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Ethiopian Bush-crow
Stresemann's bushcrow (''Zavattariornis stresemanni''), also known as the Abyssinian pie, bush crow, Ethiopian bushcrow, or by its generic name ''Zavattariornis'', is a rather starling-like bird, which is a member of the crow family, Corvidae. It is slightly larger than the North American blue jay and is a bluish-grey in overall colour which becomes almost white on the forehead. The throat and chest are creamy-white with the tail and wings a glossy black. The black feathers have a tendency to bleach to brown at their tips. The iris of the bird is brown and the eye is surrounded by a band of naked bright blue skin. The bill, legs, and feet are black. Feeding is usually in small groups and the bird takes mainly insects. Breeding usually starts in March, with the birds building their nest high in an acacia tree. The birds usually lay five to six cream eggs with lilac blotches. The nest itself is globular in shape with a tubular entrance on top. It is possible that more than just the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yabello Wildlife Sanctuary
Yabelo Wildlife Sanctuary is a protected area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewood ... and wildlife sanctuary in southern Ethiopia. It is located in the Borena Zone of the Oromia Region west of the town of Yabelo, having an area of 2,500 square kilometers and elevations ranging from 1430 to 2000 meters above sea level. The wildlife sanctuary borders on Borana National Park to the south. Ecology Flora The area of the sanctuary is notable for its red soils which have little organic matter. The general vegetation-type is ''Acacia'' savanna, the major trees being ''Acacia drepanolobium, A. drepanolobium'' on black cotton soil, and ''Acacia brevispica, A. brevispica'' and ''Acacia horrida, A. horrida'' on the slopes. There are also patches of ''Balanites aegyptiaca'', and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family (biology)
Family (, : ) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". The delineation of what constitutes a family—or whether a described family should be acknowledged—is established and decided upon by active taxonomists. There are not strict regulations for outlining or acknowledging a family, yet in the realm of plants, these classifications often rely on both the vegetative and reproductive characteristics of plant species. Taxonomists frequently hold varying perspectives on these descriptions, leading to a lack of widespread consensus within the scientific community ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yabelo
Yabelo () is a town in southern Ethiopia. An alternative name for this town is Obda, which is also the name of a nearby mountain."Local History in Ethiopia" The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 27 May 2008) Located northwest of in the of the , this town has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of 1857 meters above sea level. It has been the administrative center of the |
Endemic Species
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or, in scientific literature, as an ''endemite''. Similarly, many species found in the Western ghats of India are examples of endemism. Endemism is an important concept in conservation biology for measuring biodiversity in a particular place and evaluating the risk of extinction for species. Endemism is also of interest in evolutionary biology, because it provides clues about how changes in the environment cause species to undergo range shifts (potentially expanding their range into a larger area or becomi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sexually Dimorphic
Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, dioecious species, which consist of most animals and some plants. Differences may include secondary sex characteristics, size, weight, color, markings, or behavioral or cognitive traits. Male-male reproductive competition has evolved a diverse array of sexually dimorphic traits. Aggressive utility traits such as "battle" teeth and blunt heads reinforced as battering rams are used as weapons in aggressive interactions between rivals. Passive displays such as ornamental feathering or song-calling have also evolved mainly through sexual selection. These differences may be subtle or exaggerated and may be subjected to sexual selection and natural selection. The opposite of dimorphism is ''monomorphism'', when both biological sexes are phenotype, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ornithologist
Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds. It has also been an area with a large contribution made by amateurs in terms of time, resources, and financial support. Studies on birds have helped develop key concepts in biology including evolution, behaviour and ecology such as the definition of species, the process of speciation, instinct, learning, ecological niches, guilds, insular biogeography, phylogeography, and conservation. While early ornithology was principally concerned with descriptions and distributions of species, ornithologists today seek answers to very specific questions, often using birds as models to test hypotheses or predictions based on theories. Most modern biological theories apply ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erwin Stresemann
Erwin Friedrich Theodor Stresemann (22 November 1889, in Dresden – 20 November 1972, in East Berlin) was a German naturalist and ornithologist. Stresemann was an ornithologist of extensive breadth who compiled one of the first and most comprehensive accounts of avian biology of its time as part of the ''Handbuch der Zoologie'' (Handbook of Zoology). In the process of his studies on birds, he also produced one of the most extensive historical accounts on the development of the science of ornithology. He influenced numerous ornithologists around him and oversaw the development of ornithology in Germany as editor of the ''Journal für Ornithologie''. He also took an interest in poetry, philosophy and linguistics. He published a monograph on the Paulohi language based on studies made during his ornithological expedition to the Indonesian island. Early life Stresemann was born in Dresden to Richard, an apothecary and Marie. His grandfather Theodor owned the ''Zum Roten Adler'' pharma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edoardo Zavattari
Edoardo Zavattari (21 October 1883, Tortona – 17 February 1972) (born 21 October 1883 in Tortona, in the province of Alexandria, in Piedmont and died on 17 February 1972 in Genoa) was an Italian zoologist who was a director at the Institute of Zoology in the Sapienza University of Rome from 1935 to 1953. He supported fascism and antisemitism on the basis of his ideas from biology and was a signatory to the " Manifesto della Razza". Biography His first academic role was as a professor at the University of Pavia and then at the University of Rome, Edoardo Zavattari was the author of more than 300 scientific publications. Between 1926 and 1959, he made several expeditions, visiting all the continents for research, in particular in the North-Eastern Africa. The specimens he collected, were placed into 122 packages, two of which are now part of the collection of the ''Museo Civico di Zoologia'' in Rome. In particular, he published ''Prodromo della fauna della Libia'' (1934). While h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relict (biology)
In biogeography and paleontology, a relict is a population or taxon of organisms that was more widespread or more diverse in the past. A relictual population is a population currently inhabiting a restricted area whose range was far wider during a previous geologic epoch. Similarly, a relictual taxon is a taxon (e.g. species or other lineage) which is the sole surviving representative of a formerly diverse group. Definition A relict (or relic) plant or animal is a taxon that persists as a remnant of what was once a diverse and widespread population. Relictualism occurs when a widespread habitat or range changes and a small area becomes cut off from the whole. A subset of the population is then confined to the available hospitable area, and survives there while the broader population either shrinks or evolves divergently. This phenomenon differs from endemism in that the range of the population was not always restricted to the local region. In other words, the species or group did ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piapiac
The piapiac (''Ptilostomus afer'') is an African bird in the crow family, and is the only member of the genus ''Ptilostomus''. It is most closely related to the Central Asian ground jays. Taxonomy In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the piapiac in his ''Ornithologie'' based on a specimen collected in Senegal. He used the French name ''La pie du Sénégal'' and the Latin ''Pica Senegalensis''. The two stars (**) at the start of the section indicates that Brisson based his description on the examination of a specimen. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial nomenclature, binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his ''Systema Naturae'' for the 12th edition of Systema Naturae, twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the piapiac. Linn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ground Jay
The ground jays or ground choughs belong to a distinct group of the passerine order of birds in the genus ''Podoces'' of the crow family Corvidae. They inhabit high altitude semi-desert areas from central Asia to Mongolia. Ground jays show adaptations to ground living such as long, strong legs adapted to fast running and the ability to leap and bound onto boulders and rocks with great agility. Their long, curved thick bills are adapted for digging and probing. While capable of flight (which they do infrequently and relatively weakly), they prefer running, and will readily perch on trees and bushes also. Species list The ground tit (''Pseudopodoces humilis''), previously Hume's ground jay, has changed its placement within the Passeriformes A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wattled Starling
The wattled starling (''Creatophora cinerea'') is a nomadic resident bird in eastern and southern Africa. It is a species of grassland, open woodland, and cultivation. This is the only African starling that appears to show affinities with the Asian starlings, particularly the genus ''Sturnus''. Its bare face patches and ability to open-bill feed in grassland are unique amongst African starlings. It is the only member of the genus ''Creatophora''. This common species appears to be extending its range into West Africa and has also occurred in Arabia, Madagascar, and Seychelles. Description The wattled starling is 21 cm long, with a short tail and pointed wings. It has mainly grey plumage except for a white rump, and black flight feathers and tail. The breeding male has a white shoulder patch and a distinctive head pattern, with unfeathered yellow skin, and black forehead and throat wattles. The extent to which these seasonal features develop increases with the age of the bir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
