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Opossum
Opossums () are members of the marsupial order Didelphimorphia () endemic to the Americas. The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 126 species in 18 genera. Opossums originated in South America and entered North America in the Great American Interchange following the connection of North and South America in the late Cenozoic. The Virginia opossum is the only species found in the United States and Canada. It is often simply referred to as an opossum; in North America, it is commonly referred to as a possum (; sometimes rendered as ''possum'' in written form to indicate the dropped "o"). The Australasian arboreal marsupials of suborder Phalangeriformes are also called possums because of their resemblance to opossums, but they belong to a different order. The opossum is typically a nonaggressive animal and almost never carries the virus that causes rabies. Etymology The word ''opossum'' is derived from the Powhatan language and was first recorde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia Opossum
The Virginia opossum (''Didelphis virginiana''), also known as the North American opossum, is a member of the opossum family found from southern Canada to northern Costa Rica, making it the northernmost marsupial in the world and the only marsupial native to North America. Commonly referred to simply as the possum, it is a solitary nocturnal animal about the size of a domestic cat, and a successful Opportunism#Biological, opportunist. Opossums are familiar to many North Americans as they frequently inhabit settled areas near food sources like trash cans, pet food, compost piles, gardens or housemice. Their slow, nocturnal nature and their attraction to roadside carrion make opossums more likely to become roadkill. Name The Virginia opossum is the original animal named "opossum", a word which comes from Algonquian languages, Algonquian , meaning "white animal". Colloquially, the Virginia opossum is frequently just called a "possum". The term is applied more generally to any of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great American Interchange
The Great American Biotic Interchange (commonly abbreviated as GABI), also known as the Great American Interchange and the Great American Faunal Interchange, was an important late Cenozoic paleozoogeographic biotic interchange event in which land and freshwater fauna (animals), fauna migrated from North America to South America via Central America and vice versa, as the volcanic Isthmus of Panama rose up from the sea floor, forming a land bridge between the previously separated continents. Although earlier dispersals had occurred, probably over water, the migration accelerated dramatically about 2.7 million years (Ma (unit), Ma) ago during the Piacenzian age. It resulted from the joining of the Neotropical realm, Neotropic (roughly South American) and Nearctic realm, Nearctic (roughly North American) biogeographic realms definitively to form the Americas. The interchange is visible from observation of both biostratigraphy and nature (neontology). Its most dramatic effect is on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marsupial
Marsupials are a diverse group of mammals belonging to the infraclass Marsupialia. They are natively found in Australasia, Wallacea, and the Americas. One of marsupials' unique features is their reproductive strategy: the young are born in a relatively undeveloped state and then nurtured within a pouch on their mother's abdomen. Extant marsupials encompass many species, including Kangaroo, kangaroos, Koala, koalas, Opossum, opossums, Phalangeriformes, possums, Tasmanian devil, Tasmanian devils, Wombat, wombats, Wallaby, wallabies, and Bandicoot, bandicoots. Marsupials constitute a clade stemming from the last common ancestor of extant Metatheria, which encompasses all mammals more closely related to marsupials than to Placentalia, placentals. The evolutionary split between placentals and marsupials occurred 125-160 million years ago, in the Middle Jurassic-Early Cretaceous period. Presently, close to 70% of the 334 extant marsupial species are concentrated on the Australian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Didelphis
''Didelphis'' is a genus of New World marsupials. The six species in the genus ''Didelphis'', commonly known as Large American opossums, are members of the ''opossum'' order (biology), order, Didelphimorphia. The genus ''Didelphis'' is composed of cat-sized omnivorous species, which can be recognized by their prehensile tails and their tendency to feign death when cornered. The largest species, the Virginia opossum (''Didelphis virginiana''), is the only marsupial to be found north of Mexico. The Virginia opossum has opposable toes on their two back feet. One of the synapomorphies of this genus is the Hypertrophy, hypertrophied spinous processes of the cervical vertebrae, which also interlock. As a result, this prevents and movement of the neck. The purpose of this is not yet fully understood. Phylogeny Cladogram of living large American opossums, the genus ''Didelphis'': Species References Opossums Marsupial genera Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{marsupial- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phalangeriformes
Phalangeriformes is a paraphyletic suborder of about 70 species of small to medium-sized arboreal locomotion, arboreal marsupials native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi. The species are commonly known as possums, opossums, gliders, and cuscus. The common name "(o)possum" for various Phalangeriformes species derives from the creatures' resemblance to the opossums of the Americas (the term comes from Powhatan language ''aposoum'' "white animal", from proto-Algonquian language, Proto-Algonquian *''wa·p-aʔɬemwa'' "white dog"). However, although opossums are also marsupials, Australasian possums are more closely related to other Australidelphia, Australasian marsupials such as kangaroos. Phalangeriformes are quadrupedalism, quadrupedal Diprotodontia, diprotodont marsupials with long tails. The smallest species, indeed the smallest diprotodont marsupial, is the Tasmanian pygmy possum, with an adult head-body length of and a weight of . The largest are the two species of be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rabies
Rabies is a viral disease that causes encephalitis in humans and other mammals. It was historically referred to as hydrophobia ("fear of water") because its victims panic when offered liquids to drink. Early symptoms can include fever and abnormal sensations at the site of exposure. These symptoms are followed by one or more of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, fear of water, an inability to move parts of the body, confusion, and loss of consciousness. Once symptoms appear, the result is virtually always death. The time period between contracting the disease and the start of symptoms is usually one to three months but can vary from less than one week to more than one year. The time depends on the distance the virus must travel along Peripheral nervous system, peripheral nerves to reach the central nervous system. Rabies is caused by lyssaviruses, including the rabies virus and Australian bat lyssavirus. It is spread when an i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theria
Theria ( or ; ) is a scientific classification, subclass of mammals amongst the Theriiformes. Theria includes the eutherians (including the Placentalia, placental mammals) and the metatherians (including the marsupials) but excludes the egg-laying monotremes and various extinct mammals evolving prior to the common ancestor of placentals and marsupials. Characteristics Therians give birth to live young without a shelled egg (biology), egg. This is possible thanks to key proteins called Syncytin-1, syncytins which allow exchanges between the mother and its offspring through a placenta, even Marsupial#Reproductive system, rudimental ones such as in marsupials. Genetic studies have suggested a viral origin of syncytins through the Endogenous retrovirus, endogenization process. The marsupials and the placentals evolved from a common therian ancestor that gave live birth by suppressing the mother's immune system. While the marsupials continued to give birth to an underdeveloped fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Living Fossil
A living fossil is a Deprecation, deprecated term for an extant taxon that phenotypically resembles related species known only from the fossil record. To be considered a living fossil, the fossil species must be old relative to the time of origin of the extant clade. Living fossils commonly are of species-poor lineages, but they need not be. While the body plan of a living fossil remains superficially similar, it is never the same species as the remote relatives it resembles, because genetic drift would inevitably change its chromosomal structure. Living fossils exhibit punctuated equilibrium, stasis (also called "bradytely") over geologically long time scales. Popular literature may wrongly claim that a "living fossil" has undergone no significant evolution since fossil times, with practically no molecular evolution or Morphology (biology), morphological changes. Scientific investigations have repeatedly discredited such claims. The minimal superficial changes to living foss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Powhatan Language
Powhatan or Virginia Algonquian is an Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian languages. It was formerly spoken by the Powhatan people of tidewater Virginia. Following 1970s linguistic research by Frank Thomas Siebert, Jr., some of the language has been reconstructed with assistance from better-documented Algonquian languages, and attempts are being made to revive it. The sole documentary evidence for this language is two short wordlists recorded around the time of first European contact. William Strachey recorded about 500 words and Captain John Smith recorded only about 50 words. Smith also reported the existence of a pidgin form of Powhatan, but virtually nothing is known of it. Strachey's material was collected sometime between 1610 and 1611, and probably written up from his notes in 1612 and 1613, after he had returned to England. It was never published in his lifetime, although he made a second copy in 1618. The second copy was published in 1849, and the first in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Americas
The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a single continent, the Americas or America is the 2nd largest continent by area after Asia, and is the 3rd largest continent by population. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with their Lists of islands of the Americas, associated islands, the Americas cover 8% of Earth's total surface area and 28.4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a long chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by large river basins, such as the Amazon basin, Amazon, St. Lawrence River–Great Lakes, Mississippi River System, Mississippi, and Río de la Plata Basin, La Plata basins. Since the Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australidelphia
Australidelphia is a superorder of marsupials encompassing about three-quarters of all living marsupial species, including all those native to Australasia and one South American species, the monito del monte. Unlike other American marsupials, which belong to the Ameridelphia, Australidelphia’s lineage emerged in South America, with genetic evidence (retrotransposon insertion sites) showing the monito del monte as its most ancient branch. Within this superorder, the Australian members form a distinct group (clade) named Eomarsupialia, though their internal relationships (branching order) is yet to be determined. Studies suggest Australidelphia originated in South America alongside other major marsupial groups, likely dispersing to Australia via Antarctica in a single event after the monito’s lineage ( Microbiotheria) diverged, leaving other South American orders (Didelphimorphia and Paucituberculata) as more basal. Phylogeny The following cladogram is a phylogeny of Aust ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek Dark Ages, Dark Ages (), the Archaic Greece, Archaic or Homeric Greek, Homeric period (), and the Classical Greece, Classical period (). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athens, fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and Ancient Greek philosophy, philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Homeric Greek, Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period (), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek, which is regar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
