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Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
The scissor-tailed flycatcher (''Tyrannus forficatus''), known as swallow-tailed flycatcher or scissorstail, is a long-tailed insectivorous bird of the genus ''Tyrannus'', whose members are collectively referred to as kingbirds. Its scientific name used to be Muscivora forficata until it was changed to Tyrannus forficatus. It is found in North and Central America, and is Oklahoma's State Bird. Taxonomy The scissor-tailed flycatcher was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's ''Systema Naturae''. He placed it with the flycatchers in the genus ''Muscicapa'' and coined the binomial name ''Muscicapa forficata''. The specific epithet is from Latin ''forfex'', ''forficis'' meaning "a pair of scissors". Gmelin based his description on "Le moucherolle à queue fourchue du Mexique" ( French: "the Mexican swallow-tailed flycatcher") that had been described in 1778 by the French polymath Comte de Bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Friedrich Gmelin
Johann Friedrich Gmelin (8 August 1748 – 1 November 1804) was a German natural history, naturalist, chemist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist, and malacologist. Education Johann Friedrich Gmelin was born as the eldest son of Philipp Friedrich Gmelin in 1748 in Tübingen. He studied medicine under his father at University of Tübingen and graduated with a Master's degree in 1768, with a thesis entitled: ', defended under the presidency of Ferdinand Christoph Oetinger, whom he thanks with the words '. Career In 1769, Gmelin became an adjunct professor of medicine at University of Tübingen. In 1773, he became professor of philosophy and adjunct professor of medicine at University of Göttingen. He was promoted to full professor of medicine and professor of chemistry, botany, and mineralogy in 1778. He died in 1804 in Göttingen and is buried there in the Albanifriedhof, Albani cemetery with his wife Rosine Louise Gmelin (1755–1828, née Schott). Johann Friedrich Gm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernard Germain De Lacépède
Bernard-Germain-Étienne de La Ville-sur-Illon, comte de Lacépède or La Cépède (; 26 December 17566 October 1825) was a French natural history, naturalist and an active freemason. He is known for his contribution to the Comte de Buffon's great work, the ''Histoire Naturelle''. Biography Lacépède was born at Agen in Guienne. His education was carefully conducted by his father, and the early perusal of Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Buffon's Natural History (''Histoire naturelle, Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière'') awakened his interest in that branch of study, which absorbed his chief attention. His leisure he devoted to music, in which, besides becoming a good performer on the piano and organ, he acquired considerable mastery of composition, two of his operas (which were never published) meeting with the high approval of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Gluck; in 1781–1785 he also brought out in two volumes his ''Poétique de la musique''. Meantime h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hawking (birds)
Hawking is a feeding strategy in birds involving catching flying insects in the air. The term usually refers to a technique of sallying out from a perch to snatch an insect and then returning to the same or a different perch, though it also applies to birds that spend almost their entire lives on the wing. This technique is called "flycatching" and some birds known for it are several Family (biology), families of "flycatchers": Old World flycatchers, monarch flycatchers, and tyrant flycatchers; however, some species known as "flycatchers" use other foraging methods, such as the grey tit-flycatcher. Other birds, such as Swift (bird), swifts, swallows, and nightjars, also take insects on the wing in continuous aerial feeding. The term "hawking" comes from the similarity of this behavior to the way Hawk, hawks take prey in flight, although, whereas Bird of prey, raptors may catch prey with their feet, hawking is the behavior of catching insects in the bill. Many birds have a combine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dragonflies
A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of dragonflies are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threatens dragonfly populations around the world. Adult dragonflies are characterised by a pair of large, multifaceted, compound eyes, two pairs of strong, transparent wings, sometimes with coloured patches, and an elongated body. Many dragonflies have brilliant iridescent or metallic colours produced by structural coloration, making them conspicuous in flight. An adult dragonfly's compound eyes have nearly 24,000 ommatidia each. Dragonflies can be mistaken for the closely related damselflies, which make up the other odonatan infraorder ( Zygoptera) and are similar in body plan, though usually lighter in build; however, the wings of most dragonflies are held flat and away from the body, while damselflies hold their wings folded at rest, alo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robber-flies
The Asilidae are the robber fly family, also called assassin flies. They are powerfully built, bristly flies with a short, stout proboscis enclosing the sharp, sucking hypopharynx. The name "robber flies" reflects their expert predatory habits; they feed mainly or exclusively on other insects and, as a rule, they wait in ambush and catch their prey in flight. Overview The Asilidae are a family in the order Diptera, the true flies. The common name for members of the family is robber flies, a name first suggested in 1869 by Alpheus Packard based on the German "Raubfliegen" (predatory flies). The Asilidae are cosmopolitan, with over 7000 described species. Latreille was the authority for establishing the family in 1802. The Asilidae, together with Bombyliidae and Therevidae, are the most representative families of the superfamily of Asiloidea and they form one of the most characteristic groups of the lower Brachycera. Robber flies have stout, spiny legs and three simple eyes (oc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grasshopper
Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are amongst what are possibly the most ancient living groups of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grasshoppers are typically ground-dwelling insects with powerful hind legs which allow them to escape from threats by leaping vigorously. Their front legs are shorter and used for grasping food. As hemimetabolous insects, they do not undergo complete metamorphosis; they hatch from an egg into a Nymph (biology), nymph or "hopper" which undergoes five moults, becoming more similar to the adult insect at each developmental stage. The grasshopper hears through the tympanal organ which can be found in the first segment of the abdomen attached to the thorax; while its sense of vision is in the compound eyes, a change in light intensity is perceived in the simple eyes (ocelli). At high population densities and under certain environmental conditions, som ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Egg
Bird eggs are laid by the females and range in quantity from one (as in condors) to up to seventeen (the grey partridge). Avian clutch size, Clutch size may vary latitudinally within a species. Some birds lay eggs even when the eggs have not been fertilized; it is not uncommon for pet owners to find their lone bird nesting on a clutch of infertile eggs, which are sometimes called wind-eggs. Anatomy All bird eggs contain the following components: * The embryo is the immature developing chick * The amnion is a membrane that initially covers the embryo and eventually fills with amniotic fluid, provides the embryo with protection against shock from movement * The allantois helps the embryo obtain oxygen and handles metabolic waste * The chorion, together with the amnion, forms the amniotic sac and encloses the amnion, vitellus, and the embryo * The Yolk, vitellus, or yolk, is the nutrient-bearing portion of the egg, containing most of its fat, minerals, and many of its proteins and bl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Nest
A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and Avian incubation, incubates its Bird egg, eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structures built by animals, structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American robin or Eurasian blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the Montezuma oropendola or the village weaver—that is too restrictive a definition. For some species, a nest is simply a shallow depression made in sand; for others, it is the knot-hole left by a broken branch, a burrow dug into the ground, a chamber drilled into a tree, an enormous rotting pile of vegetation and earth, a shelf made of dried saliva or a mud dome with an entrance tunnel. The smallest bird nests are those of some hummingbirds, tiny cups which can be a mere across and high. At the other extreme, some nest mounds built by the dusky scrubfowl measure more than in diameter and stand nearly tall. The study of birds' nests ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telephone Pole
A utility pole, commonly referred to as a transmission pole, telephone pole, telecommunication pole, power pole, hydro pole, telegraph pole, or telegraph post, is a column or post used to support overhead power lines and various other public utilities, such as electrical cable, optical fiber, fiber optic cable, and related equipment such as Distribution transformer, transformers and street lights while depending on its application. They are used for two different types of power lines: ''sub transmission lines'', which carry higher voltage power between substations, and ''distribution lines'', which distribute lower voltage power to customers. Electrical wires and cables are routed overhead on utility poles as an inexpensive way to keep them insulated from the ground and out of the way of people and vehicles. Utility poles are usually made out of wood, Aluminium alloy, aluminum alloy, metal, concrete, or composites like fiberglass. A Stobie pole is a multi-purpose pole made of two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coverts
A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are small feathers behind the bird's eye which cover the ear opening (the ear of a bird has no external features). Tail coverts The uppertail and undertail coverts cover the base of the tail feathers above and below. Sometimes these coverts are more specialised. The "tail" of a peacock is made of elongated uppertail coverts. Wing coverts The upperwing coverts fall into two groups: those on the inner wing, which overlay the secondary flight feathers, known as the secondary coverts, and those on the outer wing, which overlay the primary flight feathers, the primary coverts. Within each group, the feathers form a number of rows. The feathers of the outermost, largest, row are termed greater (primary-/secondary-) coverts; those in the next row are the median (prima ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tennessee
Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the southwest, and Missouri to the northwest. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by area and the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 15th-most populous of the 50 states. According to the United States Census Bureau, the state's estimated population as of 2024 is 7.22 million. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions of Tennessee, Grand Divisions of East Tennessee, East, Middle Tennessee, Middle, and West Tennessee. Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, and anchors its largest metropolitan area. Tennessee has dive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma to the west. Its name derives from the Osage language, and refers to their relatives, the Quapaw people. The state's diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the densely forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta. Previously part of French Louisiana and the Louisiana Purchase, the Territory of Arkansas was admitted to the Union as the 25th state on June 15, 1836. Much of the Delta had been developed for cotton plantations, and landowners there largely depended on enslaved African Americans' labor. In 1861, Arkansas seceded from the United St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
