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Azure-winged Magpie
The azure-winged magpie (''Cyanopica cyanus'') is a bird in the crow family. It is 31–35 cm long and similar in overall shape to the Eurasian magpie (''Pica pica'') but is more slender with proportionately smaller legs and bill. It belongs to the genus ''Cyanopica''. It has a glossy black top to the head and a white throat. The underparts and the back are a light grey-fawn in colour with the wings and the feathers of the long (16–20 cm) tail an azure blue. It inhabits various types of coniferous (mainly pine) and broadleaf forest, including parks and gardens in the eastern populations. Distribution and habitat It occurs over a large region of eastern Asia in China, Korea, Japan, and north into Mongolia and southern Siberia. The Iberian magpie from southwestern and central parts of the Iberian Peninsula, in Spain and Portugal was formerly thought to be conspecific, but recent genetic analysis has shown them to be distinct at species level. Behaviour and ecolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Simon Pallas
Peter Simon Pallas Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS FRSE (22 September 1741 – 8 September 1811) was a Prussian zoologist and botanist who worked in Russia between 1767 and 1810. Life and work Peter Simon Pallas was born in Berlin, the son of Professor of Surgery Simon Pallas. He studied with private tutors and took an interest in natural history, later attending the University of Halle and the University of Göttingen. In 1760, he moved to the University of Leiden and passed his doctor's degree at the age of 19. Pallas travelled throughout the Netherlands and to London, improving his medical and surgical knowledge. He then settled at The Hague, and his new system of animal classification was praised by Georges Cuvier. Pallas wrote ''Miscellanea Zoologica'' (1766), which included descriptions of several vertebrates new to science which he had discovered in the Dutch museum collections. A planned voyage to southern Africa and the East Indies fell through when his father reca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iberian Magpie
The Iberian magpie (''Cyanopica cooki'') is a bird in the crow family. It is long and similar in overall shape to the Eurasian magpie (''Pica pica'') but is more slender with proportionately smaller legs and bill. It belongs to the genus ''Cyanopica''. Names Other common names include Iberian azure-winged magpie, Cook's azure-winged magpie, and Spanish azure-winged magpie. Description It has a glossy black top to the head and a white throat. The underparts and the back are a light grey-fawn in colour with the wings and the feathers of the long (16–20 cm) tail are an azure blue. Distribution and habitat The Iberian magpie occurs in southwestern and central parts of the Iberian Peninsula, in Spain and Portugal. However, it can sometimes be spotted also in south-western France, and recently its presence has been reported even in north-western Italy. It inhabits various types of coniferous (mainly pine) and broadleaf forest, including parks and gardens in the eastern popula ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Museum Wiesbaden
The Museum Wiesbaden is a two-branch museum of art and natural history in the Hessian capital of Wiesbaden, Germany. It is one of the three Hessian State museums, in addition to the museums in Kassel and Darmstadt. History The foundation of the originally three museums traces back to the citizens of the city and to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who stayed in Wiesbaden in 1814/1815 for a rehabilitation measure, and worked hard to establish such a cultural institution. In 1825 he persuaded the Frankfurter private collector to donate his extensive collections of works of art, antiquities and in kind to the Duchy of Nassau in return for the payment of an annuity for life. Under the responsibility of the newly founded associations, but controlled by the ducal government, the citizens of Wiesbaden and the region were able to quickly expand these collections. Together with the pieces of the ("Association for Nassauian Antiquity and Historical Research") founded in 1812, three origi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Call
Bird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In non-technical use, bird songs are the bird sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology and birding, songs (relatively complex vocalizations) are distinguished by function from calls (relatively simple vocalizations). Definition The distinction between songs and calls is based upon complexity, length, and context. Songs are longer and more complex and are associated with territory and courtship and mating, while calls tend to serve such functions as alarms or keeping members of a flock in contact. Other authorities such as Howell and Webb (1995) make the distinction based on function, so that short vocalizations, such as those of pigeons, and even non-vocal sounds, such as the drumming of woodpeckers and the "winnowing" of snipes' wings in display flight, are considered songs. Still others require song to have syllabic diversity and temporal regularity akin to the repetitive and transformative patte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Egg
Bird eggs are laid by the females and range in quantity from one (as in condors) to up to seventeen (the grey partridge). Clutch size may vary latitudinally within a species. Some birds lay eggs even when the eggs have not been fertilized; it is not uncommon for pet owners to find their lone bird nesting on a clutch of infertile eggs, which are sometimes called wind-eggs. Anatomy All bird eggs contain the following components: * The embryo is the immature developing chick * The amnion is a membrane that initially covers the embryo and eventually fills with amniotic fluid, provides the embryo with protection against shock from movement * The allantois helps the embryo obtain oxygen and handles metabolic waste * The chorion, together with the amnion, forms the amniotic sac and encloses the amnion, vitellus, and the embryo * The vitellus, or yolk, is the nutrient-bearing portion of the egg, containing most of its fat, minerals, and many of its proteins and blood vessels * The alb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. In wider definitions, the taller palms, tree ferns, bananas, and bamboos are also trees. Trees are not a taxonomic group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved a trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight. The majority of tree species are angiosperms or hardwoods; of the rest, many are gymnosperms or softwoods. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years. It is estimated that there are some three trillion mature trees in the world. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground by the trunk. This trunk typically ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Nest
A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American robin or Eurasian blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the Montezuma oropendola or the village weaver—that is too restrictive a definition. For some species, a nest is simply a shallow depression made in sand; for others, it is the knot-hole left by a broken branch, a burrow dug into the ground, a chamber drilled into a tree, an enormous rotting pile of vegetation and earth, a shelf made of dried saliva or a mud dome with an entrance tunnel. The smallest bird nests are those of some hummingbirds, tiny cups which can be a mere across and high. At the other extreme, some nest mounds built by the dusky scrubfowl measure more than in diameter and stand nearly tall. The study of birds' nests is known as ''caliology''. Not all bird species bui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propagated using the movements of humans and animals in a symbiotic relationship that is the means for seed dispersal for the one group and nutrition for the other; in fact, humans and many animals have become dependent on fruits as a source of food. Consequently, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the world's agricultural output, and some (such as the apple and the pomegranate) have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings. In common language usage, "fruit" normally means the seed-associated fleshy structures (or produce) of plants that typically are sweet or sour and edible in the raw state, such as apples, bananas, grapes, lemons, oranges, and strawberries. In botanical usage, the term "fruit" also i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invertebrate
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate subphylum Vertebrata. Familiar examples of invertebrates include arthropods, mollusks, annelids, echinoderms and cnidarians. The majority of animal species are invertebrates; one estimate puts the figure at 97%. Many invertebrate taxa have a greater number and variety of species than the entire subphylum of Vertebrata. Invertebrates vary widely in size, from 50 μm (0.002 in) rotifers to the 9–10 m (30–33 ft) colossal squid. Some so-called invertebrates, such as the Tunicata and Cephalochordata, are more closely related to vertebrates than to other invertebrates. This makes the invertebrates paraphyletic, so the term has little meaning in taxonomy. Etymology The word "invertebrate" comes from the Latin word ''vertebra'', whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pine Nut
Pine nuts, also called piñón (), pinoli (), pignoli or chilgoza (), are the edible seeds of pines (family Pinaceae, genus ''Pinus''). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, only 29 species provide edible nuts, while 20 are traded locally or internationally owing to their seed size being large enough to be worth harvesting; in other pines, the seeds are also edible, but are too small to be of notable value as a human food. Species and geographic spread In Asia, two species in particular are widely harvested: Korean pine (''Pinus koraiensis'') in northeast Asia (the most important species in international trade) and chilgoza pine (''Pinus gerardiana'') in the western Himalaya. Four other species, Siberian pine (''Pinus sibirica''), Siberian dwarf pine (''Pinus pumila''), Chinese white pine (''Pinus armandii'') and lacebark pine (''Pinus bungeana''), are also used to a lesser extent. Russia is the largest producer of ''Pinus sibirica'' nuts in the world, followed b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acorn
The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'' and '' Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne in a cup-shaped cupule. Acorns are long and on the fat side. Acorns take between 5 and 24 months (depending on the species) to mature; see the list of ''Quercus'' species for details of oak classification, in which acorn morphology and phenology are important factors. Etymology The word ''acorn'' (earlier ''akerne'', and ''acharn'') is related to the Gothic name ''akran'', which had the sense of "fruit of the unenclosed land". The word was applied to the most important forest produce, that of the oak. Chaucer spoke of "achornes of okes" in the 14th century. By degrees, popular etymology connected the word both with "corn" and "oak-horn", and the spelling changed accordingly. The current spelling (emerged 15c.-16c.), derives from asso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira. It features the westernmost point in continental Europe, and its Iberian portion is bordered to the west and south by the Atlantic Ocean and to the north and east by Spain, the sole country to have a land border with Portugal. Its two archipelagos form two autonomous regions with their own regional governments. Lisbon is the capital and largest city by population. Portugal is the oldest continuously existing nation state on the Iberian Peninsula and one of the oldest in Europe, its territory having been continuously settled, invaded and fought over since prehistoric times. It was inhabited by pre-Celtic and Celtic peoples who had contact with Phoenicians and Ancient Greek traders, it was ruled by the Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
