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Manus Island Spiny Rat
The Manus Island spiny rat or Admiralty rat, (''Rattus detentus'') is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is endemic to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, and potentially the neighboring island of Los Negros. It was given its name after the Latin word for "detained" in reference to its isolation on the island and in a show of solidarity to the detainees at the then-open Manus Regional Processing Centre. It is notable for its large size, being larger than any other ''Rattus'' found across the Melanesian archipelago, and may be an example of island gigantism. It is thought to be highly divergent member of the Austro-Papuan ''Rattus'' radiation and thus no close relatives are known. This species is thought to be threatened by deforestation for logging and agriculture, as well as invasive species such as feral cats. A significant portion of Manus Island has been deforested since the 1990s. However, local residents have claimed that the species is widespread in Manus and als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the Order (biology), order Rodentia ( ), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and Mandible, lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are native to all major land masses except for Antarctica, and several oceanic islands, though they have subsequently been introduced to most of these land masses by human activity. Rodents are extremely diverse in their ecology and lifestyles and can be found in almost every terrestrial habitat, including human-made environments. Species can be arboreal, fossorial (burrowing), saltatorial/ricochetal (leaping on their hind legs), or semiaquatic. However, all rodents share several morphological features, including having only a single upper and lower pair of ever-growing incisors. Well-known rodents include Mouse, mice, rats, squirrels, prairie dogs, porcupines, beavers, Cavia, guinea pigs, and hamsters. Once included wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Island Gigantism
Island gigantism, or insular gigantism, is a biological phenomenon in which the size of an animal species isolated on an island increases dramatically in comparison to its mainland relatives. Island gigantism is one aspect of the more general "island effect" or "Foster's rule", which posits that when mainland animals colonize islands, small species tend to evolve larger bodies, and large species tend to evolve smaller bodies (insular dwarfism). This is itself one aspect of the more general phenomenon of island syndrome which describes the differences in morphology, ecology, physiology and behaviour of insular (island) species compared to their continental counterparts. Following the arrival of humans and associated introduced predators (dogs, cats, rats, pigs), many giant as well as other island endemics have become extinct (e.g. the dodo and Rodrigues solitaire, giant flightless pigeons related to the Nicobar pigeon). A similar size increase, as well as increased woodiness, has b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemic Fauna Of Papua New Guinea
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 (ecology), 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 la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rattus
''Rattus'' is a genus of muroid rodents, all typically called rats. However, the term rat can also be applied to rodent species outside of this genus. Species and description The best-known ''Rattus'' species are the black rat (''R. rattus'') and the brown rat (''R. norvegicus''). The group is generally known as the Old World rats or true rats and originated in Asia. Rats are bigger than most Old World mouse, mice, which are their relatives, but seldom weigh over in the wild. Taxonomy of ''Rattus'' The genus ''Rattus'' is a member of the giant subfamily Murinae. Several other murine genera are sometimes considered part of ''Rattus'': ''Lenothrix'', ''Anonymomys'', ''Sundamys'', ''Kadarsanomys'', ''Diplothrix'', ''Margaretamys'', ''Lenomys'', ''Komodomys'', ''Palawanomys'', ''Bunomys'', ''Nesoromys'', ''Stenomys'', ''Taeromys'', ''Paruromys'', ''Abditomys'', ''Tryphomys'', ''Limnomys'', ''Tarsomys'', ''Bullimus'', ''Apomys'', ''Millardia'', ''Srilankamys'', ''Niviventer'', ''Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological species. A series of Regional Red Lists, which assess the risk of extinction to species within a political management unit, are also produced by countries and organizations. The goals of the Red List are to provide scientifically based information on the status of species and subspecies at a global level, to draw attention to the magnitude and importance of threatened biodiversity, to influence national and international policy and decision-making, and to provide information to guide actions to conserve biological diversity. Major species assessors include BirdLife International, the Institute of Zoology (the research division of the Zoological Society of London), the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and many Specialist Groups w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Critically Endangered
An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of the 157,190 species currently on the IUCN Red List, 9,760 of those are listed as critically endangered, with 1,302 being possibly extinct and 67 possibly extinct in the wild. The IUCN Red List provides the public with information regarding the conservation status of animal, fungi, and plant species. It divides various species into seven different categories of conservation that are based on habitat range, population size, habitat, threats, etc. Each category represents a different level of global extinction risk. Species that are considered to be critically endangered are placed within the "Threatened" category. As the IUCN Red List does not consider a species extinct until extensive targeted surveys have been conducted, species that a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feral Cat
A feral cat or a stray cat is an unowned domestic cat (''Felis catus'') that lives outdoors and avoids human contact; it does not allow itself to be handled or touched, and usually remains hidden from humans. Feral cats may breed over dozens of generations and become a local apex predator in urban, savannah and bushland environments, and especially on islands where native animals did not evolve alongside predators. Some feral cats may become more comfortable with people who regularly feed them, but even with long-term attempts at socialization of animals, socialization, they usually remain aloof and reject human touch. Of the 700 million cats in the world, an estimated 480 million are feral. Feral cats are devastating to wildlife, and conservation biologists consider them to be one of the worst invasive species on Earth. They are included in the list of 100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species, the world's 100 worst invasive alien species. Attempts to control feral cat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deforestation
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present. This is one-third less than the forest cover before the expansion of agriculture, with half of that loss occurring in the last century. Between 15 million to 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Bangladesh, are destroyed every year. On average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute. Estimates vary widely as to the extent of deforestation in the tropics. In 2019, nearly a third of the overall tree cover loss, or 3.8 million hectares, occurred within humid tropical primary forests. These are areas of mature rainforest that are especially important for biodiversity and carbon storage. The direct cause of most deforestation is agriculture by far. More than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melanesia
Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea. It also includes the West New Guinea, Indonesian part of New Guinea, the French overseas collectivity of New Caledonia, and the Torres Strait Islands. Almost all of the region is in the Southern Hemisphere; only a few small islands that are not politically considered part of Oceania—specifically the northwestern islands of Western New Guinea—lie in the Northern Hemisphere. The name ''Melanesia'' (in French, ''Mélanésie'') was first used in 1832 by French navigator Jules Dumont d'Urville: he coined the terms ''Melanesia'' and ''Micronesia'' to go alongside the pre-existing ''Polynesia'' to designate what he viewed as the three main Ethnicity, ethnic and geographical regions forming the Pacif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muridae
The Muridae, or murids, are either the largest or second-largest family of rodents and of mammals, containing approximately 870 species, including many species of mice, rats, and gerbils found naturally throughout Eurasia, Africa, and Australia. The name Muridae comes from the Latin ' (genitive '), meaning "mouse", since all true mice belong to the family, with the more typical mice belonging to the genus ''Mus (genus), Mus''. Distribution and habitat Murids are found nearly everywhere in the world, though many subfamilies have narrower ranges. Murids are not found in Antarctica or many oceanic islands. Although none of them are native to the Americas, a few species, notably the house mouse and black rat, have been introduced worldwide. Murids occupy a broad range of ecosystems from tropical forests to tundras. Fossorial, arboreal, and semiaquatic murid species occur, though most are terrestrial animals. The extensive list of niches filled by murids helps to explain their relat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust Limited. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in its journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manus Regional Processing Centre
The Manus Regional Processing Centre, or Manus Island Regional Processing Centre (MIRCP), was one of a number of offshore Australian immigration detention facilities. The centre was located on the PNG Navy Base Lombrum (previously a Royal Australian Navy base called HMAS ''Tarangau'') on Los Negros Island in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea. It was originally established in 2001, along with Nauru Regional Processing Centre, as an "offshore processing centre" (OPC) as part of the Pacific Solution policy created by the Howard government. After falling into disuse in 2003, it was formally closed by the first Rudd government in 2008, but reopened by the Gillard government in 2012. As part of the PNG Solution by the second Rudd government, it was announced in July 2013 that those sent to PNG would never be resettled in Australia. After Tony Abbott became PM in a change of government a few months later, the government announced its Operation Sovereign Borders policy, aimed at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
