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White Swamphen
The white swamphen (''Porphyrio albus''), also known as the Lord Howe swamphen, Lord Howe gallinule or white gallinule, is an extinct species of rail which lived on Lord Howe Island, east of Australia. It was first encountered when the crews of British ships visited the island between 1788 and 1790, and all contemporary accounts and illustrations were produced during this time. Today, two skins exist: the holotype in the Natural History Museum of Vienna, and another in Liverpool's World Museum. Although historical confusion has existed about the provenance of the specimens and the classification and anatomy of the bird, it is now thought to have been a distinct species endemic to Lord Howe Island and most similar to the Australasian swamphen. Subfossil bones have also been discovered since. The white swamphen was long. Both known skins have mainly-white plumage, although the Liverpool specimen also has dispersed blue feathers. This is unlike other swamphens, but contemporary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Museum, Liverpool
World Museum is a large museum in Liverpool, England which has extensive collections covering archaeology, ethnology and the natural and physical sciences. Special attractions include the Natural History Centre and a planetarium. Entry to the museum is free. The museum is part of National Museums Liverpool. History The current museum is unconnected to the Liverpool Museum of William Bullock (collector), William Bullock, who operated a museum in his house on Church Street, Liverpool, between 1795 and 1809, before he moved it to London. The museum was originally started as the Derby Museum as it comprised Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, the 13th Earl of Derby's natural history collection. It opened in 1851, sharing two rooms on Duke Street with a library. However, the museum proved extremely popular and a new, purpose-built building was required. Land for the new building, on a street then known as Shaw's Brow (now William Brown Street), opposite St George's Hall, Liv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subfossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in amber, hair, petrified wood and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils is known as the ''fossil record''. Though the fossil record is incomplete, numerous studies have demonstrated that there is enough information available to give a good understanding of the pattern of diversification of life on Earth. In addition, the record can predict and fill gaps such as the discovery of ''Tiktaalik'' in the arctic of Canada. Paleontology includes the study of fossils: their age, method of formation, and evolutionary significance. Specimens are sometimes considered to be fossils if they are over 10,000 years old. The oldest fossils are around 3.48 billion years to 4.1 billion years old. Early edition, published online before print. The o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Lord Of The Admiralty
First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the title of the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the direction and control of the Admiralty, and also of general administration of the Naval Service of the Kingdom of England, Great Britain in the 18th century, and then the United Kingdom, including the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, and other services. It was one of the earliest known permanent government posts. Apart from being the political head of the Naval Service the post holder was simultaneously the pre-eminent member of the Board of Admiralty. The office of First Lord of the Admiralty existed from 1628 until it was abolished when the Admiralty, Air Ministry, Ministry of Defence and War Office were all merged to form the new Ministry of Defence in 1964. Its modern-day equivalent is the Secretary of State for Defence. Hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Fleet
The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessels, three Combat stores ship, storeships and six Penal transportation, convict transports under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip. On 13 May 1787, the ships, with over 1,400 Convicts in Australia, convicts, New South Wales Marine Corps, marines, sailors, colonial officials and free settlers onboard, left Portsmouth and travelled over and over 250 days before arriving in Botany Bay on 18 January 1788. Governor Arthur Phillip rejected Botany Bay choosing instead Port Jackson, to the north, as the site for the new colony; they arrived there on 26 January 1788, establishing the colony of New South Wales, as a penal colony which would become the first British settlement in Australia. History John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, Lord Sandwich ... [...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] |
Penal Colony
A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer to a correctional facility located in a remote location, it is more commonly used to refer to communities of prisoners overseen by wardens or governors having absolute authority. Historically, penal colonies have often been used for penal labour in an economically underdeveloped part of a state's (usually colonial) territories, and on a far larger scale than a prison farm. British Empire With the passage of the ''Transportation Act 1717'', the British government initiated the penal transportation of indentured servants to Britain's colonies in the Americas, although none of the North American colonies were solely penal colonies. British merchants would be in charge of transporting the convicts across the Atlantic to the colonies w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John White (surgeon)
John White (c. 1756 – 20 February 1832) was an Irish surgeon and botanical collector. __NOTOC__ Biography White was born in the townland of Drumaran, near Belcoo, in County Fermanagh in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland, about 1756, and not, as stated in the ''Dictionary of Australian Biography'' and the ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', in Sussex, England. On 18 June 1778 John White qualified as a surgeon's mate, first rate, following examination at the Company of Surgeons in London. He entered the Royal Navy on 26 June 1778 as surgeon's mate aboard . He was promoted surgeon in 1780, serving aboard until 1786 when Sir Andrew Hamond recommended him as principal naval surgeon for the voyage of the First Fleet to Australia. In March 1787 White joined the First Fleet at Plymouth as surgeon for the convict transport '' Charlotte'', where he found that the convicts had been living for some time on salt meat, a bad preparation for a long voyage. He succeeded in obt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Stone (artist)
Sarah Stone (c. 1760 – 1844), later known as Sarah Smith, was a British natural history illustrator and painter. Her works included many studies of specimens brought back to England from expeditions in Australia and the Pacific. Her illustrations are amongst the first studies of many species and are as scientifically significant. Work Stone was the daughter of a fan painter. She worked as a draftsman, natural history and scientific illustrator, and painter between 1777 and 1820. She was commissioned by Sir Ashton Lever in the 1770s to sketch and paint images of objects in his Leverian Museum. which included specimens brought back by British expeditions to Australia, the Americas, Africa and the Far East in the 1780s and 1790s. She exhibited as an "Honorary Exhibitor" at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1781, 1785 and 1786. Stone created numerous watercolour paintings of specimens sent by John White, the First Surgeon General of the Australian colony, between 1789 and 1790. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holotype Specimen
A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was Species description, 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, 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Phillip
Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first Governor of New South Wales, governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Phillip was educated at Royal Hospital School, Greenwich Hospital School from June 1751 until December 1753. He then became an apprentice on the whaling ship ''Fortune''. With the outbreak of the Seven Years' War against France, Phillip enlisted in the Royal Navy as captain's servant to Michael Everitt aboard . With Everitt, Phillip also served on and . Phillip was promoted to lieutenant on 7 June 1761, before being put on half-pay at the end of hostilities on 25 April 1763. Secondment, Seconded to the Portuguese Navy in 1774, he served in the Spanish–Portuguese War (1776–1777), war against Spain. Returning to Royal Navy service in 1778, in 1782 Phillip, in command of , was to capture Spanish colonies in South America, but an armistice was concluded before he reached his destination. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Mazell
Peter Mazell was an Irish painter and engraver, working in London between c. 1761 and 1797. He is known for his fine engravings of natural history subjects, especially those illustrating books by John Walcott and the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant. He created almost 600 engravings in his career. He also exhibited paintings of landscapes and flowers. He exhibited at the Society of Artists and at the Royal Academy. Life and work Mazell is believed to have been the son of Pierre Mazell (d. 2 March 1787) and Catherine Rocque (d. 7 September 1788), Huguenots living in Dublin, Ireland. He lived in central London, with addresses in Tottenham Court Road (1769), Paddington (1770–80), Portland Street (1783), Gerrard Street (1790), Covent Garden (1791) and St. Pancras (1797). In 1761 he exhibited a landscape painting at the Society of Artists in London, and worked in London for the rest of his career. Most of his subsequent exhibits between then and 1791 were prints of his engravings ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spur (zoology)
A spur is an outgrowth of bone covered in a sheath of horn found in various anatomical locations in some animals. Unlike claws or nails, which grow from the tip of the toes, spurs form from other parts of the foot, usually in connection with joints where the toes meet the foot or the foot meets the long bones. Spurs are most commonly found on the hindfeet, though some birds possess spurs at the leading edge of the wings. Anatomy A spur is much like a true horn; it is a bony core attached to the skeleton and has an outer horny layer. Like horns, the spur grows from the base outwards, so the tip is older than the base. Some spurs form as an outgrowth of an existing bone, though most are secondarily formed as dermal bone hinged to the skeleton through a semi-rigid joint. Spurs on the hind-feet do not appear to molt, but the wing spurs of birds are molted once a year along with the wing feathers. Unlike claws, spurs are normally straight or only slightly curved, making them s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
