White-tailed ptarmigan The species name "leucura" was for a long time misspelt "leucurus", in the erroneous belief that the ending of "Lagopus" denotes masculine gender. However, as the Ancient Greek term "λαγωπους" is of feminine gender, and the species name has to agree with that, the feminine "leucura" is correct. The species name "leucura" is derived from the Latinized version of the Greek "leukos", meaning "white" and "oura", meaning "tail", in reference to the bird's permanently white tail. The white-tailed ptarmigan is the smallest of the ptarmigans and the smallest bird in the grouse family. It is a stocky bird with rounded
Winter white dwarf hamster able to sense a directional change in photoperiod length, such as in one experiment that demonstrated a transition from 16 hours of light to 14 hours initiates a change to the winter coat. The change to the winter coat can be triggered in the summer by the short day lengths. The change occurs back to the summer coat in the autumn, when the length of the days change again. At internal temperatures hamsters in captivity start later with the changes. The winter colour is less pronounced in them. The eyes of the Winter white hamster are black, unless it is