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Xantusia Gracilis
The sandstone night lizard (''Xantusia gracilis'') is a species of night lizard. Prior to 2005, it was considered a subspecies of the granite night lizard, ''Xantusia henshawi''. The physical difference is that the sandstone night lizard has lighter coloration. Range The sandstone night lizard is extremely limited geographically; it is known only to the Truckhaven Rocks in the Colorado Desert, at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in eastern San Diego County, California. Description The lizard is very secretive using small burrows and sandstone or siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, p ... for cover. References This article is based on a description from the website of California Wildlife Habitat Relationships System https://web.archive.org/web/20060805132729/htt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The IUCN Red List Of Threatened Species
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. It uses a set of precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world. With its strong scientific base, the IUCN Red List is recognized as the most authoritative guide to the status of biological diversity. A series of Regional Red Lists are produced by countries or organizations, which assess the risk of extinction to species within a political management unit. The aim of the IUCN Red List is to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to reduce species extinction. According to IUCN the formally stated goals of the Red List are to provide sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in data gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, and education. IUCN's mission is to "influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable". Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to sustainable development in its projects. IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation. It tries to influence the actions of governments, business and other stakeholders by providing information and advice and through building partnerships. The organization is best known to the wider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Granite Night Lizard
The granite night lizard (''Xantusia henshawi'') is a species of xantusiid lizard endemic to North America."''Xantusia henshawi'' ". The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org. Etymology The specific name, ''henshawi'', is in honor of American naturalist Henry Wetherbee Henshaw.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Xantusia henshawi'', p. 121). Geographic range ''X. henshawi'' is found in Mexico in the Mexican state of Baja California, and also in the United States in adjacent southern California. Description ''X. henshawi'' is flat-bodied with a broad, flat head and a soft skin. It has rounded, dark dorsal spots on a pale yellow or cream background. Its scales are granular on its dorsum, but large and squarish on the ventral surface. These lizards have large eyes with vertical pupils, and they lack eyelids. Habitat and behavior Granite night lizards ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colorado Desert
California's Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert. It encompasses approximately , including the heavily irrigated Coachella and Imperial valleys. It is home to many unique flora and fauna. Geography and geology The Colorado Desert is a subdivision of the larger Sonoran Desert encompassing approximately . The desert encompasses Imperial County and includes parts of San Diego County, Riverside County, and a small part of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Most of the Colorado Desert lies at a relatively low elevation, below , with the lowest point of the desert floor at below sea level, at the Salton Sea. Although the highest peaks of the Peninsular Ranges reach elevations of nearly , most of the region's mountains do not exceed . In this region, the geology is dominated by the transition of the tectonic plate boundary from rift to fault. The southernmost strands of the San Andreas Fault connect to the northernmost extensions of the East Pacif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (, '' AN-zə bə-RAY-goh'') is a California State Park located within the Colorado Desert of southern California, United States. The park takes its name from 18th century Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and ''borrego'', a Spanish word for sheep. With that includes one-fifth of San Diego County, it is the largest state park in California. The park occupies eastern San Diego County and reaches into Imperial and Riverside counties, enveloping two communities: Borrego Springs, which is home to the park's headquarters, and Shelter Valley. Geography The park is an anchor in the Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve, and adjacent to the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. The great bowl of the surrounding desert is surrounded by mountains, with the Vallecito Mountains to the south and the highest Santa Rosa Mountains to the north which are in the wilderness area, without paved roads and with the only year-round c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Diego County, California
San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fifth-most populous in the United States. Its county seat is San Diego, the second-most populous city in California and the eighth-most populous city in the United States. It is the southwesternmost county in the 48 contiguous United States, and is a border county. It is also home to 18 Native American tribal reservations, the most of any county in the United States. San Diego County comprises the San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is the 17th most populous metropolitan statistical area and the 18th most populous primary statistical area of the United States as of July 1, 2012. San Diego County is also part of the San Diego–Tijuana transborder metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area shar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) because they are the most resistant minerals to weathering processes at the Earth's surface. Like uncemented sand, sandstone may be any color due to impurities within the minerals, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, certain colors of sandstone have been strongly identified with certain regions. Rock formations that are primarily composed of sandstone usually allow the percolation of water and other fluids and are porous enough to store large quantities, making them valuable aquifers and petroleum reservoirs. Quartz-bearing sandstone can be changed into quartzite through metamorphism, usually related to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siltstone
Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, pp.381-382 Although its permeability and porosity is relatively low, siltstone is sometimes a tight gas reservoir rock, an unconventional reservoir for natural gas that requires hydraulic fracturing for economic gas production. Siltstone was prized in ancient Egypt for manufacturing statuary and cosmetic palettes. The siltstone quarried at Wadi Hammamat was a hard, fine-grained siltstone that resisted flaking and was almost ideal for such uses. Description There is not complete agreement on the definition of siltstone. One definition is that siltstone is mudrock ( clastic sedimentary rock containing at least 50% clay and silt) in which at least 2/3 of the clay and silt fraction is composed of silt-sized particles. Silt is defined a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xantusia
''Xantusia'' is one of three genera of night lizards (family '' Xantusiidae''). Species of ''Xantusia'' are small to medium-sized, viviparous (live-bearing) lizards found in the U.S. Southwest and in northern Mexico. Taxonomy and etymology The names and descriptions of the genus ''Xantusia'' and the type species ''X. vigilis'' were published in 1859 by Spencer Fullerton Baird, the generic name commemorating the naturalist John Xantus. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (Genus ''Xantusia'', p. 291). Species The following is a list of species in the genus. *'' Xantusia arizonae'' Klauber, 1931 – Arizona night lizard *'' Xantusia bezyi'' Papenfuss, Macey & J.A. Schulte, 2001 – Bezy's night lizard *'' Xantusia bolsonae'' Webb, 1970 – bolsón night lizard *'' Xantusia extorris'' Webb, 1965 – Durango night lizard *'' Xantusia gilberti'' Van Denburg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemic Fauna Of California
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 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 aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. '' Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a 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 species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fauna Of The Colorado Desert
California's Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert. It encompasses approximately , including the heavily irrigated Coachella and Imperial valleys. It is home to many unique flora and fauna. Geography and geology The Colorado Desert is a subdivision of the larger Sonoran Desert encompassing approximately . The desert encompasses Imperial County and includes parts of San Diego County, Riverside County, and a small part of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Most of the Colorado Desert lies at a relatively low elevation, below , with the lowest point of the desert floor at below sea level, at the Salton Sea. Although the highest peaks of the Peninsular Ranges reach elevations of nearly , most of the region's mountains do not exceed . In this region, the geology is dominated by the transition of the tectonic plate boundary from rift to fault. The southernmost strands of the San Andreas Fault connect to the northernmost extensions of the East Pacifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History Of San Diego County, California
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are part of nature, human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena. The word ''nature'' is borrowed from the Old French ''nature'' and is derived from the Latin word ''natura'', or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant " birth". In ancient philosophy, ''natura'' is mostly used as the Latin translation of the Greek word '' physis'' (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics of plants, animals, and other features of the world to develop of their own accord. The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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