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Collared Kingfisher
The collared kingfisher (''Todiramphus chloris'') is a medium-sized kingfisher belonging to the subfamily Halcyoninae, the tree kingfishers. It is also known as the white-collared kingfisher, black-masked kingfisher or mangrove kingfisher. It has a wide range extending from the Red Sea across southern Asia to Melanesia. A number of subspecies and subspecies groups have been split from this species including the Pacific kingfisher, the islet kingfisher, the Torresian kingfisher, the Mariana kingfisher, and the Melanesian kingfisher. Taxonomy The collared kingfisher was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his ''Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux'' in 1780. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the ''Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle''. This was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's descriptio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding important sites for birds, maintaining and restoring key bird habitats, and empowering conservationists worldwide. It has a membership of more than 2.5 million people across List of BirdLife International national partner organisations, 116 country partner organizations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Wild Bird Society of Japan, the National Audubon Society, and American Bird Conservancy. BirdLife International has identified 13,000 Important Bird Area, Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas and is the official International Union for Conservation of Nature's IUCN Red List, Red List authority for birds. BirdLife International has established that 1,375 bird species (13% of the total) are threatened with extinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edme-Louis Daubenton
Edme-Louis Daubenton (12 August 1730 – 12 December 1785) was a French naturalist. Daubenton was the cousin of another French naturalist, Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton. Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon engaged Edme-Louis Daubenton to supervise the coloured illustrations for the monumental ''Histoire Naturelle'' (1749–89). The ''Planches enluminée'' started to appear in 1765 and finally counted 1,008 plates, all engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet (1731–1800), and all painted by hand. The Parisian publisher Panckoucke published a version without text between 1765 and 1783. More than 80 artists took part in the realization of the original paintings. 973 plates relate to birds; others illustrate especially butterflies but also other insects, corals, etc. The illustrations were not very successful, but they allow a rather good determination of the species illustrated, some of them now extinct. As Buffon did not follow the system of biological nomenclature developed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ratnagiri
Ratnagiri (IAST:Ratnāgirī ; �ət̪n̪aːɡiɾiː is a port city on the Arabian Sea coast in Ratnagiri District in southwestern Maharashtra, India. The district is part of Konkan division of Maharashtra. The city is known for the Hapus or Alphonso mangoes and is colloquially referred to as the Mango City. Ratnagiri is the birthplace of Indian independence activist Lokmanya Tilak. Thibaw, the last king of Burma, alongside his consort Supayalat and two infant daughters were exiled to a two-storied brick mansion in Ratnagiri. The building is now known as Thibaw Palace. Geography Ratnagiri is located at . It has an average elevation of 11 meters (36 feet). The Sahyadri mountains border Ratnagiri to the east. Climate Transport Road Ratnagiri is well connected to the other parts of the state and country by National Highways & State Highways. National Highways NH 66 ( Panvel – Edapally), NH 166 (Ratnagiri – Nagpur) and Coastal Highway (Rewas – Reddy) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oman
Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline faces the Arabian Sea to the southeast and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast. The exclaves of Madha and Musandam Governorate, Musandam are surrounded by the United Arab Emirates on their land borders, while Musandam’s coastal boundaries are formed by the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. The capital and largest city is Muscat. With a population of approximately 5.46 million and an area of 309,500 km2 (119,500 sq mi), Oman is the Countries with highest population, 123rd most-populous country. From the 18th century, the Omani Sultanate was Omani Empire, an empire, competing with the Portuguese Empire, Portuguese and British Empire, British empires for influence in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. At its peak in the 19th ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kalba
Kalba () is a city in the Emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is an exclave of Sharjah lying on the Gulf of Oman coast north of Oman. Khor Kalba (Kalba Creek), an important nature reserve and mangrove swamp, is located south of the town by the Omani border. Kalba Mangrove reserve is open to the public and was developed as an eco-tourism resort by the Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq). A number of conservationists and ecologists have expressed concern regarding the project. History Shell middens dating back to the fourth millennium BCE have been found at Kalba, as well as extensive remains of the Bronze Age Umm Al Nar culture. An extensive and important assembly of petroglyphs lies to the south of Kalba at Khatm Melaha. Portuguese The town was captured by the Portuguese Empire in the 16th century and was referred to as ''Ghallah''. It was part of a series of fortified cities that the Portuguese used to control access to the Persi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab Emirates, seven emirates, with Abu Dhabi serving as its capital. It shares land borders with Oman to the east and northeast, and with Saudi Arabia to the southwest; as well as maritime borders in the Persian Gulf with Qatar and Iran, and with Oman in the Gulf of Oman. , the UAE has an estimated population of over 10 million, of which 11% are Emiratis; Dubai is List of cities in the United Arab Emirates, its most populous city and is an international hub. Islam is the State religion, official religion and Arabic is the official language, while English is the most spoken language and the language of business. The United Arab Emirates Oil reserves in the United Arab Emirates, oil and natural gas reserves are the world's List of countries by pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the Arabian Peninsula comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen, as well as southern Iraq and Jordan. The largest of these is Saudi Arabia. In the Roman era, the Sinai Peninsula was also considered a part of Arabia. The Arabian Peninsula formed as a result of the rifting of the Red Sea between 56 and 23 million years ago, and is bordered by the Red Sea to the west and south-west, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the north-east, the Levant and Mesopotamia to the north and the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean to the south-east. The peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Arab world and globally due to its vast reserves of petroleum, oil and natural gas. Before the mod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Somalia
Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, the Gulf of Aden to the north, and the Indian Ocean to the east. Somalia has the longest coastline on Africa's mainland. Somalia has an estimated population of 18.1 million, of which 2.7 million live in the capital and largest city, Mogadishu. Around 85% of Somalia's residents are ethnic Somali people, Somalis. The official languages of the country are Somali language, Somali and Arabic, though Somali is the Languages of Somalia, primary language. Somalia has historic and religious ties to the Arab world. The people in Somalia are mainly Muslims, following the Sunni Islam, Sunni branch.. In antiquity, Somalia was an important commercial center. During the Middle Ages, several powerful Somali empires dominated the regional trade, including th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polynesia
Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in common, including Polynesian languages, linguistic relations, Polynesian culture, cultural practices, and Tradition, traditional beliefs. In centuries past, they had a strong shared tradition of sailing and Polynesian navigation, using stars to navigate at night. The term was first used in 1756 by the French writer Charles de Brosses, who originally applied it to all the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, islands of the Pacific. In 1831, Jules Dumont d'Urville proposed a narrower definition during a lecture at the Société de Géographie of Paris. By tradition, the islands located in the South Seas, southern Pacific have also often been called the South Sea Islands, and their inhabitants have been called South Sea Islanders. The Hawai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
René Lesson
René Primevère Lesson (20 March 1794 – 28 April 1849) was a French surgery, surgeon, natural history, naturalist, ornithologist, and herpetologist. Biography Lesson was born at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, Rochefort, and entered the Naval Medical School in Rochefort at the age of sixteen. He served in the French Navy during the Napoleonic Wars; in 1811, he was third surgeon on the frigate ''Saale'', and in 1813, was second surgeon on the ''Regulus''.Persée Un pharmacien de la marine et voyageur naturaliste : R.-P Lesson In 1816, Lesson changed his classification to pharmacist. He served on Louis Isidore Duperrey, Duperrey's round-the-world voyage of French ship Astrolabe (1811), ''La Coquille'' (1822–1825), of which he collected natural history specimens with his fellow surge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Todiramphus
''Todiramphus'' is a genus of kingfishers in the subfamily Halcyoninae that are endemic to the Philippines, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and many islands in the South Pacific. Taxonomy The genus was introduced by the French surgeon and naturalist René Lesson in 1827. The name is often spelt ''Todirhamphus'' (with ''rh''), but ''Todiramphus'' is the original valid spelling. The name literally means "tody-bill"; tody is a relative of the kingfishers with a similar slender long bill, and the Greek ' () means "beak" or "bill". In 1945 James Peters in his ''Check-list of Birds of the World'' placed these species in an enlarged genus '' Halcyon''. Hilary Fry did the same in his 1992 monograph on kingfishers, but in 2001 Peter Woodall in the ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' chose to place these Pacific flat-billed species in the resurrected genus ''Todiramphus''. This decision was vindicated by a molecular study published in 2006 that found that the enlarged ''Halcyon'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. ''Panthera leo'' (lion) and ''Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus ''Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomy (biology), taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants of an ancestral taxon are grouped together (i.e. Phylogeneti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
