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Wren
Wrens are a family of brown passerine birds in the predominantly New World family Troglodytidae. The family includes 88 species divided into 19 genera. Only the Eurasian wren occurs in the Old World, where, in Anglophone regions, it is commonly known simply as the "wren", as it is the originator of the name. The name ''wren'' has been applied to other, unrelated birds, particularly the New Zealand wrens (Acanthisittidae) and the Australian wrens (Maluridae). Most wrens are visually inconspicuous though they have loud and often complex songs. Exceptions include the relatively large members of the genus ''Campylorhynchus'', which can be quite bold in their behaviour. Wrens have short wings that are barred in most species, and they often hold their tails upright. Wrens are primarily insectivorous, eating insects, spiders and other small invertebrates, but many species also eat vegetable matter and some eat small frogs and lizards. Etymology and usage The English name "wren" deriv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurasian Wren
The Eurasian wren (''Troglodytes troglodytes'') or northern wren is a very small insectivorous bird, and the only member of the wren family Troglodytidae found in Eurasia and Africa (Maghreb). In Anglophone Europe, it is commonly known simply as the wren. It has a very short tail which is often held erect, a short neck and a relative long thin bill. It is russet brown above, paler buff-brown below and has a cream buff supercilium. The sexes are alike. The species was once lumped with '' Troglodytes hiemalis'' of eastern North America and '' Troglodytes pacificus'' of western North America as the winter wren. The Eurasian wren occurs in Europe and across the Palearctic – including a belt of Asia from northern Iran and Afghanistan across to Japan. It is migratory in only the northern parts of its range. It is also highly polygynous, an unusual mating system for passerines. The scientific name is taken from the Greek word "troglodytes" (from τρώγλη "hole", and δ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marsh Wren
The marsh wren (''Cistothorus palustris'') is a small North American songbird of the wren family. It is sometimes called the long-billed marsh wren to distinguish it from the sedge wren, also known as the short-billed marsh wren. Taxonomy The marsh wren was described by the Scottish-American ornithologist Alexander Wilson in 1810 and given the binomial name ''Certhia palustris''. The current genus ''Cistothorus'' was introduced by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis in 1850. There are 15 recognised subspecies. Etymology: from Greek 'κιστος' (''cistos'', "a shrub") and 'θουρος' (''thouros'', "leaping, or running through") and Latin 'palustris' ("marshy"). Description Adults have brown upperparts with a light brown belly and flanks and a white throat and breast. The back is black with white stripes. They have a dark cap with a white line over the eyes and a short thin bill. The male's song is a loud gurgle used to declare ownership of territory; western males h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Campylorhynchus
''Campylorhynchus'' is a genus of wrens, which has at least 15 described species. At 17–22 cm (6.8-8.7 in) long, these are the largest-bodied of wrens, including the largest species, the giant wren. Member species are found in South and Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ... and in some cases, as far north as the southwestern United States. Taxonomy A 2007 genetic study established the following relationships between species, including some selected subspecies: Species Notes References Bird genera * {{Troglodytidae-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acanthisittidae
The New Zealand wrens are a family (Acanthisittidae) of tiny passerines endemic to New Zealand. They were represented by seven Holocene species in four or five genera, although only two species in two genera survive today. They are understood to form a distinct lineage within the passerines, but authorities differ on their assignment to the oscines or suboscines (the two suborders that between them make up the Passeriformes). More recent studies suggest that they form a third, most ancient, suborder Acanthisitti and have no living close relatives at all. They are called "wrens" due to similarities in appearance and behaviour to the true wrens (Troglodytidae) but are not members of that family. New Zealand wrens are mostly insectivorous foragers of New Zealand's forests, with one species, the New Zealand rock wren, being restricted to alpine areas. Both the remaining species are poor fliers and four of the five extinct species are known or suspected to have been flightless. Along w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goldcrest
The goldcrest (''Regulus regulus'') is a very small passerine bird in the kinglet family. Its colourful golden crest feathers, as well as being called the "king of the birds" in European folklore, gives rise to its English and scientific names. The scientific name, ''R. regulus'', means king or knight. Several subspecies are recognised across the very large distribution range that includes much of the Palearctic and the islands of Macaronesia and Iceland. Birds from the north and east of its breeding range migrate to winter further south. This kinglet has greenish upper-parts, whitish under-parts, and has two white wingbars. It has a plain face contrasting black irises and a bright head crest, orange and yellow in the male and yellow in the female, which is displayed during breeding. It superficially resembles the common firecrest (''Regulus ignicapilla''), which largely shares its European range, but the latter's bronze shoulders and strong face pattern are distinctive. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maluridae
The Australasian wrens are a family (biology), family, Maluridae, of small, insectivorous passerine birds endemic to Australia and New Guinea. While commonly known as wrens, they are unrelated to the wren, true wrens. The family comprises 32 species (including sixteen fairywrens, three emu-wrens, and thirteen grasswrens) in six genera. Taxonomy and systematics As with many other Australian creatures, and perhaps more than most, the species making up this family were comprehensively misunderstood by early researchers. They were variously classified as Old World flycatchers, Old World warblers, and Old World babblers. In the late 1960s morphological studies began to suggest that the Australo-Papuan fairywrens, the grasswrens, emu-wrens and two monotypic wren-like genera from New Guinea were related and, following Charles Sibley's pioneering work on egg-white proteins in the mid-1970s, Australian researchers adopted the family name Maluridae in 1975. With further morphological wor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kinglet
A kinglet is a small bird in the family Regulidae. Species in this family were formerly classified with the Old World warblers. "Regulidae" is derived from the Latin word ''regulus'' for "petty king" or prince, and refers to the coloured crowns of adult birds. This family has representatives in North America and Eurasia. There are six species in this family; one, the Madeira firecrest, ''Regulus madeirensis'', was only recently split from common firecrest as a separate species. One species, the ruby-crowned kinglet, differs sufficiently in its voice and plumage to be afforded its own genus, ''Corthylio''. Description Kinglets are among the smallest of all passerines, ranging in size from and weighing ; the sexes are the same size. They have medium-length wings and tails, and small needle-like bills. The plumage is overall grey-green, offset by pale wingbars, and the tail tip is incised. Five species have a single stiff feather covering the nostrils, but in the ruby-crowned ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Geiler Von Kaisersberg
Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg (16 March 1445 – 10 March 1510) was a priest, considered one of the greatest of the popular preachers of the 15th century. He was closely connected with the Renaissance humanists of Strasbourg, whose leader was the well-known Jakob Wimpfeling (1450–1528), called "the educator of Germany". Like Wimpfeling, Geiler was a secular priest; both fought the ecclesiastical abuses of the age, but not in the spirit of Martin Luther and his adherents. They looked, instead, for salvation and preservation only in the restoration of Christian morals in Church and State through the faithful maintenance of the doctrines of the Church. However the moral reforms of Johann Geiler layed the groundwork for the Protestant reformation in Strasbourg. Early life and education He was born at Schaffhausen, but from 1448 passed his childhood and youth at Kaysersberg in Upper Alsace. His grandfather, who brought him up, lived there. The father was killed by a hunting-acci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern history, modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early Middle Ages, Early, High Middle Ages, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History (Pliny)
The ''Natural History'' ( la, Naturalis historia) is a work by Pliny the Elder. The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the ''Natural History'' compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors. Despite the work's title, its subject area is not limited to what is today understood by natural history; Pliny himself defines his scope as "the natural world, or life". It is encyclopedic in scope, but its structure is not like that of a modern encyclopedia. It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published. He published the first 10 books in AD 77, but had not made a final revision of the remainder at the time of his death during the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. The rest was published posthumously by Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger. The work is divided into 37 books, organised into 10 volumes. These cover topics including astronomy, mathematics, geography, ethnography, anthropology, human physiolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliny The Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ''Naturalis Historia'' (''Natural History''), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus: Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume work ''Bella Germaniae'' ("The History of the German Wars"), which is no longer extant. ''Bella Germaniae'', which began where Aufidius Bassus' ''Libri Belli Germanici'' ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus and Suetonius. Tacitus—who many scholars agree had never travelled in Germania—used ''Bella Germani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branches during the fifth century BC to fifth century AD: West Germanic, East Germanic and North Germanic, which however remained in contact over a considerable time, especially the Ingvaeonic languages (including English), which arose from West Germanic dialects and remained in continued contact with North Germanic. A defining feature of Proto-Germanic is the completion of the process described by Grimm's law, a set of sound changes that occurred between its status as a dialect of Proto-Indo-European and its gradual divergence into a separate language. As it is probable that the development of this sound shift spanned a considerable time (several centuries), Proto-Germanic cannot adequately be reconstructed as a simple node in a tree model but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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