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Waved Albatross
The waved albatross (''Phoebastria irrorata''), also known as Galapagos albatross,Remsen Jr., J.V. (2008) is one of three species of the family Diomedeidae that occur in the tropics. When they forage, they follow a straight path to a single site off the coast of Peru, about to the east. During the non-breeding season, these birds reside primarily on the Ecuadorian and Peruvian coasts. Taxonomy Waved albatrosses are a species of albatross belonging to family Diomedeidae of the order Procellariiformes, along with shearwaters, fulmars, storm petrels, and diving petrels. They share certain identifying features. First, they have nasal passages that attach to the upper bill called naricorns, although the nostrils of the albatross are on the sides of the bill. The bills of Procellariiformes are also unique in that they are split into between seven and nine horny plates. Finally, they produce a stomach oil made up of wax esters and triglycerides that is stored in the proventriculus. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Española Island
Española or Espanola Island () is the most southerly of the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador, about a 10 to 12-hour trip by boat from Santa Cruz. Names ''Española'', Spanish for "Little Spain", is named for Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea owing to its discovery by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage. The name was changed with several other islands in 1892 during the celebration of the quadricentennial of Columbus's voyage. The English pirate William Ambrosia Cowley named the island King Charles's Island in 1684 in honor of the then-reigning monarch CharlesII of England. However, the British captain James Colnett later misunderstood Cowley's maps and accidentally transferred that name to what is now Floreana Island. Thinking Española undiscovered until that point, he renamed it Hood Island in 1793 in honor of Admiral Samuel Hood, Baronet of Catherington and 1st Baron Hood, later created 1st Viscount Hood for his success in the Napoleonic Wars. Geography Es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands () are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific, located around the equator, west of the mainland of South America. They form the Galápagos Province of the Republic of Ecuador, with a population of slightly over 33,000 (2020). The province is divided into the Cantons of Ecuador, cantons of San Cristóbal Island, San Cristóbal, Santa Cruz Island (Galápagos), Santa Cruz, and Isabela Island (Galápagos), Isabela, the three most populated islands in the chain. The Galápagos are famous for their large number of Endemism, endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin in the 1830s and inception of Darwin's theory, inspired his theory of evolution by means of natural selection. All of these islands are protected as part of Ecuador's Galápagos National Park and Galápagos Marine Reserve, Marine Reserve. Thus far, there is no firm evidence that Polynesian expansion, Polynesians or the indigenous peoples of South America, Indigenous pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Park
A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protected and owned by a government. Although governments hold different standards for national park designation, the conservation of 'wild nature' for posterity and as a symbol of national pride is a common motivation for the continued protection of all national parks around the world. National parks are almost always accessible to the public.Gissibl, B., S. Höhler and P. Kupper, 2012, ''Civilizing Nature, National Parks in Global Historical Perspective'', Berghahn, Oxford Usually national parks are developed, owned and managed by national governments, though in some countries with federal government, federal or Devolution, devolved forms of government, "national parks" may be the responsibility of subnational, regional, or local authorities. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dynamic Soaring
Dynamic soaring is a flying technique used to gain energy by repeatedly crossing the boundary between air masses of different velocity. Such zones of wind gradient are generally found close to obstacles and close to the surface, so the technique is mainly of use to birds and operators of radio-controlled gliders, but glider pilots are sometimes able to soar dynamically in meteorological wind shears at higher altitudes. Dynamic soaring is sometimes confused with slope soaring which is a technique for achieving elevation. Basic mechanism While different flight patterns can be employed in dynamic soaring, the simplest is a closed loop across the shear layer between two airmasses in relative movement, e.g. stationary air in a valley, and a layer of wind above the valley. The gain in speed can be explained in terms of airspeed and groundspeed: * As the glider begins the loop, say in a stationary airmass, groundspeed and airspeed are the same. * The glider enters the moving airmass n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crustacean
Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthropods including decapods (shrimps, prawns, crabs, lobsters and crayfish), seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, opossum shrimps, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can be treated as a subphylum under the clade Mandibulata. It is now well accepted that the hexapods (insects and entognathans) emerged deep in the Crustacean group, with the completed pan-group referred to as Pancrustacea. The three classes Cephalocarida, Branchiopoda and Remipedia are more closely related to the hexapods than they are to any of the other crustaceans ( oligostracans and multicrustaceans). The 67,000 described species range in size from '' Stygotantulus stocki'' at , to the Japanese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squid
A squid (: squid) is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight cephalopod limb, arms, and two tentacles in the orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, and Bathyteuthida (though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also called ''squid'' despite not strictly fitting these criteria). Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, Symmetry (biology)#Bilateral symmetry, bilateral symmetry, and a mantle (mollusc), mantle. They are mainly soft-bodied, like octopuses, but have a small internal skeleton in the form of a rod-like gladius (cephalopod), gladius or pen, made of chitin. Squid diverged from other cephalopods during the Jurassic and occupy a similar Ecological niche, role to teleost fish as open-water predators of similar size and behaviour. They play an important role in the open-water food web. The two long tentacles are used to grab prey and the eight arms to hold and control it. The beak then cuts the food into suitable size chunks for swal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fish
A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can be grouped into the more basal (phylogenetics), basal jawless fish and the more common jawed fish, the latter including all extant taxon, living cartilaginous fish, cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as the extinct placoderms and acanthodians. In a break to the long tradition of grouping all fish into a single Class (biology), class (Pisces), modern phylogenetics views fish as a paraphyletic group. Most fish are ectotherm, cold-blooded, their body temperature varying with the surrounding water, though some large nekton, active swimmers like white shark and tuna can hold a higher core temperature. Many fish can communication in aquatic animals#Acoustic, communicate acoustically with each other, such as during courtship displays. The stud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela to the east and northeast, Brazil to the southeast, Peru and Ecuador to the south and southwest, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and Panama to the northwest. Colombia is divided into 32 Departments of Colombia, departments. The Capital District of Bogotá is also the List of cities in Colombia by population, country's largest city hosting the main financial and cultural hub. Other major urban areas include Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Colombia, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Cúcuta, Ibagué, Villavicencio and Bucaramanga. It covers an area of 1,141,748 square kilometers (440,831 sq mi) and has a population of around 52 million. Its rich cultural heritage—including language, religion, cuisine, and art—reflects its history as a co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
