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Wallace's Standardwing
The standardwing bird-of-paradise (''Semioptera wallacii'') also known as Wallace's standardwing or as the standardwing is a species of bird-of-paradise. It is the only member in monotypic genus ''Semioptera''. Etymology George Robert Gray of the British Museum named this species in honour of Alfred Russel Wallace, British naturalist and author of ''The Malay Archipelago'', who in 1858 was the first European to describe the bird. The generic name ''Semioptera'' is composed of ''semeion'' for a flag or military standard and ''ptera'' for wings. Subspecies and taxonomy The standardwing bird-of-paradises' closest relatives are the superb birds-of-paradise (''Lophorina'' species), and actually evolved after the ''Drepanornis'' sicklebills, making them one of their other closest relatives. It has two subspecies: *''Semioptera wallacii halmaherae'' Salvadori, 1881 *''Semioptera wallacii wallacii'' Gray, 1859 Conservation status A common species in its limited habitat range, the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Robert Gray
George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother of the zoologist John Edward Gray and the son of the botanist Samuel Frederick Gray. George Gray's most important publication was his ''Genera of Birds'' (1844–49), illustrated by David William Mitchell and Joseph Wolf, which included 46,000 references. Biography He was born in Little Chelsea, London, to Samuel Frederick Gray, naturalist and pharmacologist, and Elizabeth (née Forfeit), his wife. He was educated at Merchant Taylor's School. Gray started at the British Museum as Assistant Keeper of the Zoology Branch in 1831. He began by cataloguing insects, and published an ''Entomology of Australia'' (1833) and contributed the entomogical section to an English edition of Georges Cuvier's ''Animal Kingdom''. Gray described many spec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Maluku
The Halmahera rain forests is a tropical moist forest ecoregion in Indonesia. The ecoregion includes the island of Halmahera and neighboring islands, including Bacan, Morotai, the Obi Islands, Ternate, Tidore, Gebe, and many smaller islands. Geography Halmahera is the largest island in the ecoregion, with an area of 17,780 km². The islands are mountainous, and portions are volcanic in origin. Several volcanoes are still active, including Mount Gamkonora (1,560 m) the highest peak on Halmahera. The islands that make up the ecoregion are part of Wallacea, a group of islands that are part of the Australasian realm, but were never joined to either the Australian or Asian continents. The islands of Wallacea are home to a mix of plants and animals from both terrestrial realms, and have many unique species that evolved in isolation. The eastern boundary of the ecoregion follows Lydekker's Line, which demarcates the islands of Wallacea from the islands on the Australia-New Guinea cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence, and is therefore free of commercial advertising. It is a comparatively well-funded public-service network, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public-service networks worldwide. Originally styled BBC2, it was the third British television station to be launched (starting on 21 April 1964), and from 1 July 1967, Europe's first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour. It was envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming, and while this tendency has continued to date, most special-interest programmes of a kind previously broadcast on BBC Two, for example the BBC Proms, no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnus Magnusson
Magnus Magnusson, (born Magnús Sigursteinsson; 12 October 1929 – 7 January 2007) was an Icelandic-born British-based journalist, translator, writer and television presenter. Born in Reykjavík, he lived in Scotland for almost all his life, although he never took British citizenship. He came to prominence as a BBC television journalist and was the presenter of the BBC television quiz programme ''Mastermind'' for 25 years. His catchphrase "I've started so I'll finish" was said whenever the time ran out while he was reading a question on the show. Early life Magnús Sigursteinsson was born in Reykjavík on 12 October 1929, but grew up in Edinburgh, where his father, Sigursteinn Magnússon, was the Icelandic consul. In Scotland his family adopted a British naming convention, and from childhood Magnus used his father's patronymic as a surname. Magnusson lived with his family in John Street, Joppa, an eastern suburb of Edinburgh. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, where he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeffery Boswall
Jeffery Boswall (20 March 1931 – 15 August 2012) was a British naturalist, broadcaster and educator. One of the longest serving producers with the BBC Natural History Unit (1957-1987), and the writer and presenter/narrator of many of the programmes he produced, he was also prominent in the development of the ethics of natural history broadcasting and the encouragement of new entrants into the field. Boswall wrote and produced the first wildlife film shown in colour on the BBC, '' The Private Life of the Kingfisher'', filmed by Ron Eastman. It was broadcast in 1967 on BBC2. He was one of the "pioneers of British natural history broadcasting" (Daily Telegraph obituary, 5 September 2012). Early years Jeffery Hugh Richard Boswall was born in Brighton on 20 March 1931. A keen amateur ornithologist, his first published article appeared in the journal British Birds when he was 16. His interest in ornithology arose from a chance suggestion by a friend that he join him bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malay Language
Malay (; ms, Bahasa Melayu, links=no, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , Rejang script, Rencong: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and that is also spoken in East Timor and parts of the Philippines and Thailand. Altogether, it is spoken by 290 million people (around 260 million in Indonesia alone in its own literary standard named "Indonesian language, Indonesian") across Maritime Southeast Asia. As the or ("national language") of several states, Standard Malay has various official names. In Malaysia, it is designated as either ("Malaysian Malay") or also ("Malay language"). In Singapore and Brunei, it is called ("Malay language"). In Indonesia, an autonomous normative variety called ("Indonesian language") is designated the ("unifying language" or lingua franca). However, in areas of Central to Southern Sumatra, where vernacular varieties of Malay are indigenous, Indonesians refe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maximilianus Transylvanus
Maximilian van Sevenbergen, Latinized in Maximilianus Transylvanus (Transilvanus, Transylvanianus), also Maximilianus of Transylvania and Maximilian (Maximiliaen) von Sevenborgen (between 1485 and 1490 – 1538, Brussels), was a courtier of Emperor Charles V who is mainly known for having authored the earliest account published on the Magellan and Elcano expedition, the first circumnavigation of the world (1519–22). Written after he interviewed the survivors of the ''Victoria'', and being a relative of its sponsor Christopher de Haro, his account ''De Moluccis Insulis'' is a main source of information about the expedition along with those of Antonio Pigafetta and Peter Martyr. His family I) Steven (Stephanus) van Sevenbergen (His family may have come from the village of Zevenbergen in North Brabant, which was also the native town of Erasmus's mother), married Joanna Meers. II) Lucas van Sevenbergen, bourgeois of Brussels, goldsmith, living in Brussels, valet de cham ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonio Pigafetta
Antonio Pigafetta (; – c. 1531) was an Venetian scholar and explorer. He joined the expedition to the Spice Islands led by explorer Ferdinand Magellan under the flag of the emperor Charles V and after Magellan's death in the Philippine Islands, the subsequent voyage around the world. During the expedition, he served as Magellan's assistant and kept an accurate journal, which later assisted him in translating the Cebuano language. It is the first recorded document concerning the language. Pigafetta was one of the 18 men who made the complete trip, returning to Spain in 1522, under the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano, out of the approximately 240 who set out three years earlier. These men completed the first circumnavigation of the world. Others mutinied and returned in the first year. Pigafetta's surviving journal is the source for much of what is known about Magellan and Elcano's voyage. At least one warship of the Italian Navy, a destroyer of the ''Navigatori'' class, wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles I Of Spain
Charles V, french: Charles Quint, it, Carlo V, nl, Karel V, ca, Carles V, la, Carolus V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain ( Castile and Aragon) from 1516 to 1556, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy from 1506 to 1555. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg during the first half of the 16th century, his dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with direct rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and the Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its southern Italian possessions of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. He oversaw both the continuation of the long-lasting Spanish colonization of the Americas and the short-lived German colonization of the Americas. The personal union of the European and American territories of Charles V was the first collection of realms labelled "the empire on which the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tidore
Tidore ( id, Kota Tidore Kepulauan, lit. "City of Tidore Islands") is a city, island, and archipelago in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, west of the larger island of Halmahera. Part of North Maluku Province, the city includes the island of Tidore (and smaller outlying islands) together with a large part of Halmahera Island to its east. In the pre-colonial era, the Sultanate of Tidore was a major regional political and economic power, and a fierce rival of nearby Ternate, just to the north. Geography Tidore Island consists of a large stratovolcano which rises from the seafloor to an elevation of above sea level at the conical Mount Kie Matubu on the south end of the island. The northern side of the island contains a caldera, Sabale, with two smaller volcanic cones within it. Soasio is Tidore's capital. It has its own port, Goto, and it lies on the eastern edge of the island. It has a mini bus terminal and a market. The sultan's palace was rebuilt with completion in 201 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circumnavigation
Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical object, astronomical body (e.g. a planet or natural satellite, moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first recorded circumnavigation of the Earth was the Magellan's circumnavigation, Magellan–Elcano expedition, which sailed from Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain in 1519 and returned in 1522, after crossing the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pacific, and Indian Ocean, Indian oceans. Since the rise of commercial aviation in the late 20th century, circumnavigating Earth is straightforward, usually taking days instead of years. Today, the challenge of circumnavigating Earth has shifted towards human and technological endurance, speed, and List of circumnavigations#Miscellaneous, less conventional methods. Etymology The word ''circumnavigation'' is a noun formed from the verb ''circumnavigate'', from the past participle of the Latin verb '':wikt:circumnav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East Indies across the Pacific Ocean to open a maritime trade route, during which he discovered the interoceanic passage bearing thereafter his name and achieved the first European navigation from the Atlantic to Asia. During this voyage, Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan in 1521 in the present-day Philippines, after running into resistance by the indigenous population led from Lapulapu, who consequently became a Philippines national symbol of resistance to colonialism. After Magellan's death, Juan Sebastián Elcano took the lead of the expedition, and with its few other surviving members in one of the two remaining ships, completed the first circumnavigation of Earth when they returned to Spain in 1522. Born 4 February 1480 into a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
