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Albatross Plateau
Albatrosses, of the biological family (biology), family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds related to the procellariidae, procellariids, storm petrels, and diving petrels in the order Procellariiformes (the tubenoses). They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean, Pacific. They are absent from the North Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, although fossil remains of short-tailed albatross show they lived there up to the Pleistocene, and occasional Vagrancy (biology), vagrants are found. Great albatrosses are among the largest of bird flight, flying birds, with wingspans reaching up to and bodies over in length. The albatrosses are usually regarded as falling into four genera, but disagreement exists over the number of species. Albatrosses are highly efficient in the air, using dynamic soaring and slope soaring to cover great distances with little exertion. They feed on squid, fish, and krill by either scavenging, surface seizing, or diving. Albatrosses are Bird colon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the epoch are slightly uncertain. The name Oligocene was coined in 1854 by the German paleontologist Heinrich Ernst Beyrich from his studies of marine beds in Belgium and Germany. The name comes from Ancient Greek (''olígos'') 'few' and (''kainós'') 'new', and refers to the sparsity of Neontology, extant forms of Mollusca, molluscs. The Oligocene is preceded by the Eocene Epoch and is followed by the Miocene Epoch. The Oligocene is the third and final epoch of the Paleogene Period. The Oligocene is often considered an important time of transition, a link between the archaic world of the tropical Eocene and the more modern ecosystems of the Miocene. Major chang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Procellariiformes
Procellariiformes is an order (biology), order of seabirds that comprises four family (biology), families: the albatrosses, the Procellariidae, petrels and shearwaters, and two families of storm petrels. Formerly called Tubinares and still called tubenoses in English, procellariiforms are often referred to collectively as the petrels, a term that has been applied to all members of the order,Warham, J. (1996). ''The Behaviour, Population, Biology and Physiology of the Petrels''. London: Academic Press, or more commonly all the families except the albatrosses.Brooke, 2004. They are almost exclusively pelagic (feeding in the open ocean), and have a cosmopolitan distribution across the world's oceans, with the highest species diversity, diversity being around New Zealand. Procellariiforms are seabird colony, colonial, mostly nesting on remote, predator-free islands. The larger species nest on the surface, while most smaller species nest in natural cavities and burrows. They exhibit ... [...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] |
Slope Soaring
__NOTOC__ Ridge lift (or slope lift) is created when a wind strikes an obstacle, usually a mountain ridge or cliff, that is large and steep enough to deflect the wind upward. If the wind is strong enough, the ridge lift provides enough upward force for gliders, hang gliders, paragliders and birds to stay airborne for long periods or travel great distances by 'Ridge soaring'. Although unpowered aircraft are usually descending through the air, they will climb if the surrounding air is rising faster than their sink rates. Model glider enthusiasts refer to this technique as "slope gliding" or "sloping". Orville Wright used ridge lift, setting a duration record of 11 minutes in 1911. However the sport of soaring started in Germany after the First World War. In 1921, Dr. Wolfgang Klemperer broke the Wright Brothers’ 1911 soaring duration record with a flight of 13 minutes. In 1922, Arthur Martens became the first glider pilot to use an updraft rising along a mountain slope to s ... [...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] |
Species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology (biology), morphology, behaviour, or ecological niche. In addition, palaeontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. About 14% of these had been described by 2011. All species (except viruses) are given a binomial nomenclature, two-part name, a "binomen". The first part of a binomen is the name of a genus to which the species belongs. The second part is called the specific name (zoology), specific name or the specific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genera
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. '' Panthera leo'' (lion) and '' Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus '' Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants of an ancestral taxon are grouped together (i.e. phylogenetic analysis should clearly demonstrate both monophyly and validity as a separate lineag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Flight
Bird flight is the primary mode of animal locomotion, locomotion used by most bird species in which birds take off and flight, fly. Flight assists birds with feeding, Sexual reproduction, breeding, avoiding predation, predators, and Bird migration, migrating. Bird flight includes multiple types of motion, including hovering, taking off, and landing, involving many complex movements. As different bird species adapted over millions of years through evolution for specific environments, prey, predators, and other needs, they developed Generalist and specialist species, specializations in their wing (bird), wings, and acquired different forms of flight. Various theories exist about how bird flight evolution, evolved, including flight from falling or gliding (the ''trees down'' hypothesis), from running or leaping (the ''ground up'' hypothesis), from ''wing-assisted incline running'' or from '' proavis'' (pouncing) behavior. Basic mechanics of bird flight Lift, drag and thrust The f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vagrancy (biology)
Vagrancy is a phenomenon in biology whereby an individual animal (usually a bird) appears well outside its normal range; they are known as vagrants. The term accidental is sometimes also used. There are a number of poorly understood factors which might cause an animal to become a vagrant, including internal causes such as navigation errors (endogenous vagrancy) and external causes such as severe weather (exogenous vagrancy). Vagrancy events may lead to colonisation and eventually to speciation. Birds In the Northern Hemisphere, adult birds (possibly inexperienced younger adults) of many species are known to continue past their normal breeding range during their spring migration and end up in areas further north (such birds are termed spring overshoots). In autumn, some young birds, instead of heading to their usual wintering grounds, take "incorrect" courses and migrate through areas which are not on their normal migration path. For example, Siberian passerines which normal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the cutoff of the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being 1.806 million years Before Present (BP). Publications from earlier years may use either definition of the period. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek () 'most' and (; Latinized as ) 'new'. The aridification and cooling trends of the preceding Neogene were continued in the Pleistocene. The climate was strongly variable depending on the glacial cycle, oscillating between cold Glacial period, glacial periods and warmer Interglacial, int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short-tailed Albatross
The short-tailed albatross or Steller's albatross (''Phoebastria albatrus'') is a large rare seabird from the North Pacific. Although related to the other North Pacific albatrosses, it also exhibits behavioural and morphological links to the albatrosses of the Southern Ocean. It was described by the Germany, German Natural history, naturalist Peter Simon Pallas from skins collected by Georg Wilhelm Steller (after whom its other common name is derived). Once common, it was brought to the edge of extinction by the plume hunting, trade in feathers, but with protection efforts underway since the 1950s, the species is in the process of recovering with an increasing population trend. It is divided into two distinct subpopulations, one of which breeds on Tori-shima (Izu Islands), Tori-shima in the Izu islands south of Japan, and the other primarily on the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Description The short-tailed albatross is a medium-sized albatross, with a wingspan of ,Dunn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in amber, hair, petrified wood and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils is known as the ''fossil record''. Though the fossil record is incomplete, numerous studies have demonstrated that there is enough information available to give a good understanding of the pattern of diversification of life on Earth. In addition, the record can predict and fill gaps such as the discovery of '' Tiktaalik'' in the arctic of Canada. Paleontology includes the study of fossils: their age, method of formation, and evolutionary significance. Specimens are sometimes considered to be fossils if they are over 10,000 years old. The oldest fossils are around 3.48 billion years to 4.1 billion years old. Early edition, published online before prin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
