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Hazel Dormouse
The hazel dormouse or common dormouse (''Muscardinus avellanarius'') is a small mammal and the only living species in the genus ''Muscardinus''. Distribution and habitat The hazel dormouse is native to northern Europe and Asia Minor. It is the only dormouse native to the British Isles, and is therefore often referred to simply as the "dormouse" in British sources, although the edible dormouse, ''Glis glis'', has been accidentally introduced and now has an established population in South East England. Though Ireland has no native dormouse, the hazel dormouse was discovered in County Kildare in 2010, and appears to be spreading rapidly, helped by the prevalence of hedgerows in the Irish countryside. The United Kingdom distribution of the hazel dormouse can be found on theNational Biodiversity Network website A 2020 study found that hazel dormice in Britain have declined by 51% since 2000. Woodland habitat loss and management and a warming climate are seen as material threats to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern marine invertebrates than the Pliocene has. The Miocene is preceded by the Oligocene and is followed by the Pliocene. As Earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene, the climate slowly cooled towards a series of ice ages. The Miocene boundaries are not marked by a single distinct global event but consist rather of regionally defined boundaries between the warmer Oligocene and the cooler Pliocene Epoch. During the Early Miocene, the Arabian Peninsula collided with Eurasia, severing the connection between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, and allowing a faunal interchange to occur between Eurasia and Africa, including the dispersal of proboscideans into Eurasia. During the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torpor
Torpor is a state of decreased physiological activity in an animal, usually marked by a reduced body temperature and metabolic rate. Torpor enables animals to survive periods of reduced food availability. The term "torpor" can refer to the time a hibernator spends at low body temperature, lasting days to weeks, or it can refer to a period of low body temperature and metabolism lasting less than 24 hours, as in "daily torpor". Animals that undergo daily torpor include birds (even tiny hummingbirds, notably Cypselomorphae) and some mammals, including many marsupial species, rodent species (such as mice), and bats. During the active part of their day, such animals maintain normal body temperature and activity levels, but their metabolic rate and body temperature drop during a portion of the day (usually night) to conserve energy. Some animals seasonally go into long periods of inactivity, with reduced body temperature and metabolism, made up of multiple bouts of torpor. This is kno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corylus Avellana
''Corylus avellana'', the common hazel, is a species of flowering plant in the birch family Betulaceae. It is native to Europe and western Asia. It is an important component of the hedgerows that were the traditional field boundaries in lowland England. The wood was traditionally grown as coppice, the poles cut being used for wattle-and-daub building and agricultural fencing. Common hazel is cultivated for its nuts. The name hazelnut applies to the nuts of any species in the genus ''Corylus'', but in commercial settings a hazelnut is usually that of ''C. avellana''. This hazelnut or cob nut, the kernel of the seed, is edible and used raw or roasted, or ground into a paste. The cob is round, compared with the longer filbert nut. Description Common hazel is typically a shrub reaching tall, but can reach . The leaves are deciduous, rounded, long and across, softly hairy on both surfaces, and with a double-serrate margin. The flowers are produced very early in spring, before ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caterpillar
Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Symphyta) are commonly called caterpillars as well. Both lepidopteran and symphytan larvae have eruciform body shapes. Caterpillars of most species eat plant material ( often leaves), but not all; some (about 1%) eat insects, and some are even cannibalistic. Some feed on other animal products. For example, clothes moths feed on wool, and horn moths feed on the hooves and horns of dead ungulates. Caterpillars are typically voracious feeders and many of them are among the most serious of agricultural pests. In fact, many moth species are best known in their caterpillar stages because of the damage they cause to fruits and other agricultural produce, whereas the moths are obscure and do no direct harm. Conversely, various species of caterpi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aphid
Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A typical life cycle involves flightless females giving live birth to female nymphs—who may also be already pregnant, an adaptation scientists call telescoping generations—without the involvement of males. Maturing rapidly, females breed profusely so that the number of these insects multiplies quickly. Winged females may develop later in the season, allowing the insects to colonize new plants. In temperate regions, a phase of sexual reproduction occurs in the autumn, with the insects often overwintering as eggs. The life cycle of some species involves an alternation between two species of host plants, for example between an annual crop and a woody plant. Some species feed on only one type of plant, while others are generalists, coloni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackthorn
''Prunus spinosa'', called blackthorn or sloe, is a species of flowering plant in the rose family Rosaceae. The species is native to Europe, western Asia, and regionally in northwest Africa. It is locally naturalized in New Zealand, Tasmania, and the Pacific Northwest and New England regions of the United States. The fruits are used to make sloe gin in Britain and patxaran in Spain. The wood is used to make walking sticks, including the Irish shillelagh. Description ''Prunus spinosa'' is a large deciduous shrub or small tree growing to tall, with blackish bark and dense, stiff, spiny branches. The leaves are oval, long and broad, with a serrated margin. The flowers are about in diameter, with five creamy-white petals; they are produced shortly before the leaves in early spring, and are hermaphroditic, and insect-pollinated. The fruit, called a "sloe", is a drupe in diameter, black with a purple-blue waxy bloom, ripening in autumn and traditionally harvested – at l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hornbeam
Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the flowering plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The 30–40 species occur across much of the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Origin of names The common English name ''hornbeam'' derives from the hardness of the woods (likened to horn) and the Old English ''beam'' "tree" (cognate with Dutch ‘’Boom’’ and German ''Baum''). The American hornbeam is also occasionally known as blue-beech, ironwood, or musclewood, the first from the resemblance of the bark to that of the American beech ''Fagus grandifolia'', the other two from the hardness of the wood and the muscled appearance of the trunk and limbs. The botanical name for the genus, ''Carpinus'', is the original Latin name for the European species, although some etymologists derive it from the Celtic for a yoke. Taxonomy Formerly some taxonomists segregated them with the genera ''Corylus'' ( hazels) and ''Ostrya'' (hop-hornbeams) in a separate family, Coryl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hazel
The hazel (''Corylus'') is a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K. (1999). ''Trees of Britain and Europe''. Collins .Huxley, A., ed. (1992). ''New RHS Dictionary of Gardening''. Macmillan . though some botanists split the hazels (with the hornbeams and allied genera) into a separate family Corylaceae. The fruit of the hazel is the hazelnut. Hazels have simple, rounded leaves with double-serrate margins. The flowers are produced very early in spring before the leaves, and are monoecious, with single-sex catkins. The male catkins are pale yellow and long, and the female ones are very small and largely concealed in the buds, with only the bright-red, 1-to-3 mm-long styles visible. The fruits are nuts long and 1–2 cm diameter, surrounded by an involucre (husk) which partly to fully encloses the nut. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squirrel
Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squirrels are indigenous to the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa, and were introduced by humans to Australia. The earliest known fossilized squirrels date from the Eocene epoch, and among other living rodent families, the squirrels are most closely related to the mountain beaver and to the dormice. Etymology The word ''squirrel'', first attested in 1327, comes from the Anglo-Norman which is from the Old French , the reflex of a Latin word , which was taken from the Ancient Greek word (; from ) 'shadow-tailed', referring to the long bushy tail which many of its members have. The native Old English word for the squirrel, , survived only into Middle English (as ) before being replaced. The Old English word is of Common Germanic origin, cognat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bank Vole
The bank vole (''Myodes glareolus'') is a small vole with red-brown fur and some grey patches, with a tail about half as long as its body. A rodent, it lives in woodland areas and is around in length. The bank vole is found in much of Europe and in northwestern Asia. It is native to Great Britain but not to Ireland, where it has been accidentally introduced, and has now colonised much of the south and southwest. The bank vole lives in woodland, hedgerows and other dense vegetation such as bracken and bramble. Its underground chamber is lined with moss, feathers and vegetable fibre and contains a store of food. It can live for eighteen months to two years in the wild and over 42 months in captivity and is mostly herbivorous, eating buds, bark, seeds, nuts, leaves and fruits and occasionally insects and other small invertebrates. It readily climbs into scrub and low branches of trees although it is not as versatile as a mouse. It breeds in shallow burrows, the female rearing about ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wood Mouse
The wood mouse (''Apodemus sylvaticus'') is a murid rodent native to Europe and northwestern Africa. It is closely related to the yellow-necked mouse (''Apodemus flavicollis'') but differs in that it has no band of yellow fur around the neck, has slightly smaller ears, and is usually slightly smaller overall: around 90 mm (3.54 in) in length and 23 g in weight. It is found across most of Europe and is a very common and widespread species, is commensal with people and is sometimes considered a pest. Other common names are long-tailed field mouse, field mouse, common field mouse, and European wood mouse. This species is a known potential carrier of the Dobrava sequence of hantavirus which affects humans and may pose serious risks to human health. Habitat and distribution Wood mice inhabit forests, grasslands, and cultivated fields, tending to seek out more wooded areas in winter. Almost entirely nocturnal and terrestrial, wood mice burrow extensively, build nests of pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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