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Eastern Reef Egret
The Pacific reef heron (''Egretta sacra''), also known as the eastern reef heron or eastern reef egret, is a species of heron found throughout southern Asia and Oceania. It occurs in two colour morphs with either slaty grey or pure white plumage. The sexes are similar in appearance. Taxonomy The Pacific reef heron was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's ''Systema Naturae''. He placed it with the herons, cranes and egrets in the genus '' Ardea'' and coined the binomial name ''Ardea sacra''. Gmelin based his description on the "Sacred heron" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his multi-volume work ''A General Synopsis of Birds''. The naturalist Joseph Banks had provided Latham with a specimen of a white morph that had been collected on Tahiti. The Pacific reef heron is now placed with 12 other species in the genus ''Egretta'' that was introduce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Friedrich Gmelin
Johann Friedrich Gmelin (8 August 1748 – 1 November 1804) was a German natural history, naturalist, chemist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist, and malacologist. Education Johann Friedrich Gmelin was born as the eldest son of Philipp Friedrich Gmelin in 1748 in Tübingen. He studied medicine under his father at University of Tübingen and graduated with a Master's degree in 1768, with a thesis entitled: ', defended under the presidency of Ferdinand Christoph Oetinger, whom he thanks with the words '. Career In 1769, Gmelin became an adjunct professor of medicine at University of Tübingen. In 1773, he became professor of philosophy and adjunct professor of medicine at University of Göttingen. He was promoted to full professor of medicine and professor of chemistry, botany, and mineralogy in 1778. He died in 1804 in Göttingen and is buried there in the Albanifriedhof, Albani cemetery with his wife Rosine Louise Gmelin (1755–1828, née Schott). Johann Friedrich Gm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of island countries, sixth-largest island country by area and lies east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The Geography of New Zealand, country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps (), owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. Capital of New Zealand, New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland. The islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable land to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands and subsequently developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight and record New Zealand. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller islands. It has a total area of , making it the list of countries and dependencies by area, sixth-largest country in the world and the largest in Oceania. Australia is the world's flattest and driest inhabited continent. It is a megadiverse countries, megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and Climate of Australia, climates including deserts of Australia, deserts in the Outback, interior and forests of Australia, tropical rainforests along the Eastern states of Australia, coast. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south-east Asia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period, last glacial period. By the time of British settlement, Aboriginal Australians spoke 250 distinct l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polymorphism (biology)
In biology, polymorphism is the occurrence of two or more clearly different morphs or forms, also referred to as alternative '' phenotypes'', in the population of a species. To be classified as such, morphs must occupy the same habitat at the same time and belong to a panmictic population (one with random mating). Ford E.B. 1965. ''Genetic polymorphism''. Faber & Faber, London. Put simply, polymorphism is when there are two or more possibilities of a trait on a gene. For example, there is more than one possible trait in terms of a jaguar's skin colouring; they can be light morph or dark morph. Due to having more than one possible variation for this gene, it is termed 'polymorphism'. However, if the jaguar has only one possible trait for that gene, it would be termed "monomorphic". For example, if there was only one possible skin colour that a jaguar could have, it would be termed monomorphic. The term polyphenism can be used to clarify that the different forms arise from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loyalty Islands Province
Loyalty Islands Province (, ) is one of the three top-level administrative subdivisions of New Caledonia. It encompasses the Loyalty Islands () archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, located northeast of the New Caledonian mainland of Grande Terre. The provincial government seat is at Lifou. The Loyalty Islands are a '' collectivité territoriale'' of France. The province's 2019 population was approximately 18,353 inhabitants living on almost . The native inhabitants are Melanesians who speak various Kanak languages and Polynesians who speak the Fagauvea language. History The first Western contact on record is attributed to British Captain William Raven of the whaler ''Britannia'', who was on his way in 1793 from Norfolk Island to Batavia (now called Jakarta). It is very likely, however, that the discovery and name originated with officials on the London ship ''Loyalty'', which was on a Pacific Ocean trading voyage from 1789 to 1790. The French Government demanded the removal of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Caledonia
New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of the French Republic, a legal status unique in overseas France, and is enshrined in a dedicated chapter of the French Constitution. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre (New Caledonia), Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Chesterfield Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines (New Caledonia), Isle of Pines, and a few remote islets. The Chesterfield Islands are in the Coral Sea. French people, especially locals, call Grande Terre , a nickname also used more generally for the entire New Caledonia. Kanak people#Agitation for independence, Pro-independence Kanak parties use the name (''pron.'' ) to refer to New Caledonia, a term coined in the 1980s from the ethnic name of the indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Robert Gray
George Robert Gray (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoology, zoologist and author, and head of the Ornithology, ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum, London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother of the zoologist John Edward Gray and the son of the botanist Samuel Frederick Gray. George Gray's most important publication was his ''Genera of Birds'' (1844–49), illustrated by David William Mitchell and Joseph Wolf, which included 46,000 references. Biography He was bornon 8 July 1808 in Little Chelsea, London, to Samuel Frederick Gray, naturalist and pharmacologist, and Elizabeth (née Forfeit), his wife. He was educated at Merchant Taylor's School. Gray started at the British Museum as Assistant Keeper of the Zoology Branch in 1831. He began by cataloguing insects, and published an ''Entomology of Australia'' (1833) and contributed the entomogical section to an English edition of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tuamotu Archipelago
The Tuamotu Archipelago or the Tuamotu Islands (, officially ) are a French Polynesian chain of just under 80 islands and atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean. They constitute the largest chain of atolls in the world, extending (from northwest to southeast) over an area roughly the size of Western Europe. Their combined land area is . This archipelago's major islands are Rangiroa, Anaa, Fakarava, Hao (French Polynesia), Hao and Makemo. The Tuamotus have approximately 16,000 inhabitants. The islands were initially settled by Polynesians, and modern Tuamotuans have inherited from them a shared Polynesian culture, culture and the Tuamotuan language. The Tuamotus are a overseas collectivity, French overseas collectivity. History The early history of the Tuamotu islands is generally unknown. Archaeological findings suggest that the western Tuamotus were settled from the Society Islands as early as 900 CE or as late as 1200 CE. DNA evidence suggests that they were settled about 1110 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ryukyu Islands
The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Geography of Taiwan, Taiwan: the Ryukyu Islands are divided into the Satsunan Islands (Ōsumi Islands, Ōsumi, Tokara Islands, Tokara and Amami Islands, Amami) and Okinawa Prefecture (Daitō Islands, Daitō, Miyako Islands, Miyako, Yaeyama Islands, Yaeyama, Senkaku Islands, Senkaku, Okinawa Islands, Okinawa, Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako Islands, Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), and Yonaguni as the westernmost). The larger ones are mostly volcanic islands and the smaller mostly coral island, coral. The largest is Okinawa Island. The climate of the islands ranges from humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification ''Cfa'') in the north to tropical rainforest climate (Köppen climate classification ''Af'') in the south. Precipitation is very high and is affected by the rainy season and typhoons. Except the outlying Daitō Islands, the island chain ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andaman Islands
The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago, made up of 200 islands, in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between the Bay of Bengal to the west and the Andaman Sea to the east. Most of the islands are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a Union Territory of India, while the Coco Islands and Preparis Island are part of the Yangon Region of Myanmar. The Andaman Islands are home to the Andamanese peoples, Andamanese, a group of indigenous people made up of a number of tribes, including the Jarawas (Andaman Islands), Jarawa and Sentinelese. While some of the islands can be visited with permits, entry to others, including North Sentinel Island, is banned by law. The Sentinelese are generally hostile to visitors and have had Uncontacted peoples, little contact with any other people. The Indian government and coast guard protect th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subspecies
In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species have subspecies, but for those that do there must be at least two. Subspecies is abbreviated as subsp. or ssp. and the singular and plural forms are the same ("the subspecies is" or "the subspecies are"). In zoology, under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the subspecies is the only taxonomic rank below that of species that can receive a name. In botany and mycology, under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, other infraspecific name, infraspecific ranks, such as variety (botany), variety, may be named. In bacteriology and virology, under standard International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes, bacterial nomenclature and virus clas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wallis Island
Wallis () is a Polynesian atoll/island in the Pacific Ocean belonging to the French overseas collectivity (''collectivité d'outre-mer'', or ''COM'') of Wallis and Futuna. It lies north of Tonga, northeast of Fiji, east-northeast of the Hoorn Islands, east of Fiji's Rotuma, southeast of Tuvalu, southwest of Tokelau and west of Samoa. Its area is almost with 8,333 people. Its capital is Mata Utu. Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion. Its highest point is Mount Lulu Fakahega (). Wallis is of volcanic origin with fertile soil and some remaining lakes. Rainfall is plentiful. It was part of the Tongan maritime empire from around the 13th to 16th century. By that time the influence of the Tui Tonga had declined so much that Uvea became important in itself. The big fortress of Talietumu close to Lotoalahi in Mua was the last holdout of the Tongans until they were defeated. The island was renamed "Wallis" after a Cornish navigator, Captain Samuel Wallis, who saw it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
