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Vinous-throated Parrotbill
The vinous-throated parrotbill (''Sinosuthora webbiana'') is a species of parrotbill in the family Paradoxornithidae; formerly, it was placed in the closely related Sylviidae or Timaliidae. It is found in China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Russia, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. Taxonomy and systematics The vinous-throated parrotbill was described in 1852 by John Gould and placed in the genus ''Suthora'', where it sat with other small browner parrotbills. Later parrotbills were merged into two genera, ''Conostoma'' and ''Paradoxornis''; with this species being placed in ''Paradoxornis''. Recent DNA studies have shown that the genus ''Paradoxornis'' is paraphyletic, and that it should be split. It is suggested that the vinous-throated parrotbill should be placed in the genus ''Sinosuthora''. The vinous-throated parrotbill is very closely related to the ashy-throated parrotbill, and hybrids have been reported between the two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gould
John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist. He published a number of monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, including Edward Lear, Henry Constantine Richter, Joseph Wolf and William Matthew Hart. He has been considered the father of bird study in Australia and the Gould League in Australia is named after him. His identification of the birds now nicknamed "Darwin's finches" played a role in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Gould's work is referenced in Charles Darwin's book, ''On the Origin of Species''. Early life Gould was born in Lyme Regis, the first son of a gardener. Both father and son probably had little education. After working on Dowager Lady Poulett's glass house, his father obtained a position on an estate near Guildford, Surrey, and then in 1818, Gould Snr became foreman in the Royal Gardens of Windsor. Gould then be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ashy-throated Parrotbill
The ashy-throated parrotbill (''Sinosuthora alphonsiana'') is a parrotbill. In old sources, it may be called Alphonse's crow-tit; though superficially resembling a tit it is not a member of the Paridae. The native range of this species extends from south-west China to northern Vietnam, and it might have become naturalised in one area in Italy. Description and systematics This is a medium-sized tawny-coloured parrotbill with the large bill typical of these birds. The specific epithet commemorates the French ornithologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards. Formerly placed with the typical warblers (''Sylvia'') in the Sylviidae, the Old World babblers in the Timaliidae, or the tits and chickadees in the Paridae, they are now thought to belong to a distinct parrotbill family Paradoxornithidae. They might be less close to the great parrotbill (''Conostoma oemodium'') than to ''Chrysomma'', or to the fulvettas (''Fulvetta'') which were often included in the wastebin genus '' Alcippe''. Anoth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beak
The beak, bill, or rostrum is an external anatomical structure found mostly in birds, but also in turtles, non-avian dinosaurs and a few mammals. A beak is used for eating, preening, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food, courtship, and feeding young. The terms ''beak'' and ''rostrum'' are also used to refer to a similar mouth part in some ornithischians, pterosaurs, cetaceans, dicynodonts, anuran tadpoles, monotremes (i.e. echidnas and platypuses, which have a beak-like structure), sirens, pufferfish, billfishes and cephalopods. Although beaks vary significantly in size, shape, color and texture, they share a similar underlying structure. Two bony projections – the upper and lower mandibles – are covered with a thin keratinized layer of epidermis known as the rhamphotheca. In most species, two holes called ''nares'' lead to the respiratory system. Etymology Although the word "beak" was, in the past, generally restricted to the sharpened bills o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iris (anatomy)
In humans and most mammals and birds, the iris (plural: ''irides'' or ''irises'') is a thin, annular structure in the eye, responsible for controlling the diameter and size of the pupil, and thus the amount of light reaching the retina. Eye color is defined by the iris. In optical terms, the pupil is the eye's aperture, while the iris is the diaphragm. Structure The iris consists of two layers: the front pigmented fibrovascular layer known as a stroma and, beneath the stroma, pigmented epithelial cells. The stroma is connected to a sphincter muscle (sphincter pupillae), which contracts the pupil in a circular motion, and a set of dilator muscles ( dilator pupillae), which pull the iris radially to enlarge the pupil, pulling it in folds. The sphincter pupillae is the opposing muscle of the dilator pupillae. The pupil's diameter, and thus the inner border of the iris, changes size when constricting or dilating. The outer border of the iris does not change size. The constricti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flight Feather
Flight feathers (''Pennae volatus'') are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (), singular remex (), while those on the tail are called rectrices (), singular rectrix (). The primary function of the flight feathers is to aid in the generation of both thrust and lift (force), lift, thereby enabling bird flight, flight. The flight feathers of some birds have evolved to perform additional functions, generally associated with territorial displays, courtship rituals or feeding methods. In some species, these feathers have developed into long showy plumes used in visual courtship displays, while in others they create a sound during display flights. Tiny serrations on the leading edge of their remiges help owls to fly silently (and therefore hunt more successfully), while the extra-stiff rectrices of woodpeckers help them to brace against tree trunks as they hammer on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plumage
Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can be different colour morphs. The placement of feathers on a bird is not haphazard, but rather emerge in organized, overlapping rows and groups, and these are known by standardized names. Most birds moult twice a year, resulting in a breeding or ''nuptial plumage'' and a ''basic plumage''. Many ducks and some other species such as the red junglefowl have males wearing a bright nuptial plumage while breeding and a drab ''eclipse plumage'' for some months afterward. The painted bunting's juveniles have two inserted moults in their first autumn, each yielding plumage like an adult female. The first starts a few days after fledging replacing the ''juvenile plumage'' with an ''auxiliary formative plumage''; the second a month or so l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Handbook Of The Birds Of The World
The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. The series was edited by Josep del Hoyo, Andrew Elliott, Jordi Sargatal and David A. Christie. All 16 volumes have been published. For the first time an animal class will have all the species illustrated and treated in detail in a single work. This has not been done before for any other group in the animal kingdom. Material in each volume is grouped first by family, with an introductory article on each family; this is followed by individual species accounts (taxonomy, subspecies and distribution, descriptive notes, habitat, food and feeding, breeding, movements, status and conservation, bibliography). In addition, all volumes except the first and second contain an essay on a particular ornithological theme. More than 200 renowned speci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sichuan
Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the Sichuan Basin and the easternmost part of the Tibetan Plateau between the Jinsha River on the west, the Daba Mountains in the north and the Yungui Plateau to the south. Sichuan's capital city is Chengdu. The population of Sichuan stands at 83 million. Sichuan neighbors Qinghai to the northwest, Gansu to the north, Shaanxi to the northeast, Chongqing to the east, Guizhou to the southeast, Yunnan to the south, and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the west. In antiquity, Sichuan was the home of the ancient states of Ba and Shu. Their conquest by Qin strengthened it and paved the way for Qin Shi Huang's unification of China under the Qin dynasty. During the Three Kingdoms era, Liu Bei's state of Shu was based in Sichuan. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plant Nursery
A nursery is a place where plants are propagated and grown to a desired size. Mostly the plants concerned are for gardening, forestry or conservation biology, rather than agriculture. They include retail nurseries, which sell to the general public, wholesale nurseries, which sell only to businesses such as other nurseries and to commercial gardeners, and private nurseries, which supply the needs of institutions or private estates. Some will also work in plant breeding. A nurseryman is a person who owns or works in a nursery. Some nurseries specialize in certain areas, which may include: propagation and the selling of small or bare root plants to other nurseries, growing out plant materials to a saleable size, or retail sales. Nurseries may also specialize in one type of plant: e.g., groundcovers, shade plants, or rock garden plants. Some produce bulk stock, whether seedlings or grafted, of particular varieties for purposes such as fruit trees for orchards, or timber tree ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The crops that are grown include cotton, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, opium, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, fruits, rubber trees and forest trees. Protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations are located. In modern use the term is usually taken to refer only to large-scale estates, but in earlier periods, before about 1800, it was the usual term for a farm of any size in the southern parts of British North America, with, as Noah Webster noted, "farm" becoming the usual term from about Maryland northwards. It was used in most British colonies, but very rarely in the United Kingdom itself in this sense. There, as also in America, it was used mainly for tree plantations, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manchuria). Its meaning may vary depending on the context: * Historical polities and geographical regions usually referred to as Manchuria: ** The Later Jin (1616–1636), the Manchu-led dynasty which renamed itself from "Jin" to "Qing", and the ethnicity from "Jurchen" to "Manchu" in 1636 ** the subsequent duration of the Qing dynasty prior to its conquest of China proper (1644) ** the northeastern region of Qing dynasty China, the homeland of Manchus, known as "Guandong" or "Guanwai" during the Qing dynasty ** The region of Northeast Asia that served as the historical homeland of the Jurchens and later their descendants Manchus ***Qing control of Dauria (the region north of the Amur River, but in its watershed) was contested in 1643 when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Barker Webb
Philip Barker Webb (10 July 1793 – 31 August 1854) was an English botanist. Life Webb was born to a wealthy, aristocratic family; his father was the lord of the manors of Witley and Milford, Surrey, Milford, in Surrey, England. Webb was educated at Harrow School and Christ Church, Oxford. He collected plants in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and was the first person to collect in the Tetuan Mountains of Morocco. En route to Brazil he made what was intended to be a brief visit to the Canary Islands, but he stayed for a considerable time, returning after his Brazil expedition. The results can be seen in the nine-volume ''Natural History of the Canary Islands, Histoire Naturelle des Iles Canaries'' (''Natural History of the Canary Islands''), which he co-authored with Sabin Berthelot. In company with Berthelot, who had lived on the islands for some time, Webb collected specimens on the islands between 1828 and 1830. The text of ''Histoire Naturelle des Iles Canaries'' took 20&nb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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