A wary species, the black stork avoids contact with people. It is generally found alone or in pairs, or in flocks of up to 100 birds when migrating or during winter.
The black stork has a wider range of calls than the white stork, its main call being a chee leee, which sounds like a loud inhalation. It makes a hissing call as a warning or threat. Displaying males produce a long series of wheezy raptor-like squealing calls rising in volume and then falling. It rarely indulges in mutual bill-clattering when adults meet at the nest. Adults will do so as part of their mating ritual or when angered. The young clatter their bills when aroused.
The up-down display is used for a number of interactions with other members of the species. Here a stork positions its body horizontally and quickly bobs its head up from down-facing to around 30 degrees above horizontal and back again, while displaying the white segments of its plumage prominently, and this is repeated several times. The display is used as a greeting between birds, and—more vigorously—as a threat display. The species' solitary nature means that this threat display is rarely witnessed.


The black stork mainly eats fish, including small cyprinids, pikes, roaches, eels, budds, perches, burbots, sticklebacks and muddy loaches (Misgurnus and Cobitis). It may feed on amphibians, small reptiles, crabs, mammals and birds, and invertebrates such as snails, molluscs, earthworms, and insects like water beetles and their larvae.
Foraging for food takes place mostly in fresh water, though the black stork may look for food on dry land at times. The black stork wades patiently and slowly in shallow water, often alone or in a small group if food is plentiful. It has been observed shading the water with its wings while hunting. In India, it often forages in mixed species flocks with the white stork, woolly-necked stork (Ciconia episcopus), demoiselle crane (Grus virgo) and bar-headed goose (Anser indicus). The black stork also follows large mammals such as deer and livestock, presumably to eat the invertebrates and small animals flushed by their presence.


More than 12 species of parasitic helminth have been recorded from black storks with Cathaemasia hians and Dicheilonema ciconiae reported to be the most dominant. The juvenile black stork, although having a less diverse helminth population, is parasitized more frequently than the adult. A species of Corynebacterium—C. ciconiae—was isolated and described from the trachea of healthy black storks, and is thought to be part of the natural flora of the species. A herpes virus is known from black storks. Birdlice that have been recorded on the species include Neophilopterus tricolor, Colpocephalum nigrae, and Ardeicola maculatus. A diverse array of predatory mesostigmatid mites—particularly the genera Dendrolaelaps and Macrocheles—have been recovered from black stork nests. Their role is unknown, though they could prey on parasitic arthropods.


Since 1998, the black stork has been rated as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species. This is because it has a large range—more than 20,000 km² (7,700 mi²)—and because its population is thought not to have declined by 30% over ten years or three generations and thus is not a rapid enough decline to warrant a vulnerable rating. Even so, the state of the population overall is unclear, and although it is widespread, it is not abundant anywhere. Black stork numbers have declined for many years in western Europe, and the species has been extirpated as a breeding bird from the northwestern edge of its range, including the Netherlands and the Nordics (for example, small numbers used to breed in Denmark and Sweden, but none verified after the 1950s). The population in India—a major wintering ground—is declining. Previously a regular winter visitor to the Mai Po Marshes, it is now seldom seen there, and appears to be in decline in China overall. Its habitat is changing rapidly in much of eastern Europe and Asia. Various conservation measures have been taken, including Wetlands International's Conservation Action Plan for African black storks, which focuses on improving the wintering conditions of the birds which breed in Europe. It is protected by the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Hunters threaten the black stork in some countries of southern Europe and Asia, such as Pakistan, and breeding populations may have been eliminated there. The black stork vanished from the Ticino River valley in northern Italy, with hunting a likely contributor. In 2005, black storks were released into the Parco Lombardo del Ticino in an attempt to re-establish the species there.
Since October 2021, the black stork has been classified as Moderately Depleted by the IUCN.


Their numbers peak during the south-west and north-east monsoons. It inhabits scrub land with sparse vegetation, hedge rows, scrub jungles and secondary forest.


The white-throated dipper (Cinclus cinclus), also known as the European dipper or just dipper, is an aquatic passerine bird found in Europe, Middle East, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent. The species is divided into several subspecies, based primarily on colour differences, particularly of the pectoral band. The white-throated dipper is Norway's national bird.


The white-throated dipper is about 18 centimetres (7.1 in) long, rotund and short tailed. The head of the adult (gularis and aquaticus) is brown, the back slate-grey mottled with black, looking black from a distance, and the wings and tail are brown. The throat and upper breast are white, followed by a band of warm chestnut which merges into black on the belly and flanks. The bill is almost black, the legs and irides brown. C. c. cinclus has a black belly band. The young are greyish brown and have no chestnut band.


The white-throated dipper is closely associated with swiftly running rivers and streams or the lakes into which these fall. It often perches bobbing spasmodically with its short tail uplifted on the rocks round which the water swirls and tumbles.
It acquired its name from these sudden dips, not from its diving habit, though it dives as well as walks into the water.
It flies rapidly and straight, its short wings whirring swiftly and without pauses or glides, calling a shrill zil, zil, zil. It will then either drop on the water and dive or plunge in with a small splash.
From a perch it will walk into the water and deliberately submerge, but there is no truth in the assertion that it can defy the laws of specific gravity and walk along the bottom. Undoubtedly when entering the water it grips with its strong feet, but the method of progression beneath the surface is by swimming, using the wings effectively for flying under water. It holds itself down by muscular exertion, with its head well down and its body oblique, its course beneath the surface often revealed by a line of rising bubbles.
In this way it secures its food, usually aquatic invertebrates including caddis worms and other aquatic insect larvae, beetles, Limnaea, Ancylus and other freshwater molluscs, and also fish and small amphibians. A favourite food is the small crustacean Gammarus, an amphipod shrimp. It also walks and runs on the banks and rocks seeking terrestrial invertebrates.
The winter habits of the dipper vary considerably and apparently individually. When the swift hill streams are frozen it is forced to descend to the lowlands and even visit the coasts, but some will remain if there is any open water.


The white-throated dippers first breed when they are one year old. They are monogamous and defend a territory. The nest is almost invariably built either very near or above water. It is often placed on a rocky ledge or in a cavity. Man-made structures such as bridges are also used. The nest consists of a dome shaped structure made of moss, grass stems and leaves with a side entrance within which is an inner cup made of stems, rootlets and hair. Both sexes build the main larger structure but the female builds the inner cup. The eggs are laid daily. The clutch can contain from 1-8 eggs but usually 4–5. The eggs are smooth and glossy white and are 26 mm × 18.7 mm (1.02 in × 0.74 in) with a calculated weight of 4.6 g (0.16 oz). They are incubated by the female beginning after the last or sometimes the penultimate egg has been laid. The male will bring food to the incubating female. The eggs hatch after around 16 days and then both parents feed the altricial and nidicolous nestlings. For the first 12–13 days they are brooded by the female. Both parents remove the faecal sacs for the first 9 days. The chicks fledge at around 22 days of age but the parents continue to feed their young for another week but feeding can continue for 18 days. If the female has started a second clutch then only the male parent feeds the fledglings. One or two broods are reared, usually in the same nest. When disturbed, the young that hardly feathered will at once drop into the water and dive.
The maximum recorded age of a white-throated dipper from ring-recovery data is 10 years and 7 months for a bird ringed in Finland. Within the United Kingdom and Ireland the maximum age is 8 years and 9 months for a bird ringed and recovered in County Laois, Ireland.


The American dipper, previously known as the Water-Ouzel, was the favorite bird of famous naturalist John Muir. He dedicated an entire chapter in his book 'The Mountains of California' to the Ouzel stating "He is the mountain streams' own darling, the humming-bird of blooming waters, loving rocky ripple-slopes and sheets of foam as a bee loves flowers, as a lark loves sunshine and meadows. Among all the mountain birds, none has cheered me so much in my lonely wanderings, —none so unfailingly. For both in winter and summer he sings, sweetly, cheerily, independent alike of sunshine and of love, requiring no other inspiration than the stream on which he dwells. While water sings, so must he, in heat or cold, calm or storm, ever attuning his voice in sure accord; low in the drought of summer and the drought of winter, but never silent."


Cingilia is a monotypic moth genus in the family Geometridae erected by Francis Walker in 1862. Its only species, Cingilia catenaria, the chain-dotted geometer, chain dot geometer, chainspotted geometer or chain-spotted geometer, was first described by Dru Drury in 1773. It is found in North America from Nova Scotia south to Maryland and west to Kansas and Alberta.
The wingspan is 30–40 mm. The wings are white to pale brown or grayish. The antemedial, postmedial and terminal lines are composed of black dots. Adults are on wing from late August to early October in one generation per year.
The larvae are omnivorous and feed on various herbs, shrubs trees and grasses, including alder, bayberry, birch, blueberry, bog laurel, cranberry, fir, huckleberry, leatherleaf, maple, oak, pine, poplar, sweetfern, sweet gale, tamarack, white cedar and willow. They are pale yellow to greenish yellow with several white spots along the side. Each of these spots is bordered by a black spot before and after. Larvae are found from June to August. The species overwinters as an egg.


The violet-backed starling (Cinnyricinclus leucogaster), also known as the plum-coloured starling or amethyst starling, is a relatively small species (17 cm) of starling in the family Sturnidae. It is the only member of the genus Cinnyricinclus. This strongly sexually dimorphic species is found widely in the woodlands and savannah forest edges of mainland sub-Saharan Africa. It is rarely seen on the ground, but instead found in trees and other locations away from the ground.


The violet-backed starling is a sexually dimorphic species with adults reaching a length of about 18 cm (7 in). The male has an iridescent violet head and back and pure white underparts. The female has a thrush-like appearance with brown, boldly-streaked upper parts and white, heavily-streaked underparts. Both sexes have yellow irises and black bills and legs.


The diet of the violet-backed starling includes fruits, seeds and arthropods. It sometimes hawks for insects in a manner similar to flycatchers. It largely feeds in the canopy, seldom foraging on the ground. The nest is usually located in a crevice in a tree within a few metres of the ground. Nesting material includes green leaves and dung. The female will incubate the clutch of two to four eggs (these are pale blue with reddish/brown spots) for 12–14 days. The male will help feed chicks until they fledge after about 21 days.


The sunbird breeds in southern South Africa. It is mainly resident, but partly migratory in the northeast of its range.  It is common in gardens, fynbos, forest edges and coastal scrub.


The shiny cowbird is an obligate brood parasite, meaning that adults will lay their eggs in the nests of other species and their offspring rely entirely on their hosts for parental care. They are generalists, and have about 250 different host species. As a host generalist, their young are non-mimetic, meaning they do not attempt to replicate the behaviours of host chicks like a host specialist species might. In regions of South America including Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Venezuela, the main host species of the shiny cowbird is the rufous-collared sparrow.

Female shiny cowbirds do not build nests, as they rely on their hosts to care for their offspring, but they will preferentially select hosts that build enclosed nests such as nests built in cavities. They will look for host nests both actively, and by silently watching for hosts. When a host nest is found, they will flush the host away from the nest by noisily flying around the area. An individual shiny cowbird may lay its eggs across many different nests.


Monardella odoratissima is found in montane forests above 600 m. and below 3100 m. It is found in many Northern California mountain ranges, including the Klamath Mountains and the North California Coast Ranges, the Cascade Range, the Sierra Nevada, the Modoc Plateau,  White Mountains and Inyo Mountains. Outside California, it is found as far north as Washington, and as far east as Utah and western Colorado.


Morelia spilota, commonly referred to as the carpet python , is a large snake of the family Pythonidae found in Australia, New Guinea (Indonesia and Papua New Guinea), Bismarck Archipelago, and the northern Solomon Islands. Many subspecies are described; ITIS lists six, the Reptile Database six, and the IUCN eight.


Morimus asper can reach a length of 15–40 millimetres (0.59–1.57 in). This large and massive longhorn beetle has a black, elongated and oval body with very short, gray-brown hair and elytra are grainy over the entire surface. Males have more developed antennae. The subspecies Morimus asper funereus has gray-blue elytra with dark spots. The larvae are polyphagous, feeding mainly on deciduous and coniferous trees.
Adults can be found from March to October. They feed on bark, leaves and stems. Usually they hide during the day. Mating and oviposition take places mainly in the evening and at night, when they are active. Fights between the males with severe damages are common.


The white perch (Morone americana) is not a true perch but is a fish of the temperate bass family, Moronidae, notable as a food and game fish in eastern North America. In some places it is referred to as "Silver Bass".
The name "White perch" is sometimes applied to the white crappie.
Generally silvery-white in color, hence the name, depending upon habitat and size specimens have begun to develop a darker shade near the dorsal fin and along the top of the fish. This sometimes earns them the nickname "black-back". White perch have been reported up to 49.5 cm (19.5 in) in length and weighing 2.2 kg (4.9 lb).
Although favoring brackish waters, it is also found in fresh water and coastal areas from the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario south to the Pee Dee River in South Carolina, and as far east as Nova Scotia.
They are also found in the lower Great Lakes, Finger Lakes, Long Island Sound and nearby coastal areas, Hudson and Mohawk River system, Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay. It is also found occasionally in small land-locked lakes and ponds. The raw meat is of a somewhat pinkish hue, but when cooked, it is white and flaky. At times, a parasite known as Lironeca ovalis is located in the gills. They are only known to reduce the growing rate of white perch.


The striped bass (Morone saxatilis), also called the Atlantic striped bass, striper, linesider, rock, or rockfish, is an anadromous perciform fish of the family Moronidae found primarily along the Atlantic coast of North America. It has also been widely introduced into inland recreational fisheries across the United States.  Striped bass found in the Gulf of Mexico are a separate strain referred to as Gulf Coast striped bass.
The striped bass is the state fish of Maryland, Rhode Island, and South Carolina, and the state saltwater (marine) fish of New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and New Hampshire.
The history of the striped bass fishery in North America dates back to the Colonial period. Many written accounts by some of the first European settlers describe the immense abundance of striped bass, along with alewives, traveling and spawning up most rivers in the coastal Northeast.


Striped bass have been introduced to the Pacific Coast of North America and into many of the large reservoir impoundments across the United States by state game and fish commissions for the purposes of recreational fishing and as a predator to control populations of gizzard shad. These include: Elephant Butte Lake in New Mexico; Lake Ouachita, Lake Norman in North Carolina; Lake Norfork, Beaver Lake and Lake Hamilton in Arkansas; Lake Thunderbird in Illinois; Lake Pleasant, and Lake Havasu in Arizona; Lake Powell along the Arizona/Utah border; Castaic Lake, Pyramid Lake, Silverwood Lake, Diamond Valley Lake, and San Francisco Bay-Delta in California;  Lewis Smith Lake in Alabama; Lake Cumberland in Kentucky; Lake George in Florida; Lake Murray in South Carolina; Lake Lanier in Georgia; Watts Bar Lake, in Tennessee; Lake Mead, Nevada; Lake Texoma on the border of Texas and Oklahoma, Lake Tawakoni, Lake Whitney, Possum Kingdom Lake, and Lake Buchanan in Texas; Raystown Lake in Pennsylvania; Lake Wallenpaupack in Northeastern Pennsylvania; Umpqua River in Oregon and in Virginia's Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Reservoir.
Striped bass have also been introduced into waters in Ecuador, Iran, Latvia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey, primarily for sport fishing and aquaculture.


The spawning success of striped bass has been studied in the San Francisco Bay-Delta water system, with a finding that high total dissolved solids (TDS) reduce spawning. At levels as low as 200 mg/l TDS, an observable diminution of spawning productivity occurs. They can be found in lakes, ponds, streams, and wetlands.
Though the population of striped bass was growing and repopulating in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, a study executed by the Wildlife and Fisheries Program at West Virginia University found that the rapid growth of the striped bass population was exerting a tremendous pressure on its prey (river herring, shad, and blueback herring). This pressure on their food source was putting their own population at risk due to the population of prey naturally not coming back to the same spawning areas.
In the United States, the striped bass was designated as a protected game fish in 2007, and executive agencies were directed to use existing legal authorities to prohibit the sale of striped bass caught in federal waters in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. In addition, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina have designated striped bass as a game fish in state waters.
In Canada, the province of Quebec designated the striped bass population of the Saint Lawrence as extirpated in 1996. Analysis of available data implicated overfishing and dredging in the disappearance. In 2002, a reintroduction program was successful.


Striped bass spawn in fresh water, and although they have been successfully adapted to freshwater habitat, they naturally spend their adult lives in saltwater (i.e., they are anadromous). Four important bodies of water with breeding stocks of striped bass are: Chesapeake Bay, Massachusetts Bay/Cape Cod, Hudson River, and Delaware River. Many of the rivers and tributaries that emptied into the Atlantic, had at one time, bred stock of striped bass. This occurred until the 1860s.  One of the largest breeding areas is the Chesapeake Bay, where populations from Chesapeake and Delaware bays have intermingled.  The very few successful spawning populations of freshwater striped bass include Lake Texoma, Lake Weiss (Coosa River), the Colorado River and its reservoirs downstream from and including Lake Powell, and the Arkansas River, as well as Lake Marion (South Carolina) that retained a landlocked breeding population when the dam was built; other freshwater fisheries must be restocked with hatchery-produced fish annually. Stocking of striped bass was discontinued at Lake Mead in 1973 once natural reproduction was verified.


The striped bass population declined to less than 5 million by 1982, but efforts by fishermen with throw back lengths for smaller striped bass and management programs to rebuild the stock proved successful, and in 2007, the nearly 56 million fish included all ages. Recreational anglers and commercial fisherman caught an unprecedented 3.8 million fish in 2006. The management of the species includes size limits, commercial quotas, and biological reference points for the health of the species.
The Atlantic coast-wide harvest of striped bass is managed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (AMSFC). In October 2019, the AMSFC announced that the 2018 Benchmark Stock Assessment indicated that "the resource is overfished and experiencing overfishing."  Following a series of hearings during March and April 2021 to gather public input, the ASMFC Striped Bass Technical Committee will make recommendations for a new 10-year management strategy, Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, to replenish striped bass to sustainable levels throughout its traditional migratory range from North Carolina to Maine. Amendment 7 will be finalized and adopted in late 2021 and implemented in 2022.


Cultivation of white mulberry to nourish silkworms began more than 4,700 years ago in China and has since been introduced in other countries. The Ancient Greeks and Romans cultivated the mulberry for silkworms. At least as early as 220 AD, Emperor Elagabalus wore a silk robe. It was introduced into other parts of Europe in the twelfth century and into Latin America after the Spanish conquest in the fifteenth century. In 2002, 6,260 km² of land were devoted to the species in China.
It has been grown widely from the Indian subcontinent west through Afghanistan and Iran to southern Europe for more than a thousand years for leaves to feed silkworms.
More recently, it has become widely naturalized in disturbed areas such as roadsides and the edges of tree lots, along with urban areas in much of North America, where it hybridizes readily with the locally native red mulberry (Morus rubra). There is now serious concern for the long-term genetic viability of the red mulberry because of extensive hybridization in some areas.
The species is now extensively planted and widely naturalized throughout the warm temperate world and in subarctic regions as well, and would survive in elevations as high as 4,000 metres (13,000 ft). They thrive in mildly acidic, well drained, sandy loam and clayey loam soils, though they can withstand poor soils as well.


The Australasian gannet (Morus serrator), also known as the Australian gannet or tākapu, is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae. Adults are mostly white, with black flight feathers at the wingtips and lining the trailing edge of the wing. The central tail feathers are also black. The head is tinged buff-yellow, with a pale blue-grey bill edged in black, and blue-rimmed eyes. Young birds have mottled plumage in their first year, dark above and light below. The head is an intermediate mottled grey, with a dark bill. The birds gradually acquire more white in subsequent seasons until they reach maturity after five years.
The species range over water above the continental shelf along the southern and eastern Australian coastline, from Steep Point in Western Australia to Rockhampton, Queensland, as well as the North and South Islands of New Zealand, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. Nesting takes place in colonies along the coastlines of New Zealand, Victoria and Tasmania—mostly on offshore islands, although there are several mainland colonies in both countries. Highly territorial when breeding, the Australasian gannet performs agonistic displays to defend its nest. Potential and mated pairs engage in courtship and greeting displays. The nest is a cup-shaped mound composed of seaweed, earth, and other debris, built by the female from material mainly gathered by the male. A single pale blue egg is laid yearly, though lost eggs may be replaced. The chick is born featherless but is soon covered in white down. Fed regurgitated fish by its parents, it grows rapidly and outweighs the average adult when it fledges.
These birds are plunge divers and spectacular fishers, plunging into the ocean at high speed. They eat mainly squid and forage fish that school near the surface. The species faces few natural or man-made threats, and since its population is growing it is considered to be a least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).


Sir Joseph Banks shot three Australasian gannets in New Zealand waters on 24 December 1769 off Three Kings Islands. The birds were cooked in a goose pie, which was enjoyed by the sailors, for Christmas the next day. Daniel Solander wrote a formal description, noting its differences from the familiar northern gannet, initially giving it the name Pelecanus chrysocephalus before crossing it out and changing it to Pelecanus sectator. Sydney Parkinson illustrated the bird as P. sectator, which was misread as P. serrator by later authorities. The species name has been translated as "sawyer", from serra "saw", and linked to the serrated bill.
John Gould described specimens from the Derwent River and Actaeon Island in Tasmania as Sula australis in 1841. The binomial name Sula australis had already been used by J. F. Stephens for the red-footed booby. English zoologist George Robert Gray wrote of the species in 1843, initially using Gould's name but soon switching to Sula serrator, based on Parkinson's drawing. Although Gould stuck with S. australis, S. serrator became the preferred term over time.
"Australasian gannet" has been designated as the official common name for the species by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC). It is also known as Pacific gannet and, in Australia, as Australian gannet, diver (from its plunge-diving), booby, or solan goose. In New Zealand it is also known by the Māori name tākapu or tākupu, a word of wider Polynesian origin for a gannet or booby.
The Sulidae, the gannets and boobies, appeared about 30 million years ago. Early Sulidae fossils most resembled the boobies, although they were more aquatic, the gannets splitting off later, about 16 million years ago. The gannets evolved in the northern hemisphere, later colonising the southern oceans. The most ancient extant species may be the Abbott's booby, possibly the sole survivor of an otherwise extinct separate lineage. A 2011 genetic study of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA suggests that the ancestor of the gannets arose around 2.5 million years ago before splitting into northern and southern lineages. The latter then split into the Cape and Australasian gannets around 0.5 million years ago. The three gannets are generally considered to be separate species forming a superspecies, though they have also formerly been classified as subspecies of the northern gannet (Sula bassanus).


In Malawi African pied wagtails start breeding before the rains and continue to breed into the rainy season, they breed during six months of the year peaking in March and October. Both the males and females participate in nest building but only the female incubates but both sexes feed the young. The mean clutch in Malawi was found to be 3.9 eggs.
The African pied wagtail is monogamous, the cup-shaped nest is lined with grass and feathers and is usually situated near water in a convenient tangle of sticks. In settlements the nest may be located on buildings. The nests of the African pied wagtail are parasitised by the red-chested cuckoo Cuculus solitarius and the diderick cuckoo Chrysococcyx caprius. While chicks have been recorded as prey of Burchell's coucal Centropus burchellii.
The African pied wagtail is mainly insectivorous but also feeds on other invertebrates, grass seeds, tadpoles, small fish and scraps of human food.


Cape wagtails are found in eastern and southern Africa from Uganda, the eastern DRCongo and Kenya, through Zambia and Angola to southern Africa, south to the Western Cape and the Cape of Good Hope.
Cape wagtails can be found in almost any habitat that has open ground adjacent to water, and also along the rocky coastline, in farms, villages, cultivated land, parks, gardens and urban centres. In east Africa it is generally found above 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in altitude.


The grey wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) is a member of the wagtail family, Motacillidae, measuring around 18–19 cm overall length. The species looks somewhat similar to the yellow wagtail but has the yellow on its underside restricted to the throat and vent. Breeding males have a black throat. The species is widely distributed, with several populations breeding in Eurosiberia and migrating to tropical regions in Asia and Africa. The species is always associated with running water when breeding, although they may use man-made structures near streams for the nest. Outside the breeding season, they may also be seen around lakes, coasts and other watery habitats. Like other wagtails, they frequently wag their tail and fly low with undulations and they have a sharp call that is often given in flight.


M. calabura is native to southern Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and western South America south to Bolivia and Argentina. It is present in tropical climate in disturbed lowland areas from sea level to 1000 m of elevation. In South India, it is seen in the areas adjacent to the Western Ghat.


Harlequin bugs reproduce rapidly and females mate multiple times with many males before laying up to 149 eggs per female.
Mating in harlequin bugs is similar to other insects in that the male transfers sperm to the female and the female stores this sperm in a specialized structure called the spermatheca. Using electron microscopy, Stacconi et al. were able to study the structure of the spermatheca in detail (2011).
A saccular dilation in the spermatheca stores spermatozoa received from males during copulation. It can maximize efficiency and use of sperm. Derived from the ectoderm, the spermatheca is covered in fat and tissue and has three main regions: the distal region, the medial region and the proximal region. The coiled distal region is responsible for the control of sperm flow. It can modulate how much sperm is excreted which ensures that the female does not lose an excess of sperm. The proximal region contains valves which prevent the backflow of sperm when muscles dilate. This region is connected to the spermathecal duct where sperm exits. Stacconi and Romani (2011) found that, overall, the saccular structure within the spermatheca plays a key role in identifying mated and unmated females. Males are able to identify a mated versus unmated female by the volume of the saccular gland. The study also shows that parasitoid insects are able to identify mated and unmated females.
Female mate choice is based heavily on host plants because male size and coloration, which is important in mating, is determined by the type of host plant were reared on. During mating, females also prefer males which have similar odor cues to the host plant of the female. Females of M. histrionica oviposit on specific plants that are able to provide better nutrition and habitat for their offspring. One study done by Hemley-Hartman and Miller (2014) studied the effects of host plants on female oviposition site choice. The researchers used broccoli and mustard as two different host plants and found that individuals reared on broccoli were more likely to mate in general and all individuals reared on mustard mated. Individuals reared on mustard were larger than individuals reared on broccoli. Also, the distinctive orange color of M. histrionica which plays a role in mate choice, was not affected by host plants. This study shows that M. histrionica have variation in mate choice depending on changing seasons because the availability of these commercial plants also changes with season.


The housefly is probably the insect with the widest distribution in the world; it is largely associated with humans and has accompanied them around the globe. It is present in the Arctic, as well as in the tropics, where it is abundant. It is present in all populated parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia, and the Americas.


The African dusky flycatcher (Muscicapa adusta), dusky-brown flycatcher or dusky alseonax, is a small passerine bird of the Old World flycatcher family, Muscicapidae. It is a resident breeder in Africa from Nigeria, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Ethiopia south to South Africa. It is very common in its woodland habitat, which includes riverine forests, evergreen forest edges and clearings, especially near water bodies such as lakes, dams and streams, and well-wooded suburban gardens.


The Asian brown flycatcher is an extremely rare vagrant to Western Europe. Records have come from Britain, Denmark, and Sweden, and in addition, there are unproven claims from Ireland, Faeroe, and Norway.


The least weasel (Mustela nivalis), little weasel, common weasel, or simply weasel is the smallest member of the genus Mustela, family Mustelidae and order Carnivora. It is native to Eurasia, North America and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand, Malta, Crete, the Azores, and São Tomé. It is classified as least concern by the IUCN, due to its wide distribution and large population throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
The least weasel varies greatly in size over its range. The body is slender and elongated, and the legs and tail are relatively short. The colour varies geographically, as does the pelage type and length of tail. The dorsal surface, flanks, limbs and tail of the animal are usually some shade of brown while the underparts are white. The line delineating the boundary between the two colours is usually straight. At high altitudes and in the northern part of its range, the coat becomes pure white in winter. Eighteen subspecies are recognised.
Small rodents form the largest part of the least weasel's diet, but it also kills and eats rabbits, other mammals, and occasionally birds, birds' eggs, fish and frogs. Males mark their territories with olfactory signals and have exclusive home ranges which may intersect with or include several female ranges. Least weasels use pre-existing holes to sleep, store food and raise their young. Breeding takes place in the spring and summer, and there is a single litter of about six kits which are reared exclusively by the female. Due to its small size and fierce nature, the least weasel plays an important part in the mythology and legend of various cultures.


The least weasel has a high geographic variation, a fact which has historically led to numerous disagreements among biologists studying its systematics. The least weasel's subspecies are divided into three categories:
The pygmaea–rixosa group (small least weasels): Tiny weasels with short tails, pedomorphic skulls, and pelts that turn pure white in winter. They inhabit northern European Russia, Siberia, the Russian Far East, Finland, the northern Scandinavian Peninsula, Mongolia, northeastern China, Japan and North America.
The boccamela group (large least weasels): Very large weasels with large skulls, relatively long tails and lighter coloured pelts. Locally, they either do not turn white or only partially change colour in winter. They inhabit Transcaucasia, from western Kazakhstan to Semirechye and in the flat deserts of Middle Asia. They are also found in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.
The nivalis group (medium-sized least weasels): Medium-sized weasels, with tails of moderate length, representing a transitional form between the former two groups. They inhabit the middle and southern regions of European Russia, Crimea, the Ciscaucasus, western Kazakhstan, the southern and middle Urals and the montane parts of Middle Asia, save for Koppet Dag.


These clams live buried in the sediment on tidal flats. While they are common in muddy areas, their name "arenaria" means sandy and they prefer a combination of sandy and muddy areas. They are well known as a food item on the coast of New England in the Western Atlantic Ocean; however, the range extends much farther north to Canada and south to the Southern states.
They are also found in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, for example in the UK, as well as in the North Sea's Wadden Sea (where they are the dominant large clam).
This species has become invasive on the Pacific Coast of North America, including Alaska, Canada and the continental United States. However M. arenaria originated in the Pacific Ocean during the Miocene.  It extended its range in the early Pliocene to the Atlantic, including European waters.  The Pacific and European populations became extinct some time in the early Pleistocene, leaving only the Northwest Atlantic population, which subsequently spread via humans to its current distribution. It also occurs in the Mediterranean Sea.


First named Agaricus acicula by the German scientist Jacob Christian Schäffer in 1774, the species was also referred to as Agaricus miniatus by another German, naturalist August Batsch. It was given its current name in 1871 by Paul Kummer. Rolf Singer transferred the species to the genera Hemimycena and Marasmiellus, but the binomials resulting from these transfers are now considered synonyms. The fungus is classified in the section Aciculae of the genus Mycena.
The specific epithet acicula is derived from the Latin word meaning "small needle". The mushroom is commonly known as the "orange bonnet", or the "coral spring Mycena".


Mycena adonis, M. floridula, and M. leptophylla are larger species of the section Adonidae in the genus Mycena. In that section, among other differences, the hyphae of the cortical layer (the outer layer of tissue) of the stem are smooth. M. oregonensis is similar in appearance to M. acicula, but the cap is yellower, the gills are broadly adnate or decurrent with a short tooth, the gill edge is orange to bright yellow, and the stem is dry, not sticky. The hyphae of the cortical layer of the stem are smooth and not embedded in gelatinous matter, and in European collections the basidia are two-spored and do not have clamps. M. strobilinoides, a North American and European species, looks similar with its orange cap, but may be distinguished microscopically by the cheilocystidia which are densely covered by excrescences; it also has a larger cap, up to 2 cm (0.8 in). M. aurantiidisca can be distinguished by the reddish-orange cap which tends to become paler at the margin. Mycena specialist Alexander H. Smith further noted of M. acicula that it could readily be mistaken for a Hygrophorus.


The fruit bodies of Mycena acicula grow singly, in groups, or somewhat clustered on debris in wet places, especially along streams or the borders of swamps.  The appearance of the fruit bodies is not significantly influenced by the effect of rainfall, perhaps because "such minute fungi are largely determined by the microenvironment prevailing under dense vegetation, etc., which is no doubt less affected by recent rain than more exposed situations." The fungus is widely distributed throughout the eastern United States and Canada and occurs in Washington, Oregon, and California along the Pacific Coast. It has also been reported from Trinidad, Britain, Norway, Spain, Korea, and the Ussuri River Valley in the northeast of China.


The wood stork (Mycteria americana) is a large American wading bird in the family Ciconiidae (storks), the only member of the family to breed in North America. It was formerly called the "wood ibis", though it is not an ibis. It is found in subtropical and tropical habitats in the Americas, including the Caribbean. In South America, it is resident, but in North America, it may disperse as far as Florida. Originally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, this stork likely evolved in tropical regions. The head and neck are bare of feathers, and dark grey in colour. The plumage is mostly white, with the exception of the tail and some of the wing feathers, which are black with a greenish-purplish sheen. The juvenile differs from the adult, with the former having a feathered head and a yellow bill, compared to the black adult bill. There is little sexual dimorphism.
The wood stork's habitat can vary, but it must have a tropical or subtropical climate with fluctuating water levels. The one-metre-diameter (3.3-foot) nest is found in trees, especially mangroves and those of the genus Taxodium, usually surrounded by water or over water. The wood stork nests colonially. The nest itself is made from sticks and greenery. During the breeding season, which is initiated when the water levels decline and can occur anytime between November and August, a single clutch of three to five eggs is laid. These are incubated for around 30 days, and the chicks hatch underdeveloped, or altricial, requiring support from their parents. They fledge 60 to 65 days after hatching, although only about 31% of nests fledge a chick in any given year, with most chicks dying during their first two weeks, despite being watched by an adult during that time. The chicks are fed fish of increasing size. The diet of the adult changes throughout the year. During the dry season, fish and insects are eaten, compared to the addition of frogs and crabs during the wet season. Because it forages by touch, it needs shallow water to effectively catch food. This is also the reason why the wood stork breeds when water levels start to fall.
Globally, the wood stork is considered to be of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. This is due to its large range. In the United States, on the other hand, it is considered to be threatened. Predators of the wood stork include raccoons (which predate on chicks), crested caracaras, which prey on eggs, and other birds of prey, which feed on eggs and chicks. Hunting and egg-collecting by humans has been implicated as a factor in the decline of South American wood storks. Humans also cause nest failures through ecotourism, although observation through binoculars about 75 metres (246 ft) away does not have a large effect on nesting success. Habitat alteration has caused the wood stork to decline, with levee and drainage systems in the Everglades causing a shift in the timing of breeding and thus a decrease in breeding success.


This is a subtropical and tropical species which breeds in much of South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The wood stork is the only stork that breeds in North America. In the United States there are small breeding populations in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. In South America, it is found south to northern Argentina. Some populations in North America disperse after breeding, frequently to South America.
This stork is able to adapt to a variety of tropical and subtropical wetland habitats having fluctuating water levels (as that initiates breeding). It nests in trees that are over water or surrounded by water. In freshwater habitats, it primarily nests in forests dominated by trees of the genus Taxodium (in the USA), while in estuaries, it generally nests on trees in the mangrove forests. To feed, the wood stork uses freshwater marshes in habitats with an abundance of Taxodium trees, while in areas with mangrove forests, it uses brackish water. Areas with more lakes attract feeding on lake, stream, and river edges.


The yellow-billed stork occurs primarily in Eastern Africa, but is widely distributed in areas extending from Senegal and Somalia down to South Africa and in some regions of western Madagascar. During one observation of a mixed species bird colony on the Tana River in Kenya, it was found to be the commonest species there, with 2000 individuals being counted at once.
The species does not generally migrate far, at least not outside its breeding range; but does usually make short migratory movements which are influenced by rainfall. It makes local movements in Kenya and has also been found to migrate from North to South Sudan with the rainy season. It may also migrate regularly to and from South Africa. However, little is actually known about this bird's general migratory movements. Due to apparent observed variation in migratory patterns throughout Africa, the yellow-billed stork has been termed a facultative nomad. It may migrate simply to avoid areas where water or rainfall conditions are unfavourable for feeding on prey. Some populations migrate considerable distances between feeding or breeding sites; usually by using thermals to soar and glide. Other local populations have been found to be sedentary and remain in their respective habitats all year round.
Preferred habitats include wetlands, shallow lakes and mudflats, usually 10–40 cm deep but it usually avoids heavily forested regions in central Africa. It also avoids flooded regions and deep expansive bodies of water because feeding conditions there are unsuitable for their typical grope and stir feeding techniques.
This species breeds especially in Kenya and Tanzania. Although it is known to breed in Uganda, breeding sites have not been recorded there. It has been found to breed also in Malakol in Sudan and often inside walled cities in West Africa from Gambia down to northern Nigeria. Still other breeding sites include Zululand in South Africa and northern Botswana, but are rarer below northern Botswana and Zimbabwe where sites are well-watered. Although there is no direct evidence of current breeding in Madagascar, young birds unable to fly have been observed near Lake Kinkony during October.


Painted storks feed in groups in shallow wetlands, crop fields and irrigation canals. The maximum success of finding prey was at 7 cm of water depth at Keoladeo-Ghana National Park. They feed mainly on small fish which they sense by touch while slowly sweeping their half open bill from side to side while it held submerged. They walk slowly and also disturb the water with their feet to flush fish. They also take frogs and the occasional snake. They forage mainly in the day but may forage late or even at night under exceptional conditions. After they are fed they may stand still on the shore for long durations. Flock sizes in agricultural landscapes are mostly small (<5 birds) but reach flocks of over 50 birds. In such landscapes, flock sizes do not vary much between seasons, but densities are much higher in winter after chicks of the year have fledged from nests.
Painted storks breed on trees either in mixed colonies along with other water birds, or by themselves. The breeding season begins in the winter months shortly after the monsoons. In northern India, the breeding season begins in mid-August while in southern India the nest initiation begins around October and continues till February and or even until April. One detailed study in Bengaluru city saw storks building nests between early February and mid-March, with all of the observed nests having fledgelings by mid-May. Considerable variation is noticed in the onset of breeding across sites with the season at Kokrebellur and Edurupattu around January or February but at Telineelapuram, Kundakulam and Tirunelveli the breeding begins around October or November.
The typical clutch varies from one to five eggs with early breeders having larger clutches. The incubation period is about a month while the fledging period is nearly two months. There is occasional predation of chicks by migrant Aquila eagles and Pallas's fish eagle. During the mid-day heat, adults will stand at the nest with wings outstretched to shade the chicks. To feed chicks, adults regurgitate fish that they have caught and these are typically smaller than 20 cm long. Young chicks, when threatened, disgorge food and feign death by crumpling to the nest floor.  The daily requirement for chicks has been estimated to be 500-600 grams made up of about 9 fish fed in two sessions. Nest survival (measured as daily nest survival) is higher for nests initiated early in the monsoon season, lower with decreasing temperature, and higher at larger colonies.
The bare red skin on the head is developed when reaching breeding maturity and involves the loss of feathers and the deposition of lipids under the skin. Birds in captivity have been known to live for as long as 28 years. Birds raised as chicks have been known to be tame and docile, even responding to their names when called.
A bird louse, Ardeicola tantali was described on the basis of a specimen obtained from this species as also a subcutaneous mite, Neottialges kutzeri, of the family Hypoderidae.


Painted stork nesting colonies often become centres of tourist attraction due to their large size and colour. Particularly well-known nest sites close to human settlements are in the south Indian villages of Kokrebellur and Veerapura. In Kokrebellur, the birds nest within the trees in the village forming mixed nesting colonies with the spot-billed pelican. The local people provide security to these birds during the brief nesting season when the birds arrive in October and until they leave the village after a couple of months.
Another well-known colony that has been studied since the 1960s is the one inside the Delhi Zoological Park where the birds arrive about 30–40 days after the onset of the monsoons in Delhi. This colony is made up of 300 to 600 wild birds that make use of the trees within the artificial islands inside the zoo. Uppalapadu village near Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, Kolleru, Gowtavaram Village in Andhra Pradesh and Ranganathittu are among the many other breeding colonies known from southern India. Captive birds are known to breed readily when provided with nesting materials and platforms. The largest secure population is found in India. Birds in Pakistan along the Indus River system are endangered and chicks at their nests are taken away for the bird trade. The species was nearly decimated in Thailand while small populations are known from Cambodia and Vietnam.
There are some concerns for the closely related milky stork owing to hybridization with the painted stork, particularly in zoos. Hybrids have been recorded in the wild in Cambodia and in several zoos including those at Kuala Lumpur, Singapore Zoo and Bangkok. Hybridization with lesser adjutant storks have also been recorded in several zoos, especially at the Colombo Zoo, Sri Lanka where a male painted stork and female lesser adjutant mated and reared chicks several times.


The brown-crested flycatcher breeds in open woodland from southern California, southern Nevada, central Arizona, and southern Texas. It is found in almost all of Brazil, with the exception of some areas of the Amazon southward to Argentina and Bolivia, and on Trinidad and Tobago. It is resident in most of its range, but individuals breeding in the United States retreat to Mexico or southern Florida in winter.
This species is a rather skulking insectivore which catches its prey by flycatching amongst the undergrowth. It sometimes eats fruit, such as the "gumbo-limbo", Bursera simaruba. The nest is built in a tree cavity or similar natural or man-made hole, and the normal clutch is two or three purple-marked cream eggs.


The nominate subspecies of this parakeet is 29 cm (11 in) long on average, with a 48-centimetre (19 in) wingspan, and weighs 100 g (3.5 oz). Females tend to be 10–20% smaller, but can only be reliably sexed by DNA or feather testing. It has bright-green upperparts. The forehead and breast are pale gray with darker scalloping and the rest of the underparts are very light-green to yellow. The remiges are dark blue, and the tail is long and tapering. The bill is orange. The call is a loud and throaty chape(-yee) or quak quaki quak-wi quarr, and screeches skveet.
Domestic breeds in colors other than the natural plumage have been produced. These include birds with white, blue, and yellow in place of green. As such coloration provides less camouflage, feral birds are usually of wild-type coloration.


The monk parakeet was first recorded in Mexico City in 1999. Records exist from seven other locations, including the cities of Puebla, Morelia, Celaya, Oaxaca, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Hermosillo, and Mexicali, and the mouth of the Loreto River in Baja California Sur.
Nesting populations are known in Mexico City and Oaxaca. A small but growing population has also been established in the southern part of the city of Puebla, Puebla, in the surroundings of the city's aviary, which they are known to visit frequently, and where they can often be seen clinging to the outer side of its mesh walls. No studies have been made to assess the impact they might have on the relict populations of green parakeets that live in the same area and other well-wooded zones of the city.
Following the ban on the trade of native parrot species, local traditional bird sellers have now switched to the monk parakeet as their staple parrot, and that might have increased the number of escapees. Sometimes, the head and breast feathers of monk parakeets are dyed yellow to deceive uninformed buyers, mimicking the endangered yellow-headed amazon. The presence of this species in seven geographically distant and independent locations in Mexico indicates that the source of these individuals is most likely the pet trade.


Thousands of monk parakeets were imported to the United States between the 1960s and the 1980s as pets. Many escaped or were intentionally released, and populations were allowed to proliferate. By the early 1970s, M. monachus was established in seven states, and by 1995, it had spread to eight more. In Florida alone, estimates range from 150,000 to 500,000. Austin and Houston, Texas, also have thriving monk parakeet populations.
As one of the few temperate-zone parrots, the monk parakeet is more able than most to survive cold climates (partly because they build communal nests about heat-producing electrical equipment atop utility poles), and colonies exist as far north as New York City, Chicago, Wisconsin, Cincinnati, Louisville, coastal Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and southwestern Washington. Edgewater, New Jersey has had a colony since 1980. This hardiness makes this species second only to the rose-ringed parakeet among parrots as a successful introduced species.
New York State
In 2012, a pair of monk parakeets attempted nesting in Watervliet, New York, about 240 km (150 mi) north of New York City, near Albany, New York. Prior to egg-laying, one bird was captured and the nest eventually was removed due to concerns that the nest built adjacent to an electrical transformer created a fire hazard.
They have also found a home in Brooklyn, New York, after an accidental release decades ago of what appear to have been black-market birds within Green-Wood Cemetery. The grounds crew initially tried to destroy the unsightly nests at the entrance gate, but no longer do so because the presence of the parrots has reduced the number of pigeons nesting within it. The management's decision was based on a comparative chemical analysis of pigeon feces (which destroy brownstone structures) and monk parakeet feces (which have no ill effect). The monk parakeets are in effect preserving this historic structure.
Brooklyn College has a monk parakeet as an "unofficial" mascot in reference to the colony of the species that lives in its campus grounds. It is featured on the masthead of the student magazine. They have also made their homes in the lamp posts in Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx. Most of these monk parakeet populations have been traced to shipments of captured birds from Argentina.
Chicago
The population in Chicago is estimated to be at 1,000 birds, with healthy colonies located in several of the city's parks. Parrot origin theories include a University of Chicago experiment gone awry, an overturned truck on its way to a pet store, escaped birds from a holding pen at O'Hare Airport or released / escaped pets. According to University of Chicago ornithologist Dr. Stephen Pruett-Jones, "They got here through the pet trade and the pet trade really peaked in the mid- to late 1960s."
The first documented parrot nest in Chicago dates to 1973. The species continues to thrive despite several unusually harsh winters that occurred during the 1980s and in 2014. Various attempts to remove them were made over the years, most of which were resisted by a group of Hyde Park residents, including Mayor Harold Washington. The birds are generally welcomed in the city, especially by bird watchers, and were the subject of a 2012 ornithological study.


Monk parakeets are highly intelligent, social birds. Those kept as pets routinely develop vocabularies of scores of words and phrases. Due to this early speaking ability, it is overtaking the cockatiel as the favorite bird to teach to talk. Another contributing factor to growing popularity is that this bird has a shorter lifespan and lower price than African grey parrots.
Because of monk parakeets' listing as an agricultural pest, the U.S. states of California, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Wyoming, as well as Western Australia outlaw sale and ownership. In Connecticut, one can own monk parakeets, but cannot sell or breed them. In New York and Virginia, one can own monk parakeets with banding and registration. In Ohio, owning one is legal if the bird's flight feathers are clipped or it is incapable of free flight.


The rusty-margined flycatcher (Myiozetetes cayanensis) is a species of bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers.
It is found in northern and central South America in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela; also eastern Panama. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and heavily degraded former forest.


Mylothris agathina, the eastern dotted border or common dotted border, is a butterfly of the family Pieridae, which is native to sub-Saharan Africa, particularly East and southern Africa. In South Africa its range has spread westwards around the coast in the late 20th century, and it now occurs north of Cape Town to somewhat beyond Saldanha.
The wingspan is 50–60 millimetres (2.0–2.4 in) for males and 52–65 mm (2.0–2.6 in) for females. The slow-flying adults are on wing year-round, with peaks in October and from late February to April. The gregarious larvae feed on Tapinanthus oleifolius, Tapinanthus rubromarginatus, Erianthemum dregei, Teighemia quinquenervia, Ximenia caffra, Osyris lanceolata, and Osyris compressa (formerly Colpoon compressum). The pupae resemble bird droppings.


Myoporum laetum has been introduced to several other countries including Portugal, South Africa and Namibia. It is considered an invasive exotic species by the California Exotic Pest Plant Council.


As plants readily self-seed, it is often difficult to establish whether plants seen in the wild are in fact garden escapes.
It is widespread in England, Wales, and the Isle of Man, although less frequent further north. It can be found along much of the east coast of Scotland and areas in the South West, although missing from most of the Highlands, Orkney, Shetland, and the Outer Hebrides. In Ireland it is mostly found in Northern Ireland, although there are a few spots in the Republic of Ireland.


Myrtus communis, the common myrtle or true myrtle, is a species of flowering plant in the myrtle family Myrtaceae. It is an evergreen shrub native to southern Europe, North Africa, Western Asia, Macaronesia, and the Indian Subcontinent, and also cultivated. It is also sometimes known as Corsican pepper.
The medicinal properties of Myrtus communis were utilized as early as 600 B.C.E. Symbolically and ritually important in ancient times, it was used to represent honor, justice, prosperity, generosity, hope, love, and happiness. In Greco-Roman mythology, numerous gods were associated with the common myrtle and its flowers, such as Aphrodite and Demeter. Also a key part of various Jewish traditions, it is one of the four species used in the festival of Sukkot, and the Bible records its use in purification ceremonies. As a shrub that thrives along waterways, it was also seen as a symbol of restoration and recovery.
In Europe during the Renaissance, it came to be best known as a symbol of love, which led to the ongoing tradition of the flower as part of the wedding bouquet.
For uses and further historical significance, see Myrtus.


Systematically blue mussel consists of a group of (at least) three closely related taxa of mussels, known as the Mytilus edulis complex.  Collectively they occupy both coasts of the North Atlantic (including the Mediterranean) and of the North Pacific in temperate to polar waters, as well as coasts of similar nature in the Southern Hemisphere.  The distribution of the component taxa has been recently modified as a result of human activity.  The taxa can hybridise with each other, if present at the same locality.
Mytilus edulis sensu stricto: Native to the North Atlantic.
Mytilus galloprovincialis, the Mediterranean mussel: Native in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Western Europe. Introduced in the temperate North Pacific, South Africa and elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere.
Mytilus planulatus, the New Zealand blue mussel, a distinct lineage native to the Southern Hemisphere along the southern coast of Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand
Mytilus platensis (junior synonym M. chilensis), the Chilean mussel: Temperate and sub-Antarctic waters of South America and the Kerguelen Islands.
Mytilus trossulus: North Pacific, northern parts of the North Atlantic, Baltic Sea.


The Atlantic blue mussel is native on the North American Atlantic coast, but is found intermixed with M. trossulus north of Maine. In Atlantic Canada, M. trossulus was found to have smaller shell growth values than M. edulis and contain less meat than M. edulis. Keeping this in mind, M. edulis, under raft culture conditions, is estimated to have an economic value of 1.7 times M. trossulus. In Europe it is found from French Atlantic coast northwards to Novaya Zemlya and Iceland, but not in the Baltic Sea. In France and in the British Isles, it makes hybrid zones with M. galloprovincialis, and also is sometimes intermixed with M. trossulus.
The genetically distinct lineage of M. edulis present in the Southern Hemisphere has been attributed to subspecies Mytilus edulis platensis (now Mytilus platensis).


Myxarium nucleatum is often found in association with old pyrenomycetes, but is presumed to be a wood-rotting species, typically found on dead attached or fallen branches. It was originally recorded on hawthorn, but is also known from many other broadleaf trees and shrubs, including beech, ash, sycamore, and ivy. Myxarium nucleatum typically fruits in autumn and winter. It is widely distributed in Europe, North, Central and South America, and New Zealand.
The fruit bodies can serve as host to the auricularioid parasite Zygogloea gemellipara. This fungus grows thin thread-like hyphae—too small to be viewed with the naked eye—on the hymenium of its host. The hyphae of the parasite attach to the host hyphae through  twisting, tendril-like haustorial cells.


The scarlet myzomela is found from Cooktown in Far North Queensland down the east coast to Mitchell River National Park in Gippsland, Victoria. It is rarer south of the Hacking River in New South Wales. Its range extends inland to Charters Towers, Carnarvon Gorge and Inglewood in Queensland, and the Warrumbungles in New South Wales. It is a rare vagrant to Melbourne.
The species' movements are not well known, but it appears to be migratory in the southern part of its range and more sedentary in the north. Populations of scarlet myzomelas move northwards up a portion of the Australian east coast for winter. Nomadic movements of populations, generally following the flowering of preferred food plants, also occur. Population numbers have been reported as fluctuating in some areas, with local movements possibly related to the flowering of preferred food plants. Local irruptions have occurred in Sydney in 1902 (during a drought), 1981, 1991 (both in northwestern Sydney), and 1994 (centred on Lane Cove River valley), in Nowra in 1980, across southern Victoria in 1985, and in the Eurobodalla district in 1991 and 1993. A field study in Mangerton over 18 years found that scarlet myzomelas arrived in the area in early Spring (August) and left by November, though they were entirely absent in three separate years. The maximum age recorded from banding has been just over 10 years, in a bird caught south of Mount Cotton in Queensland.
Its habitat is dry sclerophyll forest and woodland, generally with eucalypts as the dominant trees and where there is little understory. Scarlet myzomelas are encountered alone, in pairs, or in small troops, sometimes with other honeyeaters in the canopy of trees in flower.


The species is native to Western Europe from Spain and Portugal east to Germany and north to England and Wales. It is commonly grown in gardens and populations have become established in the Balkans, Australia, New Zealand, the Caucasus, Madeira, British Columbia, Ontario, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Oregon, Washington state, much of eastern United States, and the Falkland Islands. Wild plants grow in woods, grassland and on rocky ground. In Britain native populations have decreased substantially since the 19th century due to intensification of agriculture, clearance of woodland and uprooting of the bulbs for use in gardens. In Germany it was a subject of a national awareness campaign for the protection of wildflowers in 1981.
In England, the Farndale valley in the North York Moors National Park hosts a large population of the species, along the banks of the River Dove. There are several nature reserves in Gloucestershire supporting large populations of the species near Dymock Woods SSSI. There is a Daffodil Walk Trail around several reserves in the spring.


In some regions, watercress is regarded as a weed, in other regions as an aquatic vegetable or herb. Watercress has been grown in many locations around the world.
In the United Kingdom, watercress was first commercially cultivated in 1808 by the horticulturist William Bradbery, along the River Ebbsfleet in Kent. Watercress is now grown in a number of counties of the United Kingdom, most notably Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, and Hertfordshire. The town of Alresford, near Winchester, is considered to be the nation's watercress capital. It holds a Watercress Festival that brings in more than 15,000 visitors every year and a preserved steam railway line has been named after the local crop.


As a cruciferous vegetable, watercress contains isothiocyanates that are partly destroyed by boiling, while the content of carotenoids is slightly increased. Steaming or microwave cooking retains these phytochemicals.


In the Baltic mythology, the grass snake (Lithuanian: žaltys, Latvian: zalktis) is seen as a sacred animal. It was frequently kept as a pet, living under a married couple's bed or in a special place near the hearth. Supposedly, snakes ate food given to them by hand.
After the Christianization of Lithuania and Latvia, the grass snake still retained some mythological significance. In spite of the serpent's symbolic meaning as a symbol of evil in Christianity, in Latvia and Lithuania there were various folk beliefs, dating even to the late 19th century, that killing grass snakes might bring grave misfortune or that an injured snake will take revenge on the offender. The ancient Baltic belief of grass snakes as household spirits transformed into a belief that there is a snake (known or not to the inhabitants) living under every house; if it leaves, the house will burn down. Common Latvian folk sayings include "who kills a grass snake, kills his happiness" and "when the Saulė sees a dead grass snake, she cries for 9 days".
Well-known literary works based on these traditions include Lithuanian folk tale Eglė the Queen of Serpents (Eglė žalčių karalienė) and the Latvian folk fairytale "The grass snake's bride" (Zalkša līgava). These works include another common theme in Baltic mythology: that grass snakes wear crowns (note grass snake's yellow spots) and that there is a king of snakes who wears a golden crown. In some traditions the king of snakes changes every year; he drops his crown in spring and the other snakes fight for it (possibly based on the mating of grass snakes).
Today grass snakes hold a meaning of house blessing among many Latvians and Lithuanians. One tradition is to put a bowl of milk near a snake's place of residence, although there is no evidence of a grass snake ever drinking milk. Driven by late 19th century and 20th century Romantic nationalism, grass snake motifs in Latvia have gained a meaning of education and wisdom, and are common ornaments in the military, folk dance groups and education logos and insignia. They are also found on the Lielvārde Belt. The grass snake has also become one of the main symbols of the Lithuanian neo-pagan movement Romuva.


The  hooded vulture (Necrosyrtes monachus) is an Old World vulture in the order Accipitriformes, which also includes eagles, kites, buzzards and hawks. It is the only member of the genus Necrosyrtes, which is sister to the larger Gyps genus, both of which are a part of the Aegypiinae subfamily of Old World vultures. It is native to sub-Saharan Africa, where it has a widespread distribution with populations in southern, East and West Africa. It is a scruffy-looking, small vulture with dark brown plumage, a long thin bill, bare crown, face and fore-neck, and a downy nape and hind-neck. Its face is usually a light red colour. It typically scavenges on carcasses of wildlife and domestic animals. Although it remains a common species with a stable population in the lower region of Casamance, some areas of The Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau, other regions such as Dakar, Senegal, show more than 85% losses in population over the last 50 years. Threats include poisoning, hunting, loss of habitat and collisions with electricity infrastructure, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as "critically endangered" in their latest assessment (2022). The highest current regional density of hooded vultures is in the western region of The Gambia.


Although hooded vultures have relatively small home ranges, they are widely distributed across Africa. It occurs in Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia, Niger and Nigeria in West Africa; in East Africa it is found in Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia; in southern Africa it has been recorded in northern Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.
Within South Africa, the species is essentially restricted to the Kruger National Park and surrounding protected areas in Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces, though vagrants have been recorded further west in Kwa-Zulu Natal and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.


Like other vultures hooded vultures are scavengers, feeding mostly from carcasses of dead animals and waste which they find by soaring over savanna and around human habitation, including waste tips and abattoirs. They do however also feed on insects, and conglomerate in large numbers during insect emergences, for example termite emergences where they associate with Steppe Eagles. They are non-specialised, highly versatile scavengers and are commensal with humans in West Africa. They often move in flocks (50-250 individuals) in West Africa, especially when foraging at abattoirs or elephant carcasses, while in southern Africa they are solitary and secretive, making them hard to spot when nesting. They are known to follow scavenging African wild dogs and hyaenas.
This vulture is typically unafraid of humans, and frequently gathers around habitation. It is sometimes referred to as the “garbage collector” by locals. In Ghanaian universities, a significantly higher number of hooded vultures exist in the residential parts of the campus relative to the non-residential parts, and densities are correlated with the academic calendar, with numbers of individuals increasing during school terms. 45% of students at these campuses are defecated on by hooded vultures at least once a month, according to interviews.
Southern African hooded vulture populations have smaller home ranges than most other Old World vulture species for which data exists, though less is known about home ranges of East and West African populations. They are most active during the day, and their ranges are smaller in the dry breeding season, when their movement is constrained by a nest site location to which they must return regularly to incubate their eggs and provision their fledglings. In both the northern and southern hemisphere populations, breeding takes place in the dry summer season.
They prefer to build nests in well-foliaged trees along watercourses, with the nest placed a prominent fork within the tree canopy at an average height of over 15m. They have however also been observed in a variety of biomes, some where tall trees are rare. They have been recorded in open grasslands, deserts, wooded savanna, forest edges and along coasts. They tend to occur in higher densities where populations of larger Gyps vultures are low or nonexistent. It occurs up to 4,000 m, but is most numerous below 1,800 m.
Hooded vultures lay a clutch of one egg, and the incubation period lasts 46-54 days, followed by a fledging period of 80-130 days. Young are dependent on their parents for a further 3-4 months after fledging. Measurements of nesting success at the Olifants River Private Nature Reserve, South Africa showed success of 0.44-0.89 offspring per pair per year in 2013 and 0.50-0.67 offspring per pair per year in 2014.


The sunbirds are a group of small Old World passerine birds, and are placed within the family Nectariniidae, which is found across Africa, the Middle East and into South-east Asia. Also called green sugarbird.
The malachite sunbird has two subspecies. The nominate N. f. famosa occurs mainly in South Africa, Lesotho and western Eswatini, although its range just extends into southern Namibia and Zimbabwe. N. f. cupreonitens breeds in the highlands from Ethiopia south to northern Mozambique.


This species is monogamous. The oval nest is usually suspended, as with most sunbirds, or constructed inside a bush. The female incubates one to three dark-blotched, greenish eggs for two weeks. The chicks are fed by both parents until fledging time, and the chicks will for a time return to the nest to roost. The malachite sunbird is often double-brooded, and may be parasitised by Klaas's cuckoo or red-chested cuckoo. It is territorial and aggressive when nesting, but highly gregarious when not breeding, forming flocks of over 1,000 birds.
The call is a loud tseep-tseep, and the male malachite sunbird has a twittering song, often accompanied by pointing its head upward and displaying his yellow pectoral tufts with his wings half open. Males also have an elaborate display flight. It was found that male birds display their pectoral tufts almost continuously throughout the night, whilst asleep, and one hypothesis is that these function as eyespots to deter nocturnal predators.


The wildflower is found on slopes in elevations between 20–1,000 metres (66–3,281 ft). The plant is endemic to California. It is most common in the Sierra Nevada, Sacramento Valley, and the California Coast Ranges in the San Francisco Bay Area.
It is found in several plant communities, including valley grassland, foothill woodland, and pine and fir forest.


Nemophila phacelioides, commonly called large-flower baby-blue-eyes or Texas baby-blue-eyes, is a flowering plant in the waterleaf family (Hydrophyllaceae). It is native to the South Central United States, where it is found in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Its natural habitat is in woodland openings in riparian bottoms, in sandy or silty soils.


Nemoria mimosaria, the white-fringed emerald or flanged looper,  is a moth of the family Geometridae. The species was first described by Achille Guenée in 1858. It is found from Nova Scotia to south-eastern Alberta, south to Virginia, Illinois, and Texas.
The wingspan is about 26 mm. Adults are on wing from mid to late June.
The larvae feed on various deciduous shrubs and trees and conifer trees, including Betula papyrifera, Abies balsamifera, Salix, Alnus, and Myrica asplenifolia.


Neoalcis is a monotypic moth genus in the family Geometridae erected by James Halliday McDunnough in 1920. Its only species, Neoalcis californiaria, the brown-lined looper, was described by Packard in 1871.
It is found along the west coast of North America, from California to British Columbia.
The wingspan is about 34 mm.
The larvae feed on various broadleaf trees and shrubs, but mainly Douglas-fir. Other host plants include western hemlock, western red cedar, grand fir and lodgepole pine.


Round gobies actively feed both nocturnally and diurnally and are believed to detect prey only while stationary. The primary diet of round gobies includes mollusks, crustaceans, worms, fish eggs, zebra mussels, small fish, insect larvae, and other small invertebrates (insects and amphipods) living on the bottom of lakes and streams. In spring, the main elements of their diet in the Sasyk Lagoon are Hydrobia, Cerastoderma, and Abra. In the same season, near the Romanian coasts of the Black Sea, the round goby feeds on polychaetes, crustaceans (Idotea balthica, Pachygrapsus marmoratus, Xantho poressa, etc.), and juvenile gobies. Near Sevastopol, the round goby feeds on molluscs (Mytilaster lineatus and Abra sp.).
In the Gulf of Odessa, twenty-three items are identified in the diet of the round goby; Mytilus galloprovincialis, Setia pulcherrima, Mytilaster lineatus, Lentidium mediterraneum, Idotea balthica, and Alitta (Nereis) succinea dominate in the spring, while in the summer, the diet consists mainly of Sphaeroma pulchellum and L. mediterraneum. The mussels M. galloprovincialis and M. lineatus are important in all seasons.


The species was accidentally introduced into the North American Great Lakes by way of ballast water transfer in cargo ships. First discovered in North America in the St. Clair River in 1990, the round goby is considered an invasive species with significant ecological and economic impact; the consequences of introduction are quite complex as the fish both competes with native species and provides an abundant source of food for them while consuming other invasive species. In other words, the round goby behaves much like most biological invasive controls. An aggressive fish, the round goby outcompetes native species such as the sculpin and logperch for food (such as snails and mussels), shelter, and nesting sites, substantially reducing their numbers. Round gobies are also voracious predators of eggs of native fish, many of them important to the angling industry. The goby's robust ability to survive in degraded environmental conditions has helped to increase its competitive advantage compared to native species.
Many native predatory fish such as smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, walleye, salmon, and trout have begun to prey on round gobies. The incorporation of the round goby into native foodwebs, coupled with the goby's ability to consume large numbers of invasive mussels (zebra and quagga), may result in greater bioaccumulation of toxins such as PCBs higher in the food chain, since these mussels filter-feed and are known to accumulate persistent contaminants. However, this is partly beneficial because even though they do not reduce the population of zebra mussels, they do control their population. Hence, it prevents a large-scale spread of the zebra mussel, which is also an invasive species in the Great Lakes. Another unintended benefit of the round goby's introduction is that the Lake Erie watersnake, once listed as a threatened species, has found the goby to be a tasty addition to its diet. A recent study found the introduced fish now accounts for up to 90% of the snake's diet. The new food supply means that the water snake is now staging a comeback. Round gobies also serve as food for a variety of predatory fishes in the Great Lakes, including bass, lake trout, lake whitefish, burbot, and walleye.
The round goby is also considered invasive in parts of Europe. This process was started by its introduction to the Gulf of Gdańsk (southern Baltic Sea) in 1990. Locations recently invaded by round gobies include the Aegean Sea, different parts of the Baltic Sea, the North Sea basin, and the Danube and Rhine basins. In the German part of the Baltic Sea this fish was first noted near Rügen Island. It is now distributed all along the southwestern Baltic Sea coast, including Stettiner Haff (Szczecin Lagoon), the Unterwarnow (Warnow river estuary), the mouth of the Trave, and the Nord-Ostsee (Kiel) Canal.
As of 2010, the westernmost site of round goby occurrence in Europe was the lower Scheldt, including the tidal zone in the river mouth, and Albert Canal, Belgium. In 2011, the round goby began invading the fresh waters of France; the species appeared in the Rhine River (on the border between France and Germany) and in the French part of the Moselle River.


Hawaiian monk seals mate in the water during their breeding season, which occurs between June and August. Females reach maturity at age four and give birth to one pup a year. The fetus takes nine months to develop, with birth occurring between March and June. Pups start around  16 kg (35 lb) and are about 1 m (3 ft 3 in) long. They can have 1 baby pup a year.


The Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus), also called the white scavenger vulture or pharaoh's chicken, is a small Old World vulture and the only member of the genus Neophron. It is widely distributed from the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa to India. The contrasting underwing pattern and wedge-shaped tail make it distinctive in flight as it soars in thermals during the warmer parts of the day. Egyptian vultures feed mainly on carrion but are opportunistic and will prey on small mammals, birds, and reptiles. They also feed on the eggs of other birds, breaking larger ones by tossing a large pebble onto them.
The use of tools is rare in birds and apart from the use of a pebble as a hammer, Egyptian vultures also use twigs to roll up wool for use in their nest. Egyptian vultures that breed in the temperate regions migrate south in winter while tropical populations are relatively sedentary. Populations of this species declined in the 20th century and some island populations are endangered by hunting, accidental poisoning, and collision with power lines.


Egyptian vultures are widely distributed across the Old World with their breeding range from southern Europe to northern Africa east to western and southern Asia. They are rare vagrants in Sri Lanka. They occur mainly on the dry plains and lower hills. In the Himalayas, they go up to about 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) in summer. In Armenia, breeding pairs have been found up to 2,300 meters a.s.l.
Most Egyptian vultures in the subtropical zone of Europe migrate south to Africa in winter. Vagrants may occur as far south as in South Africa although they bred in the Transkei region prior to 1923. They nest mainly on rocky cliffs, sometimes adopting ledges on tall buildings in cities and on large trees. Like many other large soaring migrants, they avoid making long crossings over water. Italian birds cross over through Sicily and into Tunisia making short sea crossings by passing through the islands of Marettimo and Pantelleria with rare stops on the island country of Malta. Those that migrate through the Iberian Peninsula cross into Africa over the Strait of Gibraltar while others cross further east through the Levant. In summer, some African birds fly further north into Europe and vagrants have been recorded in England, Ireland, and southern Sweden.
Migrating birds can sometimes cover 500 kilometres (310 mi) in a single day until they reach the southern edge of the Sahara, 3,500 to 5,500 kilometres (2,200 to 3,400 mi) from their summer home. Young birds that have not reached breeding age may overwinter in the grassland and semi-desert regions of the Sahel.


Healthy adults do not have many predators, but human activities pose many threats. Collisions with power lines, hunting, intentional poisoning, lead accumulation from ingesting gunshot in carcasses, and pesticide accumulation take a toll on populations. Young birds at the nest are sometimes taken by golden eagles, eagle owls, and red foxes. Only rarely do adult birds attempt to drive away predators. Young birds that fall off of cliff ledges may be preyed on by mammalian predators such as jackals, foxes and wolves. Like all birds they serve as hosts for ectoparasitic birdlice including Aegypoecus perspicuus as well as organisms that live within them such as mycoplasmas.
Egyptian vulture populations have declined in most parts of its range. In Europe and most of the Middle East, populations in 2001 were half of those from 1980. In India, the decline has been rapid with a 35% decrease each year since 1999. In 1967–70, the area around Delhi was estimated to have 12,000–15,000 of these vultures, with an average density of about 5 pairs per 10 km². The exact cause of the decline is not known, but has been linked with the use of the NSAID Diclofenac, which has been known to cause death in Gyps vultures.
In Italy, the number of breeding pairs declined from 30 in 1970 to 9 in the 1990s. Nearly all breeding failures were due to human activities. In Spain, which holds about 50% of the European population suggested causes of decline include poisoning by accumulation of lead, pesticides (especially due to large-scale use in the control of Schistocerca gregaria locust swarms), and electrocution. Windfarms may also pose a threat. Poorly designed power transmission lines in east Africa electrocute many wintering vultures. A shortage of carrion resulting from new rules for disposal of dead animals following the outbreak of Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis in parts of Europe during 2000 may have also had an effect on some populations. In Armenia direct persecution for trophy and for local illegal trade of animals as pets has been recorded.
The population of Egyptian vultures in the Canary Islands has been isolated from those in Europe and Africa for a significant period of time leading to genetic differentiation. The vulture population there declined by 30% in the ten years between 1987 and 1998. The Canarian Egyptian vulture was historically common, occurring on the islands of La Gomera, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, and Lanzarote. It is now restricted to Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, the two easternmost islands. The total population in 2000 was estimated at about 130 individuals, including 25–30 breeding pairs. Island birds also appear to accumulate significant amounts of lead from scavenging on hunted animal carcasses. The long-term effect of this poison at a sub-lethal level is not known, though it is known to alter the mineralization of their bones. In order to provide safe and uncontaminated food for nesting birds, attempts have been made to create "vulture restaurants" where carcasses are made available. However, these interventions may also encourage other opportunist predators and scavengers to concentrate at the site and pose a threat to vultures nesting in the vicinity.


Neotinea tridentata, the  three-toothed orchid, is a species of orchid found in southern Europe from Spain to Turkey; northwards to the Crimea, Poland and Germany. This orchid favours grassy places, woodland, scrub and maquis.


The American mink (Neogale vison) is a semiaquatic species of mustelid native to North America, though human intervention has expanded its range to many parts of Europe, Asia and South America. Because of range expansion, the American mink is classed as a least-concern species by the IUCN. The American mink was formerly thought to be the only extant member of the genus Neovison following the extinction of the sea mink (N. macrodon), but recent studies, followed by taxonomic authorities, have reclassified it and the sea mink within the genus Neogale, which also contains a few New World weasel species. The American mink is a carnivore that feeds on rodents, fish, crustaceans, frogs, and birds. In its introduced range in Europe it has been classified as an invasive species linked to declines in European mink, Pyrenean desman, and water vole populations. It is the animal most frequently farmed for its fur, exceeding the silver fox, sable, marten, and skunk in economic importance.


The American mink relies heavily on sight when foraging. Its eyesight is clearer on land than underwater. Its auditory perception is high enough to detect the ultrasonic vocalisations (1–16 kHz) of rodent prey. Its sense of smell is comparatively weak. Its two anal glands are used for scent marking, either through defecation or by rubbing the anal region on the ground. The secretions of the anal glands are composed of 2,2-dimethylthietane, 2-ethylthietane, cyclic disulfide, 3,3-dimethyl-1,2-dithiacyclopentane, and indole. When stressed, the American mink can expel the contents of its anal glands at a distance of 12 in (30 cm). Scent glands may also be located on the throat and chest. The smell produced by these scent glands was described by Clinton Hart Merriam as more unbearable than that produced by skunks, and added it was "one of the few substances, of animal, vegetable, or mineral origin, that has, on land or sea, rendered me aware of the existence of the abominable sensation called nausea".


The American mink was deliberately introduced for commercial fur production in several provinces of Patagonia in 1930. The animals escaped or were released from farms in Chubut Province and now occur in the Chubut and Río Negro Provinces and Tierra del Fuego. In Argentina the mink is one of the major menaces of the Hooded Grebe, which risks becoming extinct.


Feral American minks in Europe are thought to be of domesticated stock derived from the N. v. vison, N. v. melampeplus and N. v. ingens subspecies. The first specimens were imported to Europe in 1920 for fur-farming purposes. The American mink was introduced in Italy in the 1950s, and currently resides mostly in the northeastern part of the Italian Peninsula. The majority of these populations do not appear to be self-sufficient, though minks in the Monti Prenestini and Simbruini in Lazio have reproduced successfully.
Escapees of fur farms established a self-sustaining and expanding population on the Iberian peninsula by the second half of the 20th century. In 2013, the Spanish government announced a plan to eradicate the species, as a means to protect the falling populations of European mink and other endangered species affected such as the Pyrenean desman.
The first mink farm in Norway was built in 1927, with escapees establishing wild populations within 30 years of its establishment. The first feral mink populations arose in 1930, establishing territories in southwestern Norway. These feral minks, augmented by further escapees, formed the basis of a strong population in Hordaland by the end of World War II. Feral mink colonised eastern Norway in 1930 and had become established in most southeastern counties in the early 1940s. By 1950, feral mink reached central Norway, with further populations occurring in the northern counties of Nordland and Troms. During the post-World War II period until 1965, mink had colonised most of the country. In modern times, the American mink occupies all of the Norwegian mainland, but is absent on some islands.
The American mink was first imported to Great Britain in 1929, though a series of escapes and releases led to the establishment of a self-sufficient feral population in Devon by the late 1950s, and others by the early 1960s. In Ireland, the American mink was not farmed until the early 1950s, thus feral populations established themselves there much later. The species is now widespread in mainland Great Britain and Ireland, though some places remain uncolonised. It has established itself on a few islands, including Arran and Lewis and Harris. Until 2005, mink hunting with packs of hounds occurred in the UK. The total mink population in Great Britain is estimated at 110,000 (England; 46,750, Scotland; 52,250, Wales; 9,750). This population may be declining as European otter numbers increase. There are no estimates for the mink population in Ireland, but it is thought to be low, because of Ireland's strong otter population.


Neptis sappho, the Pallas' sailer or common glider, is a nymphalid butterfly found in Central Europe, Russia, India and other parts of temperate Asia and Japan.
The wingspan is 40–46 mm.
The larvae feed on Lathyrus vernus, Lathyrus niger and Robinia pseudoacacia.


Nepytia canosaria, the false hemlock looper, is a moth of the family Geometridae. The species was first described by Francis Walker in 1863. It is found from southwest British Columbia east to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, south through New England.
The wingspan is about 30 mm. The moth flies from August to September depending on the location.
The larva feed on balsam fir, eastern hemlock, spruces and occasionally other conifer species.


The kea is one of nine living endemic parrot species in New Zealand.
The kea ranges from lowland river valleys and coastal forests of the South Island's west coast up to alpine regions of the South Island such as Arthur's Pass and Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park. It is closely associated throughout its range with the southern beech (Nothofagus) forests in the alpine ridge.
Apart from occasional vagrants, kea today are not found in the North Island. Subfossil kea bones have been found in sand dunes at Mataikona in the eastern Wairarapa, Poukawa near Hastings, and Waitomo, indicating that they ranged through lowland forest over much of the North Island until the arrival of Polynesian settlers about 750 years ago. Kea subfossils are not restricted to alpine areas, being commonly found in lowland or coastal sites in the South Island. The current distribution of kea reflects the effects of mammalian predators, including humans, which have driven them out of lowland forest into the mountains.


The red-crested pochard (Netta rufina) is a large diving duck. The scientific name is derived from Greek Netta "duck", and Latin rufina, "golden-red" (from rufus, "ruddy"). Its breeding habitat is lowland marshes and lakes in southern Europe and it extends from the steppe and semi-desert areas on the Black Sea to Central Asia and Mongolia, wintering in the Indian Subcontinent and Africa. It is somewhat migratory, and northern birds winter further south into north Africa.
The adult male is unmistakable. It has a rounded orange head, red bill and black breast. The flanks are white, the back brown, and the tail black. The female is mainly a pale brown, with a darker back and crown and a whitish face. Eclipse males are like females but with red bills. They are gregarious birds, forming large flocks in winter, often mixed with other diving ducks, such as common pochards. They feed mainly by diving or dabbling. They eat aquatic plants, and typically upend for food more than most diving ducks.
A wheezing veht call can be given by the male. Series of hoarse vrah-vrah-vrah calls can also be heard from females.
Red-crested pochards build nests by the lakeside among vegetation and lay 8–12 pale green eggs. The birds' status in the British Isles is much confused because there have been many escapes and deliberate releases over the years, as well as natural visitors from the continent. However, it is most likely that they are escapees that are now breeding wild and have built up a successful feral population. They are most numerous around areas of England including Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and also spotted in Leicestershire.
The red-crested pochard is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.


It is a medium-sized rusty dragonfly with transparent wing tips. Male has a reddish-brown face with eyes which are dark reddish brown above, golden brown below. Thorax, abdomen and legs are reddish brown. Wings are dark reddish brown with an irregular triangular transparent area at the tip of the wing. The wing spots are dark reddish brown. Many forms of females are found. Color of head, thorax and abdomen paler than males or rusty brown. Wings are clear amber yellow with a dark ray extending to the tip in fore wing. Many of them have an irregular triangular transparent area at the tip of the wing. The wings vary in size, shape, width and coloration. The clear uncoloured apices of wings will help to distinguish it from other red Asian dragonflies.


Nezara viridula, commonly known as the southern green stink bug (USA), southern green shield bug (UK) or green vegetable bug (Australia and New Zealand), is a plant-feeding stink bug. Believed to have originated in Ethiopia, it can now be found around the world. Because of its preference for certain species of legumes, such as beans and soybeans, it is an economically important pest on such crops.


Nicandra physalodes is native to western South America – Northwest Argentina, Bolivia, North and Central Chile and Peru. It has been introduced in many tropical and temperate regions worldwide. In the British Isles, the plant is a frequent casual, found in bare or sparsely grassy places, including cultivated ground, waste places and rubbish tips. Its occurrence is often traceable to the presence of its seeds in commercial brands of bird seed.