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White-headed Buffalo Weaver
The white-headed buffalo weaver or white-faced buffalo-weaver (''Dinemellia dinemelli'') is a species of passerine bird in the family Ploceidae native to East Africa. The buffalo part of its name derives from its habit of following the African buffalo, feeding on disturbed insects. Two subspecies are recognized. Taxonomy The white-headed buffalo weaver was first described by the German Natural history, naturalist Eduard Rüppell in 1845. Subspecies Two subspecies of the white-headed buffalo weaver are now recognized. Description The white-headed buffalo weaver is in length and in weight. In addition to its white head and underparts, the white-headed buffalo weaver has a vividly orange-red rump and undertail coverts. Its thighs are dark brown. Narrow white bands can be found on the wings especially when stretch his wings sideways. Both sexes are similar in plumage and hard to differentiate. The bill is conical and black. ''D. d. dinemelli'' has a brown tail, whereas ''D. d. b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serengeti National Park
The Serengeti National Park is a large national park in northern Tanzania that stretches over . It is located in eastern Mara Region and northeastern Simiyu Region and contains over of virgin savanna. The park was established in 1940. The Serengeti is well known for the largest annual animal migration in the world of over 1.5 million blue wildebeest and 250,000 zebra along with smaller herds of Thomson's gazelle and Common eland, eland. The national park is also home to the largest lion population in Africa. It is under threat from deforestation, population growth, poaching, and Ranch, ranching. Etymology The name "Serengeti" is often attributed to a Maasai language, Maasai word ''siringet'', meaning "the place where the land runs on forever" or "endless plains". However, this word does not appear in dictionaries of the language. History In 1930, an area of was designated as a game reserve in southern and eastern Serengeti. In the 1930s, the government of Tanganyi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uganda
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The southern part includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania. Uganda is in the African Great Lakes region, lies within the Nile basin, and has a varied equatorial climate. , it has a population of 49.3 million, of whom 8.5 million live in the capital and largest city, Kampala. Uganda is named after the Buganda, Buganda kingdom, which encompasses a large portion of the south, including Kampala, and whose language Luganda is widely spoken; the official language is English. The region was populated by various ethnic groups, before Bantu and Nilotic groups arrived around 3,000 years ago. These groups established influential kingdoms such as the Empire of Kitara. The arrival of Arab trade ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding important sites for birds, maintaining and restoring key bird habitats, and empowering conservationists worldwide. It has a membership of more than 2.5 million people across List of BirdLife International national partner organisations, 116 country partner organizations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Wild Bird Society of Japan, the National Audubon Society, and American Bird Conservancy. BirdLife International has identified 13,000 Important Bird Area, Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas and is the official International Union for Conservation of Nature's IUCN Red List, Red List authority for birds. BirdLife International has established that 1,375 bird species (13% of the total) are threatened with extinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honolulu Zoo
The Honolulu Zoo is a zoo in Queen Kapiʻolani Park in Honolulu, Hawaii. It is the only zoo in the United States to be established by grants made by a sovereign monarch and is built on part of the royal Queen Kapiʻolani Park. The Honolulu Zoo features over 1,230 animals in specially designed habitats. Over 750,000 people visit the zoo annually. The zoo is administered by the City & County of Honolulu through the Department of Enterprise Services. Its support agency, the Honolulu Zoo Society (HZS), provides program services for the zoo. The zoo's accredited membership of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) was dropped in 2016 but reinstated in 2020. History Queen Kapi‘olani Park In 1876, King Kalākaua made royal lands near the slopes of Lē‘ahi available for the establishment of a grand public park for the people of his kingdom. Two hundred subscribers to the king's project formed the Kapiʻolani Park Association for the purpose of pursuing the mission. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Louis Zoological Park
The Saint Louis Zoo, officially known as the Saint Louis Zoological Park, is a zoo in Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri. It is recognized as a leading zoo in animal management, research, conservation, and education. The zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Admission is free based on a public subsidy from a cultural tax district, the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District (ZMD); fees are charged for some special attractions. A special feature is the narrow-gauge Emerson Zooline Railroad with passenger trains pulled by Chance Rides ''C.P. Huntington'' locomotives that encircle the zoo, stopping at the more popular attractions. The city purchased its first exhibit, the Flight Cage, from the Smithsonian Institution following the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. After the zoo was established in 1910, new exhibits, areas, and buildings were added through the decades to improve care of the animals, the range of animals and habitats shown, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles Zoo
The Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens is a zoo founded in 1966 and located in Los Angeles, California, United States. The city of Los Angeles owns the zoo, its land and facilities, and the animals. History Eastlake Zoo, opened in Eastlake Park (renamed Lincoln Park (Los Angeles), Lincoln Park in 1917) in 1885. The second zoo, Griffith Park Zoo, opened in 1912 and was located about south of the current zoo site until it was closed in August 1966. Remnants of the original zoo remain. The Los Angeles Zoo opened in its present location on November 28, 1966. The site was formerly the location of Rodger Young Village, which was itself built on the land which had been used for the Griffith Park Aerodrome. By the early 1990s, the zoo's infrastructure was deteriorating. In January 1992, a ten-inch water pipe burst, leaving half of the zoo without water. The next day, city officials passed a $300 million master plan that had been recently drafted to deal with the infrastructure pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Pygmy-falcon
The African pygmy falcon (''Polihierax semitorquatus'')—or simply pygmy falcon—is a diminutive raptor native to eastern and southern Africa. It is the sole species in its monotypic genus, ''Polihierax''. The pygmy falcon is the smallest bird of prey on the African continent, and among the smallest raptors on earth; only the Asian falconets (of the genus '' Microhierax'') are smaller, weighing roughly 30-40 grams less and measuring about 5 cm shorter from head-to-tail. Description Adult pygmy falcons are in length and in weight. These birds are white-bellied, extending up to the face, with males having grey on their backsides, and females have a chestnut back. There are white "eye spots" on the nape. Juveniles have a brown back, duller than adult females, with a rufous wash on the breast. The flight feathers of the wings are spotted black and white (more black above, more white below); the tail is barred black and white. Their flight style is low and undulating. W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Covert (feather)
A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are small feathers behind the bird's eye which cover the ear opening (the ear of a bird has no external features). Tail coverts The uppertail and undertail coverts cover the base of the tail feathers above and below. Sometimes these coverts are more specialised. The "tail" of a peacock is made of elongated uppertail coverts. Wing coverts The upperwing coverts fall into two groups: those on the inner wing, which overlay the secondary flight feathers, known as the secondary coverts, and those on the outer wing, which overlay the primary flight feathers, the primary coverts. Within each group, the feathers form a number of rows. The feathers of the outermost, largest, row are termed greater (primary-/secondary-) coverts; those in the next row are the median (prima ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Starling
Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine (perching) birds known for the often dark, glossy iridescent sheen of their plumage; their complex vocalizations including mimicking; and their distinctive, often elaborate swarming behavior, known as murmuration. All members of the family ''Sturnidae'', commonly called sturnids, are known collectively as starlings. The Sturnidae are named for the genus '' Sturnus'', which in turn comes from the Latin word for starling, ''sturnus''. The family contains 128 species which are divided into 36 genera. Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, are called mynas, and many African species are known as glossy starlings because of their iridescent plumage. Starlings are native to Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as northern Australia and the islands of the tropical Pacific. Several European and Asian species have been introduced to these areas, as well as North America, Hawaii, and New Zealand, where they generally compete for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Butterfly
Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossils have been dated to the Paleocene, about 56 million years ago, though molecular evidence suggests that they likely originated in the Cretaceous. Butterflies have a four-stage life cycle, and like other holometabolous insects they undergo complete metamorphosis. Winged adults lay eggs on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed. The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed, pupate in a chrysalis. When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs out, expands its wings to dry, and flies off. Some butterflies, especially in the tropics, have several generations in a year, while others have a single generation, and a few in cold locations may take s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beetle
Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 described species, is the largest of all orders, constituting almost 40% of described arthropods and 25% of all known animal species; new species are discovered frequently, with estimates suggesting that there are between 0.9 and 2.1 million total species. However, the number of beetle species is challenged by the number of species in Fly, dipterans (flies) and hymenopterans (wasps). Found in almost every habitat except the sea and the polar regions, they interact with their ecosystems in several ways: beetles often feed on plants and fungi, break down animal and plant debris, and eat other invertebrates. Some species are serious agricultural pests, such as the Colorado potato beetle, while others such as Coccinellidae (ladybirds or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregarious
Sociality is the degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to associate in social groups (gregariousness) and form cooperative societies. Sociality is a survival response to evolutionary pressures. For example, when a mother wasp stays near her larvae in the nest, parasites are less likely to eat the larvae. Biologists suspect that pressures from parasites and other predators selected this behavior in wasps of the family Vespidae. This wasp behaviour evidences the most fundamental characteristic of animal sociality: parental investment. Parental investment is any expenditure of resources (time, energy, social capital) to benefit one's offspring. Parental investment detracts from a parent's capacity to invest in future reproduction and aid to kin (including other offspring). An animal that cares for its young but shows no other sociality traits is said to be ''subsocial''. An animal that exhibits a high degree of sociality is called a ''social animal''. The h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
