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Giant Malleefowl
''Progura'' is an extinct genus of megapode that was native to Australia. It was described from Plio-Pleistocene deposits at the Darling Downs and Chinchilla, Queensland, Chinchilla in southeastern Queensland by Charles De Vis. Taxonomy Comparison of Australian megapodes showed that ''Progura'' was closely related to the living malleefowl (''Leipoa ocellata''), though the fossil species ''P. gallinacea'' was considerably larger than the living one. A second species, ''P. naracoortensis'', was described in 1974 by Gerard Frederick van Tets, van Tets from deposits in the Naracoorte Caves National Park, Naracoorte Caves of southeastern South Australia with differing size and leg proportions. It was formerly considered a Synonym (taxonomy), synonym of ''P. gallinacea'', on the grounds of sexual dimorphism. However in a 2017 review of Cenozoic megapodes, ''P. naracoortensis'' was found to be distinct from ''P. gallinacea'' and therefore reassigned to the genus ''Latagallina'' In t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Walter De Vis
Charles Walter de Vis (9 May 1829 – 30 April 1915) — Australian Dictionary of Biography was an England, English zoologist, ornithologist,"De Vis, Charles Walter (1829 - 1915)" — Encyclopedia of Australian science Herpetology, herpetologist,"De Vis". The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org. and botanist. He was born Charles Devis; he changed the spelling to De Vis about 1882. De Vis gained a BA from Magdelene College, Cambridge in 1849, became a deacon in 1852, and was rector of Breane, Somerset, from 1855 to 1859. He gave up his ecclesiastical functions to devote hi ... [...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] |
Fossil Taxa Described In 1888
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 ob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birds Described In 1888
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the common ostrich. There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 orders. More than half are passerine or "perching" birds. Birds have wings whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinct Birds Of Australia
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its last member. A taxon may become functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to reproduce and recover. As a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. Over five billion species are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryotes globally, possibly many times more if microorganisms are included. Notable extinct animal species include non-avian dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and mammoths. Through evolution, species arise through the process of speciation. Species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dromornithid
Dromornithidae, known as mihirungs (after Tjapwuring ''Mihirung paringmal'', "giant bird") and informally as thunder birds or demon ducks, were a clade of large, flightless Australian birds of the Oligocene through Pleistocene epochs. All are now extinct. They were long classified in Struthioniformes (the ratites), but are now usually classified as galloanseres. Dromornithids were part of the Australian megafauna. One species, '' Dromornis stirtoni'', was tall. Only a single species, ''Genyornis newtoni'' survived into the Late Pleistocene. They are thought to have been herbivorous.McInerney, P. L.; Blokland, J. C.; Worthy, T. H. (2024). "Skull morphology of the enigmatic Genyornis newtoni Stirling and Zeitz, 1896 (Aves, Dromornithidae), with implications for functional morphology, ecology, and evolution in the context of Galloanserae". Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology. 36 (6): 1093–1165. doi:10.1080/08912963.2024.2308212. Classification The scient ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genyornis
''Genyornis newtoni'' is an extinct species of large, flightless bird that lived in Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch until around 50,000 years ago. Over two metres in height, they were likely herbivorous. Many other species of Australian megafauna became extinct in Australia around that time, coinciding with the arrival of humans. It is the last known member of the extinct flightless bird family Dromornithidae which had been part of the fauna of the Australian continent for over 30 million years. They are not closely related to ratites such as emus, and their closest living relatives are thought to be fowl. Taxonomy The species was first described in 1896 by Edward Charles Stirling and A. H. C. Zeitz, the authors giving the epithet ''newtoni'' for the Cambridge professor Alfred Newton. The name of the genus is derived from the ancient Greek ''γένυς'' (''génus'') 'jaw; chin' and ''ὄρνις'' (''órnis'') 'bird', because of the relatively large size of the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tasmanian Emu
The Tasmanian emu (''Dromaius novaehollandiae diemenensis'') is an extinct subspecies of emu. It was found in Tasmania, where it had become isolated during the Late Pleistocene. As opposed to the other insular emu taxa, the King Island emu and the Kangaroo Island emu, the population on Tasmania was sizable, meaning that there were no marked effects of small population size as in the other two isolates. The Tasmanian emu became extinct around 1865 according to the Australian Species Profile and Threats database. This was officially recorded in 1997 when changes to listings of nationally threatened species saw the Tasmanian emu added to the list of species presumed extinct. Information regarding the emu is reliant on 19th century documentary evidence and the limited number of emu specimens in museums. As a consequence one of the biggest challenges in researching the Tasmanian emu is the many names or spellings used to describe the emu. The early colonial accounts spell it 'emue' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tasmanian Nativehen
The Tasmanian nativehen (''Tribonyx mortierii'') (Palawa Kani, palawa kani: piyura) (alternative spellings: Tasmanian native-hen or Tasmanian native hen) is a flightless Rallidae, rail and one of twelve species of birds endemism, endemic to Australia’s island state of Tasmania. Although many flightless birds have a history of extinction at the hands of humans, the species has actually benefited from the introduction of European-style agricultural practices in Tasmania. Its success may also be attributed to the recent extinction of its main predator, the thylacine. Nomenclature The species was originally described in 1840 as ''Tribonyx mortierii'' — the ''mortierii'' being in honour of Barthélemy Charles Joseph Dumortier. Local names include narkie, waterhen and turbo chook. The Paredarerme name for the nativehen is 'mientarunya' and is derived from the Paredarerme language, Paredarerme and Little Swanport language, Little Swanport languages. Description The Tasmanian n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thylacine
The thylacine (; binomial name ''Thylacinus cynocephalus''), also commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, was a carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. The thylacine died out in New Guinea and mainland Australia around 3,600–3,200 years ago, prior to the arrival of Europeans, possibly because of the introduction of the dingo, whose earliest record dates to around the same time, but which never reached Tasmania. Prior to European settlement, around 5,000 remained in the wild on the island of Tasmania. Beginning in the nineteenth century, they were perceived as a threat to the livestock of farmers and bounty (reward), bounty hunting was introduced. The last known of its species died in 1936 at Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. The thylacine is widespread in popular culture and is a cultural icon in Australia. The thylacine was known as the Tasmanian tiger because of the dark trans ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sternum
The sternum (: sternums or sterna) or breastbone is a long flat bone located in the central part of the chest. It connects to the ribs via cartilage and forms the front of the rib cage, thus helping to protect the heart, lungs, and major blood vessels from injury. Shaped roughly like a necktie, it is one of the largest and longest flat bones of the body. Its three regions are the manubrium, the body, and the xiphoid process. The word ''sternum'' originates from Ancient Greek στέρνον (''stérnon'') 'chest'. Structure The sternum is a narrow, flat bone, forming the middle portion of the front of the chest. The top of the sternum supports the clavicles (collarbones) and its edges join with the costal cartilages of the first two pairs of ribs. The inner surface of the sternum is also the attachment of the sternopericardial ligaments. Its top is also connected to the sternocleidomastoid muscle. The sternum consists of three main parts, listed from the top: * Man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
