Gannet

Gannets are seabirds comprising the genus Morus, in the family Sulidae, closely related to boobies. "Gannet" is derived from Old English "ganot", ultimately from the same Old Germanic root as "gander". "Morus" is derived from Ancient Greek "moros", "foolish", due to the lack of fear shown by breeding gannets and boobies, allowing them to be easily killed.
Gannets are large white birds with yellowish heads; black-tipped wings; and long bills. Northern gannets are the largest seabirds in the North Atlantic, having a wingspan of up to . The other two species occur in the temperate seas around southern Africa, southern Australia, and New Zealand.
Gannets hunt fish by diving into the sea from a height and pursuing their prey underwater, and have a number of adaptations:
Gannets can dive from a height of , achieving speeds of as they strike the water, enabling them to catch fish at a much greater depth than most airborne birds.
The gannet's supposed capacity for eating large quantities of fish has led to "gannet" becoming a description of somebody with a voracious appetite.
Mating and nesting.
Gannets are colonial breeders on islands and coasts, normally laying one chalky-blue egg. They lack brood patches and use their webbed feet to warm the eggs. They reach maturity around 5 years of age. First-year birds are completely black, and subsequent subadult plumages show increasing amounts of white.
Northern gannets.
The most important nesting ground for northern gannets is the United Kingdom, with about two-thirds of the world's population. These live mainly in Scotland, including the Shetland Isles. The rest of the world's northern-gannet population nests in Canada, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland, with small numbers in France (they are often seen in the Bay of Biscay), the Channel Islands, Norway, and a single colony in Germany on Heligoland. The biggest northern-gannet colony is on Scotland's Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth; in 2014, this colony contained some 75,000 pairs.
Sulasgeir off the coast of the Isle of Lewis, St. Kilda, Grassholm in Pembrokeshire, Bempton Cliffs in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Sceilig Bheag, Ireland, and Bonaventure Island, Quebec, are also important northern-gannet breeding sites.
Systematics and evolution.
The three gannet species are now usually placed in the genus "Morus", Abbott's booby in "Papasula", and the remaining boobies in "Sula". However, some authorities believe that all nine sulid species should be considered congeneric, in "Sula". At one time, the various gannet species were considered to be a single species.
Most fossil gannets are from the Late Miocene or Pliocene, when the diversity of seabirds in general was much higher than today. The cause the decline in species at the end of the Pleistocene is not clear; increased competition due to the spread of marine mammals may have played a role.
The genus "Morus" is much better documented in the fossil record than "Sula", though the latter is more numerous today. The reasons are not clear; boobies possibly were better adapted or simply "lucky" to occur in the right places for dealing with the challenges of the Late Pliocene ecological change, or many more fossil boobies could still await discovery. Notably, gannets are today restricted to temperate oceans, while boobies are also found in tropical waters, whereas several of the prehistoric gannet species had a more equatorial distribution than their congeners of today.
Fossil species of gannets are:
Cultural references.
In many parts of the United Kingdom, the term "gannet" is used to refer to people who steadily eat vast quantities of food, especially at public functions.
Young gannets were historically used as a food source, a tradition still practised in Ness, Scotland, where they are called "guga". Like examples of continued traditional whale harvesting, the modern-day hunting of gannet chicks results in great controversies as to whether it should continue to be afforded "exemption from the ordinary protection afforded to sea birds in UK and EU law". The Ness hunt is currently limited to 2,000 chicks per year, and dates back at least to the Iron Age. The hunt is considered to be sustainable, as between 1902 and 2003, gannet numbers in Scotland increased dramatically from 30,000 to 180,000.
In "The Bookshop Sketch", originally from "At Last the 1948 Show" (1967), a customer (Marty Feldman) asks the bookshop proprietor (John Cleese) for "the expurgated version" of "Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds", "the one without the gannet", because he does not like gannets due to their "long nasty beaks". Desperate to satisfy the customer, the proprietor tears the page about the gannet out of the book.
In Series 1, Episode 3 of "The F Word", Gordon Ramsay travels to the northwestern coast of Scotland and is shown how to prepare, cook, and eat gannet.


Calcinea

The Calcinea are a subclass of the calcareous sponges. Its phylum is Porifera and class is Calcarea. Branching is usually dichotomous or umbellate with anastomoses, which gives rise to reticulate growths on stalks in adults. Most varieties are coral red or sulphur yellow.


Jing Hui

Jing Hui (敬暉) (died 706), courtesy name Zhongye (仲瞱), formally Prince Sumin of Pingyang (平陽肅愍王), was an official of the Chinese dynasty Tang Dynasty and Wu Zetian's Zhou Dynasty, serving as chancellor during the reign of Emperor Zhongzong. He was a key figure in the coup that overthrew Wu Zetian and restored Emperor Zhongzong in 705, but was later exiled due to false accusations instigated by Wu Zetian's nephew Wu Sansi and killed in exile in a cruel manner.
Background.
It is not known when Jing Hui was born, but it is known that his family was from Jiang Prefecture (絳州, part of modern Yuncheng, Shanxi). He had several ancestors who served as officials for Tang Dynasty and its predecessor Sui Dynasty as well as the earlier dynasty Northern Qi, and it is known that his father Jing Shansong (敬山松) served as a county magistrate during Tang. All that is known about the early part of Jing Hui's career is that he passed the imperial examination when he was young.
During Wu Zetian's reign.
In 698—during the reign of Wu Zetian, the wife of Emperor Gaozong, who had declared herself "emperor" of a new Zhou Dynasty, interrupting Tang—Jing Hui was made the prefect of Wei Prefecture (衛州, roughly modern Xinxiang, Henan). When he arrived at Wei Prefecture, it was in the aftermaths of a major Eastern Tujue incursion earlier in the year, and the local officials were all busy conscripting labor to build the city walls, despite the fact that it was also harvest season. Jing stated to his subordinates: "Even a city that is fortified with gold and water cannot be defended without food. Why abandon the harvest to build the defenses?" He released the laborers from their duty and allowed them to return to their field, and the people were very thankful.
Jing later successively served as deputy minister of defense (夏官侍郎, "Xiaguan Shilang") and prefect of Tai Prefecture (泰州, roughly modern Taizhou, Jiangsu). In 701, he was recalled to the capital Luoyang to serve as the secretary general of the capital prefecture Luo Prefecture. Later in the year, when she took up residence for a period at the western capital Chang'an, Jing served as the deputy official in charge of Luoyang, and was known for his talent and honesty. When Wu Zetian heard of this, she sent him an edict thanking him and awarding him with silk. In 702, when Wu Zetian briefly commissioned her nephew Wu Sansi to command an army, apparently intending to attack Eastern Tujue, she made Jing Wu Sansi's deputy, but eventually, the army was not launched. In 703, Jing was made "Zhongtai You Cheng" (中臺右丞), one of the secretaries general of the executive bureau of government (中臺, "Zhongtai"), and given the honorific title "Yinqing Guanglu Daifu" (銀青光祿大夫).
In spring 705, with Wu Zetian being ill, Jing entered into a plot with a number of officials and generals, including Zhang Jianzhi, Cui Xuanwei, Huan Yanfan, and Yuan Shuji, to kill her lovers Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong. With agreement from Li Xian the Crown Prince (Wu Zetian's son), they acted on February 20, killing Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, and then surrounding Wu Zetian. While they allowed her to retain the title of "emperor," they had her put under house arrest at the secondary palace Shangyang Palace (上陽宮) and forced her to yield the throne to Li Xian, who was formerly emperor, and he was restored to the throne (as Emperor Zhongzong). Two days later, Emperor Zhongzong was formally restored.
During Emperor Zhongzong's second reign.
Jing Hui, along with Zhang Jianzhi, Cui Xuanwei, Huan Yanfan, and Yuan Shuji, were recognized as leaders in Emperor Zhongzong's restoration, and they were put into key positions and created dukes, with Jing becoming "Nayan" (納言) -- the head of the examination bureau of government (鸞臺, "Luantai"), and carrying the title of Duke of Pingyang, soon to be further promoted to be Duke of Qi. He and the other coup leaders instituted a regime of restoring Tang institutions and deprecating Zhou ones. (One of the coup participants, Xue Jichang (薛季昶), had advocated to Zhang Jianzhi and Jing the killing of Wu Sansi in the aftermaths of the killing of Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, but neither Zhang Jianzhi nor Jing paid Xue's suggestion much heed until it was too late; in fact, Jing argued hard against the killing of the Wus, even though another subordinate, Liu Youqiu, also advocated for the Wus' death and unsuccessfully tried to convince Jing and Huan.) After realizing that Wu Sansi's power was on the rise, Jing tried to persuade Emperor Zhongzong to reduce the power of the Wu clan on the whole, but was unable to get Emperor Zhongzong to listen, and it was said that the popular sentiment at the time much blamed Jing for the rise of Wu Sansi. It was said that Jing often caressed his seat and sighed, and at times squeezed his hand so tightly into a fist that his fingernails broke the skin of his hand, causing it to bleed. Apprehensive of Wu Sansi, he asked the official Cui Shi to keep an eye on Wu Sansi, but when Cui realized that Emperor Zhongzong trusted Wu Sansi and distrusted the coup leaders, instead revealed all of the coup leaders' plans to Wu Sansi to allow Wu Sansi to anticipate them.
In summer 705, by which time Emperor Zhongzong's trust in Jing and his colleagues had completely been lost, Emperor Zhongzong, following Wu Sansi's recommendation, created the five coup leaders princes—in Jing's case, Prince of Pingyang—but stripped them of chancellor positions. In spring 706, Jing was further sent out of Chang'an, which was now capital again, to serve as the prefect of Hua Prefecture (滑州, roughly modern Anyang, Henan).
Later in spring 706, with all five of the coup leaders already out of the capital, Wu Sansi and Empress Wei made accusations against them, and they were demoted to more remote prefectures—in Jing's case, to be the prefect of Lang Prefecture (朗州, roughly modern Changde, Hunan). Wu Sansi then had his strategist Zheng Yin further accuse the five of them of having participated in the plot of Emperor Zhongzong's son-in-law Wang Tongjiao (王同皎) -- who was executed early in 706 after having been accused of plotting to kill Wu Sansi and deposing Empress Wei. The five were further demoted with the provisions that they would never be allowed to return to the capital Chang'an, with Jing becoming the military advisor to the prefect of Yai Prefecture (崖州, in modern Haikou, Hainan). Wu Sansi then had accusations that Empress Wei was having affairs posted publicly in Luoyang, with the intent of incensing Emperor Zhongzong—and then accused the five coup leaders of being behind this public humiliation. He then had his associates propose that the five be killed. Emperor Zhongzong, citing that the five had been previously awarded iron certificates that guaranteed that they would not be executed in recognition of their contribution, ordered that they be reduced to commoner rank and permanently exiled to the Lingnan region with their families—in Jing's case, to Qiong Prefecture. At the suggestion of Cui Shi, Wu Sansi then sent the censor Zhou Lizhen (周利貞) to the Lingnan region under guise of reviewing the affairs of the region but with instructions to kill the five. When Zhou arrived at Jing's place of exile, he had Jing's flesh cut out piece by piece until Jing died. After Emperor Zhongzong's death in 710 and Emperor Zhongzong's brother Li Dan the Prince of Xiang, himself a former emperor, was restored (as Emperor Ruizong), Jing and his colleagues were posthumously honored. Four of his sons later served as officials.


Anogenital distance

Anogenital distance (AGD) is the distance from the midpoint of the anus to the genitalia, the underside of the scrotum or the vagina. It is considered medically significant for a number of reasons, in both humans and animals, including sex determination and as a marker of endocrine disruptor exposure. It is regulated by dihydrotestosterone, which can be disrupted by phthalates common in plastics. Such endocrine disruption may affect the development of the brain.
In humans.
Early studies showed that the human perineum was twice as long in males as in females, but it has since been found to be three quarters the male distance in females, although males have more variance. Measuring the anogenital distance in neonatal humans has been suggested as a noninvasive method to determine male feminisation and thereby predict neonatal and adult reproductive disorders.
A study by Swan et al. determined that the AGD is linked to fertility in males, and penis size. Males with a short AGD (lower than the median around 52 mm (2 in)) have seven times the chance of being sub-fertile as those with a longer AGD. It is linked to both semen volume and sperm count. A lower than median AGD also increases the likelihood of undescended testes, and lowered sperm counts and testicular tumors in adulthood. Babies with high total exposure to phthalates were ninety times more likely to have a short AGD, despite not every type of the nine phthalates tested being correlated with shorter AGD.
Swan et al. report that the levels of phthalates associated with significant AGD reductions are found in approximately one-quarter of Americans tested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for phthalate body burdens.
Women who had high levels of phthalates in their urine during pregnancy gave birth to sons who were ten times more likely to have shorter than expected AGDs.
A 2018 study by Barrett et al. found that infant girls born to women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) had longer AGD, suggesting higher fetal testosterone exposure, than girls born to women without PCOS.
Conditions.
Hypospadias and cryptorchidism are conditions which may be induced in males with short AGD.
Other problems in males include risk of testicular dysgenesis syndrome.
In other animals.
There have been extensive studies of AGD effects on animals. In some animals it is routinely measured to determine health.
Experiments have demonstrated that in rodent studies this distance is shortened when the mother is exposed to chemicals that are anti-androgenic, such as dibutyl phthalate (DBP) or benzyl butyl phthalate (BBzP).
Bisphenol A in certain doses increases the AGD of both genders of a study on mice.
In 2017, Gobikrushanth et al. studied the relationship between AGD (the distance from the center of the anus to the base of the vagina) and fertility in Canadian Holstein cows. They found that in first and second parity cows an increase in AGD has an inverse correlation with pregnancy success after first artificial insemination. This correlation was not found in third+ parity cows.
Measurement.
The "anogenital index" (AGI) is an index used to measure the AGD. It is computed as the AGD divided by weight [AGI = AGD/weight (mm/kg)].
The AGD is measured as follows: from the center of the anus to the posterior convergence of the fourchette (where the vestibule begins) in females; and from the center of the anus to the junction of the smooth perineal skin with the rugated skin of the scrotum in males.


Paul Sereno

Paul Callistus Sereno (born October 11, 1957) is a professor of paleontology at the University of Chicago and a National Geographic "explorer-in-residence" who has discovered several new dinosaur species on several continents, including at sites in Inner Mongolia, Argentina, Morocco and Niger. One of his most widely publicized discoveries is that of a nearly complete specimen of "Sarcosuchus imperator" — popularly known as SuperCroc — at Gadoufaoua in the Tenere desert of Niger.
Biography.
Youth and education.
The son of a mail carrier and an art teacher at Prairie Elementary, Sereno grew up in Naperville, Illinois and graduated from Naperville Central High School. He was then educated at Northern Illinois University (B.S., Biological Sciences, 1979) and Columbia University (M.A., Vertebrate Paleontology, 1981; M. Phil., Geological Sciences, 1981; Ph.D., Geological Sciences, 1987).
Career.
Sereno was named one of "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People (1997).
Sereno co-founded Project Exploration, a non-profit science education organization to encourage city kids to pursue careers in science. He appears in the 2009 DVD "Dinosaur Discoveries", featuring classic segments of CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite as the host, which aired on A&E in 1991. It was later re-shown on the Disney Channel until the late 1990s.
On August 14, 2008, it was revealed that Sereno had uncovered a large Stone Age cemetery at Gobero in the Nigerien Sahara, remnants of a people who lived from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago on the edge of what was then a large lake. The National Geographic documentary, "Skeletons of the Sahara" was made about this discovery and premiered in 2013.
Fossil species described by Sereno or his team.
Dinosaurs
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Other fossil reptiles
Documentaries featuring Sereno and his discoveries.
In addition to his many discoveries in the field, public communication has been a big part of Sereno's career.


Apaloderma

Apaloderma is a genus of birds in the family Trogonidae.
The name is a compound word composed of two Greek words: "hapalos", meaning "delicate"and "derma", meaning "skin". Established by William John Swainson in 1833, the genus contains the following species:


Hymenium

The hymenium is the tissue layer on the hymenophore of a fungal fruiting body where the cells develop into basidia or asci, which produce spores. In some species all of the cells of the hymenium develop into basidia or asci, while in others some cells develop into sterile cells called cystidia (basidiomycetes) or paraphyses (ascomycetes). Cystidia are often important for microscopic identification. The subhymenium consists of the supportive hyphae from which the cells of the hymenium grow, beneath which is the hymenophoral trama, the hyphae that make up the mass of the hymenophore.
The position of the hymenium is traditionally the first characteristic used in the classification and identification of mushrooms. Below are some examples of the diverse types which exist among the macroscopic Basidiomycota and Ascomycota.


Ptosis (chin)

A chin that droops over the jawline is called a ptotic chin. Ptosis of the tip of the chin is common and can be seen in persons of any age. It is frequently seen in older patients but not infrequently, it is seen in young people as a familial trait. More commonly, however, the droop develops over time as the chin pad slides downward along with the soft tissues elsewhere in the face and neck.
Surgery.
A variety of techniques have been described to correct ptosis of the chin. One technique uses a small intraoral incision to place a U-shaped Prolene suture that gathers the soft tissue of the chin and elevates it above the lower border of the mandibular symphysis.


Klyxum

Klyxum is a genus of animals in the family Alcyoniidae. They are commonly called cauliflower colt coral, or simply colt coral. These common names can also refer to the related genus "Cladiella."
Range.
"Klyxum" species are widespread throughout the tropical Indo-Pacific.
Species.
There are sixteen species currently classified in this genus.


Eupodotis

Eupodotis is a genus of bird in the bustard family Otididae. It contains the five species, all restricted to Africa. Species in the genera "Afrotis" and "Lophotis" are sometimes included in this genus; however some authorities separate the Karoo korhaan, Rüpell's Korhaan and little brown bustard as a separate genus "Heterotetrax".


Joan Robb

Joan Robb ( – 19 October 2017) was a New Zealand herpetologist and wildlife tour guide.
Academic career.
Robb grew up in Gisborne, and was educated at home through the Correspondence School. After a Diploma in Agriculture from Massey Agricultural College, she studied at the University of Auckland, graduating with an MSc in zoology in 1956. Robb then worked in the Department of Zoology at the University of Auckland, becoming an Associate Professor in 1967. She taught vertebrate form and function. She retired in 1978, after which she became a tour guide for wildlife tours to Malaysia, Nepal, China, Australia, and Africa.
Robb held positions on the Fauna Protection Advisory Council (an advisory group to the Department of Internal Affairs, who were then responsible for conservation) and the Council of the Auckland Museum.
Robb's research focused on herpetology, particularly New Zealand lizards, and she named five new taxa of skink and gecko. Her 1980 book describing New Zealand amphibians and reptiles was considered to be "academic in quality, but popular in tone".
In 2017, Robb was named as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's 150 women in 150 words.
Robb died in Auckland on 19 October 2017.


Anne Innis Dagg

Anne Christine Innis Dagg, CM, (born 25 January 1933 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian zoologist, feminist, and author of numerous books. A pioneer in the study of animal behaviour in the wild, Dagg is credited with being the first to study wild giraffes. Her impact on current understandings of giraffe biology and behaviour were the focus of the 2011 CBC radio documentary "Wild Journey: The Anne Innis Story" and the 2018 documentary film "The Woman Who Loves Giraffes".
In addition to her giraffe research, Dagg has published extensively about camels, primates, and Canadian wildlife, and she has raised concerns about the influence of sociobiology on how zoological research is shared with the general public. She has also researched and written extensively about gender bias in academia, drawing attention to the detrimental impact that anti-nepotism rules can have on the academic careers of the wives of male faculty members and to sexist academic work environments that fail to support female researchers.
Early life and education.
Dagg was born on January 25, 1933 as Anne Christine Innis in Toronto, Ontario. Her father, Harold Innis, was a professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and her mother, Mary Quayle Innis, was an author of short stories and books about history.
As a child Dagg attended Bishop Strachan School. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 1955 with a B.A. in Biology and was awarded a gold medal in recognition of her academic standing. She went on to earn a master's degree in Genetics from the University of Toronto. Following field research in Africa, Dagg began a PhD in Animal Behaviour at the University of Waterloo, completing her studies in 1967.
Career.
Dagg's has published over 60 refereed scientific papers on such subjects as homosexuality, mammal behaviour, sociobiology, feminism, sexism at universities, and the rights of animals. She has also written 20 books on related topics. Although best known for her research on the giraffe, Dagg has studied other animals including camels, primates, and Canadian wildlife. She has taught courses in mammology and wildlife management, among other topics, as an assistant professor with the Department of Zoology at the University of Guelph from 1968 to 1972. The remainder of her career was spent affiliated with the University of Waterloo's Integrated Studies program, later renamed Independent Studies. From 1986 to 1989 she served as the Academic Director of the program before transitioning to an academic advisor role.
Dagg's interest in Canadian wildlife arose in the late 1960s while teaching a course at the University of Guelph. She was surprised to discover how little research had been done on smaller mammals and birds, in favour of research on big game species in Ontario and British Columbia such as the caribou. In 1972, she founded "Otter Press" in Waterloo, Ontario. The first publication was "Matrix Optics" by her husband Ian Dagg, followed in 1974 by her own book on Canadian wildlife, "Mammals of Waterloo and South Wellington Counties", which was co-written by C. A. Campbell.
Dagg has also written about the gendered framing of animal behaviour. In 1985, she raised concerns about the impact of sociobiology in scholarly publications and reporting to the general public about the social behaviour of animals in her book "Harems and Other Horrors: Sexual Bias in Behavioral Biology". Of particular concern was what she noted as an increase in the anthropomorphizing of animal behaviour such as inaccurate, human-based, language to describe animal behaviour such as female mating behaviour being described as coy or flirtatious.
In 1975, Dagg was recognized by the Museum of Natural History as part of an exhibit dedicated to their achievements in the natural sciences. Dagg was awarded the Batke Human Rights Award in 1984 by the K-W Status of Women in recognition of her work in the fields of social justice and gender equality. She received a Lane Anderson Award in 2017 in recognition of her non-fiction children's book "5 Giraffes", alongside author Caroline Fox. She donated the $10,000 prize that accompanied the award to giraffe conservation efforts. In 2019 Dagg was named an Honorary Member of the Canadian Society of Zoologists in recognition of her contributions to Canadian zoology.
Despite demonstrated academic achievement, Dagg was denied tenure at the University of Guelph in 1972 due to concerns about her qualifications. Dagg claimed she was told by the Dean that she was denied tenure, in part, because she lived outside of Guelph with her family and wasn't involved in the community. Pointing to a strong research record, support from the student body, and the barring of women from participating on campus committees, Dagg called her treatment during the tenure review process "demoralizing" and framed the future of women in academia as "bleak" given the type of discrimination they face. Her academic ability was similarly questioned at the University of Waterloo where it was suggested there was no point in pursuing a position because she had a family and a husband to support them.
Dagg's research on giraffes and her experiences in South Africa during apartheid were featured on the CBC's radio series "Ideas" as part of the 2011 documentary "Wild Journey: The Anne Innis Story" by Sandy Bourque. The documentary was heard by Alison Reid, who later directed the 2018 documentary "The Woman Who Loves Giraffes", chronicling Dagg's life, career and her recognized impact on the study of giraffes. The film includes interviews with members of the tenure review committee that rejected Dagg's application. The chair of the committee, Keith Ronald, stood by the decision to deny Dagg tenure explaining that despite being a good teacher, Dagg's research program, which at the time included 20 peer-reviewed publications, "hadn't been fully developed". Fellow committee member Sandy Middleton, who also appeared in the film, disagreed, framing the rejection as a "grossly unfair" example of an old boys network at work and was likely motivated by jealousy of Dagg's early career success. Following the release of the film, the University of Guelph issued a formal apology to Dagg and established the Dr. Anne Innis Dagg Summer Research Scholarship aimed at supporting the research of undergraduate women studying zoology or biodiversity.
On December 27, 2019, the office of Canadian Governor General Julie Payette announced that Dagg had been appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.
Giraffe field research.
Dagg has been referred to as "the Jane Goodall of giraffes" and is recognized as having made significant contributions to the study of giraffes. Dagg first became interested in giraffes as a young child while visiting Illinois' Brookfield Zoo with her mother.
During the mid-1950s Dagg traveled alone to South Africa to study the behavior of giraffes out of captivity. The trip was prompted by what she described in 1974 interview with the "Toronto Star" as a "tremendous urge to see giraffes roaming free, instead of being cooped up in zoos." She contacted government officials in various African countries requesting permission to study the animal in their natural habitat and received only rejections, some noting the work wasn't a suitable undertaking for a woman.
Ahead of the trip Dagg changed tactics by adjusting how her letters were signed. She contacted citrus farmer Alexander Matthew, who owned land near Kruger National Park in close proximity to roaming giraffes, to ask for permission to visit and study giraffes. Her request was granted based on the Matthew's assumption that the letter, signed A. Innis, was written by a man. Upon Dagg's arrival he told her she would have to return to Canada because allowing her to bunk with the male farmhands was, for him, out of the question. Rather than returning home she travelled to Grahamstown where she spent her time researching giraffes at the Rhodes University library. She began writing to Matthew multiple times a week for several weeks asking for permission to return. He eventually agreed, allowing her to stay in his family's home in exchange for clerical services over the course of her stay. In turn, Dagg was given access to 33,000 hectors of groves and bush frequented by 95 giraffes.
Dagg spent upward of ten hours a day in the field taking extensive notes about all aspects of giraffe behaviour, including what they ate and how they interacted, and was the first to note male giraffes engaging in homosexual behaviour. In addition to her research at Fleur de Lys, she travelled to Tanganyika and Kenya to observe other giraffe populations over the course of her stay. Her research marked the first time a scientist set out to study giraffes in the wild. In 1965, due to the unique nature of her research, she was invited to appear on the American television show "To Tell the Truth". Upon returning to Canada, she began PhD in animal behaviour at the University of Waterloo, which she completed in 1967 under the supervision of Anton de Vos. Her thesis work analyzed and compared the gaits of giraffe and other large mammals. Dagg's field research was eventually published in "The Giraffe: Its Biology, Behavior and Ecology" (1976). Co-authored with ecologist J. Bristol Foster, the book is recognized by researchers as the foundational text on giraffes.
Gender inequality in academia.
During her PhD studies, Dagg attempted to secure employment as a professor, but found that at the time universities weren't inclined to hire women. Dagg's experience as a woman in academia would go on to shape her work and research interests for the remainder of her career. She has researched and published about anti-nepotism laws at academic institutions in North America arguing that they disproportionately impact the female spouses of male professors. According to Dagg, anti-nepotism rules, whether formal or unspoken, combined with a reluctance by universities to hire their own PhD students doubly hindered the wives of male faculty: "A wife often earns a Ph.D. from the local university where she is then unable to become a professor because of this opposition. Unlike many other women, she may not be free because of her marriage to seek a position at a university outside her locale, a dilemma which makes her career vulnerable to the local university's policies."
In 1974, Dagg filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission against Wilfrid Laurier University. The complaint was in regards to the school's refusal to interview her for a position in their biology department despite 19 years experience, opting to instead hire a male professor who she claimed had less experience and fewer qualifications. Dagg requested a formal review of the complaint by Ontario's Ombudsman after the Commission found that her claims were "absolutely without foundation."
Dagg further explored the experiences of women in academia in the 1988 book "MisEducation: Women & Canadian Universities", co-authored with Patricia J. Thompson. The authors pointed to a reliance on course material and textbooks reliant on gender-based stereotypes, male co-workers making sexist jokes, and lack of support or funding for women researchers as example of how conditions at Canadian universities hadn't changed much for women over time. In a "Globe and Mail" interview, Dagg, who at the time had published 10 books and more than 50 scholarly articles, said about the book that she hoped her lack of tenure wouldn't cost her her job.
Personal life.
Dagg married Ian Ralph Dagg (1928-1993) in 1957. The ceremony took place at St. Pancras Town Hall in London, England. Ian Dagg taught at the University of Waterloo's Physics Department from 1959 to 1993, and served as chair of the department from 1988 to 1993. Together until his death, the couple had three children: Hugh, Ian and Mary.


Ooperipatellus decoratus

Ooperipatellus decoratus is a species of velvet worm in the Peripatopsidae family. It is found in Tasmania, Australia.


Menhaden

Menhaden, also known as mossbunker and bunker, are forage fish of the genera Brevoortia and Ethmidium, two genera of marine fish in the family Clupeidae. "Menhaden" is a blend of "poghaden" ("pogy" for short) and an Algonquian word akin to Narragansett "munnawhatteaûg", derived from "munnohquohteau" ("he fertilizes"), referring to their use of the fish as fertilizer. It is generally thought that Pilgrims were advised by Tisquantum (also known as Squanto) to plant menhaden with their crops.
Description.
Menhaden are flat and have soft flesh and a deeply forked tail. They rarely exceed in length, and have a varied weight range. Gulf menhaden and Atlantic menhaden are small oily-fleshed fish, bright silver, and characterized by a series of smaller spots behind the main, humeral spot. They tend to have larger scales than yellowfin menhaden and finescale menhaden. In addition, yellowfin menhaden tail rays are a bright yellow in contrast to those of the Atlantic menhaden.
Taxonomy.
Recent taxonomic work using DNA comparisons have organized the North American menhadens into large-scaled (Gulf and Atlantic menhaden) and small-scaled (Finescale and Yellowfin menhaden) designations.
The menhaden consist of two genera and seven species:
Ecology.
Menhaden are filter feeders that travel in large, slow-moving, and tightly-packed schools with open mouths. Filter feeders typically take into their open mouths "materials in the same proportions as they occur in ambient waters". Menhaden have two main sources of food: phytoplankton and zooplankton. A menhaden's diet varies considerably over the course of its lifetime, and is directly related to its size. The smallest menhaden, typically those under one year old, eat primarily phytoplankton. After that age, adult menhaden gradually shift to a diet comprised almost exclusively of zooplankton.
Menhaden are omnivorous filter feeders, feeding by straining plankton and algae from water. Along with oysters, which filter water on the seabed, menhaden play a key role in the food chain in estuaries and bays. Atlantic menhaden are an important link between plankton and upper level predators. Because of their filter feeding abilities, "menhaden consume and redistribute a significant amount of energy within and between Chesapeake Bay and other estuaries, and the coastal ocean." Because they play this role, and their abundance, menhaden are an invaluable prey species for many predatory fish, such as striped bass, bluefish, mackerel, flounder, tuna, drums, and sharks. They are also a very important food source for many birds, including egrets, ospreys, seagulls, northern gannets, pelicans, and herons.
In 2012, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission declared that the Atlantic menhaden was depleted due to overfishing. The decision was driven by issues with water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and failing efforts to re-introduce predator species, due to lack of menhaden on which they could feed.
Menhaden are crucial not only because of their keystone species-status in the food web, but also because of their ecological services.  The way Menhaden filter feed on phytoplankton helps to mitigate toxic algal blooms.  These algal blooms, which are often detrimental to a number of fish, bird, and marine mammal species, create hypoxic conditions.  The phytoplankton being preyed upon are photosynthetic organisms, converting sunlight into energy which is then transferred to Menhaden and then to bigger species of fish or other larger marine organisms such as birds or mammals.  The consequence of this behavior is that if Menhaden are eliminated or significantly decreased, there are limited means of energy transfer among trophic levels - making Menhaden a true keystone species with ecological services that are invaluable to humans.
Habitat.
Menhaden are a pelagic schooling fish that migrate inshore during the summer and off-shore in the winter months. The juvenile and larval menhaden migrate to shore and in-land waterways through currents during summer months to grow while feeding on the phytoplankton and eventually zooplankton once they have matured. Commercially caught Menhaden have been recorded in waters of around 5 to 24°/oo, as well as in hypersaline waters around 60°/oo.
Reproduction.
Menhaden reproduce in open oceans externally, however, the female does not carry eggs with them during the process as they are released into the water column at the planktonic level at gametes and sperm. Currently, functional hermaphroditism is unknown to the species and identification of sex of the individual organism cannot be determined externally due to the lack of accessory reproductive organs. These fish breed during the winter months through December to March and the eggs and juveniles navigate towards estuaries and inland waterways through tides and currents.
Human intake.
Menhaden are not used directly for food. They are processed into fish oil and fish meal that are used as food ingredients, animal feed, and dietary supplements. The flesh has a high omega-3 fat content. Fish oil made from menhaden also is used as a raw material for products such as lipstick.
Fisheries.
According to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), there are two established commercial fisheries for menhaden. The first is known as a reduction fishery. The second is known as a bait fishery, which harvests menhaden for the use of both commercial and recreational fishermen. Commercial fishermen, especially crabbers in the Chesapeake Bay area, use menhaden to bait their traps or hooks. The recreational fisherman use ground menhaden chum as a fish attractant, and whole fish as bait. The total harvest is approximately 500 million fish per year. Atlantic menhaden are harvested using purse seines.
Omega Protein – a reduction fishery company with operations in the northwest Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico – takes 90% of the total menhaden harvest in the United States. In October 2005, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) approved an addendum to Amendment 1 of the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden, which "established a five-year annual cap on reduction fishery landings in the Chesapeake Bay", imposing a limit on reduction fishery operations for 2006–2010. In November 2006, that cap was established at 109,020 metric tons; this cap remained in place until 2013.
In December 2012, in the face of the depletion of Atlantic menhaden, the ASMFC implemented another cap, effective in 2013 and 2014, for the Chesapeake Bay, this time at 87,216 metric tons, as well as a total allowable catch (TAC) of the species of 170,800 metric tons, a 20% reduction from the 2009–2011 average. The TAC was subsequently raised for 2015 and 2016 to 187,880 metric tons. The cap in the Chesapeake Bay was further lowered in November 2017 to 51,000 metric tons, but this came alongside a higher TAC of 216,000 metric tons. Omega Protein has been openly critical of these caps.
Uses for Menhaden Oil.
Despite not being a popular fish for consumption, menhaden oil has many uses not only for humans but also for other animals. One element of menhaden oil is that it is high in omega-3 fatty acids. This molecule helps with lowering blood pressure, fixing abnormal heartbeats, reducing the chance of a heart attack or stroke, and other health benefits. It is due to this that menhaden oil can be used in supplements to help with the previously mentioned issues.
One way that menhaden oil benefits animals is with chickens. When menhaden oil was given to chickens in their feed, they have a lower chance of fatty liver disease. This was because of menhaden oil’s high omega-3 fatty acid content which took the place of omega-6 fatty acid which is not as beneficial to animals. Another animal the benefits from omega-3 in menhaden oil is guinea pigs. When given menhaden oil in feed guinea pigs were shown to have a longer life span.
Risks of Overfishing.
According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Menhaden are the most important fish in the Bay. This is because they are a food source for many commercial important species like striped bass. They also manage the algal bloom occurrences in the Bay because they eat phytoplankton. Decreases in Menhaden populations could also leave striped bass vulnerable to disease. In the past 20 years, the number of juvenile Menhaden produced in the Chesapeake Bay have been decreasing (Refer to Atlantic Menhaden Graph on Bay-Wide mean catch per haul).
This is believed to be due to the overfishing of Menhaden for their fish oil. This could seriously disrupt the food chain. In response, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) put a cap on the Atlantic Menhaden harvest in October of 2020. This 10% cut to the harvest is the first to ever be seen for Menhaden coast wide. It also was the first vote to consider benchmarks known as “ecological reference points”. This allows managers to account for a species role in the food chain when setting catch limits. This is different from the “single-species stock assessments” that were previously used which only accounted for the demand from the fishing industry rather than the demand from the food web. This cut to the harvest established a quota of 194,400 metric tons of Menhaden for the 2021-2022 fishing season. It is the hope that this cut will allow Menhaden to fulfill their role in the ecosystem while keeping the commercial fishery alive.
Cultural significance.
After menhaden had been identified as a valuable alternative to whale oil in the 1870s, the menhaden fishery on the Chesapeake was worked by predominantly African American crews on open boats hauling purse seines. The men employed sea chanties to help synchronize the hauling of the nets. These chanties pulled from West African, blues, and gospel sources and created a uniquely African American culture of chanty singing. By the late 1950s, hydraulic winches replaced the large crews of manual haulers, and the menhaden chanty tradition declined.


Vertebra

In the vertebrate spinal column, each vertebra is an irregular bone with a complex structure composed of bone and some hyaline cartilage, the proportions of which vary according to the segment of the backbone and the species of vertebrate.
The basic configuration of a vertebra varies; the large part is the body, and the central part is the centrum. The upper and lower surfaces of the vertebra body give attachment to the intervertebral discs. The posterior part of a vertebra forms a vertebral arch, in eleven parts, consisting of two pedicles, two laminae, and seven processes. The laminae give attachment to the ligamenta flava (ligaments of the spine). There are vertebral notches formed from the shape of the pedicles, which form the intervertebral foramina when the vertebrae articulate. These foramina are the entry and exit conduits for the spinal nerves. The body of the vertebra and the vertebral arch form the vertebral foramen, the larger, central opening that accommodates the spinal canal, which encloses and protects the spinal cord.
Vertebrae articulate with each other to give strength and flexibility to the spinal column, and the shape at their back and front aspects determines the range of movement. Structurally, vertebrae are essentially alike across the vertebrate species, with the greatest difference seen between an aquatic animal and other vertebrate animals. As such, vertebrates take their name from the vertebrae that compose the vertebral column.
Structure.
General structure.
In the human vertebral column the size of the vertebrae varies according to placement in the vertebral column, spinal loading, posture and pathology. Along the length of the spine the vertebrae change to accommodate different needs related to stress and mobility. Each vertebra is an irregular bone.
Every vertebra has a body, which consists of a large anterior middle portion called the centrum (plural "centra") and a posterior vertebral arch, also called a neural arch. The body is composed of cancellous bone, which is the spongy type of osseous tissue, whose micro-anatomy has been specifically studied within the pedicle bones. This cancellous bone is in turn, covered by a thin coating of cortical bone (or compact bone), the hard and dense type of osseous tissue. The vertebral arch and processes have thicker coverings of cortical bone. The upper and lower surfaces of the body of the vertebra are flattened and rough in order to give attachment to the intervertebral discs. These surfaces are the vertebral endplates which are in direct contact with the intervertebral discs and form the joint. The endplates are formed from a thickened layer of the cancellous bone of the vertebral body, the top layer being more dense. The endplates function to contain the adjacent discs, to evenly spread the applied loads, and to provide anchorage for the collagen fibers of the disc. They also act as a semi-permeable interface for the exchange of water and solutes.
The vertebral arch is formed by pedicles and laminae. Two pedicles extend from the sides of the vertebral body to join the body to the arch. The pedicles are short thick processes that extend, one from each side, posteriorly, from the junctions of the posteriolateral surfaces of the centrum, on its upper surface.
From each pedicle a broad plate, a lamina, projects backwards and medialwards to join and complete the vertebral arch and form the posterior border of the vertebral foramen, which completes the triangle of the vertebral foramen. The upper surfaces of the laminae are rough to give attachment to the ligamenta flava. These ligaments connect the laminae of adjacent vertebra along the length of the spine from the level of the second cervical vertebra. Above and below the pedicles are shallow depressions called vertebral notches ("superior" and "inferior"). When the vertebrae articulate the notches align with those on adjacent vertebrae and these form the openings of the intervertebral foramina. The foramina allow the entry and exit of the spinal nerves from each vertebra, together with associated blood vessels. The articulating vertebrae provide a strong pillar of support for the body.
Processes.
There are seven processes projecting from the vertebra:
A major part of a vertebra is a backward extending spinous process (sometimes called the neural spine) which projects centrally. This process points dorsally and caudally from the junction of the laminae. The spinous process serves to attach muscles and ligaments.
The two transverse processes, one on each side of the vertebral body, project laterally from either side at the point where the lamina joins the pedicle, between the superior and inferior articular processes. They also serve for the attachment of muscles and ligaments, in particular the intertransverse ligaments. There is a facet on each of the transverse processes of thoracic vertebrae which articulates with the tubercle of the rib. A facet on each side of the thoracic vertebral body articulates with the head of the rib. The transverse process of a lumbar vertebra is also sometimes called the costal or costiform process because it corresponds to a rudimentary rib ("costa") which, as opposed to the thorax, is not developed in the lumbar region.
There are superior and inferior articular facet joints on each side of the vertebra, which serve to restrict the range of movement possible. These facets are joined by a thin portion of the vertebral arch called the "pars interarticularis".
Regional variation.
Vertebrae take their names from the regions of the vertebral column that they occupy. There are thirty-three vertebrae in the human vertebral column—seven cervical vertebrae, twelve thoracic vertebrae, five lumbar vertebrae, five fused sacral vertebrae forming the sacrum and three to five coccygeal vertebrae, forming the coccyx. The regional vertebrae increase in size as they progress downwards but become smaller in the coccyx.
Cervical vertebrae.
There are seven cervical vertebrae (but eight cervical spinal nerves), designated C1 through C7. These bones are, in general, small and delicate. Their spinous processes are short (with the exception of C2 and C7, which have palpable spinous processes). C1 is also called the atlas, and C2 is also called the axis. The structure of these vertebrae is the reason why the neck and head have a large range of motion. The atlanto-occipital joint allows the skull to move up and down, while the atlanto-axial joint allows the upper neck to twist left and right. The axis also sits upon the first intervertebral disc of the spinal column.
Cervical vertebrae possess transverse foramina to allow for the vertebral arteries to pass through on their way to the foramen magnum to end in the circle of Willis. These are the smallest, lightest vertebrae and the vertebral foramina are triangular in shape. The spinous processes are short and often bifurcated (the spinous process of C7, however, is not bifurcated, and is substantially longer than that of the other cervical spinous processes).
The atlas differs from the other vertebrae in that it has no body and no spinous process. It has instead a ring-like form, having an anterior and a posterior arch and two lateral masses. At the outside centre points of both arches there is a tubercle, an anterior tubercle and a posterior tubercle, for the attachment of muscles. The front surface of the anterior arch is convex and its anterior tubercle gives attachment to the longus colli muscle. The posterior tubercle is a rudimentary spinous process and gives attachment to the rectus capitis posterior minor muscle. The spinous process is small so as not to interfere with the movement between the atlas and the skull. On the under surface is a facet for articulation with the dens of the axis.
Specific to the cervical vertebra is the transverse foramen (also known as "foramen transversarium"). This is an opening on each of the transverse processes which gives passage to the vertebral artery and vein and a sympathetic nerve plexus. On the cervical vertebrae other than the atlas, the anterior and posterior tubercles are on either side of the transverse foramen on each transverse process. The anterior tubercle on the sixth cervical vertebra is called the carotid tubercle because it separates the carotid artery from the vertebral artery.
There is a hook-shaped uncinate process on the side edges of the top surface of the bodies of the third to the seventh cervical vertebrae and of the first thoracic vertebra. Together with the vertebral disc, this uncinate process prevents a vertebra from sliding backwards off the vertebra below it and limits lateral flexion (side-bending). Luschka's joints involve the vertebral uncinate processes.
The spinous process on C7 is distinctively long and gives the name vertebra prominens to this vertebra. Also a cervical rib can develop from C7 as an anatomical variation.
The term cervicothoracic is often used to refer to the cervical and thoracic vertebrae together, and sometimes also their surrounding areas.
Thoracic vertebrae.
The twelve thoracic vertebrae and their transverse processes have surfaces that articulate with the ribs. Some rotation can occur between the thoracic vertebrae, but their connection with the rib cage prevents much "flexion" or other movement. They may also be known as "dorsal vertebrae" in the human context.
The vertebral bodies are roughly heart-shaped and are about as wide anterio-posteriorly as they are in the transverse dimension. Vertebral foramina are roughly circular in shape.
The top surface of the first thoracic vertebra has a hook-shaped uncinate process, just like the cervical vertebrae.
The thoracolumbar division refers to the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae together, and sometimes also their surrounding areas.
The thoracic vertebrae attach to ribs and so have articular facets specific to them; these are the superior, transverse and inferior costal facets. As the vertebrae progress down the spine they increase in size to match up with the adjoining lumbar section.
Lumbar vertebrae.
The five lumbar vertebrae are the largest of the vertebrae, their robust construction being necessary for supporting greater weight than the other vertebrae. They allow significant "flexion", "extension" and moderate lateral flexion (side-bending). The discs between these vertebrae create a natural lumbar lordosis (a spinal curvature that is concave posteriorly). This is due to the difference in thickness between the front and back parts of the intervertebral discs.
The lumbar vertebrae are located between the ribcage and the pelvis and are the largest of the vertebrae. The pedicles are strong, as are the laminae, and the spinous process is thick and broad. The vertebral foramen is large and triangular. The transverse processes are long and narrow and three tubercles can be seen on them. These are a lateral cosiform process, a mammillary process and an accessory process. The superior, or upper tubercle is the mammillary process which connects with the superior articular process. The multifidus muscle attaches to the mammillary process and this muscle extends through the length of the vertebral column, giving support. The inferior, or lower tubercle is the accessory process and this is found at the back part of the base of the transverse process. The term lumbosacral is often used to refer to the lumbar and sacral vertebrae together, and sometimes includes their surrounding areas.
Sacrum.
There are five sacral vertebrae (S1–S5) which are fused in maturity, into one large bone, the sacrum, with no intervertebral discs. The sacrum with the ilium forms a sacroiliac joint on each side of the pelvis, which articulates with the hips.
Coccyx.
The last three to five coccygeal vertebrae (but usually four) (Co1–Co5) make up the tailbone or coccyx. There are no intervertebral discs.
Development.
Somites form in the early embryo and some of these develop into sclerotomes. The sclerotomes form the vertebrae as well as the rib cartilage and part of the occipital bone. From their initial location within the somite, the sclerotome cells migrate medially towards the notochord. These cells meet the sclerotome cells from the other side of the paraxial mesoderm. The lower half of one sclerotome fuses with the upper half of the adjacent one to form each vertebral body. From this vertebral body, sclerotome cells move dorsally and surround the developing spinal cord, forming the vertebral arch. Other cells move distally to the costal processes of thoracic vertebrae to form the ribs.
Function.
Functions of vertebrae include:
Clinical significance.
There are a number of congenital vertebral anomalies, mostly involving variations in the shape or number of vertebrae, and many of which are unproblematic. Others though can cause compression of the spinal cord. Wedge-shaped vertebrae, called "hemivertebrae" can cause an angle to form in the spine which can result in the spinal curvature diseases of kyphosis, scoliosis and lordosis. Severe cases can cause spinal cord compression. Block vertebrae where some vertebrae have become fused can cause problems. Spina bifida can result from the incomplete formation of the vertebral arch.
Spondylolysis is a defect in the pars interarticularis of the vertebral arch. In most cases this occurs in the lowest of the lumbar vertebrae (L5), but may also occur in the other lumbar vertebrae, as well as in the thoracic vertebrae.
Spinal disc herniation, more commonly called a "slipped disc", is the result of a tear in the outer ring (anulus fibrosus) of the intervertebral disc, which lets some of the soft gel-like material, the nucleus pulposus, bulge out in a hernia. This may be treated by a minimally-invasive endoscopic procedure called Tessys method.
A laminectomy is a surgical operation to remove the laminae in order to access the spinal canal. The removal of just part of a lamina is called a laminotomy.
A pinched nerve caused by pressure from a disc, vertebra or scar tissue might be remedied by a foraminotomy to broaden the intervertebral foramina and relieve pressure. It can also be caused by a foramina stenosis, a narrowing of the nerve opening, as a result of arthritis.
Another condition is spondylolisthesis when one vertebra slips forward onto another. The reverse of this condition is retrolisthesis where one vertebra slips backwards onto another.
The vertebral pedicle is often used as a radiographic marker and entry point in vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty, and spinal fusion procedures.
The arcuate foramen is a common anatomical variation more frequently seen in females. It is a bony "bridge" found on the first cervical vertebra, the atlas where it covers the groove for the vertebral artery.
Degenerative disc disease is a condition usually associated with ageing in which one or more discs degenerate. This can often be a painfree condition but can also be very painful.
Other animals.
In other animals the vertebrae take the same regional names except for the coccygeal – in animals with tails the separate vertebrae are usually called the caudal vertebrae. Because of the different types of locomotion and support needed between the aquatic and other vertebrates, the vertebrae between them show the most variation, though basic features are shared. The spinous processes which are backward extending are directed upwards in animals without an erect stance. These processes can be very large in the larger animals since they attach to the muscles and ligaments of the body. In the elephant the vertebrae are connected by tight joints, which limit the backbone's flexibility. Spinous processes are exaggerated in some animals, such as the extinct "Dimetrodon" and "Spinosaurus", where they form a sailback or finback.
Vertebrae with saddle-shaped articular surfaces on their bodies, called "heterocoelous", allow vertebrae to flex both vertically and horizontally while preventing twisting motions. Such vertebrae are found in the necks of birds and some turtles.
"Procoelous" vertebrae feature a spherical protrusion extending from the caudal end of the centrum of one vertebra that fits into a concave socket on the cranial end of the centrum of an adjacent vertebra. These vertebrae are most often found in reptiles, but are found in some amphibians such as frogs. The vertebrae fit together in a ball-and-socket articulation, in which the convex articular feature of an anterior vertebra acts as the ball to the socket of a caudal vertebra. This type of connection permits a wide range of motion in most directions, while still protecting the underlying nerve cord. The central point of rotation is located at the midline of each centrum, and therefore flexion of the muscle surrounding the vertebral column does not lead to an opening between vertebrae.
In many species, though not in mammals, the cervical vertebrae bear ribs. In many groups, such as lizards and saurischian dinosaurs, the cervical ribs are large; in birds, they are small and completely fused to the vertebrae. The transverse processes of mammals are homologous to the cervical ribs of other amniotes. In the whale the cervical vertebrae are typically fused, an adaptation trading flexibility for stability during swimming. All mammals except manatees and sloths have seven cervical vertebrae, whatever the length of the neck. This includes seemingly unlikely animals such as the giraffe, the camel, and the blue whale, for example. Birds usually have more cervical vertebrae with most having a highly flexible neck consisting of 13–25 vertebrae.
In all mammals, the thoracic vertebrae are connected to ribs and their bodies differ from the other regional vertebrae due to the presence of facets. Each vertebra has a facet on each side of the vertebral body, which articulates with the head of a rib. There is also a facet on each of the transverse processes which articulates with the tubercle of a rib. The number of thoracic vertebrae varies considerably across the species. Most marsupials have thirteen, but koalas only have eleven. The norm is twelve to fifteen in mammals, (twelve in the human), though there are from eighteen to twenty in the horse, tapir, rhinoceros and elephant. In certain sloths there is an extreme number of twenty-five and at the other end only nine in the cetacean.
There are fewer lumbar vertebrae in chimpanzees and gorillas, which have three in contrast to the five in the genus "Homo". This reduction in number gives an inability of the lumbar spine to lordose but gives an anatomy that favours vertical climbing, and hanging ability more suited to feeding locations in high-canopied regions. The bonobo differs by having four lumbar vertebrae.
Caudal vertebrae are the bones that make up the tails of vertebrates. They range in number from a few to fifty, depending on the length of the animal's tail.
In humans and other tailless primates, they are called the coccygeal vertebrae, number from three to five and are fused into the coccyx.


Lindi sharp-snouted worm lizard

The Lindi sharp-snouted worm lizard ("Ancylocranium barkeri)" is a worm lizard species in the family Amphisbaenidae. It is endemic to Tanzania.
Etymology.
The specific name, "barkeri" is in honor of New Zealander zoologist Ronald de la Bere Barker (1889–?).


Ptychodactis

Ptychodactis is a genus of sea anemones. It is the only genus in the monotypic family Ptychodactinidae.
Species.
There are two species recognized in the genus:


Martinique giant ameiva

The Martinique giant ameiva ("Pholidoscelis major") was a species of lizard in the family Teiidae.
It is believed to have been endemic to Martinique, though at least one scholar disputes this, instead placing it on Les Iles de la Petite Terre within the Guadeloupean archipelago. It is known only from museum specimens collected by early European explorers. Its extinction may have been caused by a hurricane, or through the introduction of predatory species to the island.


Hoof

A hoof ( or ), plural hooves ( or ) or hoofs , is the tip of a toe of an ungulate mammal, strengthened by a thick and horny keratin covering.
Artiodactyls are even-toed ungulates, meaning that these species have an even number of digits on each foot. Ruminants, with two main digits, are the largest group. Examples include deer, bison, cattle, goats and sheep. Perissodactyls walk on an odd number of toes. Examples of perissodactyl mammals are horses, rhinoceroses and tapirs.
Hooves are generally cited as limb structures restricted to placental mammals, which unlike other mammal groups undergo prolonged pregnancies. However, the marsupial "Chaeropus" had hooves.
Description.
The hoof surrounds the distal end of the second phalanx, the distal phalanx, and the navicular bone. The hoof consists of the hoof wall, the bars of the hoof, the sole and frog and soft tissue shock absorption structures. The weight of the animal is normally borne by both the sole and the edge of the hoof wall. Hooves perform many functions, including supporting the weight of the animal, dissipating the energy impact as the hooves strike the ground or surface, protecting the tissues and bone within the hoof capsule, and providing traction for the animal. Numerous factors can affect hoof structure and health, including genetics, hoof conformation, environmental influences, and athletic performance of the animal. The ideal hoof has a parallel hoof-pastern axis, a thick hoof wall, adequate sole depth, a solid heel base and growth rings of equal size under the coronary band.
There are four layers within the exterior wall of the hoof. From the outside, a hoof is made up of the stratum externum, the stratum medium, the stratum internum and the dermis parietis. The stratum externum and the stratum medium are difficult to distinguish, the stratum externum is thin and the stratum medium is what makes up the bulk of the hoof wall. Inside the hoof wall is a laminar junction, a soft tissue structure that allows the hoof to withstand the demands of force transmission it undergoes. This tissue structure binds the inner surface of the hoof wall, the dermis parietis and the outer surface of the third phalanx.
Most even-toed ungulates (such as sheep, goats, deer, cattle, bison and pigs) have two main hooves on each foot, together called a cloven hoof. Most of these cloven-hooved animals also have two smaller hooves called "dewclaws" a little further up the leg – these are not normally used for walking, but in some species with larger dewclaws (such as deer and pigs) they may touch the ground when running or jumping, or if the ground is soft. In the mountain goat, the dewclaw serves to provide extra traction when descending rocky slopes as well as additional drag on loose or slippery surfaces made of ice, dirt, or snow. Other cloven-hooved animals (such as giraffes and pronghorns) have no dewclaws.
In some so-called "cloven-hooved" animals, such as camels, the "hoof" is not properly a hoof – it is not a hard or rubbery sole with a hard wall formed by a thick nail – instead it is a soft toe with little more than a nail merely having an appearance of a hoof.
Some odd-toed ungulates (equids) have one hoof on each foot; others have (or had) three distinct hooved or heavily nailed toes, or one hoof and two dewclaws. The tapir is a special case, having three toes on each hind foot and four toes on each front foot.
Management.
Hooves grow continuously. In nature, wild animals are capable of wearing down the hoof as it continuously grows, but captive domesticated species often must undergo specific hoof care for a healthy, functional hoof. Proper care improves biomechanical efficiency and prevents lameness. If not worn down enough by use, such as in the dairy industry, hooves may need to be trimmed. However, too much wear can result in damage of the hooves, and for this reason, horseshoes and oxshoes are used by animals that routinely walk on hard surfaces and carry heavy weight.
Horses.
Within the equine world, the expression, "no foot, no horse" emphasizes the importance of hoof health. Hoof care is most well-known with the equine industry. Problems that can arise with poor horse hoof care include hoof cracks, thrush, abscesses and laminitis.
Cattle.
A cow hoof is cloven, or divided, into two approximately equal parts, usually called claws. Approximately 95% of lameness in dairy cattle occurs in the feet. Lameness in dairy cows can reduce milk production and fertility, and cause reproductive problems and suffering. For dairy farm profitability, lameness, behind only infertility and mastitis, is the third most important cow health issue.
Hoof trimmers trim and care for bovine hooves, usually dairy cows. Hooves can be trimmed with a sharp knife while the cow is restrained and positioned with ropes. Professional hoof-trimming tend to use angle grinders and of some type of hoof trimming crush to make the process quicker and less physically demanding on the hoof trimmer. A hoof trimmer using modern machinery may trim the hooves of more than 10.000 cows per year. The trimmer shapes the hooves to provide the optimal weight bearing surface. A freshly trimmed hoof may be treated with copper sulfate to prevent foot rot.
In culture.
Hooves have historical significance in ceremonies and games. They have been used in burial ceremonies.


Sublingual vein

The sublingual vein is a vein which drains the tongue.


Albert Brachet

Albert Auguste Toussaint Brachet (1 January 1869 – 27 December 1930) was a Belgian physician and professor of anatomy and embryology at the University of Bruxelles. Brachet was a founder of the field of "causal embryology", the study of embryology and development using experiments.
Brachet was born in Liège of French ancestry. He studied medicine in Liège where he took an interest in embryology under Edouard van Beneden. He worked for a while as histology preparator for Auguste Swaen. He received his doctor of medicine in 1894 followed by some studies at Edinburgh University under Sir William Turner and then in Germany under Ernst Gaupp and Gustav Jacob Born. He returned to Liège and became an assistant in anatomy in 1895. He studied cranial development in the amphibians and reptiles. In 1904 he became Chair of Anatomy and Embryology at Bruxelles where he worked until his death. His son Jean Brachet became a physiologist and biochemist.
Brachet moved from the descriptive embryology of his period to experimental approaches which involved experiments such as the removal of specific cells in the embryo to observe the alteration in development. He gave the approach the name of "causal embryology." Brachet served as Rector of the University of Brussels from 1923 to 1926. His students included Pol Gerard, Maurice Herlant and Albert Dalcq.


Pelecaniformes

The Pelecaniformes are an order of medium-sized and large waterbirds found worldwide. As traditionally—but erroneously—defined, they encompass all birds that have feet with all four toes webbed. Hence, they were formerly also known by such names as totipalmates or steganopodes. Most have a bare throat patch (gular patch), and the nostrils have evolved into dysfunctional slits, forcing them to breathe through their mouths. They also have a pectinate nail on their longest toe. This is shaped like a comb and is used to brush out and separate their feathers. They feed on fish, squid, or similar marine life. Nesting is colonial, but individual birds are monogamous. The young are altricial, hatching from the egg helpless and naked in most. They lack a brood patch.
The pelicans, shoebill and hamerkop form a clade within the order, with their next closest relatives being a clade containing the herons, ibises and spoonbills. The Fregatidae (frigatebirds), Sulidae (gannets and boobies), Phalacrocoracidae (cormorants and shags), Anhingidae (darters), and Phaethontidae (tropicbirds) were traditionally placed in the Pelecaniformes, but molecular and morphological studies indicate they are not such close relatives. They have been placed in their own orders, Suliformes and Phaethontiformes, respectively.
Systematics and evolution.
Classically, bird relationships were based solely on morphological characteristics. The Pelecaniformes were traditionally, but erroneously, defined as birds that have feet with all four toes webbed (totipalmate), as opposed to all other birds with webbed feet where only three of four were webbed. Hence, they were formerly also known by such names as totipalmates or steganopodes. The group included frigatebirds, gannets, cormorants, anhingas, and tropicbirds.
Sibley and Ahlquist's landmark DNA-DNA hybridisation studies (see Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy) led to them placing the families traditionally contained within the Pelecaniformes together with the grebes, cormorants, ibises and spoonbills, New World vultures, storks, penguins, albatrosses, petrels, and loons together as a subgroup within a greatly expanded order Ciconiiformes, a radical move which by now has been all but rejected: their "Ciconiiformes" merely assembled all early advanced land- and seabirds for which their research technique delivered insufficient phylogenetic resolution.
Morphological study has suggested pelicans are sister to a gannet-cormorant clade, yet genetic analysis groups them with the hamerkop and shoebill, though the exact relationship between the three is unclear. Mounting evidence pointed to the shoebill as a close relative of pelicans. This also included microscopic analysis of eggshell structure by Konstantin Mikhailov in 1995, who found that the shells of pelecaniform eggs (including those of the shoebill but not the tropicbirds) were covered in a thick microglobular material. Reviewing genetic evidence to date, Cracraft and colleagues surmised that pelicans were sister to the shoebill with the hamerkop as the next earlier offshoot. Ericson and colleagues sampled five nuclear genes in a 2006 study spanning the breadth of bird lineages, and came up with pelicans, shoebill and hamerkop in a clade. Hackett and colleagues sampled 32 kilobases of nuclear DNA and recovered shoebill and hamerkop as sister taxa, pelicans sister to them, and herons and ibises as sister groups to each other with this heron and ibis group a sister to the pelican/shoebill/hamerkop clade.
The current International Ornithological Committee classification has pelicans grouped with the shoebill (Balaenicipitidae), hamerkop (Scopidae), ibises and spoonbills (Threskiornithidae), and herons, egrets and bitterns (Ardeidae).
Recent research strongly suggests that the similarities between the Pelecaniformes as traditionally defined are the result of convergent evolution rather than common descent, and that the group is paraphyletic. All families in the traditional or revised Pelecaniformes except the Phalacrocoracidae have only a few handfuls of species at most, but many were more numerous in the Early Neogene. Fossil genera and species are discussed in the respective family or genus accounts; one little-known prehistoric Pelecaniforms, however, cannot be classified accurately enough to assign them to a family. This is ""Sula" ronzoni" from Early Oligocene rocks at Ronzon, France, which was initially believed to be a sea-duck and possibly is an ancestral Pelecaniform.
The pelecaniform lineages appear to have originated around the end of the Cretaceous. Monophyletic or not, they appear to belong to a close-knit group of "higher waterbirds" which also includes groups such as penguins and Procellariiformes. Quite a lot of fossil bones from around the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary cannot be firmly placed with any of these orders and rather combine traits of several of them. This is, of course, only to be expected, if the theory that most if not all of these "higher waterbird" lineages originated around that time is correct. Of those apparently basal taxa, the following show some similarities to the traditional Pelecaniformes:
The proposed Elopterygidae—supposedly a family of Cretaceous Pelecaniformes—are neither monophyletic nor does "Elopteryx" appear to be a modern bird.


List of triple tautonyms

The following is a list of triple tautonyms: zoological names of species consisting of three identical words (the generic name, the specific name and the subspecies have the same spelling). Such names are allowed in zoology, but not in botany, where the two parts of the name of a species must differ (though differences as small as one letter are permitted, as in the jujube ("Ziziphus zizyphus")).


Antygomonas

Antygomonas is a genus of cyclorhagids. It is the only genus in the family Antygomonidae Adrianov & Malakhov, 1994. Species of "Antygomonas" are commonly referred to as "mud dragons."


Occipital emissary vein

The occipital emissary vein is a small emissary vein which passes through the condylar canal.


Eureptilia

Eureptilia ("true reptiles") is one of the two major clades of the Sauropsida, the other being Parareptilia. Eureptilia includes not only all Diapsids, but also a number of primitive Permo-Carboniferous forms previously classified under the Anapsida, in the old (no longer recognised) order "Cotylosauria".
Primitive were all small, superficially lizard-like forms, that probably scurried through the Paleozoic undergrowth in search of insects. The diapsids are the only eureptilian clade to continue beyond the Permian Period. Eureptilia is characterized by the skull having greatly reduced supraoccipital, tabular, and supratemporal bones that are no longer in contact with the postorbital.
Classification.
Eureptilia was defined as a stem-based clade, specifically, the most inclusive clade containing "Captorhinus aguti" and "Petrolacosaurus kansensis" but not "Procolophon trigoniceps", by Tsuji and Müller (2009). The cladogram here was modified after Muller and Reisz (2006):


William Kitchen Parker

William Kitchen Parker FRS FRMS (23 June 1823 – 3 July 1890) was an English physician, zoologist and comparative anatomist. From a humble beginning he became Hunterian Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the College of Surgeons of England.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1865, awarded the Royal Medal in 1866. From 1871–73 he was President of the Royal Microscopical Society, and in 1885 he received the Baly Medal of the Royal College of Physicians.
Life.
Parker was born in the village of Dogsthorpe, near Peterborough in the County of Northamptonshire. His father, Thomas Parker, was a working farmer, living in a thatched house, built in 1635. Thomas was a Wesleyan of the old school: a Methodist-Churchman, God-fearing and courteous, farming his own land. He married the daughter of another farmer, Sarah Kitchen, whose name was also given to their son William.
William Parker was the second son, and six other children in the family died in their infancy. He went to a village dame school early in life, then to parish schools in Werrington and Paston. Schooling was interspersed with farm-work.
After telling his father that farm-work was not for him, Parker entered the Peterborough Grammar School for nine months, and then started on the road to medical education. He was articled to a surgeon at Market Overton in 1842, using his spare time to teach himself about the plants of the neighbourhood. His knowledge of botany became remarkably extensive and accurate.
In 1842 he became apprenticed to a country surgeon. During this time he continued educating himself in natural history by reading, looking and doing. The doing consisted of collecting and dissecting birds and mammals, and working up a portfolio of exquisitely beautiful and accurate drawings.
Parker married Elizabeth Jeffery whilst still a student: she was the daughter of the clerk to the Vauxhall Bridge Company. Her mother was the sister of Joseph Prendergast DD (1791–1875), the Headmaster of Colfe's School (1831–1857), and the benefactor of Prendergast School, both in the borough of Lewisham.
William and Elizabeth had seven children, three daughters and four sons. The first son, Thomas Jeffery Parker, became Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in the University of Otago, New Zealand; the second, William Newton Parker, became Professor of Biology in the University College, Cardiff; the third was a draughtsman and lithographer; the fourth was a surgeon. In his work on the vertebrate skull Parker became close to Thomas Henry Huxley, and named one of his sons after him. His first son was sent to study under Huxley, and became in 1872 one of Huxley's demonstrators.
Parker was elected FRS in 1865, and a few years afterwards the Royal Society gave him an annual grant to aid his work, and a generous Wesleyan friend more than once presented £100 towards the cost of publishing some of his plates. Later in life a State pension was awarded.
The honours and appointments Parker gained later in life were due mainly for his work on the vertebrate skeleton and its significance in establishing a "true theory of the vertebrate skull" (Edward Sabine). His Royal Society obituary notice described him as "An unworldly seeker after truth, loved by all who knew him". He is buried in a Wandsworth cemetery under a cross of red granite.
Medical training.
Parker studied at King's College London from 1844–46, and became a student-demonstrator there to Mr (later Sir) William Bowman, the surgeon, histologist and anatomist. He attended Charing Cross Hospital in 1846–47. He never took notes during lectures, but drew sketches, and claimed he remembered the facts as well as anyone who took notes. He produced sheet after sheet of artistic drawing, all worthy of publication and large numbers of skeletons of birds and mammals. He attended Richard Owen's lectures at the College of Surgeons, and "received with enthusiasm the doctrine of the archetype which he was afterwards to do so much to overturn".
Parker avoided taking exams, and remained for many years with the minimum qualification for running a general medical practice, which in those days was an LSA (Licenciate of the Society of Apothecaries), a qualification of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. From 1849, Parker ran a general practice in London for many years, at various locations. The income supported his family, but his interest was in zoology, at which he was entirely self-taught. Today he is remembered only as a zoologist, one of a quite a sizeable groupincluding Thomas Henry Huxley, Richard Owen and Joseph Dalton Hookerwho were qualified in medicine but whose life work was in natural history or one of the newly named biological sciences.
Career in zoology.
Forams.
Introduced to the microscope during his medical studies, Parker continued to study the microscopic structure of tissues. It was on a visit to Bognor collecting sand that he encountered Polyzoa and Foraminifera, which he sorted, mounted and studied. Parker became one of the greatest authorities on the Foraminifera, a group containing microscopic single-celled amoeboid protists with calcareous tests (shells). Had he not met Rupert Jones and Crawford Williamson he might have remained an unpublished amateur. It was Jones, mainly, who taught him how to present his considerable knowledge, and together they wrote 34 papers on the forams.
Morphology of birds.
At the same time, Parker worked on his dissections, preparations and skeletons of vertebrates, especially birds. He developed, for example, about 300 preparations of bird wings and many complete skeletons. This work resulted in 24 papers on birds, including one on Archaeopteryx. There is a general article on birds in Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed.
Owen's concept of vertebrate anatomy.
Richard Owen was one of Parker's teachers, yet Parker came to overthrow the master's ideas. Owen's view on anatomy did not derive from evolution, but from German philosophical notions of idealism. These ideas, associated in biology with Goethe and Kant, and developed in anatomy by Oken and Cuvier, were used by Owen in his theoretical expositions. Vertebrate anatomy, in this scheme, was to be seen as variations on an archetype.
From an idea of Goethe's in 1790, Oken developed a theory that the bones of the skull were four modified vertebrae. Oken's exaggeration "The entire man is only a vertebra" was memorable. Oken's ideas were revived and expanded by Owen, and presented to the British Association meeting in 1846.
The weak point in Owen's theory was its basis solely on the more derived and specialised skulls, and even so it took no notice of their embryological development. For example, Owen made no reference to the work of Rathke, who had shown in 1839 that there was no sign of the four vertebrae in the early embryo of snakes.
The assault on Owen's system.
Huxley was the first man to attack Owen's ideas on the vertebrate skeleton, in his Croonian Lecture to the Royal Society in 1858. He showed from a study of the early stages of lower fish, and also the stickleback and the frog, that the segmentation of the skull in higher vertebrata is a secondary process, and is independent of vertebration. The basis of the work was embryology, but the early history of the skull was known in only a few species.
Parker's distinction was to carry out a careful study of the process in a much wider variety of vertebrates; his ironic comment on the "anatomical suffering caused to fish from their being dragged into harmony with that mischievous piece of work, the vertebrate archetype" shows, from such a gentle man, a surprising vigour in debate. "It is high time for us to have ceased from transcendentalism: of what use is it?" he asked.
Parker on the vertebrate skull.
From 1865 to 1888 Parker published 36 studies on the vertebrate skull, including a monograph . The entire series comprises nearly 1800 pages of letterpress and about 270 plates. The work was summarised in Francis Balfour's "Comparative Embryology" of 1881, and settled the fate of Owen's transcendental archetype theory of the vertebrate skull once and for all.
The vertebrate shoulder-girdle.
Another major vertebrate project was a monograph on the comparative anatomy of the vertebrate shoulder-girdle (pectoral girdle). One of the chief results of this work was, by demonstrating the true homologies of the various bones of the shoulder-girdle in fishes, to overthrow Owen's theory of the nature of limbs. Parker showed (contrary to Owen) that the true shoulder-girdle is from the first totally independent of the skull. In teleost and ganoid fish, the skull and shoulder-girdle are brought into connexion by derivatives of the skin-skeleton, not by bones of the shoulder-girdle. Discoveries like this alerted Parker to the failure of the great system of transcendental anatomy which Owen had done so much to establish.
Royal College of Surgeons.
In 1873, Professor Flower was invalided, and Parker was asked to step in the breach. He took his MRCS diploma by viva voce, and was appointed Professor. Afterwards, they shared the Hunterian chair jointly.
Difficulty in writing.
There are many indications that Parker found writing difficult, and avoided it, and when forced to write the result was often scarcely comprehensible. Whatever the reason, he needed, and got, help and advice. Huxley gave him detailed advice more than once, which Parker either ignored or could not put into action.
Although Parker could scarcely write a simple descriptive sentence to save his life, he certainly had a huge grasp of the imagery and poetics of the English language. This is part of one sequence quoted by his son:
That is certainly not the prose of the usual science author. At least two of Parker's books were written with help: his "Morphology of the skull" was written from his dictation and notes by G.T. Bettany, and his 1884 lectures "On mammalian descent" were written with the help of a friend, Arabella Buckley, who had been Charles Lyell's secretary.
Parker's avoidance of exams also points towards an avoidance of writing, especially since his early career would have been much improved by taking a higher qualification. As far as we know, it was not a lack of money which prevented him taking exams (as it was with Huxley). His father, though not wealthy, was able to give his children a start in life.
Dyslexia is a possible explanation, but it is hard to reconcile with passages such as the above. Perhaps an upbringing in a farmhouse with little reading material apart from the Bible, and little opportunity to practice writing in his early years led to his unusual characteristics as a scientific writer.


Bili ape

The Bili apes or Bondo mystery apes were names given in 2003 in sensational reports in the popular media to a purportedly new species of highly aggressive, giant ape supposedly inhabiting the wetlands and savannah around of the city of Bili in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "The apes nest on the ground like gorillas, but they have a diet and features characteristic of chimpanzees", according to a 2003 "National Geographic" article.
It soon turned out they were common chimpanzees, and part of a larger contiguous population stretching throughout that part of northern Congo. Genetic testing with non-nuclear DNA in 2003 immediately indicated that is was in fact part of the already described eastern chimpanzee ("Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii") a subspecies of the common chimpanzee.
History.
Skulls of gorillas were first collected near the town of Bili in 1908. These were sent to the colonial power of Belgium, and in 1927 a new subspecies of gorilla, "Gorilla gorilla uellensis", was described based upon these specimens. Colin Groves examined the skulls in 1970 and determined that they were indistinguishable from western gorillas.
Karl Ammann, a Swiss Kenyan photographer and anti-bushmeat campaigner, first visited the city in 1996, looking for the gorillas, but instead bought a skull that had dimensions like that of a chimpanzee, but with a prominent crest like that of a gorilla. Ammann purchased a photograph from hunters of what looked like a very big chimpanzee. Ammann also measured a faecal dropping three times as big as normal chimp dung and casts of footprints as large as or larger than a gorilla's.
Ammann, with a group of foreign researchers, returned in 2000 to an area described by a Cameroonian bushmeat hunter he had sent to scout the area first a few years earlier. Although they did not see any chimpanzees, they did find several well-worn ground nests, characteristic of gorillas rather than chimpanzees, in swampy river beds.
In 2001, an international team of scientists, including George Schaller and Mike Belliveau, were recruited by Karl Ammann to search for apes, but the venture came up empty.
After a five-year-long war ended in 2003, it was easier for scientists to conduct field research in the Congo. Also recruited by Ammann was Shelly Williams, an experimental psychologist affiliated with "National Geographic" magazine, who claimed to be the first scientist to see the 'Bili apes'. Williams returned to the USA with videos, apparently purchased from one of Ammann's long-term trackers. Williams reported on her close encounter, "we could hear them in the trees, about 10 m away, and four suddenly came rushing through the brush towards me. If this had been a mock charge they would have been screaming to intimidate us. These guys were quiet, and they were huge. They were coming in for the kill – but as soon as they saw my face they stopped and disappeared".
According to Williams, who claims she learnt Lingala, the local populace classified great apes into two distinct groups. There are the "tree beaters", which disperse high into the trees to stay safe, and easily succumb to the poison arrows used by local hunters. Then there are the "lion killers", which seldom climb trees, are bigger and darker, and are unaffected by the poison arrows. Other reports attribute this statement to Ammann. Williams claimed to have observed three species of chimpanzees, including this new one, during her summer tour.
"The unique characteristics they exhibit just don't fit into the other groups of apes", said Williams. The apes, she argued, could be a new species unknown to science, a new subspecies of chimpanzee, or a hybrid of the gorilla and the chimp. "At the very least, we have a unique, isolated chimp culture that's unlike any that's been studied", she said. These and other sensational pronouncements to the media proved controversial, and Williams was subsequently no longer welcome to study the animals with Ammann. Ammann had published a letter in 2003 decrying Williams' unprofessional involvement. Williams vowed to continue without him, making plans for another expedition. Cleve Hicks, a primatologist recruited by Ammann in 2004, stated "genetically, they're not even a subspecies".
Mitochondrial DNA resolved from hairs taken from the nests found in 2003 that the chimps belonged to "Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii". Williams countered that all these hairs may have contaminated by real chimps or humans, or that the conventional use of mDNA regions discovered in human research as genetic markers was incorrect in primatology, or that the mDNA, which is only transmitted by mothers, would not reflect one-way hybridisation with male gorillas.
In 2004 Hicks studied several communities of the chimpanzees approximately 60 km northwest of the town of Bili. Although the apes, including adult males, would surround the humans and display an interest or curiosity in them, somewhat like previous reports, they did not attack or become threatening.
In 2005 Williams was paralysed in an accident, and her claims to the media ceased. She never mounted her planned expedition.
By 2006 Hicks and colleagues had completed another long hunt for the chimpanzees during which they were able to observe the creatures a total of twenty hours. Hicks reported, "I see nothing gorilla about them. The females definitely have a chimp's sex swellings, they pant-hoot and tree-drum, and so on". DNA samples recovered from faeces also reaffirmed the classification of these apes in the chimp subspecies "P. t. schweinfurthii". When a report on Hicks' research on the "New Scientist" website was later confused with claims originating from Williams, Hicks wrote to claim the article misreported and misquoted him.
In 2019 Hicks and others published a comprehensive report on the chimpanzees of the wider 'Bili-Uéré region', as they termed the central part of the Uélé watershed. The old giant ape controversy was ignored entirely. Twenty chimp groups were studied over twelve years. In the work, Hicks "et al". classifies the chimps of this area as a behavioural "realm", subdivided into many "regions", united by common preferences and techniques, defined by tool use, dietary preferences and such habits. Chimps of Bili-Uéré, for example, do not eat termites of the "Macrotermes" genus, which are otherwise much loved by the apes, unless the termites are having a mating swarm. Despite early reports of super-long rods used to fish termites, Hicks "et al". document that these chimps do "not" use rods to fish for termites at all, but instead bash the mounds open against roots.
Description.
Williams initially claimed the apes were bipedal (meaning they walk upright) and stand over six feet (almost two meters) tall, with the looks of a giant chimpanzee.
According to Williams, "They have a very flat face, a wide muzzle and their brow-ridge runs straight across and overhangs. They seem to turn grey very early in life, but instead of turning grey-black like a gorilla, they turn grey all over." They develop uniform grey fur independently of age and sex, which suggests that greying takes place early in life (whereas in all known gorilla species, only males gray as they age and graying is restricted to their backs).
A single skull from Bili has the prominent brow ridge and a sagittal crest similar to that of a gorilla, but other morphological measurements are like those of chimpanzees. Only one of the many skulls found at Bili had a sagittal crest, thus it cannot be considered typical for the population.
Female Bili apes have genital swellings similar to other chimpanzees, although Williams claimed otherwise.
Behavior.
According to Williams, the apes howled at the moon. Hicks and Ammann disputed that.
According to Hicks, in some ways, the apes behave more like gorillas than chimpanzees. For example, they build ground nests as gorillas do, using interwoven branches and/or saplings, bent down into a central bowl. However, they frequently nest in the trees as well. Often ground nests will be found beneath or in proximity to tree nests. Their diet is decidedly chimpanzee-like, consisting mainly of fruits (fruiting trees such as strangler figs are visited often).
Hicks observed one group far from the roads and villages in 2004, saying that when they encountered it, the chimps not only approached the humans, but also would actually surround them with intent curiosity. Hicks found the behavior toward humans intriguing. They would come face-to-face, stare intently, then slide away quietly. There was little to no aggression, yet no fear, either. "Gorilla males will always charge when they encounter a hunter, but there were no stories like that" about the chimpanzees, according to Ammann. Hicks clarifies Williams' claims as follows: the apes within 20 km or so of the roads flee humans almost without exception. The adult males show the greatest fear. Further from the roads, however, the chimpanzees become progressively "naive".
Distribution.
Bili is a city, and a river tributary, which lies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's far north, about 200 kilometres east of the Ebola River. It lies to the north of the Uélé River, to the south of this river lie deep tropical rainforests, whereas around Bili lie wetlands and the forests are broken by patches of savanna. Civil war and neglect had left the region relatively undeveloped and wild, with people still using home-made guns of ancient design in 2005.
Chimpanzees were also tracked by Ammann in the region near the city of Bondo, 200 kilometres to the west, in 2004.
In 2006 Hicks moved the study to the much denser forests around Gangu, south of the Uélé, and 50 to 55 kilometers from the road to Bili. By 2007 they had grown frightened of the new arrivals to the city of Bili as gold was found in the region, and moved south of the Uélé. In 2007 Hicks was based in the city of Aketi, a few hundred kilometres southwest of Bondo.
As of 2014, a large contiguous population of chimpanzees is now known to occur in the lands along both sides of the Uélé throughout Bas-Uélé District, in a range of habitats. They can be found throughout the region, in the savannahs around Bili and the dense rainforests a few hundred kilometres south. They are adapted to humans and occur within four kilometres of Bili, as well as other neighbouring towns such as Lebo and Zapay, and within thirteen kilometres of large cities such as Buta.
Conservation.
Primates throughout the Congo are hunted for bushmeat, although less to the north of the Uélé. Beginning in 2007 the Bili area saw an influx of gold miners, prompting concern by Westerners about the animals in the area. Over a 14-month period between September 2007 and November 2008, Hicks and his associates documented 34 chimpanzee young and 31 carcasses for sale in the cities of Buta, Aketi and Bambesa.