There are many reasons for animal extinction. Some of them are natural and some of them are man-made. Identifying causes for extinction may help in the decision-making process when deciding whether or not to attempt to save a species. The…
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The Fongoli chimps are a tribe of about forty chimpanzees that belong to the Savannah chimpanzee population of western Senegal and eastern Mali. They are so named because their territory covers about twenty-four square kilometers near the Fongoli River. Unlike…
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The Moa were a group of flightless birds native to New Zealand. There were 10 species of the bird. The Moa is related to the Ostrich and Emu and other extinct flightless birds, of which there were many. The Moa…
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These days, new species are usually only discovered with the aid of a microscope (i.e. bacteria) or a deep-sea submersible. One recent exception, however, is the discovery of a new carnivore in Madagascar, named Durrell’s vontsira or (formally) as Salanoia…
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i just love Amoebae. I love watching them ooze about under a microscope. I love the idea of something so small yet so… alive. They are single-cellular protozoans, little animals that stalk their prey, pounce and feed, digest and excrete…
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Ants may be small but they are one of the most numerous and successful families of animals on the earth. They are also widespread, occuring in practically every terrestrial ecosystem, although they are most common in the tropics. They are…
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Insects are an incredibly diverse Class of the Phylum Arthropods, arguably the most successful Phylum on earth. For the most part insects live on land or fresh water, leaving the oceans to their cousins, the Crustaceans. All insects share a…
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Dugesia are flatworms, belonging to the invertebrate phylum Platyhelminthes. These worms are the simplest forms of animals that have three cell layers: an endoderm (gut) layer, ectoderm (skin) on the surface and mesoderm (muscle) in between. Flatworms are unsegmented, bilaterally…
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To understand the binomial nomenclature of scientific names, it helps to have at least a general understanding of how scientists categorize living things. The science of taxonomy and systematics involves the classification of organisms according to evolutionary relationships; how closely…
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Agriotherium is the name of an extinct genus of bears, known as the giant short-faced bears of the family Ursidae. They occur first in Miocene Era deposits estimated to be about 13 million years old. Most appear about five million years…
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