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Weebill
The weebill (''Smicrornis brevirostris'') is a species of bird in the family Acanthizidae. It is an insectivorous passerine that is found throughout mainland Australia. At long, it is Australia's smallest bird. It was originally described by John Gould in 1838, and four subspecies are recognised. The weebill's plumage is nondescript, with olive-grey upperparts and paler, more yellowish underparts. It grades from more brownish plumage in the southern regions of Australia to more yellow in tropical areas. Taxonomy The weebill was described by John Gould in 1838 as ''Psilopus brevirostris''. The species epithet is derived from the Latin words ''brevis'' 'short' and ''rostrum'' 'beak'. In 1843, Gould erected the genus ''Smicrornis'' for his new species ''Smicrornis flavescens'', collected from Port Essington, noting it as distinct from ''Gerygone'' (which had replaced ''Psilopus as a ''name'').'' The generic name ''Smicrornis'' derives from the Greek ''smicros'' 'small' and ''orni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acanthizidae
Acanthizidae—sometimes called Australian warblers—are a family of passerine birds which includes gerygones, thornbills '' Acanthiza'', and scrubwrens '' Sericornis''. The family Acanthizidae consists of small to medium passerine birds, with a total length varying between . They have short rounded wings, slender bills, long legs, and a short tail. Most species have olive, grey, or brown plumage, although some have patches of a brighter yellow. The weebill is the smallest species of acanthizid, and the smallest Australian passerine; the largest is the pilotbird. Taxonomy and systematics Following the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy (1990) they were previously regarded as subfamily Acanthizinae within the family Pardalotidae. More recent molecular genetic studies do not support this arrangement. The Dasyornithidae (which include the bristlebirds) are variously seen either as subfamily Dasyornithinae within the family Acanthizidae or Pardalotidae or as own family (Schodde & Mason 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gould
John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist who published monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould (illustrator), Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, including Edward Lear, Henry Constantine Richter, Joseph Wolf and William Matthew Hart. Because of his 1840s seven-volume series ''The Birds of Australia (Gould), The Birds of Australia'' and its updates he has been considered the father of bird study in Australia, and the Gould League in Australia is named after him. His identification of the birds now nicknamed "Darwin's finches" played a role in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Gould's work is referenced in Charles Darwin's book, ''On the Origin of Species''. Early life John Gould was born in Lyme Regis, the first son of a gardener. Both father and son probably had little education. After working on Dowager Lady Poulett's glass house, his father obtained ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tanami Desert
The Tanami Desert () is a desert in northern Australia, situated in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. It has a rocky terrain and small hills. The Tanami was the Northern Territory's final frontier and was not fully explored by Australians of European descent until well into the twentieth century. It is traversed by the Tanami Track. The name ''Tanami'' is thought to be an anglicisation Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language ... of the Warlpiri name for the area, "Chanamee", meaning "never die". This referred to certain rock holes in the desert which were said never to run dry. Under the name Tanami, the desert is classified as an interim Australian bioregion, comprising . [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria, commonly abbreviated as Vic, is a States and territories of Australia, state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of ; the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 7 million; and the most densely populated state in Australia (30.6 per km2). Victoria's economy is the List of Australian states and territories by gross state product, second-largest among Australian states and is highly diversified, with service sectors predominating. Victoria is bordered by New South Wales to the north and South Australia to the west and is bounded by the Bass Strait to the south (with the exception of a small land border with Tasmania located along Boundary Islet), the Southern Ocean to the southwest, and the Tasman Sea (a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean) to the southeast. The state encompasses a range of climates and geographical features from its temperate climate, temperate coa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burdekin River
The Burdekin River is a river in North and Far North Queensland, Australia. The river rises on the northern slopes of Boulder Mountain at Valley of Lagoons, part of the western slope of the Seaview Range, and flows into the Coral Sea at Upstart Bay over to the southeast of the source, with a catchment area of approximately . The Burdekin River is Australia's largest river by (peak) discharge volume. The river was first encountered by Europeans during the expedition led by Ludwig Leichhardt in 1845 and named in honour of Thomas Burdekin, one of the sponsors of the expedition. Course and features The Burdekin River rises on the western slopes of the Seaview Range, part of the Great Dividing Range, west of . In the river's upper catchment, from its source the river generally flows west and then south out of the Girringun National Park, part of the UNESCO Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. This area, now part of Basalt was the location of one of the earliest inland settlements ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murray Mallee
The Murray Mallee is a cereal, grain-growing and sheep-farming area in the east of the Australian state of South Australia. The name is not formally designated but is widely used to refer to an area of approximately bounded by the Murray River, River Murray on its northern and western sides, the Victoria (Australia), Victorian border on its eastern side, and up to about 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of the Mallee Highway. The formal designated name for approximately the same region is Murraylands. Details The Murray Mallee area is predominantly a vast plain of low elevation, with sandhills and gentle undulating sandy rises, interspersed by flats. The annual rainfall ranges from approximately in the north to further south. The area was very lightly populated, with marginal pastoral runs of sheep at low stocking rates, until the beginning of the 20th century. Artesian water was discovered at moderate depth, and of railways were opened, mainly in the 1910s, to make sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Frome
Lake Frome / Munda is a large endorheic lake in the Australian state of South Australia to the east of the Northern Flinders Ranges. It is a large, shallow, unvegetated salt pan, long and wide, lying mostly below sea level and having a total surface area of . It only rarely fills with brackish water flowing down usually dry creeks in the Northern Flinders Ranges from the west, or exceptional flows down the Strzelecki Creek from the north. The Adnyamathanha name for the lake is ''Munda''. Europeans named the lake ''Frome'' after Edward Charles Frome, after he mapped the area in 1843. The lake was officially dual named Lake Frome / Munda in 2004. Description The lake adjoins Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park to its west and lies adjacent to Lake Callabonna linked by Salt Creek to its north, the southern Strzelecki Desert to its east, and the Frome Downs pastoral lease to its south. The ancient Lake Mega-Frome (Lakes Frome, Blanche, Callabonna and Gregory) was last con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flinders Ranges
The Flinders Ranges are the largest mountain ranges in South Australia, which starts about north of Adelaide. The ranges stretch for over from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna. The Adnyamathanha people are the Aboriginal group who have inhabited the range for tens of thousands of years. Its most well-known landmark is Wilpena Pound / Ikara, a formation that creates a natural amphitheatre covering and containing the range's highest peak, St Mary Peak (). The ranges include several national parks, the largest being the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park, as well as other protected areas. It is an area of great geological and palaeontological significance, and includes the oldest fossil evidence of animal life was discovered. The Ediacaran Period and Ediacaran biota take their name from the Ediacara Hills within the ranges. In August 2022, a nomination for the Flinders Ranges to be named a World Heritage Site was lodged. History Traditional owners The first humans to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which includes some of the most arid parts of the continent, and with 1.8 million people. It is the fifth-largest of the states and territories by population. This population is the second-most highly centralised in the nation after Western Australia, with more than 77% of South Australians living in the capital Adelaide or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second-largest centre, has a population of 26,878. South Australia shares borders with all the other mainland states. It is bordered to the west by Western Australia, to the north by the Northern Territory, to the north-east by Queensland, to the east by New South Wales, to the south-east by Victoria (state), Victoria, and to the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nullarbor Plain
The Nullarbor Plain ( ; Latin: feminine of 'no' and 'tree') is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its north. It is the world's largest single exposure of limestone bedrock, and occupies an area of about . At its widest point, it stretches about from east to west across the border between South Australia and Western Australia. History Historically, the Nullarbor was seasonally occupied by Indigenous Australian people, the Mirning clans and Yinyila people. Traditionally, the area was called ''Oondiri'', which is said to mean 'the waterless'. The first Europeans known to have sighted and mapped the Nullarbor coast were Captain François Thijssen and Councillor of the Indies, Pieter Nuyts, on the Dutch East Indiaman '''t Gulden Zeepaert (ship, 1626), 't Gulden Zeepaert'' (the Golden Seahorse). In 1626–1627, they charted a stretch of the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie-Boulder (or just Kalgoorlie) is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder as the surrounding urban area includes the historic townsite of Boulder and the local government area is the City of Kalgoorlie–Boulder. Kalgoorlie–Boulder lies on the traditional lands of the Wangkatja group of peoples. The name "Kalgoorlie" is derived from the Wangai word ''Karlkurla'' or ''Kulgooluh'', meaning "place of the silky pears". The city was established in 1893 during the Western Australian gold rushes. It soon replaced Coolgardie as the largest settlement on the Eastern Goldfields. Kalgoorlie is the ultimate destination of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme and the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail. The nearby Super Pit gold mine was Australia's largest open-cut gold mine for many years. During August 2021, Kalgoorlie–Boulder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
