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Downy Woodpecker
The downy woodpecker (''Dryobates pubescens'') is a species of woodpecker, the smallest in North America. Length ranges from . Downy woodpeckers primarily live in forested areas throughout the United States and Canada, with the exception of deserts in the southwest and the northern tundra. The bird nests in tree cavities and feeds primarily on insects, although it supplements its diet with seeds and berries. The downy woodpecker is very similar in appearance to the hairy woodpecker, although they are not closely related. Taxonomy The downy woodpecker was described and illustrated with a hand-coloured plate by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his ''The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands'', which was published between 1729 and 1732. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his ''Systema Naturae'' for the twelfth edition, he included the downy woodpecker, coined the binomial name ''Picus pubescens'' and cited Catesby's book. The specif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Picoides Pubescens - Downy Woodpecker - XC76080
''Picoides'' is a genus of woodpeckers (family Picidae) that are native to Eurasia and North America, commonly known as three-toed woodpeckers. Taxonomy The genus ''Picoides'' was introduced by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède in 1799. The type species was subsequently designated as the Eurasian three-toed woodpecker (''Picoides tridactylus'') by the English zoologist George Robert Gray in 1840. The genus name combines the Latin ''Picus'' for a woodpecker and the Greek ''-oidēs'' meaning "resembling". The genus ''Picoides'' formerly contained around 12 species. In 2015 a molecular phylogenetic analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences from pied woodpeckers found that three existing genera (''Picoides'', ''Veniliornis'' and ''Dendropicos'') were polyphyletic. After the resurrection of five monophyletic genera and the subsequent rearrangement in which most of the former members of ''Picoides'' were moved to ''Leuconotopicus'' and ''Dryobates'', only t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friedrich Boie
Friedrich Boie (4 June 1789 – 3 March 1870) was a German entomologist, herpetologist, ornithologist, and lawyer.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Boie", p. 31). He was born at Meldorf in Holstein and died at Kiel. Friedrich Boie was the brother of Heinrich Boie. In 1860, Friedrich Boie was elected a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Friedrich Boie was the author of ''Bemerkungen über Merrem's Versuch eines Systems der Amphibien'' (''Isis von Oken'' 1827) and ''Auszüge aus dem System der Ornithologie'' (''Isis von Oken'' 1844). Friedrich Boie was the author of several new species and new genera of birds including the hummingbird genus '' Glaucis'', the swallow genus '' Progne'', the cuckooshrike genus '' Pericrocotus'', the passerine genus '' Lipaugus'', the owl genus '' Athene'', and the cuckoo genus '' Chrysococcyx''. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John James Audubon
John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin, April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American Autodidacticism, self-trained artist, natural history, naturalist, and ornithology, ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictorial record of all the bird species of North America. He was notable for his extensive studies documenting all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations, which depicted the birds in their natural habitats. His major work, a color-plate book titled ''The Birds of America'' (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. Audubon is also known for identifying 25 new species. He is the eponym of the National Audubon Society, and his name adorns a large number of towns, neighborhoods, and streets across the United States. Dozens of scientific names first published by Audubon are still in use by the scientific community. Audubon was accused during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Johnson Maynard
Charles Johnson Maynard (May 6, 1845 – October 15, 1929) was an American naturalist and ornithologist born in Newton, Massachusetts. He was a collector, a taxidermist, and an expert on the vocal organs of birds. In addition to birds, he also studied mollusks, moss, gravestones and insects. He lived in the house at 459 Crafts Street in Newton, Massachusetts, built in 1897 and included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1996 as the Charles Maynard House. The Charles Johnson Maynard Award is given out by the Newton Conservators, Inc. Biography Charles Johnson Maynard was born in Newton, Massachusetts, on May 6, 1845, to Samuel Maynard and Emeline Sanger. He left school at the age of 16 to help out on the family farm. His interests led him to taxidermy, and the collecting and dealing in specimens of natural history. He founded his own company in Boston, Massachusetts, called C. J. Maynard & Co. in 1865, which published books and sold naturalist supplies. Maynard eventu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Swainson
William Swainson Fellow of the Linnean Society, FLS, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, Malacology, malacologist, Conchology, conchologist, entomologist and artist. Life Swainson was born in Dover Place, St Mary Newington, London, the eldest son of John Timothy Swainson, an original fellow of the Linnean Society of London, Linnean Society. He was a cousin of the amateur botanist Isaac Swainson.Etymologisches Worterbuch der botanischen Pflanzennamen by H. Genaust. Review by Paul A. Fryxell ''Taxon'', Vol. 38(2), 245–246 (1989). His father's family originated in Lancashire, and both his grandfather and father held high posts in Her Majesty's Customs, his father becoming Collector at Liverpool. William, whose formal education was curtailed because of an speech impediment, impediment in his speech, joined the Liverpool Customs as a junior clerk at the age of 14."William Swainson F.R.S, F.L.S., Naturalist and Arti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Grinnell
Joseph P. Grinnell (February 27, 1877 – May 29, 1939) was an American field biologist and zoologist. He made extensive studies of the fauna of California, and is credited with introducing a method of recording precise field observations known as the Joseph Grinnell#Grinnell Method of note taking, Grinnell System. He served as the first director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley from the museum's inception in 1908 until his death. He edited ''The Condor (journal), The Condor'', a publication of the Cooper Ornithological Society, Cooper Ornithological Club, from 1906 to 1939, and authored many articles for scientific journals and ornithological magazines. He wrote several books, among them ''The Distribution of the Birds of California'' and ''Animal Life in the Yosemite''. He also developed and popularized the concept of the ecological niche, niche. Early years Joseph Grinnell was born February 27, 1877, the first of three children b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subspecies
In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species have subspecies, but for those that do there must be at least two. Subspecies is abbreviated as subsp. or ssp. and the singular and plural forms are the same ("the subspecies is" or "the subspecies are"). In zoology, under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the subspecies is the only taxonomic rank below that of species that can receive a name. In botany and mycology, under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, other infraspecific name, infraspecific ranks, such as variety (botany), variety, may be named. In bacteriology and virology, under standard International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes, bacterial nomenclature and virus clas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecology
Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography, evolutionary biology, genetics, ethology, and natural history. Ecology is a branch of biology, and is the study of abundance (ecology), abundance, biomass (ecology), biomass, and distribution of organisms in the context of the environment. It encompasses life processes, interactions, and adaptations; movement of materials and energy through living communities; ecological succession, successional development of ecosystems; cooperation, competition, and predation within and between species; and patterns of biodiversity and its effect on ecosystem processes. Ecology has practical applications in fields such as conservation biology, wetland management, natural resource m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niche Partitioning
In ecology, a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition. Three variants of ecological niche are described by It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors (for example, by growing when resources are abundant, and when predators, parasites and pathogens are scarce) and how it in turn alters those same factors (for example, limiting access to resources by other organisms, acting as a food source for predators and a consumer of prey). "The type and number of variables comprising the dimensions of an environmental niche vary from one species to another ndthe relative importance of particular environmental variables for a species may vary according to the geographic and biotic contexts". See also Chapter 2: Concepts of niches, pp. 7 ''ff'' A Grinnellian niche is determined by the habitat in which a species lives and its accompanying behavioral adaptations. An Eltonian niche emphasizes that a specie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convergent Evolution
Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last common ancestor of those groups. The cladistic term for the same phenomenon is Cladogram#Homoplasies, homoplasy. The recurrent evolution of flight is a classic example, as flying pterygota, insects, birds, pterosaurs, and bats have independently evolved the useful capacity of flight. Functionally similar features that have arisen through convergent evolution are ''analogous'', whereas ''homology (biology), homologous'' structures or traits have a common origin but can have dissimilar functions. Bird, bat, and pterosaur wings are analogous structures, but their forelimbs are homologous, sharing an ancestral state despite serving different functions. The opposite of convergence is divergent evolution, where related species evolve different trai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
The ladder-backed woodpecker (''Dryobates scalaris'') is a North American woodpecker. Description The ladder-backed woodpecker is a small woodpecker about 16.5 to 19 cm (6½ to 7½ inches) in length. It is primarily colored black and white, with a barred pattern on its back and wings resembling the rungs of a ladder. Its rump is speckled with black, as are its cream-colored underparts on the breast and flanks. Southern populations have duskier buff breasts and distinctly smaller bills. Adult males have a red crown patch that is smaller in immatures and lacking in adult females. The ladder-backed woodpecker is very similar in appearance to Nuttall's woodpecker, but has much less black on its head and upper back, and the range of the two species only intersects a minimal amount in southern California and northern Baja California. Hybrids are known. Ladder-backed woodpeckers nest in cavities excavated from tree trunks, or in more arid environments a large cactus will do. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuttall's Woodpecker
Nuttall's woodpecker (''Dryobates nuttallii'') is a species of woodpecker named after naturalist Thomas Nuttall in 1843. They are found in oak woodlands of California and are similar to the ladder-backed woodpecker in both genetics and appearance. Description Nuttall's woodpecker has black wings and tail feathers with white barring. On the ventral surface, color is white with black spots and barring. It has a black forehead with white streaks on the sides and an unbarred black region at the top of the back. Adult males have a distinguishable red crown which females do not. However, this physical feature is present in the juvenile of both sexes. They have zygodactyl feet and stiff tail feathers which allows them to maintain a vertical position on trees; typical of woodpeckers. The mass of the Nuttall's woodpecker ranges from , with a body length of . Taxonomy The Nuttall's woodpecker is closely related to the ladder-backed woodpecker of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
