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Telfair's Skink
''Leiolopisma telfairii'', also known commonly as the Round Island ground skink, the Round Island skink, and Telfair's skink, is a species of lizard in the family Scincidae. The species is endemic to Round Island, one of the islands of Mauritius. Taxonomy Other members of the genus ''Leiolopisma'' occur on New Caledonia and New Zealand, but the Round Island skink is closely related to the two extinct Mascarenes taxa, '' L. mauritiana'' from Mauritius and '' L. ceciliae'' from Réunion. Etymology ''L. telfairii'' is named after Irish botanist Charles Telfair,Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Leiolopisma telfairi'', p. 262). the founder of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences of Mauritius. Description ''L. telfairii'' reaches a total length (including tail) of between . The body is general brownish grey mottled with dark brown spots. The small ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nik C
Nik is a unisex given name and a short form of most names starting with ''Nik'', derived from Ancient Greek νικη (nike) meaning "victory". It may refer to: People: *Nik Bärtsch (born 1971), Swiss pianist, composer and producer *Nik Bonitto (born 1999), American football player *Nik Caner-Medley (born 1983), American basketball player * Nik Cohn (born 1946), British rock journalist *Nik Kershaw (born 1958), English singer-songwriter, composer, musician and record producer *Nik Lewis (born June 3, 1982), American gridiron football player and coach *Nik Needham (born 1996), American football player * Nik Omladič (born 1989), Slovenian footballer *Nik Richie (born Hooman Karamian in 1979), American blogger, author and Internet personality *Nik Stauskas (born 1993), Canadian National Basketball Association player * Nik Turner (born 1940), English musician *Nik Wallenda (born 1979), American acrobat, aerialist, daredevil, high wire artist and author *Nik Welter (1871 – 1951), Luxe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Île Ronde, Mauritius
Round Island is an uninhabited islet 22.5 kilometres north of Mauritius. It has an area of 1.69 square kilometres and a maximum elevation of 280 metres. The island has been a nature reserve since 1957 and is administered jointly by the National Parks and Conservation Service and the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation. The island has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International. Round Island restoration project Round Island represents one of the longest-running island restoration projects in the world, having been designated a nature reserve in 1957 through the work of the then Colonial Secretary, Robert Newton (a "keen bird-watcher"), and several others who realized the nesting birds faced a direct threat from people - mainly fishermen who would catch them for food. Many of the biological records supporting conservation status and subsequent work were taken by Jean Vinson O. B. E., a Mauritian zoologist and Director of the Mauritius Institute, who conduct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Casting (tails)
Autotomy (from the Greek ''auto-'', "self-" and ''tome'', "severing", αὐτοτομία) or self-amputation, is the behaviour whereby an animal sheds or discards one or more of its own appendages, usually as a self-defense mechanism to elude a predator's grasp or to distract the predator and thereby allow escape. Some animals have the ability to regenerate the lost body part later. Autotomy has multiple evolutionary origins and is thought to have evolved at least nine times independently in animalia. The term was coined in 1883 by Leon Fredericq. Vertebrates Reptiles and amphibians Some lizards, salamanders and tuatara when caught by the tail will shed part of it in attempting to escape. In many species the detached tail will continue to wriggle, creating a deceptive sense of continued struggle, and distracting the predator's attention from the fleeing prey animal. In addition, many species of lizards such as ''Plestiodon fasciatus'', '' Cordylosaurus subtessellatus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telfair’s Skink
''Leiolopisma telfairii'', also known commonly as the Round Island ground skink, the Round Island skink, and Telfair's skink, is a species of lizard in the family Scincidae. The species is endemic to Round Island, one of the islands of Mauritius. Taxonomy Other members of the genus ''Leiolopisma'' occur on New Caledonia and New Zealand, but the Round Island skink is closely related to the two extinct Mascarenes taxa, '' L. mauritiana'' from Mauritius and '' L. ceciliae'' from Réunion. Etymology ''L. telfairii'' is named after Irish botanist Charles Telfair,Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Leiolopisma telfairi'', p. 262). the founder of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences of Mauritius. Description ''L. telfairii'' reaches a total length (including tail) of between . The body is general brownish grey mottled with dark brown spots. The small ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Telfair
Charles Edward Telfair (1778 in Belfast – 14 July 1833 in Port Louis) was an Irish botanist. Early life and career Telfair was the son of a Belfast schoolmaster. He studied chemistry under Joseph Black and later qualified as a medical doctor. In 1797 he joined the Royal Navy and was soon appointed as ship's surgeon, visiting Mauritius and Réunion with the Navy in 1810. He returned to Mauritius in 1816 and established botanical gardens in Mauritius and Réunion. Having worked in several Government offices in Réunion, he was appointed personal secretary of Mauritius Governor Robert Farquhar. Telfair improved the education and housing of estate slaves, and found less strenuous occupations for elderly slaves. He was honorary curator of the botanical garden at Pamplemousses from 1826 to 1829. His old colonial château has now been turned into a restaurant, with watercolours of local flora painted by Telfair’s wife Annabella Chamberlain adorning the walls. The Charles Telfai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Réunion
Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island of Madagascar and southwest of the island of Mauritius. , it had a population of 868,846. Like the other four overseas departments, Réunion also holds the status of a region of France, and is an integral part of the French Republic. Réunion is an outermost region of the European Union and is part of the eurozone. Réunion and the fellow French overseas department of Mayotte are the only eurozone regions located in the Southern Hemisphere. As in the rest of France, the official language of Réunion is French. In addition, a majority of the region's population speaks Réunion Creole. Toponymy When France took possession of the island in the seventeenth century, it was named Bourbon, after the dynasty that then ruled France. To brea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leiolopisma Ceciliae
''Leiolopisma ceciliae'', also known as the Réunion giant skink, was a species of skink found on Réunion Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island o .... The species is classified as extinct. References {{Taxonbar, from=Q3229205 Leiolopisma Reptiles described in 2008 Taxa named by Edwin Nicholas Arnold Taxa named by Roger Bour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leiolopisma Mauritiana
''Leiolopisma mauritiana'' is a large (the largest known), extinct species of skink ( family Scincidae). It was found only in Mauritius, but became extinct around 1600 probably due to introduced predators. It may have been somewhat fossorial in nature. This is speculative and based on a reconstruction. The Mauritian giant skink, became extinct by 1650. Only a semi - complete specimen is known in addition to some odd bones. (Supposedly, a former director of the Mauritian Institute threw away specimens including some bones of this species). The remaining skeleton is missing the feet and digits, thus making it impossible for a SENI biometric analysis per se (Schnirel. 2004). The semi - complete skeleton does have a skull shaped similar to a blue-tongue skink ( ''Tiliqua''). The restoration undertaken by the (Species in Bronze Project), if accurate, gives a SENI value of .06 which would indicate that this species could have been fossorial or saxicolous in lifestyle. This is f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxa
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and given a particular ranking, especially if and when it is accepted or becomes established. It is very common, however, for taxonomists to remain at odds over what belongs to a taxon and the criteria used for inclusion. If a taxon is given a formal scientific name, its use is then governed by one of the nomenclature codes specifying which scientific name is correct for a particular grouping. Initial attempts at classifying and ordering organisms (plants and animals) were set forth in Carl Linnaeus's system in ''Systema Naturae'', 10th edition (1758), as well as an unpublished work by Bernard and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu. The idea of a unit-based system of biological classification was first made widely available in 1805 in the intr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mascarenes
The Mascarene Islands (, ) or Mascarenes or Mascarenhas Archipelago is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar consisting of the islands belonging to the Republic of Mauritius as well as the French department of Réunion. Their name derives from the Portuguese navigator Pedro Mascarenhas, who first visited them in April 1512. The islands share a common geologic origin in the volcanism of the Réunion hotspot beneath the Mascarene Plateau and form a distinct ecoregion with a unique flora and fauna. Geography The archipelago comprises three large islands, Mauritius, Réunion, and Rodrigues, plus a number of volcanic remnants in the tropics of the southwestern Indian Ocean, generally between 700 and 1500 kilometres east of Madagascar. The terrain includes a variety of reefs, atolls, and small islands. They present various topographical and edaphic regions. On the largest islands these gave rise to unusual biodiversity. The climate is oceanic and tropical. Maur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinct
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, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country by area, covering . New Zealand is about east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland. The islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable land to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands and then developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight and record New Zealand. In 1840, representatives of the United Kingdom and Māori chiefs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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