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Mesopotamia, Argentina
La Mesopotamia or Región Mesopotámica is the humid and verdant area of northeast Argentina, comprising the provinces of Misiones, Entre Ríos, and Corrientes Corrientes (; Guaraní language, Guaraní: Taragüí, literally: "Currents") is the capital city of the Provinces of Argentina, province of Corrientes Province, Corrientes, Argentina, located on the eastern shore of the Paraná River, about from .... The landscape and its characteristics are dominated by two rivers: the Paraná River, Paraná and the Uruguay River, Uruguay.Lewis, p. 2 When Spanish settlers came to the area, the two parallel rivers and the lush area between them drew comparisons to Mesopotamia (Ancient Greek, Greek: Μεσοποταμία "land between rivers") in modern-day Iraq, and it was decided that the Argentine region be named after the Iraqi region. The region shares many of its ecological features with neighboring regions of Argentina and with parts of Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Mesopotam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesopotamia Argentina
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia occupies modern Iraq. In the broader sense, the historical region included present-day Iraq and Kuwait and parts of present-day Iran, Syria and Turkey. The Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians) originating from different areas in present-day Iraq, dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history () to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire. Later the Arameans dominated major parts of Mesopotamia (). Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. It has been i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pantanal
The Pantanal () is a natural region encompassing the world's largest tropical wetland area, and the world's largest flooded grasslands. It is located mostly within the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, but it extends into Mato Grosso and portions of Bolivia and Paraguay. It sprawls over an area estimated at between . Various subregional ecosystems exist, each with distinct hydrological, geological and ecological characteristics; up to 12 of them have been defined.Susan Mcgrath, photos by Joel Sartore, ''Brazil's Wild Wet'', National Geographic Magazine, August 2005 Roughly 80% of the Pantanal floodplains are submerged during the rainy seasons, nurturing a biologically diverse collection of aquatic plants and helping to support a dense array of animal species. Etymology The name "Pantanal" comes from the Portuguese word ''pântano'' that means "big wetland", "big bog", "big swamp", "big quagmire" or "big marsh" plus the suffix ''-al'', that means "abundance, agglomeratio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yerba Mate
Yerba mate or yerba-maté (''Ilex paraguariensis''; from Spanish ; pt, erva-mate, or ; gn, ka'a, ) is a plant species of the holly genus ''Ilex'' native to South America. It was named by the French botanist Augustin Saint-Hilaire. The leaves of the plant can be steeped in hot water to make a beverage known as ''mate''. Brewed cold, it is used to make ''tereré''. Both the plant and the beverage contain caffeine. The indigenous Guaraní and some Tupí communities (whose territory covered present-day Paraguay) first cultivated and consumed yerba mate prior to European colonization of the Americas. Its consumption was exclusive to the natives of only two regions of the territory that today is Paraguay, more specifically the departments of Amambay and Alto Paraná. After the Jesuits discovered its commercialization potential, yerba mate became widespread throughout the province and even elsewhere in the Spanish Crown. Mate is traditionally consumed in central and southern regi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orchid
Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering plants. The Orchidaceae have about 28,000 currently accepted species, distributed in about 763 genera. (See ''External links'' below). The determination of which family is larger is still under debate, because verified data on the members of such enormous families are continually in flux. Regardless, the number of orchid species is nearly equal to the number of bony fishes, more than twice the number of bird species, and about four times the number of mammal species. The family encompasses about 6–11% of all species of seed plants. The largest genera are ''Bulbophyllum'' (2,000 species), ''Epidendrum'' (1,500 species), ''Dendrobium'' (1,400 species) and ''Pleurothallis'' (1,000 species). It also includes ''Vanilla'' (the genus of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tree Fern
The tree ferns are arborescent (tree-like) ferns that grow with a trunk elevating the fronds above ground level, making them trees. Many extant tree ferns are members of the order Cyatheales, to which belong the families Cyatheaceae (scaly tree ferns), Dicksoniaceae, Metaxyaceae, and Cibotiaceae. It is estimated that Cyatheales originated in the early Jurassic, and is the third group of ferns known to have given rise to tree-like forms. The others are the extinct '' Tempskya'' of uncertain position, and Osmundales where the extinct Guaireaceae and some members of Osmundaceae also grew into trees. In addition there were the Psaroniaceae and Tietea in the Marattiales, which is the sister group to most living ferns including Cyatheales. Other ferns which are also tree ferns, are ''Leptopteris'' and ''Todea'' in the family Osmundaceae, which can achieve short trunks under a metre tall. Fern species with short trunks in the genera ''Blechnum'', '' Cystodium'' and ''Sadleria'' from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Araucaria Angustifolia
''Araucaria angustifolia'', the Paraná pine, Brazilian pine or candelabra tree (, or ), is a critically endangered species in the conifer genus '' Araucaria''. Although the common names in various languages refer to the species as a "pine", it does not belong in the genus ''Pinus''. Origin and taxonomy The genus ''Araucaria'' was part of terrestrial flora since the Triassic and found its apogee in Gondwana. Today, it is restricted to the Southern Hemisphere and has 19 species. Distribution Covering an original area of , it has now lost an estimated 97% of its habitat to logging, agriculture, and silviculture. It is native to southern Brazil (also found in high-altitude areas of southern Minas Gerais, in central Rio de Janeiro and in the east and south of São Paulo, but more typically in the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul). According to a study made by Brazilian researcher Reinhard Maack, the original area of occurrence represented 36.67% of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
El Palmar National Park
El Palmar National Park (in Spanish, ''Parque Nacional El Palmar'') is one of Argentina's national parks, located on the center-east of the province of Entre Ríos, midway between the cities of Colón (54 km) and Concordia (60 km). It has an area of about 85 km2 and was created in 1966 for the preservation of its characteristic yatay palm trees (''Butia yatay'', formerly ''Syagrus yatay''). The park has a temperate-humid savanna ecosystem, typical of the Argentine Mesopotamia. The terrain features patches of palm trees of several species, grassland, small woods and forest, interrupted by streams flowing east into the Uruguay River. The local fauna includes woodpeckers, ñandús, foxes, viscacha Viscacha or vizcacha (, ) are rodents of two genera ('' Lagidium'' and ''Lagostomus'') in the family Chinchillidae. They are native to South America and convergently resemble rabbits. The five extant species of viscacha are: *The plains visc ...s, and capybaras. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Butia Yatay
''Butia yatay'', the jelly palm or yatay palm, is a ''Butia'' palm native to southern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina. It is known as the ''butiá-jataí'' in Portuguese in the south of Brazil, as well as simply ''jataí'' or ''butiá''. It is sometimes cultivated as an ornamental in Europe and the United States. It is the tallest of all the species in the genus ''Butia''. The fruit is edible with a sweet flavour. Etymology This is one of only a few plants in which the scientific name is completely derived from Native American languages. ''Butia'' is from a local Brazilian vernacular name likely derived from Old Tupi ''ᵐba atí'', meaning 'thorny thing', which probably refers to the spines along the petiole margins of most species. The specific epithet ''yatay'' is adopted from the Guaraní language word for such palms, ''yata'i'', which itself refers to the small, hard fruit. Taxonomy In 1970 Sidney Fredrick Glassman moved this species, along with all other ''Butia'', t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palm Tree
The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees. Currently, 181 genera with around 2,600 species are known, most of which are restricted to tropical and subtropical climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, arranged at the top of an unbranched stem. However, palms exhibit an enormous diversity in physical characteristics and inhabit nearly every type of habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts. Palms are among the best known and most extensively cultivated plant families. They have been important to humans throughout much of history. Many common products and foods are derived from palms. In contemporary times, palms are also widely used in landscaping. In many historical cultures, because of their importance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. Etymology The word "flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology. The technical term "flora" is then derived from a metonymy of this goddess at the end of the sixteenth century. It was first used in poetry to denote the natural vegetation of an area, but soon also assumed the meaning of a work cataloguing such vegetation. Moreover, "Flora" was used to refer to the flowers of an artificial garden in the seventeenth century. The distinction between vegetation (the general appearance of a community) and flora (the taxonomic composition of a community) was first made by Jules Thurmann (1849). Prior to this, the two terms were used indiscriminately.Thurmann, J. (1849). ''Essai de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monkey
Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomplete paraphyletic grouping; however, in the broader sense based on cladistics, apes (Hominoidea) are also included, making the terms ''monkeys'' and ''simians'' synonyms in regards to their scope. In 1812, Geoffroy grouped the apes and the Cercopithecidae group of monkeys together and established the name Catarrhini, "Old World monkeys", ("''singes de l'Ancien Monde''" in French). The extant sister of the Catarrhini in the monkey ("singes") group is the Platyrrhini (New World monkeys). Some nine million years before the divergence between the Cercopithecidae and the apes, the Platyrrhini emerged within "monkeys" by migration to South America likely by ocean. Apes are thus deep in the tree of extant and extinct monkeys, and any of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toucan
Toucans (, ) are members of the Neotropical near passerine bird family Ramphastidae. The Ramphastidae are most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five genera and over forty different species. Toucans are arboreal and typically lay 2–4 white eggs in their nests. They make their nests in tree hollows and holes excavated by other animals such as woodpeckers—the toucan bill has very limited use as an excavation tool. When the eggs hatch, the young emerge completely naked, without any down. Toucans are resident breeders and do not migrate. Toucans are usually found in pairs or small flocks. They sometimes fence with their bills and wrestle, which scientists hypothesize they do to establish dominance hierarchies. In Africa and Asia, hornbills occupy the toucans' ecological niche, an example of convergent evolution. Taxonomy and systematics The name of this bird group is derived from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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