "living" and ''pario'' meaning "give birth to". Reproductive mode Five modes of reproduction have been differentiated in animals based on relations between zygote and parents. The five include two nonviviparous modes: ovuliparity, with external fertilisation, and oviparity, with internal fertilisation. In the latter, the female lays zygotes as eggs with a large vitellus, yolk; this occurs in all birds, most reptiles, and some fishes. These modes are distinguished from viviparity, which covers all the modes that result in live birth: *Histotrophic viviparity: the zygotes develop in the female's oviducts, but find their nutrients b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Veld
Veld ( or ), also spelled veldt, is a type of wide open rural landscape in :Southern Africa. Particularly, it is a flat area covered in grass or low scrub, especially in the countries of South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Botswana. A certain sub-tropical woodland ecoregion of Southern Africa has been officially defined as the Bushveld by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Trees are not abundant—frost, fire and grazing animals allow grass to grow but prevent the build-up of dense foliage. Etymology The word ''veld'' () comes from the Afrikaans word for "field". The etymological origin is older modern Dutch ''veldt'', a spelling that the Dutch abandoned in favour of ''veld'' during the 19th century, decades before the first Afrikaans dictionary.Eric Anderson Walker (ed). The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Volume 4. Cambridge University Press 1963 (Afrikaans: pp. 890–894) A cognate to the English ''field'', it was spelt ''velt'' in Middle Dutch and ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habitat
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ecological niche. Thus "habitat" is a species-specific term, fundamentally different from concepts such as environment or vegetation assemblages, for which the term "habitat-type" is more appropriate. The physical factors may include (for example): soil, moisture, range of temperature, and light intensity. Biotic factors will include the availability of food and the presence or absence of predators. Every species has particular habitat requirements, with habitat generalist species able to thrive in a wide array of environmental conditions while habitat specialist species requiring a very limited set of factors to survive. The habitat of a species is not necessarily found in a geographical area, it can be the interior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transvaal Museum
The Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, formerly the Transvaal Museum, is a natural history museum situated in Pretoria, South Africa. It is located on Paul Kruger Street, between Visagie and Minnaar Streets, opposite the Pretoria City Hall. The museum was established in 1895 by the former South African Republic, also known as the Transvaal. In 2010 it was one of the founding Museums of Ditsong Museums of South Africa. Collections The museum curates large collections of Plio-Pleistocene fossils, including hominids from Sterkfontein, Swartkrans and Kromdraai in the UNESCO World Heritage Site; the Cradle of Humankind, as well as late Permian therapsids (proto-mammals from the Karoo). The most complete skull of an ''Australopithecus africanus'' specimen, Mrs Ples, is on display in the museum. In addition, the Transvaal museum houses extensive collections of mammals, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates. History It was founded as the ''Staatsmuseum'' (Afrikaans for "State ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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