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Kurrartapu
''Kurrartapu johnnguyeni'' is an extinct species of bird in the Australian magpie and butcherbird family. It was described from Early Miocene material (a proximal tarsometatarsus) found at Riversleigh in north-western Queensland, Australia. It is the first Tertiary record of a cracticid from Australia. The size of the fossil material indicates that it was similar in size to the living black butcherbird. The generic name is a Kalkatungu language term for the Australian magpie. The specific epithet honours John Nguyen, the father of the senior describer. Description Based on shared traits between the black butcherbird and Australian magpie it is possible that the Kurrartapu also shared their glossy dark feathers and had calls similar to modern currawongs. Contemporary cracticid colouration ranges from predominantly black with some white to gray. Round wings, like those of the black butcherbird and peltops, are typical of denser forest inhabitatants, and the closed rainforest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artamidae
Artamidae is a family of passerine birds found in Australia, the Indo-Pacific region, and Southern Asia. It includes 24 extant species in six genera and three subfamilies: Peltopsinae (with one genus, '' Peltops''), Artaminae (with one genus containing the woodswallows) and Cracticinae ( currawongs, butcherbirds and the Australian magpie). Artamids used to be monotypic, containing only the woodswallows, but it was expanded to include the family Cracticidae in 1994. Some authors, however, still treat the two as separate families. Some species in this family are known for their beautiful song. Their feeding habits vary from nectar sucking (woodswallows) to predation on small birds (pied currawong). Taxonomy and systematics The family Artamidae was introduced by the Irish zoologist Nicholas Aylward Vigors in 1825. The artamids are part of the superfamily Malaconotoidea, a lineage which is widespread through Australasia and consists of a vast diversity of omnivorous and carnivor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cracticidae
The Cracticinae, bellmagpies and allies, gathers together 12 species of mostly crow-like birds native to Australasia and nearby areas. Historically, the cracticines – currawongs, Australian magpie and butcherbirds – were seen as a separate family Cracticidae and, according to the 2018 Cements List, they still are. With their 1985 DNA study, Sibley and Ahlquist recognised the close relationship between the woodswallows and the butcherbirds in 1985, and placed them in a Cracticini clade, now the family Artamidae. The two species of peltops were once placed with the monarch flycatchers but are now placed here. The cracticines have large, straight bills and mostly black, white or grey plumage. All are omnivorous to some degree: the butcherbirds mostly eat meat; Australian magpies usually forage through short grass looking for worms and other small creatures; and currawongs are true omnivores, taking fruit, grain, meat, insects, eggs and nestlings. The female constructs bulky n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cracticinae
The Cracticinae, bellmagpies and allies, gathers together 12 species of mostly crow-like birds native to Australasia and nearby areas. Historically, the cracticines – currawongs, Australian magpie and butcherbirds – were seen as a separate family Cracticidae and, according to the 2018 Cements List, they still are. With their 1985 DNA study, Sibley and Ahlquist recognised the close relationship between the woodswallows and the butcherbirds in 1985, and placed them in a Cracticini clade, now the family Artamidae. The two species of peltops were once placed with the monarch flycatchers but are now placed here. The cracticines have large, straight bills and mostly black, white or grey plumage. All are omnivorous to some degree: the butcherbirds mostly eat meat; Australian magpies usually forage through short grass looking for worms and other small creatures; and currawongs are true omnivores, taking fruit, grain, meat, insects, eggs and nestlings. The female constructs bulk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh)
Riversleigh World Heritage Area is Australia's most famous fossil location, recognised for the series of well preserved fossils deposited from the Late Oligocene to more recent geological periods. The fossiliferous limestone system is located near the Gregory River in the north-west of Queensland, an environment that was once a very wet rainforest that became more arid as the Gondwanan land masses separated and the Australian continent moved north. The approximately area has fossil remains of ancient mammals, birds, and reptiles of the Oligocene and Miocene ages, many of which were discovered and are only known from the Riversleigh area; the species that have occurred there are known as the Riversleigh fauna. The fossils at Riversleigh are unusual because they are found in soft freshwater limestone which has not been compacted. This means the animal remains retain their three-dimensional structure, rather than being partially crushed like in most fossil sites. The area is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinction
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryote globally, and possibly many times more if microorganisms, like bacteria, are included. Notable extinct animal species include non-avian dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, dodos, m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woodcreeper
The woodcreepers (Dendrocolaptinae) comprise a subfamily of suboscine passerine birds endemic to the Neotropics. They have traditionally been considered a distinct family Dendrocolaptidae, but most authorities now place them as a subfamily of the ovenbirds (Furnariidae). They superficially resemble the Old World treecreepers, but they are unrelated and the similarities are due to convergent evolution. The subfamily contains around 57 species in 15 to 20 genera.Marantz, C. A.; Aleixo, A.; Bevier, L. R.; Patten, M. A., (2003): Family Dendrocolaptidae (Woodcreepers). ''In:'' del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew & Sargatal, Jordi (editors): ''Handbook of Birds of the World, Volume 6: Broadbills to Tapaculos'': 358–447. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. Woodcreepers range from 14 to 35 cm in length. Generally brownish birds, the true woodcreepers maintain an upright vertical posture, supported by their specialized stiff tails. They feed mainly on insects taken from tree trunks. Howe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sclerophyll
Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaves, short internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is parallel or oblique to direct sunlight. The word comes from the Greek ''sklēros'' (hard) and ''phyllon'' (leaf). The term was coined by A.F.W. Schimper in 1898 (translated in 1903), originally as a synonym of xeromorph, but the two words were later differentiated. Sclerophyllous plants occur in many parts of the world, but are most typical of areas with low rainfall or seasonal droughts, such as Australia, Africa, and western North and South America. They are prominent throughout Australia, parts of Argentina, the Cerrado biogeographic region of Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil, and in the Mediterranean biomes that cover the Mediterranean Basin, California, Chile, and the Cape Province of South Africa. In the Mediterranean basin, holm oak, cork oak and olives a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sister Group
In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and taxon B are sister groups to each other. Taxa A and B, together with any other extant or extinct descendants of their most recent common ancestor (MRCA), form a monophyletic group, the clade AB. Clade AB and taxon C are also sister groups. Taxa A, B, and C, together with all other descendants of their MRCA form the clade ABC. The whole clade ABC is itself a subtree of a larger tree which offers yet more sister group relationships, both among the leaves and among larger, more deeply rooted clades. The tree structure shown connects through its root to the rest of the universal tree of life. In cladistic standards, taxa A, B, and C may represent specimens, species, genera, or any other taxonomic units. If A and B are at the same taxo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleogene
The Paleogene ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the Neogene Period Mya. It is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era of the present Phanerozoic Eon. The earlier term Tertiary Period was used to define the span of time now covered by the Paleogene Period and subsequent Neogene Period; despite no longer being recognised as a formal stratigraphic term, 'Tertiary' is still widely found in earth science literature and remains in informal use. Paleogene is often abbreviated "Pg" (but the United States Geological Survey uses the abbreviation PE for the Paleogene on the Survey's geologic maps). During the Paleogene, mammals diversified from relatively small, simple forms into a large group of diverse animals in the wake of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that ended the preceding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bushshrike
The bushshrikes are smallish passerine birds. They were formerly classed with the true shrikes in the family Laniidae, but are now considered sufficiently distinctive to be separated from that group as the family Malaconotidae, a name that alludes to their fluffy back and rump feathers. Like their shrike-like relatives, the helmetshrikes, the bushshrikes have arisen in Africa in relatively recent times. The family is endemic to sub-Saharan Africa but completely absent from Madagascar, where the vangas are their closest relatives. They are found in scrub or open woodland, and less often in marshes, Afromontane or tropical forest. They are similar in habits to shrikes, hunting insects and other small prey from a perch on a bush. Although similar in build to the shrikes, these tend to be either colourful species or largely black; some species are quite secretive. Some bushshrikes have flamboyant displays. The male puffbacks puff out the loose feathers on their rump and lower back ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iora
: ''For the international organization, see Indian Ocean Rim Association'' : ''For the Australian Aboriginal people of the Sydney region, see Eora'' The ioras are a small family, Aegithinidae, of four passerine bird species found in south and southeast Asia. The family is composed of a single genus, ''Aegithina''. They were formerly grouped with the leafbirds and fairy-bluebirds, in the family Irenidae. Taxonomy and systematics The genus ''Aegithina'' was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot to accommodate the common iora. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''aigithos'' or ''aiginthos'', a mythical bird mentioned by Aristotle and other classical authors. The common iora was described in 1758 and given the binomial name ''Motacilla tiphia'' by Carl Linnaeus, but there was a some confusion about the nature of bird Linnaeus was referring to. Early taxonomists considered it to variously be a warbler, flycatcher, finch or babbler. When G. R. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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