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Anguis
Slow wormsThe "slow-" in slowworm is distinct from the English adjective ''slow'' ("not fast"); the word comes from Old English ''slāwyrm'', where ''slā-'' means "slowworm" and ''wyrm'' means "serpent, reptile". () (also called blindworms and hazelworms) are a small genus (''Anguis'') of snake-like legless lizards in the family Anguidae. The genus contains five extant living species, including the Anguis fragilis, common slow worm (''A. fragilis''), the Anguis colchica, eastern slow worm (''A. colchica''), the Anguis graeca, Greek slow worm (''A. graeca''), the Peloponnese slow worm (''A. cephalonnica''), and the Anguis veronensis, Italian slow worm (''A. veronensis''). There are also known fossil species. Description Slow worms are typically grey-brown, with the females having a coppery sheen and two lateral black stripes, and the males displaying Electric blue (color), electric blue spots, particularly in the breeding season. They viviparous, give birth to live young, which ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anguis Fragilis
The common slow worm (''Anguis fragilis'') is a species of legless lizard native to western Eurasia. It is also called a deaf adder, blindworm, or regionally, a long-cripple, steelworm, and hazelworm. The "blind" in blindworm refers to the lizard's small eyes, similar to a blindsnake (although the slow worm's eyes are functional). The common slow worm, i.e. the species ''Anguis fragilis'', is often called simply "slow worm", though all species of the species complex comprising the genus ''Anguis'' are also called "slow worms". Common slow worms are semifossorial (burrowing) lizards that spend much of their time hiding underneath objects. The skin of slow worms is smooth, with scales that do not overlap. Like many other lizards, they autotomize, meaning that they have the ability to shed their tails to escape predators. While the tail regrows, it does not reach its original length. In the UK, slow worms are commonly encountered in gardens and allotments, where they can be enco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anguis Veronensis
''Anguis veronensis'', commonly known as the Italian slow worm, is a European lizard species in the family Anguidae. The slow worm is distributed throughout Italy and in southeastern part of France. ''A. veronensis'' got its first scientific description in 1818, when it was described by Italian naturalist Ciro Polinni, and named after the Italian city Verona, where specimens were found. The synonymous species name ''Anguis cinerea'' (''cinereus'') is derived from the Latin word ''cinereus'' meaning ash-grey, even though typical gray colour is a common feature of the whole genus ''Anguis'', especially the similar common slow worm, ''Anguis fragilis''. Taxonomy and description In the past, slow worms from the Italian Peninsula were not distinguished from other European slow worms; they were usually perceived as conspecifics of ''Anguis fragilis''. A relatively long independent evolutionary history and distinct identity of both morphological and genetic features led to the speci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anguis Colchica
''Anguis colchica'', the eastern slow worm, is a species of legless lizard in the family Anguidae found in eastern and northern Europe and Asia. It is easily confused with the common slow worm, due to their physical similarities, and the proximity of their distribution. Taxonomy The eastern slow worm is part of the slow worm species complex. It was traditionally written as ''A. f. colchica'', a subspecies of the common slow worm, but was later distinguished as a separate species, along with '' Anguis graeca'', ''Anguis veronensis'' and '' Anguis cephalonnica''. Habitat Eastern slow worms live primarily in areas with partially closed, forest or shrub vegetation. They can be found most often on the edges of forests, forest clearings, and sometimes on tourist trails, where they can lie down to bask in the sun. They utilise stone piles, stone fences, coarse woody debris, and even the burrows of some rodents as hiding places. They commonly venture into gardens close to their habitat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anguis Graeca
''Anguis graeca'', the Greek slow worm, is a species of lizard in the family Anguidae found in Greece, Albania, and North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n .... It engages in death feigning behavior when threatened. References Anguis Reptiles described in 1881 Lizards of Europe Taxa named by Jacques von Bedriaga Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN Legless lizards {{Anguidae-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anguis Cephallonica
''Anguis cephallonica'', the Peloponnese slow worm, is a species of legless lizard in the family Anguidae endemic to Greece. It is found in the Peloponnese and islands of Cephalonia, Ithaca, and Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea, at elevations of up to 1,340 m. Its natural habitats are temperate forests, temperate shrubland, Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation, temperate grassland, arable land, pastureland, plantations, and rural gardens. The species can be distinguished from all other slow worms by the greater number of scale rows around the body and the distinctive color pattern on its side. Peloponnese slow worms give birth to live litters of 3–26 young. They are listed as being a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List. Taxonomy The Peloponnese slow worm is putatively thought to be sister to the Italian slow worm based on weak mitochondrial DNA evidence. These two species may have arisen from a common ancestor population that diverged after the Messinian salinity crisis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anguidae
Anguidae refers to a large and diverse family of lizards native to the Northern Hemisphere. It contains 9 genera and 89 extant species. Common characteristics of this group include a reduced supratemporal arch, striations on the medial faces of tooth crowns, osteoderms, and a lateral fold in the skin of most taxa. The group is divided into two living subfamilies, the legless Anguinae, which contains slow worms and glass lizards, among others, found across the Northern Hemisphere, and Gerrhonotinae, which contains the alligator lizards, native to North and Central America. The family Diploglossidae (which contains the galliwasps) was also formerly included. Morphology and reproduction Anguids have hard osteoderms beneath their scales giving them an armored appearance. Members of the subfamily Anguinae have reduced or absent limbs, giving them a snake-like appearance, while members of Gerrohonotinae are fully limbed. Body type varies among species, with sizes ranging from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
10th Edition Of Systema Naturae
The 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'' (Latin; the English title is ''A General System of Nature'') is a book written by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus and published in two volumes in 1758 and 1759, which marks the starting point of zoological nomenclature. In it, Linnaeus introduced binomial nomenclature for animals, something he had already done for plants in his 1753 publication of ''Species Plantarum''. Starting point Before 1758, most biological catalogues had used polynomial names for the taxa included, including earlier editions of ''Systema Naturae''. The first work to consistently apply binomial nomenclature across the animal kingdom was the 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature therefore chose 1 January 1758 as the "starting point" for zoological nomenclature and asserted that the 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'' was to be treated as if published on that date. Names published before that date are unavailable, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legless Lizard
Legless lizard may refer to any of several groups of lizards that have independently lost limbs or reduced them to the point of being of no use in locomotion.Pough ''et al.'' 1992. Herpetology: Third Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall:Pearson Education, Inc., 2002. It is the common name for the family Pygopodidae. These lizards are often distinguishable from snakes on the basis of one or more of the following characteristics: *possessing eyelids *possessing Outer ear, external ear openings *lack of broad belly scales *notched rather than forked tongue, forked tongue *having two lungs of roughly equal size (snakes have one short and one very long lung) *having a very long tail (while snakes have a long body and short tail). Every stage of reduction of the Shoulder girdle#Other animals, shoulder girdle —including complete loss— occurs among limbless Squamata, squamates, but the Hip bone#Evolution of the pelvis in animal, pelvic girdle is never completely lost regardless of the degr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slug
Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less Terrestrial mollusc, terrestrial gastropod mollusc. The word ''slug'' is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced shell, or only a small internal shell, particularly sea slugs and semi-slugs (this is in contrast to the common name ''snail'', which applies to gastropods that have a coiled shell large enough that they can fully retract their soft parts into it). Various Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic families of land slugs form part of several quite different evolutionary lineages, which also include snails. Thus, the various families of slugs are not closely related, despite the superficial similarity in overall body form. The shell-less condition has arisen many times independently as an example of convergent evolution, and thus the category "slug" is Polyphyly, polyphyletic. Taxonomy Of the six orders of Pulmonata, two – the Onchidiacea and Soleoli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Temperate
In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout the year and more distinct seasonal changes compared to tropical climates, where such variations are often small; they usually differ only in the amount of precipitation. In temperate climates, not only do latitude, latitudinal positions influence temperature changes, but various sea currents, prevailing wind direction, continentality (how large a landmass is) and altitude also shape temperate climates. The Köppen climate classification defines a climate as "temperate" C, when the mean temperature is above but below in the coldest month to account for the persistence of frost. However, some adaptations of Köppen set the minimum at . Continental climate, Continental climates are classified as D and considered to be varie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habitat
In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ecological niche. Thus "habitat" is a species-specific term, fundamentally different from concepts such as Biophysical environment, environment or vegetation assemblages, for which the term "habitat-type" is more appropriate. The physical factors may include (for example): soil, moisture, range of temperature, and Luminous intensity, light intensity. Biotic index, Biotic factors include the availability of food and the presence or absence of Predation, predators. Every species has particular habitat requirements, habitat generalist species are able to thrive in a wide array of environmental conditions while habitat specialist species require a very limited set of factors to survive. The habitat of a species is not necessarily found in a ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
