.
A baseline determination of the early spring (August - September) diet of the Namaqualand speckled padloper (Homopus signatus signatus) was accomplished using in situ observation and faecal analysis methods. I analysed 13 focal observations and 49 faecal samples. Tortoises fed on a broad variety of plant species, possibly supplemented with a few insects. Important food items appeared to be Oxalis spp., Leysera tenella, Grielum humifusum and Crassula thunbergiana minutiflora. Crassula t. minutiflora may be a potential source of water as it is a succulent. Flowers were present in 96% of the faecal samples and may be an effect of the study period. Almost all faecal samples contained nematodes and their eggs, sometimes in huge quantities, but the effect on the tortoise population is not known. Since only 50 - 60% of the faecal volume could be identified, care must be taken in deriving conclusions from this study. I recommend that future dietary studies of H. s. signatus emphasise focal observations, include pollen analysis, and determine food availability in different seasons to identify preferences and temporal shifts.
Female reproductive characteristics (clutch size [CS], egg volume [EV] and egg mass [EM]) of <I>Agama impalearis&lt;/I&gt; and their annual variation were studied over a six-year period (1993-1998) in the central Jbilet mountains, Western Morocco. Females produced one to two clutches per season and reproduced invariably from spring to late summer, irrespective of climatic conditions. Overall mean CS was 14 eggs per clutch (range: six to 23). CS was positively correlated with snout-vent-length (SVL), but not with relative laying date (RLD). There was no among year variation in CS within each age class with three-year-old females producing larger clutches over the studied period. Both SVL-unadjusted and adjusted mean CSs varied significantly from year to year; the largest adjusted CS occurred in 1995 (14.6 &lt;u&gt;+&lt;/u&gt; 0.6 eggs). A stepwise regression analysis using seasonal total precipitations and mean temperatures as independent variables indicated that clutch size is significantly related to spring precipitation, whereas it is not related to any other climatic variables tested, including all seasonal mean temperatures. Both EV and EM were not correlated with SVL, CS or RDL in any year, but they exhibit a significant annual variation with the smallest and lightest eggs produced in 1996 (1870.3 &lt;u&gt;+&lt;/u&gt; 372.4 mm&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt; and 1.05 &lt;u&gt;+&lt;/u&gt; 0.19 g, respectively) and the largest and heaviest ones in 1993 (2550.3 &lt;u&gt;+&lt;/u&gt; 647.7 mm&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt; and 1.16 <u>+</u>0.27 g, respectively). Neither EV nor EM was related to precipitation or temperature. The results suggest that reproductive female <I>A. impalearis&lt;/I&gt; are adapted to unpredictable proximate environmental factors, in particular spring precipitation which probably ensures sufficient resource levels for the long breeding season.
Amphibians occupy many diverse habitats across the globe. They are an important ecological resource and are sensitive to a number of environmental factors, both natural and anthropogenic.
Extracted from text... Short communication Intergroup-movement in a group-living lizard, Cordylus cataphractus, from South Africa LOUISE VISAGIE1, P. LE FRAS N. MOUTON2, AND ALEXANDER F. FLEMMING1 1, 2Department of Zoology, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa, 2Corresponding |||EMAIL_ADDRESS||| Key words.- Cordylidae, Armadillo Lizard, group stability, mark-recapture. 75 African Journal of Herpetology, 2002 51(1): 75-80. The armadillo lizard, Cordylus cataphractus, is a rock-dwelling cordylid restricted to the arid, western region of South Africa (Mouton 1988). It naturally occurs in groups (Peers 1930; Mouton et al. 1999) and laboratory experiments have shown that its grouping behaviour is the result of mutual..
In recent years the plight of amphibians was emphasised and received much more attention than in the past when amphibians to a large extent were treated as the "step children" among the vertebrates. Frog populations are declining not only in disturbed, but also in pristine habitats (Blaustein & Wake 1990).IRAN has vowed to bring down Donald Trump in next year’s election “just like it did with Jimmy Carter” after the 1980 hostage crisis.
Tensions between the Islamic Republic and the US are at boiling point after Iranian-backed militia were blamed for an attack on a Saudi oil field on Saturday.
Today the Fars News Agency, affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, said the regime wants to ensure that US President Trump does not win a second term.
It said: “Iran brought down Jimmy Carter & will bring down Donald Trump in the 2020 election".
The agency also said the oil planet attack “may be followed" by strikes on Saudi’s infrastructures including water and power stations – despite Tehran initially denying involvement in the drone assault.
The Iranian hostage crisis lasted for 444 days and contributed heavily to US President Carter losing the 1980 election.
It involved 52 American diplomats being taken captive in Tehran in the days after the 1979 Iranian revolution which saw the US-backed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi overthrown.
Carter’s failed attempts to rescue the hostages, along with a struggling economy at the time, created a narrative that he was a weak leader and that his tenure in the White House was a disaster.
To rub salt in the wound, Iran released the hostages on January 20, 1981 – the exact same day his successor Ronald Reagan became US President.
This comes as Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said any US or Saudi military strike against Tehran would bring "all-out war".
Washington has been discussing with Saudi and other Gulf allies about possible responses to the attack - which US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described as an act of war.
Asked what the consequence of an American or a Saudi military strike on Iran would be, he said "an all-out war".
Zarif earlier warned on Twitter regional rivals including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman were deceiving US President Donald Trump into a war.
Meanwhile, a senior adviser to Iran's top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Gulf countries to "come to their senses", Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks, which was claimed by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group.
"They accuse Iran because they don't believe the oppressed Yemeni nation has reached such a capability," Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, state news agency IRNA reported.
First leaked in September, Amazon’s Android app store will be a curated market, meaning Amazon reviewers will determine which apps are allowed inside, similar to Apple’s iTunes App Store. That’s a contrast to Google’s “anything goes” policy for apps that appear in the Android Marketplace.
Amazon has been less than discreet with its imminent app store. Earlier this week, an Android fan discovered that a webpage for the Amazon app store —http://www.amazon.com/apps — went live prematurely, revealing a horizontal sliding menu of about 48 apps and their prices.
Amazon Android App Store Set to Launch Tuesday | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.﻿using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Newtonsoft.Json;

namespace ICanHazDadJoke.NET
{
	/// <summary>
	/// A client for fetching a random joke, a specific joke, or searching for jokes in a variety of formats.
	/// </summary>
	public class DadJokeClient
	{
		/// <summary>
		/// The URL of the service (https://icanhazdadjoke.com/).
		/// </summary>
		public const string BaseUrl = "https://icanhazdadjoke.com/";

		private const string NoUserAgentMessage =
			"A library name and contact URL/email must be provided, prefferably in the form 'LibraryName (ContactUri)'. " +
			"See https://icanhazdadjoke.com/api#custom-user-agent for more info.";

		private const string RandomJokeUrl = "/";
		private const string JokeUrl = "/j/{0}";
		private const string SearchUrl = "/search?term={0}&page={1}&limit={2}";
		private const string SubmitUrl = "/submit";

		private HttpClient textHttpClient;
		private HttpClient jsonHttpClient;

		/// <summary>
		/// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="T:ICanHazDadJoke.NET.DadJokeApi"/> class.