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Elephant Seal
Elephant seals or sea elephants are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus ''Mirounga''. Both species, the northern elephant seal (''M. angustirostris'') and the southern elephant seal (''M. leonina''), were hunted to the brink of extinction for lamp oil by the end of the 19th century, but their numbers have since recovered. They can weigh up to . Despite their name, elephant seals are not closely related to elephants, and the large proboscis or trunk that males of the species possess is an example of convergent evolution. The northern elephant seal, somewhat smaller than its southern relative, ranges over the Pacific coast of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The most northerly breeding location on the Pacific Coast is at Race Rocks Marine Protected Area, at the southern tip of Vancouver Island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The southern elephant seal is found in the Southern Hemisphere on islands such as South Georgia and Macquarie Island, and on the coasts of New Z ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Elephant Seal
The northern elephant seal (''Mirounga angustirostris'') is one of two species of elephant seal (the other is the southern elephant seal). It is a member of the family Phocidae (true seals). Elephant seals derive their name from their great size and from the male's large proboscis, which is used in making extraordinarily loud roaring noises, especially during the mating competition. Sexual dimorphism in size is great. Correspondingly, the mating system is highly polygynous; a successful male is able to impregnate up to 50 females in one season. Description The huge male northern elephant seal typically weighs and measures , although some males can weigh up to . Females are much smaller and can range from in weight, or roughly a third of the male's bulk, and measure from . The bull southern elephant seals are, on average, larger than those in the northern species, but the females in both are around the same size, indicating the even higher level of sexual dimorphism in the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macquarie Island
Macquarie Island is a subantarctic island in the south-western Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. It has been governed as a part of Tasmania, Australia, since 1880. It became a Protected areas of Tasmania, Tasmanian State Reserve in 1978 and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. Macquarie Island is an exposed portion of the Macquarie Fault Zone, Macquarie Ridge and is located where the Australian Plate meets the Pacific Plate. The island is home to the entire royal penguin population during their annual nesting season. Ecologically, the island is part of the Antipodes Subantarctic Islands tundra ecoregion. History 19th century Frederick Hasselborough, an Australian, discovered the uninhabited island on 11 July 1810, while looking for new seal hunting, sealing grounds. He claimed Macquarie Island for United Kingdom, Britain and annexation, annexed it to the colony of New South Wales in 1810. The island was named for Colonel Lachla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earless Seal
The earless seals, phocids, or true seals are one of the three main groups of mammals within the seal lineage, Pinnipedia. All true seals are members of the family Phocidae (). They are sometimes called crawling seals to distinguish them from the fur seals and sea lions of the family Eared seal, Otariidae. Seals live in the oceans of both hemispheres and, with the exception of the more tropical monk seals, are mostly confined to Polar region, polar, subpolar, and temperate climates. The Baikal seal is the only species of exclusively freshwater seal. Taxonomy and evolution Evolution The earliest known fossil earless seal is ''Noriphoca gaudini'' from the late Oligocene or earliest Miocene (Aquitanian (stage), Aquitanian) of Italy. Other early fossil phocids date from the mid-Miocene, 15 million years ago in the north Atlantic. Until recently, many researchers believed that phocids evolved separately from otariids and Walrus, odobenids; and that they evolved from otter-like ani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marine Mammals
Marine mammals are mammals that rely on marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as cetaceans, pinnipeds, sirenians, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their reliance on marine environments for feeding and survival. Marine mammal adaptation to an aquatic lifestyle varies considerably between species. Both cetaceans and sirenians are fully aquatic and therefore are obligate water dwellers. Pinnipeds are semiaquatic; they spend the majority of their time in the water but need to return to land for important activities such as mating, breeding and molting. Sea otters tend to live in kelp forests and estuaries. In contrast, the polar bear is mostly terrestrial and only go into the water on occasions of necessity, and are thus much less adapted to aquatic living. The diets of marine mammals vary considerably as well; some eat zooplankton, others eat fish, squid, shellfish, or seagrass, and a few eat other mammals. Wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Aboriginal Languages
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intelligible varieties) up to possibly 363. The Indigenous languages of Australia comprise numerous language family, language families and language isolate, isolates, perhaps as many as 13, spoken by the Aboriginal Australians, Indigenous peoples of mainland Australia and a few nearby islands. The relationships between the language families are not clear at present although there are proposals to link some into larger groupings. Despite this uncertainty, the Indigenous Australian languages are collectively covered by the technical term "Australian languages", or the "Australian family". The term can include both Tasmanian languages and the Kalaw Lagaw Ya, Western Torres Strait language, but the Genetic relationship (linguistics), genetic relations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neo-Latin
Neo-LatinSidwell, Keith ''Classical Latin-Medieval Latin-Neo Latin'' in ; others, throughout. (also known as New Latin and Modern Latin) is the style of written Latin used in original literary, scholarly, and scientific works, first in Italy during the Italian Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and then across northern Europe after about 1500, as a key feature of the humanist movement. Through comparison with Classical Latin, Latin of the Classical period, scholars from Petrarch onwards promoted a standard of Latin closer to that of the ancient Romans, especially in grammar, style, and spelling. The term ''Neo-Latin'' was however coined much later, probably in Germany in the late eighteenth century, as ''Neulatein'', spreading to French and other languages in the nineteenth century. Medieval Latin had diverged quite substantially from the classical standard and saw notable regional variation and influence from vernacular languages. Neo-Latin attempts to retur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toothed Whale
The toothed whales (also called odontocetes, systematic name Odontoceti) are a parvorder of cetaceans that includes dolphins, porpoises, and all other whales with teeth, such as beaked whales and the sperm whales. 73 species of toothed whales are described. They are one of two living groups of cetaceans, the other being the baleen whales (Mysticeti), which have baleen instead of teeth. The two groups are thought to have diverged around 34 million years ago (mya). Toothed whales range in size from the and vaquita to the and sperm whale. Several species of odontocetes exhibit sexual dimorphism, in that there are size or other morphological differences between females and males. They have streamlined bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers. Some can travel at up to 30 knots. Odontocetes have conical teeth designed for catching fish or squid. They have well-developed hearing that is well adapted for both air and water, so much so that some can survive even i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brigitte Senut
Brigitte Senut (27 January 1954, Paris) is a French Primatology, paleoprimatologist and Paleoanthropology, paleoanthropologist and a professor at the National Museum of Natural History, France, National Museum of Natural History, Paris. She is a specialist in the evolution of great apes and humans. Life and work Senut is a naturalist and geologist by training and began studying human paleontology and paleoprimatology at a young age. She earned her master's degree in geology at the Pierre and Marie Curie University, Pierre-et-Marie-Curie University of Paris in 1975, and specialized in vertebrate and human paleontology, obtaining a doctorate (DEA) in 1976 and defended her doctoral dissertation in 1978. She was interested in the function-phylogeny link in her thesis entitled ''Contribution à l'étude de l'humérus et de ses articulations chez les Hominidés du Plio-Pléistocène'' (''Contribution to the study of the humerus and its joints in Plio-Pleistocene Hominids''). In 1987, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Pickford
Martin Pickford (born 1943) is a lecturer in the Chair of Paleoanthropology and Prehistory at the Collège de France"First hominid from the Miocene (Lukeino Formation, Kenya)" Senut, B., Pickford, M., Gommery, D., Mein, P., Cheboi, K., & Coppens, Y. (January 20, 2001). ''Comptes Rendus Académie des Sciences Paris, Série IIA Sciences de la Terre et des Planètes'', 332, 137–144. (Accessed Aug 2012) and honourary affiliate at the Département Histoire de la Terre in the Muséum national d'Histoire [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), 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 followed the Oligocene and preceded 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 distinct global events but by regionally defined transitions from the warmer Oligocene to the cooler Pliocene Epoch. During the Early Miocene, Afro-Arabia collided with Eurasia, severing the connection between the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans, and allowing the interchange of fauna between Eurasia and Africa, including the dispersal of proboscideans and Ape, hominoids into Eurasia. During the late Miocene, the conn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petane Formation
Petane () is a small settlement in the hills southwest of Novo Mesto in southeastern Slovenia. The area is part of the traditional region of Lower Carniola and is now included in the Southeast Slovenia Statistical Region The Southeast Slovenia Statistical Region () is a statistical region in southeast Slovenia. It is the largest statistical region. The development of this region is largely the result of industry (the auto industry, pharmaceuticals, and other light .... References External linksPetane on Geopedia Populated places in the Urban Municipality of Novo Mesto {{NovoMesto-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58See the 2014 version of the ICS geologic time scale million years ago (Ma). It is the second and most recent epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic, Cenozoic Era. The Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch. Prior to the 2009 revision of the geologic time scale, which placed the four most recent major glaciations entirely within the Pleistocene, the Pliocene also included the Gelasian Stage, which lasted from 2.59 to 1.81 Ma, and is now included in the Pleistocene. As with other older geologic periods, the Stratum, geological strata that define the start and end are well-identified but the exact dates of the start a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
