|
Giant Damselflies
The Pseudostigmatinae are a subfamily of tropical damselflies belonging to the family Coenagrionidae, known as helicopter damselflies, giant damselflies, or forest giants. The subfamily includes the largest of all damselfly species. They specialize in preying on web-building spiders, and breed in phytotelmata, the small bodies of water held by plants such as bromeliads. This group of damselflies was previously placed in the family Pseudostigmatidae, however, molecular studies have found evidence that this monophyletic group is actually a clade within the family Coenagrionidae. Range The species traditionally placed in Pseudostigmatinae are all Neotropical. Two range as far as northeastern Mexico: ''Mecistogaster ornata'' occurs in Tamaulipas and ''Pseudostigma aberrans'' in both Tamaulipas and Nuevo León. In 2006, molecular phylogenetic analysis confirmed that the African damselfly ''Coryphagrion grandis'', previously often classified within Megapodagrionidae or in a mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Megaloprepus Caerulatus
''Megaloprepus caerulatus'', also known as the blue-winged helicopter, is a forest giant damselfly of the family Coenagrionidae. Forest giant damselflies were previously recognized as their own family, Pseudostigmatidae. ''M. caerulatus'' is found in wet and moist forests in Central and South America. It has the greatest wingspan of any living damselfly or dragonfly, up to in the largest males. Its large size and the markings on its wings make it a conspicuous species; a hovering ''Megaloprepus'' has been described as a "pulsating blue-and-white beacon". As an adult it feeds on orb-weaver spiders in the forest understory, which it plucks from their webs. It lays its eggs in water-filled holes in trees; males defend the larger holes as breeding territories. The naiad is a top predator in its tree-hole habitat, feeding on tadpoles and aquatic insects, including the larvae of mosquito species that are vectors of human disease. Egg and naiad ''Megaloprepus'' lays its eggs in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuevo León
Nuevo León, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Nuevo León, is a Administrative divisions of Mexico, state in northeastern Mexico. The state borders the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosi, and has an extremely narrow international border with the U.S. state of Texas. Covering 64,156 square kilometers (24,771 square miles) and with a population of 5.78 million people, Nuevo León is the thirteenth-largest Political divisions of mexico, federal entity by List of Mexican states by area, area and the seventh-most List of Mexican states by population, populous as of 2020. Monterrey, the state's capital, is the most populous city in Nuevo León and the List of cities in Mexico, ninth-largest in Mexico. Monterrey is part of the Monterrey metropolitan area, the Metropolitan areas of Mexico#List of metropolitan areas in Mexico by population, second-largest metropolitan area in the country with an estimated population of 5.3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bract
In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves in size, color, shape or texture. They also look different from the parts of the flower, such as the petals or sepals. A plant having bracts is referred to as bracteate or bracteolate, while one that lacks them is referred to as ebracteate or ebracteolate. Variants Some bracts are brightly coloured which aid in the attraction of pollinators, either together with the perianth or instead of it. Examples of this type of bract include those of '' Euphorbia pulcherrima'' (poinsettia) and '' Bougainvillea'': both of these have large colourful bracts surrounding much smaller, less colourful flowers. In grasses, each floret (flower) is enclosed in a pair of papery bracts, called the lemma (lower bract) and palea (upper bract), while each spikelet (group of florets) has a further pair o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arecaceae
The Arecaceae () is a family (biology), family of perennial plant, perennial, flowering plants in the Monocotyledon, monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbing palm, climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are colloquially called palm trees. Currently, 181 Genus, genera with around 2,600 species are known, most of which are restricted to tropics, tropical and subtropics, subtropical climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, arranged at the top of an unbranched stem, except for the Hyphaene genus, who has branched palms. However, palms exhibit an enormous diversity in physical characteristics and inhabit nearly every type of Habitat (ecology), habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts. Palms are among the best known and most extensively Horticulture, cultivated plant families. They have been important to humans throughout much ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propagated using the movements of humans and other animals in a symbiotic relationship that is the means for seed dispersal for the one group and nutrition for the other; humans, and many other animals, have become dependent on fruits as a source of food. Consequently, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the world's agricultural output, and some (such as the apple and the pomegranate) have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings. In common language and culinary usage, ''fruit'' normally means the seed-associated fleshy structures (or produce) of plants that typically are sweet (or sour) and edible in the raw state, such as apples, bananas, grapes, lemons, oranges, and strawberries. In botanical usage, the term ''fruit'' als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in the case of ''Dendrocalamus sinicus'' having individual stalks (Culm (botany), culms) reaching a length of , up to in thickness and a weight of up to . The internodes of bamboos can also be of great length. ''Kinabaluchloa, Kinabaluchloa wrayi'' has internodes up to in length. and ''Arthrostylidium schomburgkii'' has internodes up to in length, exceeded in length only by Cyperus papyrus, papyrus. By contrast, the stalks of the tiny bamboo Raddiella, ''Raddiella vanessiae'' of the savannas of French Guiana measure only in length by about in width. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, but it most likely comes from the Dutch language, Dutch or Portuguese language, Portuguese language, which originally borrowed it from Malay langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bromeliad
The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a Family (biology), family of monocot flowering plants of about 80 genera and 3700 known species, native mainly to the Tropics, tropical Americas, with several species found in the American subtropics and one in tropical west Africa, ''Pitcairnia feliciana''. It is among the basal (phylogenetics), basal families within the Poales and is the only family within the order that has Septal nectary, septal nectaries and Ovary (plants), inferior ovaries.Judd, Walter S. Plant systematics a phylogenetic approach. 3rd ed. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc., 2007. These Ovary (plants), inferior ovaries characterize the Bromelioideae, a subfamily of the Bromeliaceae. The family includes both epiphytes, such as Spanish moss (''Tillandsia usneoides''), and Terrestrial plant, terrestrial species, such as the pineapple (''Ananas comosus''). Many bromeliads are able to store water in a structure formed by their tightly overlapping leaf bases. However, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only plants that are usable as lumber, or only plants above a specified height. But wider definitions include taller palms, tree ferns, bananas, and bamboos. Trees are not a monophyletic taxonomic group but consist of a wide variety of plant species that have independently evolved a trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight. The majority of tree species are angiosperms or hardwoods; of the rest, many are gymnosperms or softwoods. Trees tend to be long-lived, some trees reaching several thousand years old. Trees evolved around 400 million years ago, and it is estimated that there are around three trillion mature trees in the world currently. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported cle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fresh Water
Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salt (chemistry), salts and other total dissolved solids. The term excludes seawater and brackish water, but it does include non-salty mineral water, mineral-rich waters, such as chalybeate springs. Fresh water may encompass frozen water, frozen and meltwater in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, snowfields and icebergs, natural precipitations such as rainfall, snowfall, hail/ice pellets, sleet and graupel, and surface runoffs that form inland bodies of water such as wetlands, ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, as well as groundwater contained in aquifers, subterranea (geography), subterranean subterranean river, rivers and underground lake, lakes. Water is critical to the survival of all living organisms. Many organisms can thrive on salt water, but the great majority of vascular plants and most insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds need fresh water to sur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nymph (biology)
In biology, a nymph (from Ancient Greek wikt:νύμφα, νύμφα ''nūmphē'' meaning "bride") is the juvenile (organism), juvenile form of some invertebrates, particularly insects, which undergoes gradual metamorphosis (biology), metamorphosis (hemimetabolism) before reaching its adult stage. Unlike a typical larva, a nymph's overall form already resembles that of the adult, except for a lack of wings (in winged species) and the emergence of genitalia. In addition, while a nymph ecdysis, moults, it never enters a pupal stage. Instead, the final moult results in an adult insect. Nymphs undergo multiple stages of development called instars. Taxa with nymph stages Many species of Arthropod, arthropods have nymph stages. This includes the insect orders such as Orthoptera (cricket (insect), crickets, grasshoppers and locusts), Hemiptera (cicadas, shield bugs, Whitefly, whiteflies, aphids, leafhoppers, froghoppers, treehoppers), mayfly, mayflies, termites, cockroaches, mantises, ... [...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] |
Gondwana
Gondwana ( ; ) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia (continent), Australia, Zealandia, Arabian Peninsula, Arabia, and the Indian subcontinent. Gondwana was formed by the Accretion (geology), accretion of several cratons (large stable blocks of the Earth's crust), beginning with the East African Orogeny, the collision of India and Geography of Madagascar, Madagascar with East Africa, and culminating in with the overlapping Brasiliano orogeny, Brasiliano and Kuunga orogeny, Kuunga orogenies, the collision of South America with Africa, and the addition of Australia and Antarctica, respectively. Eventually, Gondwana became the largest piece of continental crust of the Paleozoic Era, covering an area of some , about one-fifth of the Earth's surface. It fused with Laurasia during the Carboniferous to form Pan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
