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False Cobra
The false cobra (''Malpolon moilensis''), or hooded malpolon, is an opisthoglyphous snake found in parts of Africa and the Middle East. The name "false cobra" comes from the fact that while it is not a cobra, it imitates a cobra's stance by spreading its neck into a hood and hissing like the cobra. It can grow up to 1.5 metres in length and preys on rodents and lizards, while it itself falls prey to the Great grey shrike. Description Adults are usually 0.8 – 1.4 m in length, but some specimens have reached about 1.9 m. They have big round eyes, reddish in colour. One distinctive feature that the snake has is a black blotch which runs from the cheek to the angle of the jaw. It generally has a straw coloured background checkered with brownish spots running along the body. The belly surface is usually creme. Geographical range ''Malpolon moilensis'' is found in North Africa and the Middle East. Behavior When threatened, ''Malpolon moilensis'' will imitate a cobra's stance by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adolph Reuss
Adolph Reuss (November 28, 1804 in Frankfurt am Main – May 7, 1878) was a German-American physician and zoologist, known for his work in the fields of herpetology and arachnology. He studied at the University of Göttingen, earning his medical doctorate in 1825. Following graduation, he served as a doctor in Frankfurt, also becoming involved with zoological research at the Senckenberg Museum. He later emigrated to the United States, where in 1834, he purchased a 200 acre farm near Shiloh, Illinois. In rural Illinois, he worked as a farmer, and in meantime, maintained a successful medical practice. At the time of his death, his estate had grown in size to 450 acres of land. Since 1829, he was a member of the ''Senckenbergische Naturforschende Gesellschaft'', and in September 1856, he became a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of St. Louis. While serving at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, he edited a collection of manuscripts in the field of arachnology t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fledge
Fledging is the stage in a flying animal's life between hatching or birth and becoming capable of flight. This term is most frequently applied to birds, but is also used for bats. For altricial birds, those that spend more time in vulnerable condition in the nest, the nestling and fledging stage can be the same. For precocial birds, those that develop and leave the nest quickly, a short nestling stage precedes a longer fledging stage. All birds are considered to have fledged when the feathers and wing muscles are sufficiently developed for flight. A young bird that has recently fledged but is still dependent upon parental care and feeding is called a fledgling. People often want to help fledglings, as they appear vulnerable, but it is best to leave them alone. The USA National Phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors (suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snakes Of Africa
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads ( cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snakes Of Asia
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psammophiidae
Psammophiidae is a family of elapoid snakes. They were formerly placed as a subfamily of the Lamprophiidae, but have been more recently identified as a distinct family. Genera It contains 8 genera: * '' Dipsina'' Jan, 1862 * '' Hemirhagerrhis'' Boettger, 1893 * '' Kladirostratus'' Conradie, Keates & Edwards, 2019 * '' Malpolon'' Fitzinger, 1826 * '' Mimophis'' Günther, 1868 * ''Psammophis ''Psammophis'' is a genus of snakes in the family Psammophiidae. The genus comprises 33 species, which are found in Africa and Asia.. www.reptile-database.org. ''Psammophis'' are diurnal and prey on lizards and rodents which they actively ...'' Fitzinger, 1826 * '' Psammophylax'' Fitzinger, 1843 * '' Rhamphiophis'' Peters, 1854 References {{Taxonbar, from=Q3409411 Psammophiidae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snakeskin
Snakeskin may either refer to the skin of a live snake, the shed skin of a snake after molting, or to a type of leather that is made from the hide of a dead snake. Snakeskin and scales can have varying patterns and color formations, providing protection via camouflage from predators. The colors and iridescence in these scales are largely determined by the types and amount of chromatophores located in the dermis of the snake skin. The snake's skin and scales are also an important feature to their locomotion, providing protection and minimizing friction when gliding over surfaces. Skin of a living snake In a living snake, its skin often deals with various forms of abrasion. To combat rough substrates, snakes have formed specialized and multilayered organizational epidermal structures to provide a safe and efficient sliding locomotion when maneuvering over rough surfaces. Display Pattern formation Snakes can be ornately patterned. They can be striped, banded, solid, green ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moult
In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is the manner in which an animal routinely casts off a part of its body (often, but not always, an outer layer or covering), either at specific times of the year, or at specific points in its life cycle. In medieval times it was also known as "mewing" (from the French verb "muer", to moult), a term that lives on in the name of Britain's Royal Mews where the King's hawks used to be kept during moulting time before becoming horse stables after Tudor times. Moulting can involve shedding the epidermis (skin), pelage ( hair, feathers, fur, wool), or other external layer. In some groups, other body parts may be shed, for example, the entire exoskeleton in arthropods, including the wings in some insects. Examples In birds In birds, moulting is the periodic replacement of feathers by shedding old feathers while producing new ones. Feathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venom
Venom or zootoxin is a type of toxin produced by an animal that is actively delivered through a wound by means of a bite, sting, or similar action. The toxin is delivered through a specially evolved ''venom apparatus'', such as fangs or a stinger, in a process called envenomation. Venom is often distinguished from poison, which is a toxin that is passively delivered by being ingested, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin, and toxungen, which is actively transferred to the external surface of another animal via a physical delivery mechanism. Venom has evolved in terrestrial and marine environments and in a wide variety of animals: both predators and prey, and both vertebrates and invertebrates. Venoms kill through the action of at least four major classes of toxin, namely necrotoxins and cytotoxins, which kill cells; neurotoxins, which affect nervous systems; myotoxins, which damage muscles; and haemotoxins, which disrupt blood clotting. Venomous animals cause tens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in the west, to Egypt's Suez Canal. Varying sources limit it to the countries of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, a region that was known by the French during colonial times as "''Afrique du Nord''" and is known by Arabs as the Maghreb ("West", ''The western part of Arab World''). The United Nations definition includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, and the Western Sahara, the territory disputed between Morocco and the Sahrawi Republic. The African Union definition includes the Western Sahara and Mauritania but not Sudan. When used in the term Middle East and North Africa ( MENA), it often refers only to the countries of the Maghreb. North Africa includes the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, and plazas de so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snake
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads ( cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Grey Shrike
The great grey shrike (''Lanius excubitor'') is a large and predatory songbird species in the shrike family (Laniidae). It forms a superspecies with its parapatric southern relatives, the Iberian grey shrike (''L. meridionalis''), the Chinese grey shrike (''L. sphenocerus'') and the American loggerhead shrike (''L. ludovicianus''). Males and females are similar in plumage, pearly grey above with a black eye-mask and white underparts. Breeding takes place generally north of 50° northern latitude in northern Europe and Asia. Most populations migrate south in winter to temperate regions.Harris & Franklin (2000): pp. 152–153 The great grey shrike is carnivorous, with rodents making up over half its diet. Taxonomy and systematics The species was first scientifically described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 edition of ''Systema Naturae'' under the current binomial name. His description is – "a shrike with a wedge-shaped white-bordered tail, back grey, wings black with white spo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lizards
Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia although some lizards are more closely related to these two excluded groups than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3-meter-long Komodo dragon. Most lizards are quadrupedal, running with a strong side-to-side motion. Some lineages (known as " legless lizards"), have secondarily lost their legs, and have long snake-like bodies. Some such as the forest-dwelling '' Draco'' lizards are able to glide. They are often territorial, the males fighting off other males and signalling, often with bright colours, to attract mates and to intimidate rivals. Lizards are mainly carnivorous, often being sit-and-wait predators; many smaller species eat insects, while the Komodo eats ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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