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Spinus (bird)
''Spinus'' is a genus of passerine birds in the finch family. It contains the North and South American siskins and goldfinches, as well as two Old World species. Taxonomy The genus ''Spinus'' was introduced in 1816 by the German naturalist Carl Ludwig Koch with the type species by tautonomy as ''Fringilla spinus'' Linnaeus, 1758, the Eurasian siskin. The genus name is from the Ancient Greek ''spínos'', a name for a now-unidentifiable bird. All of the species in the genus, except for the Tibetan serin, were formerly included in the genus ''Carduelis''. They were moved to the resurrected genus ''Spinus'' based on phylogenetic studies of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences. The Tibetan serin was formerly placed in the genus ''Serinus''. The Eurasian siskin and the Tibetan serin are the only species from the Old World included in the group. The Tibetan serin is an outgroup within ''Spinus'', having been the first to diverge. The remainder of the genus can be divided into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Goldfinch
The American goldfinch (''Spinus tristis'') is a small North American bird in the finch Family (biology), family. It is Bird migration, migratory, ranging from mid-Alberta to North Carolina during the breeding season, and from just south of the Canada–United States border to Mexico during the winter. The only finch in its subfamily to undergo a complete molt, the American goldfinch displays sexual dichromatism: the male is a vibrant yellow in the summer and an olive (color), olive color during the winter, while the female is a dull yellow-brown shade which brightens only slightly during the summer. The male displays brightly colored plumage during the breeding season to attract a mate. The American goldfinch is a Seed predation, granivore and adaptation, adapted for the consumption of seedheads, with a conical beak to remove the seeds and agile feet to grip the stems of seedheads while feeding. It is a social bird and will gather in large flocks while feeding and migrating. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lawrence's Goldfinch
Lawrence's goldfinch (''Spinus lawrencei'') is a small songbird of erratic distribution that breeds in California and Baja California and winters in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Description At about long and weighing about , it is slightly bigger than the lesser goldfinch and slightly smaller than the American goldfinch, with less yellow in the plumage than either. Adults of both sexes are gray with pink to grayish flesh-color bills, stubbier than other goldfinches'. They have yellow rumps and paired yellowish wing-bars, as well as yellow edges on the flight feathers and yellow on the breast. The tail is black, crossed by a white band. Plumage is duller in winter, brightening after a spring molt. Males are paler, with black caps and faces and larger areas of brighter yellow. Females are browner, have less and duller yellow, and lack the black. Juveniles resemble females but are even duller and have faint streaks on the upperparts and especially the underp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Migration
Bird migration is a seasonal movement of birds between breeding and wintering grounds that occurs twice a year. It is typically from north to south or from south to north. Animal migration, Migration is inherently risky, due to predation and mortality. The Arctic tern holds the long-distance migration record for birds, travelling between Arctic breeding grounds and the Antarctic each year. Some species of Procellariiformes, tubenoses, such as albatrosses, circle the Earth, flying over the southern oceans, while others such as Manx shearwaters migrate between their northern breeding grounds and the southern ocean. Shorter migrations are common, while longer ones are not. The shorter migrations include altitudinal migrations on mountains, including the Andes and Himalayas. The timing of migration seems to be controlled primarily by changes in day length. Migrating birds navigate using celestial cues from the Sun and stars, the Earth's magnetic field, and mental maps. Histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thick-billed Siskin
The thick-billed siskin (''Spinus crassirostris'') is a species of finch in the family Fringillidae. Found in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru, its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist montane forests and subtropical or tropical high-altitude shrubland. Description The thick-billed siskin has an adult length of between . The bill often has a silvery base and is noticeable thicker than other related siskins. The male closely resembles the hooded siskin (''Spinus magellanicus'') and has a black head and throat, greenish-yellow upper parts (sometimes streaked with dark markings) and bright yellow underparts. It differs from the hooded siskin in having a whitish-grey midbelly. The immature male has a black head but is otherwise less conspicuous than the mature male, being more greyish-olive above and greyish below. The female is similar but lacks the black head and is altogether much duller in appearance, more greyish-olive, with paler underparts. Distribution and ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pine Siskin
The pine siskin (''Spinus pinus'') is a North American bird in the finch family. It is a migratory bird with an extremely sporadic winter range. Taxonomy The pine siskin was formally described in 1810 by the American ornithologist Alexander Wilson under the binomial name ''Fringilla pinus''. The specific epithet ''pinus'' is the Latin word for a "pine-tree". The type locality is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The pine siskin is now placed in the genus '' Spinus'' that was introduced in 1816 by the German naturalist Carl Ludwig Koch in 1816. Three subspecies are recognised: * ''S. p. pinus'' ( Wilson, A, 1810) – Alaska, Canada and west, northeast USA * ''S. p. macropterus'' ( Bonaparte, 1850) – northwest and central Mexico * ''S. p. perplexus'' Van Rossem, 1938 – south Mexico to Guatemala Description These birds are fairly small, being around the same size as the widespread American goldfinch. In both sexes, total length can range from , with a wingspan of and weight of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mixed-species Foraging Flock
A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock (birds), flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These are different from feeding aggregations, which are congregations of several species of bird at areas of high food availability. While it is currently unknown how mixed-species foraging flocks originate, researchers have proposed a few mechanisms for their initiation. Many believe that nuclear species play a vital role in mixed-species flock initiation. Additionally, the forest structure is hypothesized to play a vital role in these flocks' formation. In Sri Lanka, for example, vocal mimicry by the greater racket-tailed drongo might have a key role in the initiation of mixed-species foraging flocks, while in parts of the Americas, American tropics packs of foraging golden-crowned warblers might play the same role. Composition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociality
Sociality is the degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to associate in social groups (gregariousness) and form cooperative societies. Sociality is a survival response to evolutionary pressures. For example, when a mother wasp stays near her larvae in the nest, parasites are less likely to eat the larvae. Biologists suspect that pressures from parasites and other predators selected this behavior in wasps of the family Vespidae. This wasp behaviour evidences the most fundamental characteristic of animal sociality: parental investment. Parental investment is any expenditure of resources (time, energy, social capital) to benefit one's offspring. Parental investment detracts from a parent's capacity to invest in future reproduction and aid to kin (including other offspring). An animal that cares for its young but shows no other sociality traits is said to be ''subsocial''. An animal that exhibits a high degree of sociality is called a ''social animal'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paraphyly
Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In contrast, a monophyletic grouping (a clade) includes a common ancestor and ''all'' of its descendants. The terms are commonly used in phylogenetics (a subfield of biology) and in the tree model of historical linguistics. Paraphyletic groups are identified by a combination of synapomorphies and symplesiomorphies. If many subgroups are missing from the named group, it is said to be polyparaphyletic. The term received currency during the debates of the 1960s and 1970s accompanying the rise of cladistics, having been coined by zoologist Willi Hennig to apply to well-known taxa like Reptilia (reptiles), which is paraphyletic with respect to birds. Reptilia contains the last common ancestor of reptiles and all descendants of that ancest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hooded Siskin
The hooded siskin (''Spinus magellanicus'') is a small passerine bird in the finch family (biology), family (Fringillidae), native to South America. It belongs to the putative clade of neotropical siskins in the genus ''Spinus (genus), Spinus sensu lato''. There are 11 subspecies, including the Santa Cruz hooded siskin (''S. m. santaecrucis'') of central and eastern Bolivia. This subspecies is sometimes considered to be a separate species. Description Hooded siskins are 10 to 14 cm in length. The male is largely green above and yellow below with a black head. It has a narrow yellow collar and a yellow rump. The tail is black with yellow sides to the base and the wings are black with a broad yellow band. Females are duller with a green-brown head, yellow-green breast and sides and a whitish belly. The twittering bird song, song may be uttered from a perch or in flight. It is varied and fast, and may contain imitations of other birds. Distribution and ecology It inhabits w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from 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 () 'most' and (; Latinized as ) 'new'. The aridification and cooling trends of the preceding Neogene were continued in the Pleistocene. The climate was strongly variable depending on the glacial cycle, oscillating between cold Glacial period, glacial periods and warmer Interglacial, int ... [...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] |
Black-capped Siskin
The black-capped siskin (''Spinus atriceps'') is a species of finch in the family Fringillidae. It is found in Mexico and Guatemala. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ... and heavily degraded former forest. References black-capped siskin Birds of Mexico Birds of Guatemala black-capped siskin black-capped siskin Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Fringillidae-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
