|
Enriquillo Wetlands
The Enriquillo wetlands are a flooded grasslands and savannas ecoregion on the island of Hispaniola. They cover about around several low-lying lakes in southwestern Hispaniola in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Geography The Enriquillo wetlands occupy a depression in the southwestern portion of the island, surrounding several lakes. The largest of the lakes is hyper-saline Lake Enriquillo in the Dominican Republic. The surface of Lake Enriquillo is about 44 meters below sea level. Other lakes include freshwater Rincón Lake in the Dominican Republic, and saltwater Etang Saumâtre and freshwater Trou Caïman in Haiti. Flora Principal wetland plants around Lake Enriquillo are the buttonwood mangrove (''Conocarpus erectus''), cattails (''Typha domingensis''), saltwort (''Batis maritima''), and the purslane ''Sesuvium portulacastrum''.BirdLife International (2020) Important Bird Areas factsheet: Enriquillo Lake National Park. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neotropical Realm
The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropics, tropical Ecoregion#Terrestrial, terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate climate, temperate zone. Definition In biogeography, the Neotropic or Neotropical realm is one of the eight terrestrial realms. This realm includes South America, Central America, the Caribbean Islands, and southern North America. In Mexico, the Yucatán Peninsula and southern lowlands, and most of the east and west coastlines, including the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula are Neotropical. In the United States southern Florida and coastal Central Florida are considered Neotropical. The realm also includes temperate southern South America. In contrast, the Neotropical Phytochorion, Floristic Kingdom excludes southernmost South America, which instead is placed in the Antarctic Floristic Kingdom, Antarctic kingdom. The Neo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Flamingo
The American flamingo (''Phoenicopterus ruber'') is a large species of flamingo native to the West Indies, northern South America (including the Galápagos Islands) and the Yucatán Peninsula. It is closely related to the greater flamingo and Chilean flamingo, and was formerly considered conspecific with the greater flamingo, but that treatment is now widely viewed (e.g. by the American and British Ornithologists' Unions) as incorrect due to a lack of evidence. It is also known as the Caribbean flamingo, although it is also present in the Galápagos Islands. It is the only flamingo that naturally inhabits North America along with the Neotropical realm. It is a cultural icon for the U.S. state of Florida, where it was formerly abundant in the southernmost regions, although it was largely extirpated by 1900 and is now only an uncommon visitor with a few small, potential resident populations. Taxonomy The American flamingo was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geography Of Hispaniola
Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but also how they have changed and come to be. While geography is specific to Earth, many concepts can be applied more broadly to other celestial bodies in the field of planetary science. Geography has been called "a bridge between natural science and social science disciplines." Origins of many of the concepts in geography can be traced to Greek Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who may have coined the term "geographia" (). The first recorded use of the word γεωγραφία was as the title of a book by Greek scholar Claudius Ptolemy (100 – 170 AD). This work created the so-called "Ptolemaic tradition" of geography, which included "Ptolemaic cartographic theory." ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flooded Grasslands And Savannas
Flooded grasslands and savannas is a terrestrial biome of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) biogeographical system, consisting of large expanses or complexes of flooded grasslands. These areas support numerous plants and animals adapted to the unique hydrologic regimes and soil conditions. Large congregations of migratory and resident waterbirds may be found in these regions. The relative importance of these habitat types for these birds as well as more migratory animals typically varies, as the availability of water and productivity annually and seasonally shifts among complexes of smaller and larger wetlands throughout a region. This habitat type is found in Asia, Africa, North America and South America. Some globally outstanding flooded savannas and grasslands occur in the Everglades, Pantanal, Lake Chad flooded savanna, Zambezian flooded grasslands, and the Sudd. The Everglades, with an area of , are the world's largest rain-fed flooded grassland on a limestone s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecoregions Of Haiti
An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural communities and species. The biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. In theory, biodiversity or conservation ecoregions are relatively large areas of land or water where the probability of encountering different species and communities at any given point remains relatively constant, within an acceptable range of variation (largely undefined at this point). Ecoregions are also known as "ecozones" ("ecological zones"), although that term may also refer to biogeographic realms. Three caveats are appropriate for all bio-geographic mapping approaches. Firstly, no single bio-geographic framewo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hispaniolan Slider
The Hispaniolan slider (''Trachemys decorata'') or Haitian slider is a species of turtle in the family Emydidae found on the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Habitat The Hispaniolan slider is a freshwater turtle. They can live on land and water, but prefer to be near freshwater. Conservation These sliders are not on the endangered list, but are considered vulnerable. Diet They have a particular diet that consists of insects (crickets), fish, vegetation, etc. When kept in captivity, they can eat all of the same foods that they would eat normally, as well as turtle pellets, carrots, tomatoes, peeled grapes, and spinach. Appearance Unlike red-eared slider The red-eared slider or red-eared terrapin (''Trachemys scripta elegans'') is a subspecies of the pond slider (''Trachemys scripta''), a semiaquatic turtle belonging to the Family (biology), family Emydidae. Native to the southern United States ...s, they do not have red patches on their heads. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyclura Ricordii
''Cyclura ricordii'', also known as Ricord's ground iguana or Ricord's rock iguana, is an endangered species of medium-sized rock iguana, a large herbivorous lizard. It is endemic to the island of Hispaniola (in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic). It is known to coexist with the nominate subspecies of the rhinoceros iguana (''C. cornuta cornuta''); the two species are the only taxa of rock iguana to do so. The natural habitats of its three subpopulations are hot, dry, wooded savanna on limestone with access to soil and sandy flats in southern Hispaniola. It is threatened by predation by introduced predators and habitat loss, due to overgrazing and charcoal manufacture. Taxonomy The specific epithet ''ricordii'' commemorates the French doctor Alexandre Ricord who sent the first specimen to Paris. In 1837 ''Cyclura ricordii'' was described as a species new to science by André Marie Constant Duméril and Gabriel Bibron, who at that time named it ''Aloponotus ricordii''. In 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhinoceros Iguana
The rhinoceros iguana (''Cyclura cornuta'') is an endangered species of iguana that is endemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and its surrounding islands. A large lizard, they vary in length from , and skin colours range from a steely grey to a dark green and even brown. Their name derives from the bony-plated pseudo-horn or outgrowth which resembles the horn of a rhinoceros on the iguana's snout. It is known to coexist with the Ricord's iguana (''C. ricordii''); the two species are the only taxa of rock iguana to do so. Taxonomy The rhinoceros iguana is a species of lizard belonging to the genus '' Cyclura''. The rhinoceros iguana's specific name, ''cornuta'', is the feminine form of the Latin adjective ''cornutus'', meaning "horned" and refers to the horned projections on the snouts of males of the species. The species was first identified by Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre in 1789. In addition to the nominate race (''C. c. cornu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Crocodile
The American crocodile (''Crocodylus acutus'') is a species of crocodilian found in the Neotropics. It is the most widespread of the four Extant taxon, extant species of crocodiles from the Americas, with populations present from South Florida, the Caribbean islands of Cuba, Jamaica, and Hispaniola, and the coasts of Mexico to as far south as Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. The habitat of the American crocodile consists largely of coastal areas. It is also found in river systems, but tends to prefer salinity, resulting in the species congregating in brackish lakes, mangrove swamps, lagoons, cays, and small islands. Other crocodiles also have tolerance to saline water, saltwater due to salt glands underneath the tongue, but the American crocodile is the only species other than the saltwater crocodile to commonly live and thrive in saltwater. They can be found on beaches and small island formations without any freshwater source, such as many cays and islets across the Carib ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roseate Spoonbill
The roseate spoonbill (''Platalea ajaja'') is a social wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family, Threskiornithidae. It is a resident breeder in both South and North America. The roseate spoonbill's pink color is diet-derived, consisting of the carotenoid pigment canthaxanthin, like the American flamingo. Taxonomy The roseate spoonbill was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his ''Systema Naturae'' under the current binomial name ''Platalea ajaja''. Linnaeus largely based his account on the "Aiaia" that been described and illustrated over a century earlier by the German naturalist Georg Marcgrave in his book ''Historia Naturalis Brasiliae''. Linnaeus specified the type locality as South America but this is now restricted to Brazil. The genus name ''Platalea'' is Latin and means "broad", referring to the distinctive shape of the bill; the specific epithet ''ajaja'' is from the name for the species in the Tupi language ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
