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Pantosteus Discobolus
The bluehead sucker (''Pantosteus discobolus'') is a species of freshwater cypriniform fish endemic to the intermountain Western US. Formerly placed in the genus ''Catostomus'', it is now placed in the genus ''Pantosteus''. Description The bluehead sucker is the largest of all Arizona endemic suckers, reaching lengths over 11.8 in. Their colors are very similar to the desert sucker, with dark green or dark silvery top portions and light yellow bottoms. The bluehead has the largest lips of any sucker and has tiny papillae on the lower lip. This is also the only species with the absence of an inguinal process, just behind the pectoral fins, distinguishing it from the other eight suckers. The lower lip is slightly notched at the midline, with lateral line scales in large numbers that range from 70 to 100. They have 7 to 9 dorsal fin rays and a smaller number of caudal fin rays. During breeding, the males obtain a blue patch on the top of their large heads, and the lower ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Drinker Cope
Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontology, paleontologist, comparative anatomy, comparative anatomist, herpetology, herpetologist, and ichthyology, ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, he distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science, publishing his first scientific paper at the age of 19. Though his father tried to raise Cope as a gentleman farmer, he eventually acquiesced to his son's scientific aspirations. Cope had little formal scientific training, and he eschewed a teaching position for field work. He made regular trips to the Western United States, American West, prospecting in the 1870s and 1880s, often as a member of United States Geological Survey, U.S. Geological Survey teams. A personal feud between Cope and paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh led to a period of intense fossil-finding competition now known as the Bone Wars. Cope's financial fortunes soured after failed mining ventures i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cypriniformes
Cypriniformes is an order of ray-finned fish, which includes many families and genera of cyprinid ( carps and their kin) fish, such as barbs, loaches, botias, and minnows (among others). Cypriniformes is an "order-within-an-order", placed under the superorder Ostariophysi—which is also made up of cyprinid, ostariophysin fishes. The order contains 11–12 families (with some authorities having listed as many as 23), over 400 genera, and more than 4,250 named species; new species are regularly described, and new genera are recognized frequently.Eschmeyer, W.N., Fong, J.D. (2015Species by family/subfamilyin the Catalog of Fishes, California Academy of Sciences (retrieved 2 July 2015) Cyprinids are most diverse in South and Southeast Asia and are entirely absent from Australia and South America.Nelson (2006) At 112 years old, the longest-lived cypriniform fish documented is the bigmouth buffalo. Their closest living relatives are the Characiformes ( characins, tetras a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemism
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 b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pantosteus
''Pantosteus'', the mountain suckers, is a genus of North American freshwater ray-finned fish in the family Catostomidae. Long treated as a subgenus of ''Catostomus'', phylogenetic evidence has found them to a form a Monophyly, monophyletic group that diverged from other members of ''Catostomus'' during the Miocene, and they are thus treated better as a distinct genus. They are native to mountainous regions of western North America, from southern Canada to north-central Mexico. They are primarily found in the Mountain states, Interior West, where they are known from the Black Hills, Rocky Mountains,parts of the Sierra Madre Occidental, much of the Great Basin, and parts of the Cascade Range. However, a single isolated species (the Santa Ana sucker) is found west of the Cascades, in the San Gabriel Mountains. ''Pantosteus'' species tend to be smaller than those in ''Catostomus''. They inhabit cool, fast-flowing streams located in high-elevation environments. Taxonomy The follow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mate Choice
Mate choice is one of the primary mechanisms under which evolution can occur. It is characterized by a "selective response by animals to particular stimuli" which can be observed as behavior.Bateson, Paul Patrick Gordon. "Mate Choice." Mate Choice, Cambridge University Press, 1985 In other words, before an animal engages with a potential mate, they first evaluate various aspects of that mate which are indicative of quality—such as the resources or phenotypes they have—and evaluate whether or not those particular Phenotypic trait, trait(s) are somehow beneficial to them. The evaluation will then incur a response of some sort. These mechanisms are a part of evolutionary change because they operate in a way that causes the qualities that are desired in a mate to be more frequently passed on to each generation over time. For example, if female peacocks desire mates who have a colourful plumage, then this trait will increase in frequency over time as male peacocks with a colourful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colorado River
The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United States, drains an expansive, arid drainage basin, watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states. The name Colorado derives from the Spanish language for "colored reddish" due to its heavy silt load. Starting in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada border, where it turns south toward the Mexico–United States border, international border. After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the mostly dry Colorado River Delta at the tip of the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora. Known for its dramatic canyons, whitewater rapids, and eleven National parks of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a mile (). The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon National Park, the Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument, the Hualapai, Hualapai Indian Reservation, the Havasupai Indian Reservation and the Navajo Nation. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of the preservation of the Grand Canyon area and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery. Nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their Stream channel, channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was Tectonic uplift, uplifted. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Mead
Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. Lake Mead provides water to the states of Arizona, California, and Nevada as well as some of Mexico, providing sustenance to nearly 20 million people and large areas of farmland. At maximum capacity, Lake Mead is long, at its greatest depth, has a surface elevation of above sea level, has a surface area of , and contains of water. The lake has remained below full capacity since 1983 owing to #Drought and water usage issues, drought and increased water demand. On May 31, 2022, Lake Mead held of full capacity at , having dropped in June 2021 below the reservoir's previous all-time low of recorded in July 2016, and never returning to that level. By December 2024, following the implementation of water conservation measures, Lake Mead's w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shoshone Falls
Shoshone Falls ( ) is a waterfall in the Western United States, western United States, on the Snake River in Magic Valley, south-central Idaho, approximately northeast of the city of Twin Falls, Idaho, Twin Falls. Sometimes called the "Niagara of the West," Shoshone Falls is in height, higher than Niagara Falls, and flows over a rim nearly in width. Formed by the cataclysmic Bonneville flood, outburst flooding of Lake Bonneville during the Pleistocene Last glacial period, ice age about 14,000 years ago, Shoshone Falls marks the historical upper limit of fish migration (including Pacific salmon, salmon) in the Snake River, and was an important fishing and trading place for Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans. The falls were documented by Europeans as early as the 1840s; despite the isolated location, it became a tourist attraction starting in the 1860s. At the beginning of the 20th century, part of the Snake River was diverted for irrigation of the Magic Va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catostomus
''Catostomus'' is a genus of fish belonging to the family Catostomidae, commonly known as suckers. This genus of fish usually lives in freshwater basins. Most members of the genus are native to North America, but '' C. catostomus'' is also found in Russia. A majority of species inhabit western North America, with only ''C. catostomus'', ''C. commersonii'', and ''C. utawana'' being found in eastern North America. Characteristics The members of this genus have nearly cylindrical bodies. They have large, horizontal mouths, and their lips are very much papillose. They have complete lateral lines. They have from 54 to 124 scales, seven to 17 dorsal rays, usually seven anal rays, and 20 to 44 thin, unbranched rakers on their first gill arches. Their gas bladders have two chambers. The young of many of the species in the genus have three dark grey blotches along their sides. Hybridization Catostomus from different species of the genus are known to readily hybridize with each other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fish Described In 1871
A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can be grouped into the more basal (phylogenetics), basal jawless fish and the more common jawed fish, the latter including all extant taxon, living cartilaginous fish, cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as the extinct placoderms and acanthodians. In a break to the long tradition of grouping all fish into a single Class (biology), class (Pisces), modern phylogenetics views fish as a paraphyletic group. Most fish are ectotherm, cold-blooded, their body temperature varying with the surrounding water, though some large nekton, active swimmers like white shark and tuna can hold a higher core temperature. Many fish can communication in aquatic animals#Acoustic, communicate acoustically with each other, such as during courtship displays. The stud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
