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Providence Blue Pigeon
The Providence blue pigeon (''Alectroenas'' sp.), also known as the Farquhar Islands blue pigeon or small blue pigeon is an extinct species of bird that lived on Farquhar, Providence, and St. Pierre in the Seychelles. Description The Providence blue pigeon was a species of blue pigeon that most likely looked very similar to the Seychelles blue pigeon. It may even have been the same species as the Seychelles blue pigeon, although it is possible that it was a distinct species. It nested on Mapou trees and other similar trees. In 1821–1822 it was said that they were in great abundance in Farquhar. They were known to be incredibly tame, and nearly impossible to disturb. History In an excerpt from a document from Fairfax Moresby Admiral of the Fleet Sir Fairfax Moresby GCB (29 November 1786 – 21 January 1877) was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer he took part in the unsuccessful expedition to capture Ferrol in Spain during the French Revolutionary Wars. He ..., ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight Bird skeleton, skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the common ostrich. There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 Order (biology), orders. More than half are passerine or "perching" birds. Birds have Bird wing, wings whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the Flightless bird, loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemism, endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Farquhar Atoll
The Farquhar Atoll is part of the Farquhar Group of islands in the Seychelles, part of the Outer Islands chain. It is located southwest of Mahé Island and the capital, Victoria, north of Madagascar, and around from the East African mainland. History The atoll was named in honor of Robert Townsend Farquhar in 1824. Fishing camps were established on North Island in 1850. From the early to mid- sixteenth century, the atoll had been vaguely named after Portuguese explorer João da Nova, who first encountered Farquhar and the Outer Islands while commandeering his country's expedition to India in 1504. Administration of the islands were a grey area for a time, with both Mauritius and Seychelles claiming ownership. In 1881, officials in Seychelles suggested that Farquhar Atoll (along with several other outer islands) be administered from their capital, Victoria, rather than from Mauritius. There were objections, as the owners at that time were based in Mauritius; after considerable ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Providence Atoll
Providence Atoll is part of the Farquhar Group of islands in the Seychelles that are part of the Outer Islands. It lies southwest of the capital city, Victoria, on Mahé Island. The atoll consists of Providence Island in the north, Bancs Providence in the south, and an intervening fringing reef. Bancs Providence comprises four large and about six very small islands, but its size and shape appear to be dynamic. In 1967, it was said to be a single large cay with four smaller ones, in 1905 there were seven small islands and in 1882 it comprised three small islets. History The crew of the French frigate L’Heureuse, which was wrecked on its reefs in 1763, named Providence. It is so named because it was the salvation of the crew, who were able to survive on the island until they were rescued. In 1846, Charles Pridham wrote that Providence had "been granted to an inhabitant of Mauritius who has established a fishery and planted cocoa-nut trees and makes a large profit from the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seychelles
Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (; Seychellois Creole: ), is an island country and archipelagic state consisting of 155 islands (as per the Constitution) in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, Victoria, Seychelles, Victoria, is east of mainland Africa. Nearby island countries and territories include the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and the French Fifth Republic, French overseas departments and regions of France, overseas departments of Mayotte and Réunion to the south; and the Chagos Archipelago to the east. Seychelles is the list of African countries by area, smallest country in Africa as well as the list of African countries by population, least populated sovereign African country, with an estimated population of 100,600 in 2022. Seychelles was uninhabited prior to being encountered by Europeans in the 16th century. It faced competing French and British interests until it came under full British control in the early 19th century. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Pigeon
The blue pigeons are a genus, ''Alectroenas'', of birds in the dove and pigeon family Columbidae. They are native to islands in the western Indian Ocean. Taxonomy and evolution The genus ''Alectroenas'' was first described in 1840 by the English zoologist George Robert Gray with the Mauritius blue pigeon (''Alectroenas nitidissimus'') as the type species. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek ''alektruōn'', meaning "domestic cock", and ''oinas'', meaning "pigeon". The ''Alectroenas'' blue pigeons are closely interrelated and occur widely throughout islands in the western Indian Ocean. They are allopatric and can therefore be regarded as a superspecies. There are three extant species: the Madagascar blue pigeon, the Comoros blue pigeon, and the Seychelles blue pigeon. The three Mascarene islands were home to one species each, which are all extinct; the Mauritius blue pigeon, the Rodrigues blue pigeon, and the Réunion blue pigeon. The blue pigeons perhaps colonised the Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyphostemma Mappia
''Cyphostemma mappia'' (Mapou tree or bois mapou) is a species of caudiciform succulent plant endemism, endemic to Mauritius. It is sometimes known as the "Mauritian baobab", though it is member of the Vitaceae, grape family (Vitaceae) and unrelated to the true Adansonia, Baobabs of Africa. This species is endangered, but is beginning to be propagated in its native Mauritius, as an ornamental landscaping plant. Description It is a soft-stemmed caudex, caudiciform tree, with succulent green leaves on fragile, chunky, elastic, distinctively zig-zag branches. It can eventually reach a height of nearly 10 meters, and develop a vastly expanded, swollen, water-filled trunk. This means that it can resemble a Adansonia, baobab in shape. As a case of "island gigantism", it is the only ''Cyphostemma'' species to attain the size of a large tree. It has also lost the vine-like tendrils of its genus, which falls within the greater Vitaceae (grapevine) family. In exposed areas, it tends to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fairfax Moresby
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Fairfax Moresby GCB (29 November 1786 – 21 January 1877) was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer he took part in the unsuccessful expedition to capture Ferrol in Spain during the French Revolutionary Wars. He later saw action during the blockade of Brest during the Napoleonic Wars before becoming commanding officer of a sloop which was sent to the Aegean Sea to defend the population of Malta from pirates; the grateful people presented him with a sword. He then sailed to the Adriatic Sea where he led a naval brigade providing artillery support to the Austrian forces during the siege of Trieste. He went on to be senior naval officer at the Cape of Good Hope and then senior officer at Mauritius, with orders to suppress the slave trade: he concluded the Moresby Treaty with Seyyid Said, the imam of Muscat, restricting the scope of local slave trading and conferring on English warships the right of searching and seizing local vessels. Moresby lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Stoddart (geographer)
David Ross Stoddart, (15 November 1937 – 23 November 2014) was a British physical geographer known for the study of coral reefs and atolls. He was also known for key works on the history and philosophy of geography as an academic discipline. He was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and then professor and later emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Early and private life Stoddart grew up in Stockton-on-Tees, northeast England. His parents both served in France during the First World War, his father with the Royal Flying Corps and his mother as a nurse. His father later became an engineer working in the construction of heavy industrial buildings for Ashmore, Benson, and Pease (later Davy International; now part of Siemens). He had two siblings. He married fellow Cambridge geographer June in 1961 and had a daughter, Aldabra (named after the island) and a son, Michael. He collected a very large private library in Berkeley. Stoddart suffered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alectroenas
The blue pigeons are a genus, ''Alectroenas'', of birds in the dove and pigeon family Columbidae. They are native to islands in the western Indian Ocean. Taxonomy and evolution The genus ''Alectroenas'' was first described in 1840 by the English zoologist George Robert Gray with the Mauritius blue pigeon (''Alectroenas nitidissimus'') as the type species. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek ''alektruōn'', meaning "domestic cock", and ''oinas'', meaning "pigeon". The ''Alectroenas'' blue pigeons are closely interrelated and occur widely throughout islands in the western Indian Ocean. They are allopatric and can therefore be regarded as a superspecies. There are three extant species: the Madagascar blue pigeon, the Comoros blue pigeon, and the Seychelles blue pigeon. The three Mascarene islands were home to one species each, which are all extinct; the Mauritius blue pigeon, the Rodrigues blue pigeon, and the Réunion blue pigeon. The blue pigeons perhaps colonised the Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinct Birds Of Indian Ocean Islands
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its last member. A taxon may become functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to reproduce and recover. As 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. Over five billion species are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryotes globally, possibly many times more if microorganisms are included. Notable extinct animal species include non-avian dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and mammoths. Through evolution, species arise through the process of speciation. Species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxobox Binomials Not Recognized By IUCN
An infobox is a digital or physical table used to collect and present a subset of information about its subject, such as a document. It is a structured document containing a set of attribute–value pairs, and in Wikipedia represents a summary of information about the subject of an article. In this way, they are comparable to data tables in some aspects. When presented within the larger document it summarizes, an infobox is often presented in a sidebar format. An infobox may be implemented in another document by transcluding it into that document and specifying some or all of the attribute–value pairs associated with that infobox, known as parameterization. Wikipedia An infobox may be used to summarize the information of an article on Wikipedia. They are used on similar articles to ensure consistency of presentation by using a common format. Originally, infoboxes (and templates in general) were used for page layout purposes. An infobox may be transcluded into an article ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
