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Sacred Kingfisher
The sacred kingfisher (''Todiramphus sanctus'') is a medium-sized woodland kingfisher that occurs in mangroves, woodlands, forests and river valleys in Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the western Pacific. Taxonomy The binomial name ''Halcyon sanctus'' was introduced by Nicholas Aylward Vigors and Thomas Horsfield in 1827 who described a sacred kingfisher zoological specimen from New Holland, Australia. Vigors and Horsfield compare it with ''Alcedo sacra'' described by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1788. Gmelin in turn based his description on John Latham's "Sacred King's Fisher" published in 1782. Latham described several varieties, one of which was illustrated in Arthur Phillip's ''The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay'' published in 1789. The genus ''Halcyon'' was split and the sacred kingfisher was placed in the genus ''Todiramphus'' that had been erected by the French surgeon and naturalist René Lesson in 1827. The generic name is derived from the genus '' To ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Aylward Vigors
Nicholas Aylward Vigors (1785 – 26 October 1840) was an Ireland, Irish zoologist and politician. He popularized the classification of birds on the basis of the quinarian system. Early life Vigors was born at Old Leighlin, County Carlow, in 1785. He was the first son of Capt. Nicholas Aylward Vigors, who served in the 29th (Worcestershire) Regiment of Foot, 29th (Worcestershire) Regiment, and his first wife, Catherine Vigors, daughter of Solomon Richards of Solsborough. He matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, in November 1803, and was admitted at Lincoln's Inn in November 1806. Without completing his studies, he served in the army during the Peninsular War from 1809 to 1811 and was wounded in the Battle of Barrosa, Battle of Barossa on 5 March 1811. Though he had not yet completed his studies, he still published "An inquiry into the nature and extent of poetick licence" in London in 1810. He then returned to Oxford to continue his studies and achieved his Bachelor of Arts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, to the northeast of Australia. It is directly adjacent to Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Bougainville, a part of Papua New Guinea to the west, Australia to the southwest, New Caledonia and Vanuatu to the southeast, Fiji, Wallis and Futuna, and Tuvalu to the east, and Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia to the north. It has a total area of 28,896 square kilometres (11,157 sq mi), and a population of 734,887 according to the official estimates for mid-2023. Its capital and largest city, Honiara, is located on the largest island, Guadalcanal. The country takes its name from the wider area of the Solomon Islands (archipelago), Solomon Islands archipelago, which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the Autonomous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Museums Liverpool
National Museums Liverpool, formerly National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, comprises several museums and art galleries in and around Liverpool in Merseyside, England. All the museums and galleries in the group have free admission. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and an exempt charity under English law. Until 1974 the institutions were under the auspices of the former Liverpool Corporation. The reorganisation of English local government that year resulted in the newly created Merseyside Metropolitan County Council assuming custodianship by mutual agreement with the city authority. In 1978 the Charity Commission transferred to the County Council the trusteeship of the then privately operated Lady Lever Art Gallery and its collection. The Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher subsequently resolved to abolish the Metropolitan Counties and reassign many of their assets to the lower tier City an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holotype
A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several examples, but explicitly designated as the holotype. Under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), a holotype is one of several kinds of name-bearing types. In the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) and ICZN, the definitions of types are similar in intent but not identical in terminology or underlying concept. For example, the holotype for the butterfly '' Plebejus idas longinus'' is a preserved specimen of that subspecies, held by the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In botany and mycology, an isotype is a duplicate of the holotype, generally pieces from the same individual plant or samples from the same genetic individual. A holotype is not necessarily "ty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loyalty Islands
Loyalty Islands Province (, ) is one of the three top-level administrative subdivisions of New Caledonia. It encompasses the Loyalty Islands () archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, located northeast of the New Caledonian mainland of Grande Terre. The provincial government seat is at Lifou. The Loyalty Islands are a '' collectivité territoriale'' of France. The province's 2019 population was approximately 18,353 inhabitants living on almost . The native inhabitants are Melanesians who speak various Kanak languages and Polynesians who speak the Fagauvea language. History The first Western contact on record is attributed to British Captain William Raven of the whaler ''Britannia'', who was on his way in 1793 from Norfolk Island to Batavia (now called Jakarta). It is very likely, however, that the discovery and name originated with officials on the London ship ''Loyalty'', which was on a Pacific Ocean trading voyage from 1789 to 1790. The French Government demanded the removal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Mayr
Ernst Walter Mayr ( ; ; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was a German-American evolutionary biologist. He was also a renowned Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, Philosophy of biology, philosopher of biology, and History of science, historian of science. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the Modern synthesis (20th century), modern evolutionary synthesis of Gregor Mendel, Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Charles Darwin, Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the Species, biological species concept. Although Charles Darwin and others posited that multiple species could evolve from a single common ancestor, the mechanism by which this occurred was not understood, creating the ''species problem''. Ernst Mayr approached the problem with a new definition for species. In his book ''Systematics and the Origin of Species'' (1942) he wrote that a species is not just a group of Morphology (biology), morphologically sim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Caledonia
New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of the French Republic, a legal status unique in overseas France, and is enshrined in a dedicated chapter of the French Constitution. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre (New Caledonia), Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Chesterfield Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines (New Caledonia), Isle of Pines, and a few remote islets. The Chesterfield Islands are in the Coral Sea. French people, especially locals, call Grande Terre , a nickname also used more generally for the entire New Caledonia. Kanak people#Agitation for independence, Pro-independence Kanak parties use the name (''pron.'' ) to refer to New Caledonia, a term coined in the 1980s from the ethnic name of the indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island ( , ; ) is an States and territories of Australia, external territory of Australia located in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and New Caledonia, directly east of Australia's Evans Head, New South Wales, Evans Head and about from Lord Howe Island. Together with the neighbouring Phillip Island (Norfolk Island), Phillip Island and Nepean Island (Norfolk Island), Nepean Island, the three islands collectively form the Territory of Norfolk Island. At the 2021 Australian census, 2021 census, it had 2,188 inhabitants living on a total area of about . Its capital is Kingston, Norfolk Island, Kingston. East Polynesians were the first to settle Norfolk Island, but they had already departed when Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain settled it as part of its 1788 colonisation of Australia. The island served as a penal colony, convict penal settlement from 6 March 1788 until 5 May 1855, except for an 11-year hiatus between 15 February 1814 and 6 June 1825, when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Baker Tristram
Henry Baker Tristram FRS (11 May 1822 – 8 March 1906) was an English clergyman, Bible scholar, traveller and ornithologist. As a parson-naturalist he was an early, but short-lived, supporter of Darwinism, attempting to reconcile evolution and creation. Biography He was the son of the Rev. Henry Baker Tristram, born at Eglingham vicarage, near Alnwick, Northumberland. He studied at Durham School and Lincoln College, Oxford. In 1846 he was ordained a priest. Diplomatic, scientific and missionary work Tristram was secretary to the governor of Bermuda from 1847 to 1849. He explored the Sahara desert, and in 1858 visited Palestine, returning there in 1863 and 1872, and dividing his time between natural history observations and identifying localities mentioned in the Old and New Testaments. In 1873 he became canon of Durham Cathedral. In 1881 he travelled again to Palestine, the Lebanon, Mesopotamia, and Armenia. He also made a second voyage to Japan to visit his daughter, K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kermadec Islands
The Kermadec Islands ( ; ) are a subtropical island arc in the South Pacific Ocean northeast of New Zealand's North Island, and a similar distance southwest of Tonga. The islands are part of New Zealand. They are in total area and uninhabited, except for the permanently staffed Raoul Island Station, the northernmost outpost of New Zealand. The islands are listed with the New Zealand outlying islands. The islands are an immediate part of New Zealand, but not part of any region or district, but instead an ''Area Outside Territorial Authority''. Toponymy The islands were named after the Breton captain Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec, who visited the islands as part of the d'Entrecasteaux expedition in the 1790s. The topographic particle "Kermadec" is of Breton origin and is a lieu-dit in Pencran in Finistère where '' ker'' means village, residence and ''madec'' a proper name derived from '' mad'' (which means 'good') with the suffix '' -ec'', used to form adjectives indicati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Howe Island
Lord Howe Island (; formerly Lord Howe's Island) is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, part of the Australian state of New South Wales. It lies directly east of mainland Port Macquarie, northeast of Sydney, and about southwest of Norfolk Island. It is about long and between wide with an area of , though just of that comprise the low-lying developed part of the island. The island is named after Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe. Along the west coast is a sandy semi-enclosed sheltered coral reef lagoon. Most of the population lives in the north, while the south is dominated by forested hills rising to the highest point on the island, Mount Gower (). The Lord Howe Island Group comprises 28 islands, islets, and rocks. Apart from Lord Howe Island itself, the most notable of these is the volcanic and uninhabited Ball's Pyramid about to the southeast of Howe. To the north lies the Admiralty Group, a cluster of seven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
