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Disjunct Distribution
In biology, a taxon with a disjunct distribution is one that has two or more groups that are related but considerably separated from each other geographically. The causes are varied and might demonstrate either the expansion or contraction of a species' range. Range fragmentation Also called range fragmentation, disjunct distributions may be caused by changes in the environment, such as mountain building and continental drift or rising sea levels. It may also be due to an organism expanding its range into new areas, by such means as rafting, or other animals transporting a propagule to a new location; seeds consumed by birds and animals can be moved to new locations during migrations, and those seeds can be deposited in fecal matter. Other conditions that can produce disjunct distributions include flooding, changes in wind, stream, and current flows, and other anthropogenic introduction of introduced species either accidentally or deliberately through agriculture and horticulture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elona
''Elona quimperiana'', common name the escargot de Quimper ("Quimper snail"), is a species of air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Elonidae. ''Elona'' is a monotypic genus, i.e. it contains only one species, ''Elona quimperiana''. The specific name comes from the city of Quimper, Finistère, Quimper in Brittany, France. This snail is mentioned in annexes II and IV of the Habitats Directive. Original description ''Elona quimperiana'' was originally described (under the name ''Helix quimperiana'') by André Étienne d'Audebert de Férussac in 1821. Férussac's original text (the type description) reads in the French language as follows: Which means in English: "Habitat: Margin of Briec (Briec-de-l'Odet) near Quimper, Finistère, Quimper in Brittany (administrative region), Brittany. It was found by Monsieur, Messieurs De Kermovan and Bonnemaison." Shell description The gastropod shell, shell is umbilicate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geomalacus Maculosus
The Kerry slug or Kerry spotted slug (''Geomalacus maculosus'') is a species of terrestrial, pulmonate, gastropod mollusc. It is a medium-to-large sized, air-breathing land slug in the Family (biology), family of roundback slugs, Arionidae. Adult Kerry slugs generally measure in length; they are dark-grey or brown with yellowish spots. The internal anatomy of the slug has some unusual features and some characteristic differences from the genus Arion (gastropod), ''Arion'', also part of Arionidae. The Kerry slug was described in 1843—later than many other relatively large land gastropods present in Ireland and Great Britain—an indication of its restricted distribution and secretive habits. Although the distribution of this slug species includes south-western Ireland—including County Kerry—the species is more widespread in north-western Spain and central-to-northern Portugal. Given that the slug has thus far been recorded exclusively at locations in Ireland and north-wes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European islands by area, largest European island, and the List of islands by area, ninth-largest island in the world. It is dominated by a maritime climate with narrow temperature differences between seasons. The island of Ireland, with an area 40 per cent that of Great Britain, is to the west – these islands, along with over List of islands of the British Isles, 1,000 smaller surrounding islands and named substantial rocks, comprise the British Isles archipelago. Connected to mainland Europe until 9,000 years ago by a land bridge now known as Doggerland, Great Britain has been inhabited by modern humans for around 30,000 years. In 2011, it had a population of about , making it the world's List of islands by population, third-most-populous islan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurasian Pygmy Shrew
The Eurasian pygmy shrew (''Sorex minutus''), often known simply as the pygmy shrew, is a widespread shrew of the northern Palearctic. Description It measures about in length, not including the tail, and has an average weight of .The hair on the back is blackish with shades ranging from reddish to purplish, very dense and shiny: the belly, throat, jaw, periocular area and lower part of the tail are contrasted whitish. The muzzle and legs are covered with sparse white hair (vibrissae in the muzzle ), while the skin is flesh colored: the ears are small and half hidden by the hair, they are dark flesh colored and shaped like a semicircle. In this species the head is larger in proportion to the body than in other shrews. It may be confused with Eurasian least shrew and the Etruscan shrew The Etruscan shrew (''Suncus etruscus''), also known as the Etruscan pygmy shrew, white-toothed pygmy shrew and Savi's pygmy shrew, is the smallest known extant mammal by mass, weighing only abo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fauna Of Ireland
The fauna of Ireland comprises all the animal species inhabiting the island of Ireland and its surrounding waters. Summary This table uses figures supplied by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (Ireland), National Parks and Wildlife Service. Vertebrates by class Mammals Only 26 land mammal species (including bats, but not including marine mammals) are native to Ireland, because it has been isolated from the European mainland (by sea level rise, rising sea levels after the Last glacial period, Midlandian Ice Age), since about 14,000 BC.Costello, M.J. and Kelly, K.S., 1993 ''Biogeography of Ireland: past, present and future'' Irish Biogeographic Society Occasional Publications Number 2Edwards, Robin & al.The Island of Ireland: Drowning the Myth of an Irish Land-bridge? Accessed 15 February 2013. Some species, such as the red fox, European hedgehog, stoat, European otter, otter, Eurasian pygmy shrew, pygmy shrew, and Eurasian badger, badger are common, whereas others, lik ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quaternary Glaciation
The Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, is an alternating series of glacial period, glacial and interglacial, interglacial periods during the Quaternary period that began 2.58 Year#SI prefix multipliers, Ma (million years ago) and is ongoing. Although geologists describe this entire period up to the present as an "ice age", in popular culture this term usually refers to the Last Glacial Period, most recent glacial period, or to the Pleistocene epoch in general. Since Earth still has polar Ice sheet, ice sheets, geologists consider the Quaternary glaciation to be ongoing, though currently in an interglacial period. During the Quaternary glaciation, ice sheets appeared, expanding during glacial periods and contracting during interglacial periods. Since the end of the last glacial period, only the Antarctic ice sheet, Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have survived, while other sheets formed during glacial periods, such as the Laurentide Ice Sheet, hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interstadial
Stadials and interstadials are phases dividing the Quaternary period, or the last 2.6 million years. Stadials are periods of colder climate, and interstadials are periods of warmer climate. Each Quaternary climate phase has been assigned with a marine isotope stage (MIS) number, which describes the alternation between warmer and cooler temperatures, as measured by oxygen isotope data. Stadials have even MIS numbers, and interstadials have odd MIS numbers. The current Holocene interstadial is MIS 1, and the Last Glacial Maximum stadial is MIS 2. Marine isotope stages are sometimes subdivided into stadials and interstadials by minor climate fluctuations within the overall stadial or interstadial, which are indicated by letters. The odd-numbered interstadial MIS 5, also known as the Sangamonian interglacial, contains two periods of relative cooling, and so is subdivided into three interstadials (5a, 5c, 5e) and two stadials (5b, 5d). A stadial isotope stage like MIS 6 wou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glaciation
A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate between glacial periods. The Last Glacial Period ended about 15,000 years ago. The Holocene is the current interglacial. A time with no glaciers on Earth is considered a greenhouse climate state. Quaternary Period Within the Quaternary, which started about 2.6 million years before present, there have been a number of glacials and interglacials. At least eight glacial cycles have occurred in the last 740,000 years alone. Changes in atmospheric and associated radiative forcing were among the primary drivers of globally cold glacial and warm interglacial climates, with changes in ocean physical circulation, biological productivity and seawater acid-base chemistry likely causing most of the recorded changes Penultimate Glacial Period The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quaternary
The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the Phanerozoic eon. It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ago to the present. The Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs: the Pleistocene (2.58 million years ago to 11.7 thousand years ago) and the Holocene (11.7 thousand years ago to today); a proposed third epoch, the Anthropocene, was rejected in 2024 by IUGS, the governing body of the ICS. The Quaternary is typically defined by the Quaternary glaciation, the cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets related to the Milankovitch cycles and the associated climate and environmental changes that they caused. Research history In 1759 Giovanni Arduino proposed that the geological strata of northern Italy could be divided into four succ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Refugium (population Biology)
In biology, a refugium (plural: ''refugia'') is a location which supports an isolated or relict population of a once more widespread species. This isolation ( allopatry) can be due to climatic changes, geography, or human activities such as deforestation and overhunting. Present examples of refugial animal species are the mountain gorilla, isolated to specific mountains in central Africa, and the Australian sea lion, isolated to specific breeding beaches along the south-west coast of Australia, due to humans taking so many of their number as game. This resulting isolation, in many cases, can be seen as only a temporary state; however, some refugia may be longstanding, thereby having many endemic species, not found elsewhere, which survive as relict populations. The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool has been proposed to be a longstanding refugium, based on the discovery of the "living fossil" of a marine dinoflagellate called '' Dapsilidinium pastielsii'', currently found only in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arbutus Unedo
''Arbutus unedo'', commonly known as strawberry tree, also called madrone, is an evergreen shrub or small tree in the family Ericaceae, native to the Mediterranean Basin and Western Europe. The tree is well known for its fruits, the arbutus berry, which bear some resemblance to the strawberry, hence the common name strawberry tree. However, it is not closely related to true strawberry, strawberries of the genus ''Fragaria''. Its presence in Ireland also lends it the name "Irish strawberry tree", or cain, or cane apple (from the Irish name for the tree, ''caithne''), or sometimes "Killarney strawberry tree". The strawberry tree is the national tree of Italy because of its green leaves, its white flowers and its red berries, colors that recall the Italian flag. The flower of the strawberry tree is the national flower of Italy. Taxonomy ''Arbutus unedo'' was one of the many species described by Carl Linnaeus in Volume One of his landmark 1753 work ''Species Plantarum'', giving it t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
