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Murrayglossus
''Murrayglossus'' is a genus in the family Tachyglossidae. It contains a single species, ''Murrayglossus hacketti'', the giant echidna, an extinct species of echidna from Western Australia that is dated to the Pleistocene. It is known only from a few bones. It was about long and probably weighed about 30 kg (66 lb). This makes it the largest monotreme known to have ever lived. Historically treated as a species of long-beaked echidnas, it was separated into its own genus ''Murrayglossus'' in 2022. The generic name combines the last name of paleontologist Peter Murray and ''glossus'', the Greek word for "tongue". Description At around long, tall and about , ''M. hacketti'' was the largest monotreme known to have existed. ''M. hacketti'' had longer, straighter legs than any of the modern echidnas. Augee (2006) speculates that this feature made the animal more adept at traversing through thickly wooded forests. The main diagnostic characteristics of genu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Echidna
Echidnas (), sometimes known as spiny anteaters, are quill-covered monotremes (egg-laying mammals) belonging to the family Tachyglossidae . The four extant species of echidnas and the platypus are the only living mammals that lay eggs and the only surviving members of the order Monotremata. The diet of some species consists of ants and termites, but they are not closely related to the true anteaters of the Americas, which (along with sloths and armadillos) are xenarthrans. Echidnas live in Australia and New Guinea. Echidnas evolved between 20 and 50 million years ago, descending from a platypus-like monotreme. This ancestor was aquatic, but echidnas adapted to life on land. Etymology Echidnas are named after Echidna, a creature from Greek mythology who was half-woman, half-snake, as the animal was perceived to have qualities of both mammals and reptiles. An alternative explanation is a confusion with . Physical characteristics Echidnas are medium-sized, solitar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2022 In Paleomammalogy
This paleomammology list records new fossil mammal taxa that were described during the year 2022, as well as notes other significant paleomammalogy discoveries and events which occurred during 2022. Afrotherians Proboscidea Proboscidean research * A study on the landscape-scale patterns in diet of mammoths and mastodons is published by Pardi & DeSantis (2022), who report evidence indicating that mammoths had significant dietary preferences for grass, but also engaged in more mixed-feeding in the areas outside the most environmentally suitable parts of their distribution, while the dietary preferences for mastodons were less resolved. * Partial skeleton of a specimen of ''"Mammut" borsoni'', representing one of the most recent record of mammutids in Europe reported to date, is described from the Villafranchian of Kaltensundheim (Thuringia, Germany) by Koenigswald ''et al.'' (2022). * A study on patterns of landscape use by "Buesching mastodon" (recovered in 1998 from a peat far ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Winthrop Hackett
Sir John Winthrop Hackett Sr. (4 February 184819 February 1916), generally known as "Winthrop Hackett", was a proprietor and editor of several newspapers in Western Australia, a politician and a university chancellor. Early life Hackett was born near Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland, the eldest child of the Rev. John Winthrop Hackett, M.A., and his wife, Jane Sophia Monck-Mason, (daughter of Henry Monck-Mason, LL.D.). Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he graduated BA in 1871 and MA in 1874. He was called to the Irish bar in 1874, but emigrated to Sydney, in 1875 where he was called to the New South Wales bar in the same year. Career Hackett took up journalism and contributed to the '' Sydney Morning Herald'', but in 1876 went to Melbourne to become vice-principal and tutor in law, logic and political economy, at Trinity College. He also contributed to ''The Age'' and the ''Melbourne Review''. In 1880 he was a candidate for Normanby at an election for the Victorian Legisla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Largest Mammals
The following is a list of largest mammals by family. Tenrecs and allies (Afrosoricida) *The largest of these insectivorous mammals is the giant otter shrew (''Potamogale velox''), native to Central Africa. This species can weigh up to and measure in total length. Even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla) *The largest species in terms of weight is the hippopotamus (''Hippopotamus amphibius''), native to the rivers of sub-Saharan Africa. They can attain a size of , long and tall. Prehistoric hippos such as '' H. gorgops'' and '' H. antiquus'' rivaled or exceeded the modern species as the largest members of the family and order to ever exist. *The longest-bodied species, and tallest of all living land animals, is the giraffe (''Giraffa sp.''), measuring up to tall to the top of the head, and despite being relatively slender, reaching a top weight of . *The largest extant representative of the bovids, a diverse and well-known family, is the Asian forest-dwelling gaur (''Bos gaur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the '' Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the cutoff of the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being 1.806 million years Before Present (BP). Publications from earlier years may use either definition of the period. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek grc, label=none, πλεῖστος, pleīstos, most and grc, label=none, καινός, kainós (latinized as ), 'new'. At the end of the preceding Pliocene, the previously isolated North and South American continents were joined by the Isthmus of Panama, causing a faunal interchange between the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Condyle
A condyle (; in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary '. la, , from el, kondylos; κόνδυλος knuckle) is the round prominence at the end of a , most often part of a joint – an articulation with another bone. It is one of the markings or features of bones, and can refer to: * On the , in the |
Prehistoric Monotremes
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared 5000 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilisation, and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and to keep historical records, with their neighbors following. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the following Iron Age. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleistocene Mammals Of Australia
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the cutoff of the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being 1.806 million years Before Present (BP). Publications from earlier years may use either definition of the period. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek grc, label=none, πλεῖστος, pleīstos, most and grc, label=none, καινός, kainós (latinized as ), 'new'. At the end of the preceding Pliocene, the previously isolated North and South American continents were joined by the Isthmus of Panama, causing a faunal interchange between the two reg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Long-beaked Echidna
The western long-beaked echidna (''Zaglossus bruijnii'') is one of the four extant echidnas and one of three species of ''Zaglossus'' that occurs in New Guinea. Originally described as ''Tachyglossus bruijnii'', this is the type species of ''Zaglossus''. Description The western long-beaked echidna is an egg-laying mammal. Unlike the short-beaked echidna, which eats ants and termites, the long-beaked species eats earthworms. The long-beaked echidna is also larger than the short-beaked species, reaching up to ; the snout is longer and turns downward; and the spines are almost indistinguishable from the long fur. It is distinguished from the other ''Zaglossus'' species by the number of claws on the fore and hind feet: three (rarely four). It is the largest extant monotreme. Distribution and habitat The species is found in the Bird's Head Peninsula and Foja Mountains of West Papua and Papua provinces, Indonesia, respectively, in regions of elevation between ; it is absent fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Australia to the west ( 129th meridian east), South Australia to the south ( 26th parallel south), and Queensland to the east ( 138th meridian east). To the north, the territory looks out to the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, including Western New Guinea and other islands of the Indonesian archipelago. The NT covers , making it the third-largest Australian federal division, and the 11th-largest country subdivision in the world. It is sparsely populated, with a population of only 249,000 – fewer than half as many people as in Tasmania. The largest population center is the capital city of Darwin. The archaeological history of the Northern Territory may have begun more than 60,000 years ago when humans first se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arnhem Land
Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia, with the term still in use. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territory capital, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Company captain Willem Joosten van Colster (or Coolsteerdt) sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape Arnhem is named after his ship, the ''Arnhem'', which itself was named after the city of Arnhem in the Netherlands. The area covers about and has an estimated population of 16,000, of whom 12,000 are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Two regions are often distinguished as East Arnhem (Land) and West Arnhem (Land), and North-east Arnhem Land is known to the local Yolŋu people as Miwatj. The region's service hub is Nhulunbuy, east of Darwin, set up in the early 1970s as a mining town for bauxite. Other major population centres are Yirrkala (just outside Nhulunbuy), Gunbalanya (formerly Oenpelli), Ramingining, and Maningri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vertebra (anatomy)
The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates,Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristic irregular bone whose complex structure is composed primarily of bone, and secondarily of hyaline cartilage. They show variation in the proportion contributed by these two tissue types; such variations correlate on one hand with the cerebral/caudal rank (i.e., location within the backbone), and on the other with phylogenetic differences among the vertebrate taxa. The basic configuration of a vertebra varies, but the bone is its ''body'', with the central part of the body constituting the ''centrum''. The upper (closer to) and lower (further from), respectively, the cranium and its central nervous system surfaces of the vertebra body support attachment to the intervertebral discs. The posterior part of a vertebra forms a vertebral arch ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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