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Giant Puffer
The Mbu pufferfish, also known as Mbuna pufferfish, giant pufferfish, or giant freshwater pufferfish (''Tetraodon mbu''), is a carnivorous freshwater pufferfish originating from the middle and lower sections of the Congo River in Africa, as well as the east coast of Lake Tanganyika near the Malagarasi River mouth. Description The species is commonly referred to as the giant freshwater pufferfish due to its massive size, growing to a length of 67 cm (26 inches). As such, these fish are difficult to adequately house in home aquaria since they require a very large tank and appropriately scaled water filtration. Mbu puffers are distinct from other members of the ''Tetraodon'' genus due to their labyrinthine patterns of skin pigmentation, in contrast to mottled or straight-striped patterns such as those seen in Fahaka pufferfish. These patterns become more pronounced as adults. Like all of its relatives, the Mbu puffer is capable of inflating itself with water or air whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Särkänniemi Aquarium
Särkänniemi (; 'Cape of Sandbank') is an amusement park in Tampere, Finland, located in the Särkänniemi (district), district by the same name. The park features an aquarium, a planetarium, Doghill Fairytale Farm, an art museum and an observation tower Näsinneula tower, Näsinneula (Näsi Needle). Särkänniemi is the second most popular amusement park in Finland with Linnanmäki in Helsinki being the most popular one. Särkänniemi has four rollercoasters: the inverted coaster Tornado, the family motorcycle launch coaster MotoGee and Hype, a launched steel Sky Rocket II coaster, and family coaster Vauhtimato ("Speedy Worm"). The half-pipe coaster called Half Pipe (Särkänniemi roller coaster), Half Pipe was recently removed due to multiple reasons. Särkänniemi is owned by the city of Tampere and attracts over 600 000 visitors annually. Särkänniemi is the biggest rival for Linnanmäki as the lead amusement park in Finland. Both are about the same size. The park gave u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fahaka Pufferfish
The fahaka pufferfish (from ), also known as the Nile puffer, globe fish, lineatus puffer (''Tetraodon lineatus''), is a tropical freshwater pufferfish found in the upper Nile, Chad, Senegal, Gambia, Geba, Volta and Turkana basins in West, Northeast and East Africa. Characteristics Fahaka pufferfish can reach up to in length. They have the ability to inflate when threatened and, like many puffers, carry the toxin tetrodotoxin. Fahaka pufferfish, like other molluscivores, feed mainly on benthic organisms which may include freshwater mussels and snails. They are typically found in large rivers, open water, weed beds and vegetated fringes. In the River Nile, the recorded average lifespans of Fahaka pufferfish have measured about five years. Researchers AbouelFadl and Farrag have measured the gonadosomatic index In biology, the gonadosomatic index (GSI) is the calculation of the gonad mass as a proportion of the total body mass. It is represented by the formula: GSI = o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxa Named By George Albert Boulenger
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : 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, especially in the context of rank-based (" Linnaean") nomenclature (much less so under phylogenetic nomenclature). 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 presumably set forth in prehistoric times by hunter-gatherers, as suggested by the fairly sophisticated folk taxonomies. Much later, Aristotle, and later still ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tanzania
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to the south; Zambia to the southwest; and Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. According to a 2024 estimate, Tanzania has a population of around 67.5 million, making it the most populous country located entirely south of the equator. Many important hominid fossils have been found in Tanzania. In the Stone and Bronze Age, prehistoric migrations into Tanzania included South Cushitic languages, Southern Cushitic speakers similar to modern day Iraqw people who moved south from present-day Ethiopia; Eastern Cushitic people who moved into Tanzania from north of Lake Turkana about 2,000 and 4,000 years ago; and the Southern Nilotic languages, Southern Nilotes, including the Datooga people, Datoog, who originated fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patterns In Nature
Patterns in nature are visible regularities of form found in the natural world. These patterns recur in different contexts and can sometimes be modelled mathematically. Natural patterns include symmetries, trees, spirals, meanders, waves, foams, tessellations, cracks and stripes. Early Greek philosophers studied pattern, with Plato, Pythagoras and Empedocles attempting to explain order in nature. The modern understanding of visible patterns developed gradually over time. In the 19th century, the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau examined soap films, leading him to formulate the concept of a minimal surface. The German biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel painted hundreds of marine organisms to emphasise their symmetry. Scottish biologist D'Arcy Thompson pioneered the study of growth patterns in both plants and animals, showing that simple equations could explain spiral growth. In the 20th century, the British mathematician Alan Turing predicted mechanisms of morp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crayfish
Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the infraorder Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. Taxonomically, they are members of the superfamilies Astacoidea and Parastacoidea. They breathe through feather-like gills. Some species are found in brooks and streams, where fresh water is running, while others thrive in swamps, ditches, and paddy fields. Most crayfish cannot tolerate polluted water, although some species, such as '' Procambarus clarkii'', are hardier. Crayfish feed on animals and plants, either living or decomposing, and detritus. The term "crayfish" is applied to saltwater species in some countries. Terminology The name "crayfish" comes from the Old French word ' ( Modern French '). The word has been modified to "crayfish" by association with "fish" ( French language">Modern French '). The word has been modified to "crayfish" by association with "fish" ( American variant "crawfish" is similarly derived. Some kinds of crayfish are known lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Worm
Worms are many different distantly related bilateria, bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limb (anatomy), limbs, and usually no eyes. Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete worms (bristle worms); for the African giant earthworm, ''Microchaetus rappi''; and for the marine nemertean worm (bootlace worm), ''Lineus longissimus''. Various types of worm occupy a small variety of parasitism, parasitic niches, living inside the bodies of other animals. Free-living worm species do not live on land but instead live in marine or freshwater environments or underground by burrowing. In biology, "worm" refers to an obsolete taxon, ''Vermes'', used by Carl Linnaeus, Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, now seen to be paraphyletic. The name stems from the Old English word ''wikt:wyrm, wyrm''. Most animals called "worms" are invertebrates, but the term is also use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snails
A snail is a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have a coiled gastropod shell, shell that is large enough for the animal to retract completely into. When the word "snail" is used in this most general sense, it includes not just land snails but also numerous species of sea snails and freshwater snails. Gastropods that naturally lack a shell, or have only an internal shell, are mostly called ''slugs'', and land snails that have only a very small shell (that they cannot retract into) are often called ''semi-slugs''. Snails have considerable human relevance, including Snails as food, as food items, as pests, and as vectors of disease, and their shells are used as decorative objects and are incorporated into jewellery. The snail has also had some cultural significance, tending t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crustaceans
Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of Arthropod, arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic animal, aquatic arthropods including decapoda, decapods (shrimps, prawns, crabs, lobsters and crayfish), ostracoda, seed shrimp, branchiopoda, branchiopods, argulidae, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, Mysida, 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 Hexapoda, 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 spec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mollusks
Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The number of additional fossil species is estimated between 60,000 and 100,000, and the proportion of undescribed species is very high. Many taxa remain poorly studied. Molluscs are the largest marine phylum, comprising about 23% of all the named marine organisms. They are highly diverse, not just in size and anatomical structure, but also in behaviour and habitat, as numerous groups are freshwater and even terrestrial species. The phylum is typically divided into 7 or 8 taxonomic classes, of which two are entirely extinct. Cephalopod molluscs, such as squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses, are among the most neurologically advanced of all invertebrates—and either the giant squid or the colossal squid is the largest known extant invertebrat ... [...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] |
Tetraodontidae
Tetraodontidae is a family of marine and freshwater fish in the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, blowers, blowies, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish, toadfish, toadies, toadle, honey toads, sugar toads, and sea squab. They are morphologically similar to the closely related porcupinefish, which have large external spines (unlike the thinner, hidden spines of the Tetraodontidae, which are only visible when the fish have puffed up). The majority of pufferfish species are toxic, with some among the most poisonous vertebrates in the world. In certain species, the internal organs, such as the liver, and sometimes the skin, contain mucus tetrodotoxin, and are highly toxic to most animals when eaten; nevertheless, the meat of some species is considered a delicacy in Japan (as 河豚, pronounced ''fugu''), Korea (as 복, ''bok'', or 복어, ''bogeo''), and China (as 河豚, ''hétún'') when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
