Geography of New Caledonia a refugium, in effect a biological "Noah's Ark", an island home to both unique living plants and animals and also to its own special fossil endowment. Birds such as the crested and almost flightless kagu (French, "cagou") "Rhynochetos jubatus", whose closest relative may be the distantly related sunbittern of South America, and plants such as "Amborella trichopoda", the only known member of the most basal living branch of flowering plants, make this island a treasure trove and a critical concern for biologists and conservationists. The island was home to horned fossil turtles ("Meiolania mackayi") and terrestrial fossil crocodiles ("Mekosuchus inexpectatus")
Yale (mythical creature) Yale (mythical creature) The yale or centicore (Latin: "eale") is a mythical beast found in European mythology and heraldry. Most descriptions make it an antelope- or goat-like four-legged creature with the tusks of a boar and large horns that it can swivel in any direction. The name might be derived from Hebrew יָעֵל ("yael"), meaning "Ibex". The yale was first written about by Pliny the Elder in Book VIII of his "Natural History": he describes the "eale" as a creature found in Aethiopia "the size of a hippopotamus, with an elephant's tail, of a black or tawny colour, with the