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Caucasian Sturgeon
The Caucasian sturgeon or Colchis sturgeon (''Huso colchicus'') is a highly endangered species of sturgeon native to the eastern Europe and western Asia, where it is found in the southeastern Black Sea & associated river basins, as well as the lower Danube River. It is named after the historic region of Colchis. It was long considered a subspecies of the Russian sturgeon (''H. gueldenstaedtii'') or the Persian sturgeon (''H. persicus''), which themselves were previously placed in the genus ''Acipenser''. However, recent phylogenetic studies have reclassified both into ''Huso'', and have affirmed the distinctiveness of the Caucasian sturgeon from both of these species. Phylogenetic evidence indicates that the Caucasian sturgeon is most closely related to the Adriatic sturgeon (''H. naccarii''). It cannot be properly differentiated from the Russian sturgeon by morphology alone, and very little has been studied about its phylogenetics. It is known from Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, an ... [...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] |
Rioni
The Rioni ( ka, რიონი ; , ) is the main river of western Georgia. It originates in the Caucasus Mountains, in the region of Racha and flows west to the Black Sea, entering it north of the city of Poti (near ancient Phasis). The city of Kutaisi, once the ancient city of Colchis, lies on its banks. It drains the western Transcaucasus into the Black Sea while the river Kura drains the eastern Transcaucasus into the Caspian Sea. History Ancient authors Known to the ancient Greeks as the river ''Phasis'', the Rioni was first mentioned by Hesiod in his Theogony (l.340); Plato has Socrates remark: "I believe that the earth is very large and that we who dwell between the pillars of Hercules and the river Phasis live in a small part of it about the sea, like ants or frogs about a pond" (''Phaedo'', 109a). Later writers like Apollonius Rhodius (Argonautica 2.12.61), Virgil (Georgics 4.367) and Aelius Aristides (''Ad Romam'' 82) considered it the easternmost limit of the na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freshwater Fish Of Europe
Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. The term excludes seawater and brackish water, but it does include non-salty mineral-rich waters, such as chalybeate springs. Fresh water may encompass frozen and meltwater in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, snowfields and icebergs, natural precipitations such as rainfall, snowfall, hail/ sleet and graupel, and surface runoffs that form inland bodies of water such as wetlands, ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, as well as groundwater contained in aquifers, subterranean rivers and lakes. Water is critical to the survival of all living organisms. Many organisms can thrive on salt water, but the great majority of vascular plants and most insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds need fresh water to survive. Fresh water is the water resource that is of the most and immediate use to humans. Fresh water is not always pot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fish Of The Black Sea
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] |
Caviar
Caviar or caviare is a food consisting of salt-cured roe of the family Acipenseridae. Caviar is considered a delicacy and is eaten as a garnish or spread. Traditionally, the term caviar refers only to roe from wild sturgeon in the Caspian Sea and Black Sea ( beluga, ossetra and sevruga caviars). The term caviar can also describe the roe of other species of sturgeon or other fish such as paddlefish, salmon, steelhead, trout, lumpfish, whitefish, or carp. The roe can be "fresh" (non-pasteurized) or pasteurized, which reduces its culinary and economic value. Terminology According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, roe from any fish not belonging to the Acipenseriformes order (including Acipenseridae, or sturgeon '' sensu stricto'', and Polyodontidae or paddlefish) are not caviar, but "substitutes of caviar". This position is also adopted by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the World Wide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colchic Rainforests And Wetlands
The Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands () is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Georgia (country), Georgia, which comprises parts of the Colchis Lowland along some of western Georgia's Black Sea coastline. It was List of World Heritage Sites by year of inscription, inscribed by UNESCO on 26 July 2021, becoming the first List of World Heritage Sites in Georgia (country), site in Georgia to be added to the list for its natural attributes. The site contains a wide array of ancient rainforest and wetland ecosystems, harboring many threatened and endangered species. Description The World Heritage site includes a series of ecosystems such as deciduous rainforests and Wetland, wetlands, Bog, percolation bogs and other mire types, located at a range of altitudes from the sea level to more than above it. In total, the site consists of seven component parts — Kintrishi-Mtirala and Ispani in Adjara, Grigoleti and Imnati in Guria, and Pitshora, Nabada, and Churia in Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Starry Sturgeon
The starry sturgeon (''Huso stellatus''), also known as the stellate sturgeon or sevruga (Drakul, , and ), is a species of sturgeon. It is native to the Black, Azov, Caspian and Aegean sea basins, but it has been extirpated from the last and it is predicted that the remaining natural population will follow soon due to overfishing. The starry sturgeon is an anadromous species, which migrates up rivers to spawn. It is considered critically endangered by the IUCN and international trade in this species (including its caviar) is restricted by CITES. Taxonomy Prior to 2025, it was placed in the genus '' Acipenser'', but this placement was found to be paraphyletic, and it is more accurately placed in the genus ''Huso''. Description The starry sturgeon reaches about in length and weighs up to . It is a slim-bodied fish easily distinguished from other sturgeons by its long, thin and straight snout. A row of five small barbels lies closer to the mouth than to the tip of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sakarya River
The Sakarya (; ; ; ) is the third longest river in Turkey. It runs through the region known in ancient times as Phrygia. It was considered one of the principal rivers of Asia Minor (Anatolia) in Greek classical antiquity, and is mentioned in the ''Iliad'' and in ''Theogony''. Its name appears in different forms as Sagraphos, Sangaris, or Sagaris. In ''Geographica'', Strabo wrote during classical antiquity that the river had its sources on Mount Adoreus, near the town of Sangia in Phrygia, not far from the border with Galatia, and flowed in a very tortuous course: first in an eastern direction, then toward the north, then in a northwesterly direction and finally to the north through Bithynia into the Euxine (Black Sea). Pseudo-Plutarch wrote that a man named Sagaris often disdained the mysteries of the Mother of the Gods, frequently deriding her priests. She struck him with madness, and he flung himself into the river Xerobates, which from then on was called Sagaris. Part of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kızılırmak River
The Kızılırmak (, Turkish language, Turkish for "Red River"), once known as the Halys River () and Alis River, is the longest river flowing entirely within Turkey. It is a source of hydroelectric power and is not used for navigation. Geography The Kızılırmak flows for a total of , rising in Eastern Anatolia around , flowing first to the west and southwest until , then forming a wide arch, the "Halys bend", flowing first to the west, then to the northwest, passing to the northeast of Lake Tuz (''Tuz Gölü'' in Turkish), then to the north and northeast, where it is joined by its major tributary, the Delice River (once known in Greek as the Cappadox river) at . After zigzagging to the northwest to the confluence with the Devrez River at , and back to the northeast, it joins the Gökırmak (Sky ''River'' in Turkish) before finally flowing via a wide Kızılırmak Delta, delta into the Black Sea northwest of Samsun at . Delta History The Hittites called the river the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yeşilırmak (river)
The Yeşilırmak (, ), known as the Iris in antiquity (), is a river in northern Turkey. From its source northeast of Sivas, it flows past Tokat and Amasya, crosses the Pontic Mountains and the Çarşamba Plain, reaching the Black Sea east of Samsun after . Its tributaries include the Çekerek (ancient Scylax) and the Kelkit (ancient Lycus). It was mentioned by Menippus of Pergamon in the 1st century BC. Strabo's ''Geographica The ''Geographica'' (, ''Geōgraphiká''; or , "Strabo's 17 Books on Geographical Topics") or ''Geography'', is an encyclopedia of geographical knowledge, consisting of 17 'books', written in Greek in the late 1st century BC, or early 1st cen ...'' describes it as flowing through Comana Pontica, the plain of Dazimonitis (Kaşova) (), and Gaziura (probably modern Turhal) before receiving the waters () of the Scylax, then flowing through Amaseia (Amasya) before reaching the valley of Phanaroea. Starting with Dionysius Periegetes, in hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Çoruh
The Chorokh ( ka, ჭოროხი ''Ch'orokhi'' , , ''Chorokh'', , , ''Akampsis'') is a river that rises in the Mescit Mountains in north-eastern Turkey, flows through the cities of Bayburt, İspir, Yusufeli, and Artvin, along the Kelkit-Çoruh Fault, before flowing into Georgia, where it reaches the Black Sea just south of Batumi and a few kilometers north of the Turkish-Georgian border. In Arrian's '' Periplus Ponti Euxini'', it is called the ''Acampsis'' (); Pliny may have confused it with the ''Bathys''. Procopius writes that it was called Acampsis because it was impossible to force a way through it after it has entered the sea, since it discharges its stream with such force and swiftness, causing a great disturbance of the water before it, that it goes out for a very great distance into the sea and makes it impossible to coast along at that point. In English, it was formerly known as the Boas, the Churuk, or the Chorokh. Biodiversity The Ch'orokhi valley lies wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tskhenistsqali
The Tskhenistsqali ( ka, ცხენისწყალი, ''Cxenisċqali'' , also: ''Tskhenistskali'') is a river in northern Georgia (country), Georgia. Its source is in the main range of the Caucasus Mountains, in the easternmost part of the Lentekhi Municipality, lower Svaneti. A tributary of the river Rioni, it is long, and has a drainage basin of . , National Statistics Office of Georgia, Tbilisi, 2020, p. 12. It flows through the small towns Lentekhi and Tsageri and joins the Rioni near the town of Samtredia. The main tributaries of Tskhenistskali are: Zsekho, Kheleldula, Janolula ( from the right ), Kobishuri, Leuseri, Khopuri (from the left). From etymological standpoint the name is derived from the Georgian words ცხენი (''Cxeni,'' "horse") and წყალი ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
