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Palawan Peacock-pheasant
The Palawan peacock-pheasant (''Polyplectron napoleonis'') is a medium-sized (up to 50cm long) bird in the family Phasianidae endemic to the island of Palawan in the Philippines. The spectacular male has a black body with blue marks on the wings, a grayish, finely speckled back and tail with blue peacock “eyes,” white marks on the face, and a red eye-ring. Females are mostly brown but with a white face. It is known as ''tandikan'' in the some local Palawano (''peras'' in Southwest Palawano), Tagbanwa, and Batak languages of Palawan. It is featured prominently in the culture of the indigenous people of Palawan. The bird is also depicted in the official seal of the city of Puerto Princesa and is in the Philippine one hundred-peso note This species is threatened by habitat loss, the illegal wildlife trade and hunting and is listed as a Vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Description The adult male is the most peacock-like member of the g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronx Zoo
The Bronx Zoo (also historically the Bronx Zoological Park and the Bronx Zoological Gardens) is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and the largest Metropolis, metropolitan zoo, comprising of park lands and naturalistic habitats separated by the Bronx River. The zoo has 2.1 million average yearly visitors . The zoo's original buildings, known as Astor Court, were designed as a series of Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts pavilions grouped around the large circular sea lion pool. The Rainey Memorial Gates were designed by sculptor Paul Manship in 1934 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The zoo opened on November 8, 1899, featuring 843 animals in 22 exhibits. Its first director was William Temple Hornaday, who served for 30 years. From its inception the zoo has played a vital role in animal conservation. In 1905, the American Bison Society was created in an attempt to save th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyplectron
The peacock-pheasants are a bird genus, ''Polyplectron'', of the family Phasianidae, consisting of eight species. They are colored inconspicuously, relying heavily on crypsis to avoid detection. When threatened, peacock-pheasants will alter their shapes using specialised plumage that when expanded reveals numerous iridescent orbs. The birds also vibrate their plume quills further accentuating their aposematism. Peacock-pheasants exhibit well developed metatarsal spurs. Older individuals may have multiple spurs on each leg. These kicking thorns are used in self-defense. Taxonomy The genus ''Polyplectron'' was introduced in 1807 by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck. The name combines the Ancient Greek ''polus'' meaning "many" with ''plēktron'' meaning "cock's spur". The type species is the grey peacock-pheasant. The systematics of the genus are somewhat unclear. Molecular research has revealed that peacock-pheasants are not genetically related to pheasants and only dist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Molecular Clock
The molecular clock is a figurative term for a technique that uses the mutation rate of biomolecules to deduce the time in prehistory when two or more life forms diverged. The biomolecular data used for such calculations are usually nucleotide sequences for DNA, RNA, or amino acid sequences for proteins. Early discovery and genetic equidistance The notion of the existence of a so-called "molecular clock" was first attributed to Émile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling who, in 1962, noticed that the number of amino acid differences in hemoglobin between different lineages changes roughly linearly with time, as estimated from fossil evidence. They generalized this observation to assert that the rate of evolutionary change of any specified protein was approximately constant over time and over different lineages (known as the molecular clock hypothesis). The genetic equidistance phenomenon was first noted in 1963 by Emanuel Margoliash, who wrote: "It appears that the number ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mya (unit)
Mya or MYA may refer to: Brands and product names * Mya (TV channel), an Italian Television channel * Mya (program), an intelligent personal assistant created by Motorola * Midwest Young Artists, a comprehensive youth music program Codes * Burmese language (ISO 639-3: ) * Moruya Airport (IATA code: MYA), New South Wales, Australia * The IOC, license plate, and UNDP country code for Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ... People * Mya (given name) * Mya (singer) (Mya Marie Harrison, born 1979), American R&B singer-songwriter and actress * Bo Mya (1927–2006), Myanmar rebel leader and chief commander of the Karen National Union Other uses * ''Mýa'' (album), a 1998 album by Mýa * ''Mya'' (bivalve), a genus of soft-shell clams * Million years a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58See the 2014 version of the ICS geologic time scale million years ago (Ma). It is the second and most recent epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic, Cenozoic Era. The Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch. Prior to the 2009 revision of the geologic time scale, which placed the four most recent major glaciations entirely within the Pleistocene, the Pliocene also included the Gelasian Stage, which lasted from 2.59 to 1.81 Ma, and is now included in the Pleistocene. As with other older geologic periods, the Stratum, geological strata that define the start and end are well-identified but the exact dates of the start a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basal (phylogenetics)
In phylogenetics, basal is the direction of the ''base'' (or root) of a phylogenetic tree#Rooted tree, rooted phylogenetic tree or cladogram. The term may be more strictly applied only to nodes adjacent to the root, or more loosely applied to nodes regarded as being close to the root. Note that extant taxa that lie on branches connecting directly to the root are not more closely related to the root than any other extant taxa. While there must always be two or more equally "basal" clades sprouting from the root of every cladogram, those clades may differ widely in taxonomic rank, Phylogenetic diversity, species diversity, or both. If ''C'' is a basal clade within ''D'' that has the lowest rank of all basal clades within ''D'', ''C'' may be described as ''the'' basal taxon of that rank within ''D''. The concept of a 'key innovation' implies some degree of correlation between evolutionary innovation and cladogenesis, diversification. However, such a correlation does not make a given ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Above Sea Level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level varies in different countries due to different reference points and historic measurement periods. Climate change and other forces can cause sea levels and elevations to vary over time. Uses Elevation or altitude above sea level is a standard measurement for: * Geographic locations such as towns, mountains and other landmarks. * The top of buildings and other structures. * Mining infrastructure, particularly underground. * Flying objects such as airplanes or helicopters below a Transition Altitude defined by local regulations. Units and abbreviations Elevation or altitude is generally expressed as "metres above mean sea level" in the metric system, or " feet above mean sea level" in United States customary and imperial units. Com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the origin of the term), the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Stockholm Archipelago, the Malay Archipelago (which includes the Indonesian and Philippine Archipelagos), the Lucayan (Bahamian) Archipelago, the Japanese archipelago, and the Hawaiian Archipelago. Etymology The word ''archipelago'' is derived from the Italian ''arcipelago'', used as a proper name for the Aegean Sea, itself perhaps a deformation of the Greek Αιγαίον Πέλαγος. Later, usage shifted to refer to the Aegean Islands (since the sea has a large number of islands). The erudite paretymology, deriving the word from Ancient Greek ἄρχι-(''arkhi-'', "chief") and πέλαγος (''pélagos'', "sea"), proposed by Buondelmonti, can still be found. Geograph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palawan Island
Palawan () is the largest island of the province of Palawan in the Philippines and fifth-largest by area and tenth-most populous island of the country, with a total population of 994,101 as of 2020 census. The northwest coast of the island is along the Palawan Passage in the eastern South China Sea, while the southeast coast forms part of the northern limit of the Sulu Sea. Much of the island remains traditional and is considered by some as under-developed. Abundant wildlife, jungle mountains, and some white sandy beaches attract many tourists, as well as international companies looking for development opportunities. One city and 12 out of the 23 municipalities of the Province of Palawan are on this island. Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm, one of seven operating units of the Bureau of Corrections, is located on the island. Geography The entire length of the island forms a mountain range, with a peak altitude of at Mount Mantalingajan. Other significant peaks include Mount Gan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemism In Birds
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 becomin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seismic Communication
Seismic or vibrational communication is a process of conveying information through mechanical (seismology, seismic) vibrations of the substrate. The substrate may be the earth, a plant stem or leaf, the surface of a body of water, a spider's web, a honeycomb, or any of the myriad types of soil substrates. Seismic cues are generally conveyed by surface Rayleigh waves, Rayleigh or bending waves generated through vibrations on the substrate, or acoustical waves that couple with the substrate. Vibrational communication is an ancient sensory modality and it is widespread in the animal kingdom where it has evolved several times independently. It has been reported in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, arachnids, crustaceans and nematode worms.Hill, P.S.M., (2008). ''Vibrational Communication in Animals.'' Harvard, Cambridge, London Vibrations and other communication channels are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but can be used in multi-modal communication. Functions Comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antipredator Adaptation
Anti-predator adaptations are mechanisms developed through evolution that assist Predation, prey organisms in their constant struggle against predators. Throughout the animal kingdom, adaptations have evolved for every stage of this struggle, namely by avoiding detection, warding off attack, fighting back, or escaping when caught. The first line of defence consists in avoiding detection, through mechanisms such as camouflage, Masquerade (biology), masquerade, apostatic selection, living underground, or nocturnality. Alternatively, prey animals may ward off attack, whether by advertising the presence of strong defences in aposematism, by mimicry, mimicking animals which do possess such defences, by deimatic behaviour, startling the attacker, by signalling theory, signalling to the predator that pursuit is not worthwhile, by distraction display, distraction, by using defensive structures such as spines, and by social animal, living in a group. Members of groups are at selfish herd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
