It is the commonest of the large-tailed butterflies of India.
The red body, slow peculiar flight, bright colouration and pattern of the wings are meant to indicate to predators that this butterfly is inedible, being well protected by the poisons it has sequestered from its larval food plant. It also emits a nasty smelling substance when handled to further enhance its unappealing qualities. Hence it is rarely attacked by predators, a strategy so successful, that edible butterflies have evolved to mimic it, the classic example being that of the female morph of the common Mormon that is Papilio polytes, female form stichius.
The common rose frequently visits flowers such as Lantana, Cosmos, Zinnia, Jatropha and Clerodendron. The butterfly occasionally also visits wet patches. In parts of Sri Lanka, the males are known to congregate and form a beautiful sight while mud-puddling.
The common rose is active much earlier in the morning than most butterflies and remains so throughout the day until dusk. It flies just as readily in the shade as in the sun, and frequently visits flowers.
In drier regions, around noon, the butterfly rests in thickets to avoid the mid-day heat. Here, it will rest and venture forth only in the late afternoon once again.
In the evenings, it retires into wooded areas or thickets in search of dead twigs or small branches on which to roost. It prefers sites that are 10 to 15 feet above ground, below the canopy in trees with sufficient cover from the elements, where it frequently roosts in the company of others of its type, and, sometimes, in the company of the crimson rose.
It flies high, slowly and often descends to nectar on flowers below. On such occasions it often dives down with its wings held back, and as it approaches the flower, the wings open up to provide deceleration. The butterfly primarily depends on motive thrust on the powerful flapping of its forewings while the hindwings act as a balancing and steering mechanism. This flying technique gives a rather unusual look to its flight and an observer is left with the impression that it is dragging itself through the air with only the assistance of its forewings.
The common rose is often the preferred species to show the amateur naturalist the utility of the tails in steering. This can be most easily observed when the common rose hovers over flowers to sip nectar. Then, its forewings beat readily to give it buoyancy while the tails move delicately to steer and adjust its position.
It has been considered in the past that these tails are primarily for deception as in the case of the Polyommatinae where the thread-like tails resemble antennae and confuse the attacker as to the location of the head. On occasions, roses have been observed with damaged tails and it is possible that the presence of swallowtails occasionally does favour the butterfly in confusing attackers.


The rufous whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris) is a species of whistler found in New Caledonia and Australia. Predominantly a reddish-brown and grey bird, it makes up for its subdued plumage with its song-making ability. Like many other members of the Pachycephalidae, it has a variety of musical calls.


It is widespread in Southern Europe, from the Black Sea to the Moroccan coast, and along the Atlantic coasts of Portugal, Spain and France, and was observed as early as 1996 as far north as Southampton in the English Channel. This range expansion may be due to the warming of the surface waters.


Pachysandra terminalis, the Japanese pachysandra, carpet box or Japanese spurge, is a species of flowering plant in the boxwood family Buxaceae, native to Japan, Korea and China and introduced to eastern North America. It is a slow-growing, spreading evergreen perennial growing to 10 cm (4 in) tall by 60 cm (24 in) broad, with alternate, simple, glossy leaves, and creeping stems. The leaves may yellow in direct sunlight or in winter. When growing in a spreading mass of many plants, a dense cover is formed.
The flowers are white, borne above the foliage. In temperate Northern Hemisphere sites they appear late in the month of March and throughout the month of April. The plant is very cold hardy.
The specific epithet terminalis means "ending", and refers to the clusters of leaves which appear at the end of the short stems.


The signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) is a North American species of crayfish. It was introduced to Europe in the 1960s to supplement the North European Astacus astacus fisheries, which were being damaged by crayfish plague, but the imports turned out to be a carrier of that disease. The signal crayfish is now considered an invasive species across Europe, Japan, and California ousting native species there.


The signal crayfish is native to North America west of the Rocky Mountains, including the Canadian province of British Columbia, and the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It was introduced to California in 1912 into the San Lorenzo River watershed and from there rapidly spread throughout the state. The only native crayfish remaining in California (aside from  Pacifastacus leniusculus klamathensis, a subspecies of signal crayfish believed to be native to the Klamath River in Northern California) is the Shasta crayfish, of Shasta County, California (Pacifastacus fortis), where efforts are being made to create a barrier to signal crayfish invasion. Within North America, it has also been introduced to Nevada, and the populations in Utah may be the result of introductions. It has also been found in Alaska, specifically Kodiak Island, in the Buskin River and Buskin Lake. It is listed as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List.


From 1907, crayfish plague, an infectious disease caused by the water mould Aphanomyces astaci, damaged stocks of the native European crayfish Astacus astacus. Since the signal crayfish occupied a similar ecological niche in its native range, it was imported in the 1960s to Sweden and Finland to allow recreational and commercial crayfish capture. At the time, the signal crayfish was not recognized as a carrier of the crayfish plague. All American species carry the infection, but it is only lethal to individuals that are already stressed; to European species, the infection is rapidly fatal.
The signal crayfish is now the most widespread alien crayfish in Europe, occurring in 25 countries, from Finland to Great Britain and from Spain to Greece. It was first introduced to Great Britain in 1976 and is now widespread across the British mainland as far north as the Moray Firth. It has also been observed on the Isle of Man, but not in Ireland. Ireland is  the last European country having no alien crayfish.
In both Sweden and Finland (where crayfish are eaten), the catch of signal crayfish exceeds that of A. astacus (European/noble crayfish). The former is sold at roughly half the price compared to the latter.
In Europe, the signal crayfish is included since 2016 in the list of Invasive Alien Species of Union concern (the Union list). This implies that this species cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union. The signal crayfish is often considered a nuisance species amongst anglers in Europe.


California peonies have a native distribution in southwestern California (Los Angeles, Monterey, Orange, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties) and in neighboring Mexico (northern Baja California), although distribution in Mexico is poorly known. It grows on dry hillsides in the coastal sage scrub and chaparral communities of the coastal mountains of Southern and Central California, often as an understory plant between sea level and 1500 m elevation.


Paliurus spina-christi, commonly known as Jerusalem thorn, garland thorn, Christ's thorn, or crown of thorns, is a species of Paliurus native to the Mediterranean region and southwest and central Asia, from Morocco and Spain east to Iran and Tajikistan.


In Europe, the bright green shield bugs appear in April or May, having hibernated as imagoes in humus during the winter. They live by eating the sap from within plants in apples, pears and hazelnuts. They fatten for a month and then mate in June.
The imago's coloration changes over the summer months from green to greenish browns even bronze to ready for the Autumn, after which the life cycle will end.
Mating is back-to-back. The female lays her eggs in hexagonal batches of 25 to 30, and a single female will lay three to four batches. After the eggs hatch, the green shield bug enter a larval stage (which is really their first nymphal stage) where, in general, they remain together in sibling communities. This is made possible by the excretion of an aggregation pheromone. In case of danger, another pheromone is released which causes dispersal. The larval stage is followed by four more nymphal stages as well as moulting between each one.
The green shield bug displays different colouration during each nymphal stage, light brown, black or green-black, and in the final stage, the imago, is bright green with short wings. Usually the imago stage is reached in September, with hibernation occurring in November.


Occurring singly, gregariously, or caespitosely on cow/horse dung, moose droppings, and in pastures. Widely distributed in North America throughout the year, but only in warmer climates in winter. It can be found in countries including Canada (Alberta, British Columbia), the United States (Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Washington), the Caribbean (Bahamas, Cuba, San Vincent Island), Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, France, The Netherlands, Greece, Mexico, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Uganda, China, Iran, Lithuania, Kuwait, and the Philippines.


The aromatic root of American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) resembles a small parsnip that forks as it matures. The plant grows 6 to 18 in (15 to 46 cm) tall, usually bearing three leaves, each with three to five leaflets, 2 to 5 in (5 to 13 cm) long.
American ginseng can be found in much of the eastern and central United States and in part of southeastern Canada. It is found primarily in deciduous forests of the Appalachian and Ozark regions of the United States. American ginseng is found in full shade environments in these deciduous forests underneath hardwoods.
In the United States, American ginseng is generally not listed as an endangered species, but it has been declared under threat by some states. States recognizing American ginseng as endangered include Maine and Rhode Island. States recognizing American ginseng as vulnerable are New York and Pennsylvania. States recognizing American ginseng as threatened are Michigan, New Hampshire, and Virginia. Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Tennessee recognize American ginseng as a special concern.
In Canada, American ginseng is listed as endangered nationally, particularly in Ontario, and as threatened in Quebec (the highest risk categories in both provinces).


Pandanus tectorius grows natively from the Philippines through the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. It is found in parts of Malesia (the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Java, the Lesser Sunda Islands, the Maluku Islands and the Philippines), throughout Papuasia, and in most of the tropical Pacific. In Australia, it is native to an area from Port Macquarie in New South Wales to northern Queensland. Both the US and the Hawaiian Islands recognize only one indigenous species, P. tectorius. Its exact native range is unknown due to extensive cultivation; it may be an early Polynesian introduction to many of the more isolated Pacific islands on which it occurs. These islands include Micronesia and Melanesia.  In Hawaii, P. tectorius  is found natively on all the main islands except Kahoʻolawe, and it is known to have predated human settlement, based on seed and pollen samples taken from Kauaʻi's Makauwahi Cave.


The osprey is the second most widely distributed raptor species, after the peregrine falcon, and is one of only six land-birds with a cosmopolitan distribution. It is found in temperate and tropical regions of all continents, except Antarctica. In North America it breeds from Alaska and Newfoundland south to the Gulf Coast and Florida, wintering further south from the southern United States through to Argentina. It is found in summer throughout Europe north into Ireland, Scandinavia, Finland and Great Britain though not Iceland, and winters in North Africa. In Australia it is mainly sedentary and found patchily around the coastline, though it is a non-breeding visitor to eastern Victoria and Tasmania.
There is a 1,000 km (600 mi) gap, corresponding with the coast of the Nullarbor Plain, between its westernmost breeding site in South Australia and the nearest breeding sites to the west in Western Australia. In the islands of the Pacific it is found in the Bismarck Islands, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia, and fossil remains of adults and juveniles have been found in Tonga, where it probably was wiped out by arriving humans. It is possible it may once have ranged across Vanuatu and Fiji as well. It is an uncommon to fairly common winter visitor to all parts of South Asia, and Southeast Asia from Myanmar through to Indochina and southern China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
The worldwide distribution of the species is unusual for land-based birds, and only recognised in five other species.


European breeders winter in Africa. American and Canadian breeders winter in South America, although some stay in the southernmost U.S. states such as Florida and California. Some ospreys from Florida migrate to South America. Australasian ospreys tend not to migrate.
Studies of Swedish ospreys showed that females tend to migrate to Africa earlier than the males. More stopovers are made during their autumn migration. The variation of timing and duration in autumn was more variable than in spring. Although migrating predominantly in the day, they sometimes fly in the dark hours particularly in crossings over water and cover on average 260–280 km (160–170 mi) per day with a maximum of 431 km (268 mi) per day. European birds may also winter in South Asia, indicated by an osprey tagged in Norway being monitored in western India. In the Mediterranean, ospreys show partial migratory behaviour with some individuals remaining resident, whilst others undertake relatively short migration trips.


The osprey has a large range, covering 9,670,000 km² (3,730,000 sq mi) in just Africa and the Americas, and has a large global population estimated at 460,000 individuals. Although global population trends have not been quantified, the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e., declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations), and for these reasons, the species is evaluated as Least Concern. There is evidence for regional decline in South Australia where former territories at locations in the Spencer Gulf and along the lower Murray River have been vacant for decades.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the main threats to osprey populations were egg collectors and hunting of the adults along with other birds of prey, but osprey populations declined drastically in many areas in the 1950s and 1960s; this appeared to be in part due to the toxic effects of insecticides such as DDT on reproduction. The pesticide interfered with the bird's calcium metabolism which resulted in thin-shelled, easily broken or infertile eggs. Possibly because of the banning of DDT in many countries in the early 1970s, together with reduced persecution, the osprey, as well as other affected bird of prey species, have made significant recoveries. In South Australia, nesting sites on the Eyre Peninsula and Kangaroo Island are vulnerable to unmanaged coastal recreation and encroaching urban development.


Panicum virgatum, commonly known as switchgrass, is a perennial warm season bunchgrass native to North America, where it occurs naturally from 55°N latitude in Canada southwards into the United States and Mexico. Switchgrass is one of the dominant species of the central North American tallgrass prairie and can be found in remnant prairies, in native grass pastures, and naturalized along roadsides. It is used primarily for soil conservation, forage production, game cover, as an ornamental grass, in phytoremediation projects, fiber, electricity, heat production, for biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and more recently as a biomass crop for ethanol and butanol.
Other common names for switchgrass include tall panic grass, Wobsqua grass, blackbent, tall prairiegrass, wild redtop, thatchgrass, and Virginia switchgrass.


Switchgrass has been researched as a renewable bioenergy crop since the mid-1980s, because it is a native perennial warm season grass with the ability to produce moderate to high yields on marginal farmlands.  It is now being considered for use in several bioenergy conversion processes, including cellulosic ethanol production, biogas, and direct combustion for thermal energy applications.  The main agronomic advantages of switchgrass as a bioenergy crop are its stand longevity, drought and flooding tolerance, relatively low herbicide and fertilizer input requirements, ease of management, hardiness in poor soil and climate conditions, and widespread adaptability in temperate climates.  In some warm humid southern zones, such as Alabama, it has the ability to produce up to 25 oven-dry tonnes per hectare (ODT/ha).  A summary of switchgrass yields across 13 research trial sites in the United States found the top two cultivars in each trial to yield 9.4 to 22.9 t/ha, with an average yield of 14.6 ODT/ha. However, these yields were recorded on small plot trials, and commercial field sites could be expected to be at least 20% lower than these results.  In the United States, switchgrass yields appear to be highest in warm humid regions with long growing seasons such as the US Southeast and lowest in the dry short season areas of the Northern Great Plains. The energy inputs required to grow switchgrass are favorable when compared with annual seed bearing crops such as corn, soybean, or canola, which can require relatively high energy inputs for field operations, crop drying, and fertilization.  Whole plant herbaceous perennial C4 grass feedstocks are desirable biomass energy feedstocks, as they require fewer fossil energy inputs to grow and effectively capture solar energy because of their C4 photosynthetic system and perennial nature.  One study cites it takes from 0.97 to 1.34 GJ to produce 1 tonne of switchgrass, compared with 1.99 to 2.66 GJ to produce 1 tonne of corn. Another study found that switchgrass uses 0.8 GJ/ODT of fossil energy compared to grain corn's 2.9 GJ/ODT.  Given that switchgrass contains approximately 18.8 GJ/ODT of biomass, the energy output-to-input ratio for the crop can be up to 20:1.  This highly favorable ratio is attributable to its relatively high energy output per hectare and low energy inputs for production.
Considerable effort is being expended in developing switchgrass as a cellulosic ethanol crop in the USA.  In George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union Address, he proposed using switchgrass for ethanol; since then, over US$100 million has been invested into researching switchgrass as a potential biofuel source.  Switchgrass has the potential to produce up to 380 liters of ethanol per tonne harvested. However, current technology for herbaceous biomass conversion to ethanol is about 340 liters per tonne.  In contrast, corn ethanol yields about 400 liters per tonne.

The main advantage of using switchgrass over corn as an ethanol feedstock is its cost of production is generally about 1/2 that of grain corn, and more biomass energy per hectare can be captured in the field.  Thus, switchgrass cellulosic ethanol should give a higher yield of ethanol per hectare at lower cost.  However, this will depend on whether the cost of constructing and operating cellulosic ethanol plants can be reduced considerably.  The switchgrass ethanol industry energy balance is also considered to be substantially better than that of corn ethanol.  During the bioconversion process, the lignin fraction of switchgrass can be burned to provide sufficient steam and electricity to operate the biorefinery.  Studies have found that for every unit of energy input needed to create a biofuel from switchgrass, four units of energy are yielded.  In contrast, corn ethanol yields about 1.28 units of energy per unit of energy input. A recent study from the Great Plains  indicated that for ethanol production from switchgrass, this figure is 6.4, or alternatively, that 540% more energy was contained in the ethanol produced than was used in growing the switchgrass and converting it to liquid fuel.  However, there remain commercialization barriers to the development of cellulosic ethanol technology.  Projections in the early 1990s for commercialization of cellulosic ethanol by the year 2000 have not been met.  The commercialization of cellulosic ethanol is thus proving to be a significant challenge, despite noteworthy research efforts.
Thermal energy applications for switchgrass appear to be closer to near-term scale-up than cellulosic ethanol for industrial or small-scale applications.  For example, switchgrass can be pressed into fuel pellets that are subsequently burned in pellet stoves used to heat homes (which typically burn corn or wood pellets). Switchgrass has been widely tested as a substitute for coal in power generation.  The most widely studied project to date has been the Chariton Valley Project in Iowa.  The Show-Me-Energy Cooperative (SMEC) in Missouri is using switchgrass and other warm-season grasses, along with wood residues, as feedstocks for pellets used for the firing of a coal-fired power plant.  In Eastern Canada, switchgrass is being used on a pilot scale as a feedstock for commercial heating applications.  Combustion studies have been undertaken and it appears to be well-suited as a commercial boiler fuel.  Research is also being undertaken to develop switchgrass as a pellet fuel because of lack of surplus wood residues in eastern Canada, as a slowdown in the forest products industry in 2009 is now resulting in wood pellet shortages throughout Eastern North America.  Generally speaking, the direct firing of switchgrass for thermal applications can provide the highest net energy gain and energy output-to-input ratio of all switchgrass bioconversion processes. Research has found switchgrass, when pelletized and used as a solid biofuel, is a good candidate for displacing fossil fuels. Switchgrass pellets were identified to have a 14.6:1 energy output-to-input ratio, which is substantially better than that for liquid biofuel options from farmland.  As a greenhouse gas mitigation strategy, switchgrass pellets were found to be an effective means to use farmland to mitigate greenhouse gases on the order of 7.6-13 tonnes of CO₂ per hectare.  In contrast, switchgrass cellulosic ethanol and corn ethanol were found to mitigate 5.2 and 1.5 tonnes of CO₂ per hectare, respectively.
Historically, the major constraint to the development of grasses for thermal energy applications has been the difficulty associated with burning grasses in conventional boilers, as biomass quality problems can be of particular concern in combustion applications.  These technical problems now appear to have been largely resolved through crop management practices such as fall mowing and spring harvesting that allow for leaching to occur, which leads to fewer aerosol-forming compounds (such as K and Cl) and N in the grass.  This reduces clinker formation and corrosion, and enables switchgrass to be a clean combustion fuel source for use in smaller combustion appliances.  Fall harvested grasses likely have more application for larger commercial and industrial boilers.  Switchgrass is also being used to heat small industrial and farm buildings in Germany and China through a process used to make a low quality natural gas substitute.
Bai et al. (2010) conducted a study to analyze the environmental sustainability of using switchgrass plant material as a feedstock for ethanol production.  Life cycle analysis was used to make this assessment.  They compared efficiency of E10, E85, and ethanol with gasoline.  They took into account air and water emissions associated with growing, managing, processing and storing the switchgrass crop.  They also factored in the transportation of the stored switchgrass to the ethanol plant where they assumed the distance was 20 km.  The reductions in global warming potential by using E10 and E85 were 5 and 65%, respectively.   Their models also suggested that the “human toxicity potential” and “eco-toxicity potential” were substantially greater for the high ethanol fuels (i.e., E85 and ethanol) than for gasoline and E10.
In 2014, a genetically altered form of the bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor bescii was created which can cheaply and efficiently turn switchgrass into ethanol.


In the 19th and 20th centuries, several lion type specimens were described and proposed as subspecies, with about a dozen recognised as valid taxa until 2017.
Between 2008 and 2016, IUCN Red List assessors used only two subspecific names: P. l. leo for African lion populations, and P. l. persica for the Asiatic lion population. In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group revised lion taxonomy, and recognises two subspecies based on results of several phylogeographic studies on lion evolution, namely:
P. l. leo (Linnaeus, 1758) − the nominate lion subspecies includes the Asiatic lion, the regionally extinct Barbary lion, and lion populations in West and northern parts of Central Africa. Synonyms include P. l. persica (Meyer, 1826), P. l. senegalensis (Meyer, 1826), P. l. kamptzi (Matschie, 1900), and P. l. azandica (Allen, 1924). Multiple authors referred to it as 'northern lion' and 'northern subspecies'.
P. l. melanochaita (Smith, 1842) − includes the extinct Cape lion and lion populations in East and Southern African regions. Synonyms include P. l. somaliensis (Noack 1891), P. l. massaica (Neumann, 1900), P. l. sabakiensis (Lönnberg, 1910), P. l. bleyenberghi (Lönnberg, 1914), P. l. roosevelti (Heller, 1914), P. l. nyanzae (Heller, 1914), P. l. hollisteri (Allen, 1924), P. l. krugeri (Roberts, 1929), P. l. vernayi (Roberts, 1948), and P. l. webbiensis (Zukowsky, 1964). It has been referred to as 'southern subspecies' and 'southern lion'.
However, there seems to be some degree of overlap between both groups in northern Central Africa. DNA analysis from a more recent study indicates, that Central African lions are derived from both northern and southern lions, as they cluster with P. leo leo in mtDNA-based phylogenies whereas their genomic DNA indicates a closer relationship with P. leo melanochaita.
Lion samples from some parts of the Ethiopian Highlands cluster genetically with those from Cameroon and Chad, while lions from other areas of Ethiopia cluster with samples from East Africa. Researchers therefore assume Ethiopia is a contact zone between the two subspecies.Genome-wide data of a wild-born historical lion sample from Sudan showed that it clustered with P. l. leo in mtDNA-based phylogenies, but with a high affinity to P. l. melanochaita. This result suggested that the taxonomic position of lions in Central Africa may require revision.


The size and weight of adult lions varies across global range and habitats. Accounts of a few individuals that were larger than average exist from Africa and India.


In Africa, the range of the lion originally spanned most of the central African rainforest zone and the Sahara desert. In the 1960s, it became extinct in North Africa, except in the southern part of Sudan.
In southern Europe and Asia, the lion once ranged in regions where climatic conditions supported an abundance of prey. In Greece, it was common as reported by Herodotus in 480 BC; it was considered rare by 300 BC and extirpated by AD 100. It was present in the Caucasus until the 10th century. It lived in Palestine until the Middle Ages, and in Southwest Asia until the late 19th century. By the late 19th century, it had been extirpated in most of Turkey. The last live lion in Iran was sighted in 1942 about 65 km (40 mi) northwest of Dezful, although the corpse of a lioness was found on the banks of the Karun river in Khūzestān Province in 1944. It once ranged from Sind and Punjab in Pakistan to Bengal and the Narmada River in central India.


Several large and well-managed protected areas in Africa host large lion populations. Where an infrastructure for wildlife tourism has been developed, cash revenue for park management and local communities is a strong incentive for lion conservation. Most lions now live in East and Southern Africa; their numbers are rapidly decreasing, and fell by an estimated 30–50% in the late half of the 20th century. Primary causes of the decline include disease and human interference. In 1975, it was estimated that since the 1950s, lion numbers had decreased by half to 200,000 or fewer. Estimates of the African lion population range between 16,500 and 47,000 living in the wild in 2002–2004.
In the Republic of the Congo, Odzala-Kokoua National Park was considered a lion stronghold in the 1990s. By 2014, no lions were recorded in the protected area so the population is considered locally extinct. The West African lion population is isolated from the one in Central Africa, with little or no exchange of breeding individuals. In 2015, it was estimated that this population consists of about 400 animals, including fewer than 250 mature individuals. They persist in three protected areas in the region, mostly in one population in the W A P protected area complex, shared by Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. This population is listed as Critically Endangered. Field surveys in the WAP ecosystem revealed that lion occupancy is lowest in the W National Park, and higher in areas with permanent staff and thus better protection.
A population occurs in Cameroon's Waza National Park, where between approximately 14 and 21 animals persisted as of 2009. In addition, 50 to 150 lions are estimated to be present in Burkina Faso's Arly-Singou ecosystem. In 2015, an adult male lion and a female lion were sighted in Ghana's Mole National Park. These were the first sightings of lions in the country in 39 years. In the same year, a population of up to 200 lions that was previously thought to have been extirpated was filmed in the Alatash National Park, Ethiopia, close to the Sudanese border.
In 2005, Lion Conservation Strategies were developed for West and Central Africa, and or East and Southern Africa. The strategies seek to maintain suitable habitat, ensure a sufficient wild prey base for lions, reduce factors that lead to further fragmentation of populations, and make lion–human coexistence sustainable. Lion depredation on livestock is significantly reduced in areas where herders keep livestock in improved enclosures. Such measures contribute to mitigating human–lion conflict.


Lion-headed figures and amulets were excavated in tombs in the Greek islands of Crete, Euboea, Rhodes, Paros and Chios. They are associated with the Egyptian deity Sekhmet and date to the early Iron Age between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. The lion is featured in several of Aesop's fables, notably The Lion and the Mouse. The Nemean lion was symbolic in ancient Greece and Rome, represented as the constellation and zodiac sign Leo, and described in mythology, where it was killed and worn by the hero Heracles, symbolising victory over death. Lancelot and Gawain were also heroes slaying lions in the Middle Ages. In some medieval stories, lions were portrayed as allies and companions. "Lion" was the nickname of several medieval warrior-rulers with a reputation for bravery, such as Richard the Lionheart.
Lions continue to appear in modern literature as characters including the messianic Aslan in the 1950 novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis, and the comedic Cowardly Lion in L. Frank Baum's 1900 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Lion symbolism was used from the advent of cinema; one of the most iconic and widely recognised lions is Leo, which has been the mascot for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios since the 1920s. The 1966 film Born Free features Elsa the lioness and is based on the 1960 non-fiction book with the same title. The lion's role as king of the beasts has been used in the 1994 Disney animated feature film The Lion King.
Lions are frequently depicted on coats of arms, like on the coat of arms of Finland, either as a device on shields or as supporters, but the lioness is used much less frequently. The heraldic lion is particularly common in British arms. It is traditionally depicted in a great variety of attitudes, although within French heraldry only lions rampant are considered to be lions; feline figures in any other position are instead referred to as leopards.


In the 19th century, the jaguar was still sighted at the North Platte River in Colorado and coastal Louisiana.
In 1919, sightings of jaguars were reported in the Monterey, California region.
In 1999, its historic range at the turn of the 20th century was estimated at 19,000,000 km² (7,300,000 sq mi), stretching from the southern United States through Central America to southern Argentina. By the turn of the 21st century, its global range had decreased to about 8,750,000 km² (3,380,000 sq mi), with most declines in the southern United States, northern Mexico, northern Brazil, and southern Argentina.
Its present range extends from Mexico through Central America to South America comprising Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, particularly on the Osa Peninsula, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. It is considered to be locally extinct in El Salvador and Uruguay.
Jaguars have been occasionally sighted in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
Between 2012 and 2015, a male vagrant jaguar was recorded in 23 locations in the Santa Rita Mountains.
The jaguar prefers dense forest and typically inhabits dry deciduous forests, tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, rainforests and cloud forests in Central and South America; open, seasonally flooded wetlands, dry grassland and historically also oak forests in the United States. It has been recorded at elevations up to 3,800 m (12,500 ft) but avoids montane forests. It favors riverine habitat and swamps with dense vegetation cover. In the Mayan forests of Mexico and Guatemala, 11 GPS-collared jaguars preferred undisturbed dense habitat away from roads; females avoided even areas with low levels of human activity, whereas males appeared less disturbed by human population density. A young male jaguar was also recorded in the semi-arid Sierra de San Carlos at a waterhole.


In the pre-Columbian Americas, the jaguar was a symbol of power and strength. In the Andes, a jaguar cult disseminated by the early Chavín culture became accepted over most of today's Peru by 900 BC. The later Moche culture in northern Peru used the jaguar as a symbol of power in many of their ceramics. In the Muisca religion in Altiplano Cundiboyacense, the jaguar was considered a sacred animal, and people dressed in jaguar skins during religious rituals.
The skins were traded with peoples in the nearby Orinoquía Region.
The name of the Muisca ruler Nemequene was derived from the Chibcha words nymy and quyne, meaning "force of the jaguar".
Sculptures with "Olmec were-jaguar" motifs were found on the Yucatán Peninsula in Veracruz and Tabasco; they show stylized jaguars with half-human faces. In the later Maya civilization, the jaguar was believed to facilitate communication between the living and the dead and to protect the royal household. The Maya saw these powerful felines as their companions in the spiritual world, and several Maya rulers bore names that incorporated the Mayan word for jaguar b'alam in many of the Mayan languages. Balam remains a common Maya surname, and it is also the name of Chilam Balam, a legendary author to whom are attributed 17th and 18th-centuries Maya miscellanies preserving much important knowledge. Remains of jaguar bones were discovered in a burial site in Guatemala, which indicates that Mayans may have kept jaguars as pets.
The Aztec civilization shared this image of the jaguar as the representative of the ruler and as a warrior. The Aztecs formed an elite warrior class known as the Jaguar warrior. In Aztec mythology, the jaguar was considered to be the totem animal of the powerful deity Tezcatlipoca.
A conch shell gorget depicting a jaguar was found in a burial mound in Benton County, Missouri. The gorget shows evenly-engraved lines and measures 104 mm × 98 mm (4.1 in × 3.9 in).
Rock drawings made by the Hopi, Anasazi and Pueblo all over the desert and chaparral regions of the American Southwest show an explicitly spotted cat, presumably a jaguar, as it is drawn much larger than an ocelot.
The jaguar is also used as a symbol in contemporary culture. It is the national animal of Guyana and is featured in its coat of arms.
The flag of the Department of Amazonas features a black jaguar silhouette leaping towards a hunter.
The crest of the Argentine Rugby Union features a jaguar.


Results of phylogenetic studies based on nDNA and mtDNA analysis showed that the last common ancestor of the Panthera and Neofelis genera is thought to have lived about 6.37 million years ago. Neofelis diverged about 8.66 million years ago from the Panthera lineage. The tiger diverged about 6.55 million years ago, followed by the snow leopard about 4.63 million years ago and the leopard about 4.35 million years ago. The leopard is a sister taxon to a clade within Panthera, consisting of the lion and the jaguar.
Results of a phylogenetic analysis of chemical secretions amongst cats indicated that the leopard is closely related to the lion.
The geographic origin of the Panthera is most likely northern Central Asia. The leopard-lion clade was distributed in the Asian and African Palearctic since at least the early Pliocene. The leopard-lion clade diverged 3.1–1.95 million years ago. Additionally, a 2016 study revealed that the mitochondrial genomes of the leopard, lion and snow leopard are more similar to each other than their nuclear genomes, indicating that their ancestors hybridized with the snow leopard at some point in their evolution.
Fossils of leopard ancestors were excavated in East Africa and South Asia, dating back to the Pleistocene between 2 and 3.5 million years ago. The modern leopard is suggested to have evolved in Africa about 0.5 to 0.8 million years ago and to have radiated across Asia about 0.2 and 0.3 million years ago.
Fossil cat teeth collected in Sumatra's Padang Highlands were assigned to the leopard. It has since been hypothesized that it became extirpated on the island due to the Toba eruption about 75,000 years ago, and due to competition with the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) and the dhole (Cuon alpinus).
In Europe, the leopard occurred at least since the Pleistocene. Leopard-like fossil bones and teeth possibly dating to the Pliocene were excavated in Perrier in France, northeast of London, and in Valdarno, Italy. Until 1940, similar fossils dating back to the Pleistocene were excavated mostly in loess and caves at 40 sites in Europe, including Furninha Cave near Lisbon, Genista Caves in Gibraltar, and Santander Province in northern Spain to several sites across France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, in the north up to Derby in England, in the east to Přerov in the Czech Republic and the Baranya in southern Hungary, Leopard fossils dating to the Late Pleistocene were found in Biśnik Cave in south-central Poland. The oldest known leopard fossils excavated in Europe are about 600,000 years old and were found in the Grotte du Vallonnet in France and near Mauer in Germany. Four European Pleistocene leopard subspecies were proposed. P. p. begoueni from the beginning of the Early Pleistocene was replaced about 0.6 million years ago by P. p. sickenbergi, which in turn was replaced by P. p. antiqua around 0.3 million years ago. The most recent, P. p. spelaea, appeared at the beginning of the Late Pleistocene and survived until about 24,000 years ago in several parts of Europe. Leopard fossils dating to the Pleistocene were also excavated in the Japanese archipelago.


The leopard has the largest distribution of all wild cats, occurring widely in Africa, the Caucasus and Asia, although populations are fragmented and declining. It is considered to be extirpated in North Africa. It inhabits foremost savanna and rainforest, and areas where grasslands, woodlands, and riverine forests remain largely undisturbed. In sub-Saharan Africa, it is still numerous and surviving in marginal habitats where other large cats have disappeared. There is considerable potential for human-leopard conflict due to leopards preying on livestock.
Leopard populations on the Arabian Peninsula are small and fragmented. In southeastern Egypt, a leopard killed in 2017 was the first record in this area in 65 years.
In western and central Asia, it avoids deserts, areas with long snow cover and proximity to urban centres.
In the Indian subcontinent, the leopard is still relatively abundant, with greater numbers than those of other Panthera species. As of 2020, the leopard population within forested habitats in India's tiger range landscapes was estimated at 12,172 to 13,535 individuals. Surveyed landscapes included elevations below 2,600 m (8,500 ft)  in the Shivalik Hills and Gangetic plains, Central India and Eastern Ghats, Western Ghats, the Brahmaputra River basin and hills in Northeast India. Some leopard populations in the country live quite close to human settlements and even in semi-developed areas. Although adaptable to human disturbances, leopards require healthy prey populations and appropriate vegetative cover for hunting for prolonged survival and thus rarely linger in heavily developed areas. Due to the leopard's stealth, people often remain unaware that it lives in nearby areas.
In Nepal's Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, a melanistic leopard was photographed at an elevation of 4,300 m (14,100 ft) by a camera trap in May 2012. In Sri Lanka, leopards were recorded in Yala National Park and in unprotected forest patches, tea estates, grasslands, home gardens, pine and eucalyptus plantations.
In Myanmar, leopards were recorded for the first time by camera traps in the hill forests of Myanmar's Karen State. The Northern Tenasserim Forest Complex in southern Myanmar is considered a leopard stronghold. In Thailand, leopards are present in the Western Forest Complex, Kaeng Krachan-Kui Buri, Khlong Saeng-Khao Sok protected area complexes and in Hala Bala Wildlife Sanctuary bordering Malaysia. In Peninsular Malaysia, leopards are present in Belum-Temengor, Taman Negara and Endau-Rompin National Parks.
In Laos, leopards were recorded in Nam Et-Phou Louey National Biodiversity Conservation Area and Nam Kan National Protected Area.
In Cambodia, leopards inhabit deciduous dipterocarp forest in Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary and Mondulkiri Protected Forest.
In southern China, leopards were recorded only in the Qinling Mountains during surveys in 11 nature reserves between 2002 and 2009.
In Java, leopards inhabit dense tropical rainforests and dry deciduous forests at elevations from sea level to 2,540 m (8,330 ft). Outside protected areas, leopards were recorded in mixed agricultural land, secondary forest and production forest between 2008 and 2014.
In the Russian Far East, it inhabits temperate coniferous forests where winter temperatures reach a low of −25 °C (−13 °F).


In some areas, leopards mate all year round. In Manchuria and Siberia, they mate during January and February. The female's estrous cycle lasts about 46 days, and she usually is in heat for 6–7 days. The generation length of the leopard is 9.3 years. Gestation lasts for 90 to 105 days. Cubs are usually born in a litter of 2–4 cubs. Mortality of cubs is estimated at 41–50% during the first year.
Females give birth in a cave, crevice among boulders, hollow tree or thicket. Cubs are born with closed eyes, which open four to nine days after birth. The fur of the young tends to be longer and thicker than that of adults. Their pelage is also more gray in colour with less defined spots. Around three months of age, the young begin to follow the mother on hunts. At one year of age, cubs can probably fend for themselves, but remain with the mother for 18–24 months.
The average typical life span of a leopard is 12–17 years. The oldest leopard was a captive female that died at the age of 24 years, 2 months and 13 days.


Leopards have featured in art, mythology and folklore of many countries. In Greek mythology, it was a symbol of the god Dionysus, who was depicted wearing leopard skin and using leopards as means of transportation. In one myth, the god was captured by pirates but two leopards rescued him. During the Benin Empire, the leopard was commonly represented on engravings and sculptures and was used to symbolise the power of the king or oba, since the leopard was considered the king of the forest. The Ashanti also used the leopard as a symbol of leadership, and only the king was permitted to have a ceremonial leopard stool. Some African cultures considered the leopard to be a smarter, better hunter than the lion and harder to kill.
In Rudyard Kipling's "How the Leopard Got His Spots", one of his Just So Stories, a leopard with no spots in the High Veldt lives with his hunting partner, the Ethiopian. When they set off to the forest, the Ethiopian changed his brown skin, and the leopard painted spots on his skin. A leopard played an important role in the 1938 Hollywood film Bringing Up Baby. African chiefs, European queens, Hollywood actors and burlesque dancers wore coats made of leopard skins.
The leopard is a frequently used in heraldry, most commonly as passant. The heraldic leopard lacks spots and sports a mane, making it visually almost identical to the heraldic lion, and the two are often used interchangeably. Naturalistic leopard-like depictions appear on the coat of arms of Benin, Malawi, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Gabon, the last of which uses a black panther.


This species, Pantherophis emoryi,  has undergone extensive reclassification since it was first described by Spencer Fullerton Baird and Charles Frédéric Girard in 1853 as Scotophis emoryi. It has often been placed in the genus Elaphe, but phylogenetic analyses performed in the 2000s have resulted in its transfer to Pantherophis.
Pantherophis emoryi has been elevated to full species status and downgraded to a subspecies of Pantherophis guttatus multiple times. Most recently, Burbrink suggested that Pantherophis guttatus be split into three species: Pantherophis guttatus, Pantherophis emoryi, and Pantherophis slowinskii.
The most recent taxonomic paper on this species complex refutes Burbrink's species suggestions based on more comprehensive sampling and genetic work. "Our data support a revision of the taxonomy of this group, and we recognize two species within the complex and three subspecies within P. emoryi. This study illustrates the importance of thorough sampling of contact zones and consideration of gene flow when delimiting species in widespread complexes containing parapatric lineages."


Often called the "American corn snake", P. guttatus is a proscribed pest in much of Australia. There are active extermination campaigns and advice for the public in Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland.


In Mexico, spiny lobsters are an important commercial resource, representing the fifth most valuable fishery, worth US$18 million. Three species are exploited along the Pacific coast of the Baja California peninsula, but the catch of 744 t of the California spiny lobster makes up 95%–97% of the total, with only small quantities of Panulirus inflatus and Panulirus gracilis. The fishing rights are held by 26 local co-operatives.
The main legal restrictions on fishing for California spiny lobster in Mexico are a minimum landing size of 82.5 mm (3.25 in), the prohibition of catching berried females, and a closed season: from February 16 to September 14, fishing for spiny lobsters is prohibited in a region which moves south along Mexico's Pacific coast during the season.
The Mexican fishery for the California spiny lobster was the first Latin American fishery to be awarded the Marine Stewardship Council's sustainable fishery ecolabel, and the species is classed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.


The closest relatives are not the other species that occur in the East Pacific, but rather Panulirus argus from the Caribbean Sea and West Pacific species such as Panulirus japonicus, Panulirus marginatus, Panulirus pascuensis, Panulirus cygnus and Panulirus longipes; this relationship has been recovered from comparative studies of adult and larval morphology, as well as from molecular phylogenetics, using the sequences from cytochrome c oxidase and 16S ribosomal RNA genes.
The California spiny lobster can be differentiated from the other species in the genus by the interrupted grooves across the abdomen; other species either lack grooves, or have grooves which span the entire body segment.


Papaver rhoeas, with common names including common poppy, corn poppy, corn rose, field poppy, Flanders poppy, and red poppy, is an annual herbaceous species of flowering plant in the poppy family Papaveraceae. It is a temperate native with a very wide distribution area, from Africa to temperate and tropical Asia and Europe.
It is regarded as an agricultural weed (hence the common names including "corn" and "field"). As the plant thrives in areas of disturbed soil, it was often abundant in agricultural fields before the advent of herbicides. Flushes of poppies may still appear in fields where herbicides are not used, as well as those in fallow. The corn poppy and its cultivars such as the Shirley poppy are widely grown in gardens, and are frequently found in packets of seed labelled "wildflower mixes". Since World War I, it has been used in the Commonwealth as a symbol of remembrance for fallen soldiers.


The species is found within Africa, in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Madeira Islands, and the Canary Islands. Within temperate Asia, it is found in the Caucasus regions of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ciscaucasia.
In Western Asia, it is found in Afghanistan, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. Within tropical Asia, it is found in Pakistan and India. Within Europe, it is found in Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, France, Portugal, and Spain.
It grows in fields, beside roads, and on grasslands.
It is hardy to between USDA Zone 8 and Zone 10, or down to 10 °F (-12 °C).


The olive baboon (Papio anubis), also called the Anubis baboon, is a member of the family Cercopithecidae Old World monkeys. The species is the most wide-ranging of all baboons, being native to 25 countries throughout Africa, extending from Mali eastward to Ethiopia and Tanzania. Isolated populations are also present in some mountainous regions of the Sahara. It inhabits savannahs, steppes, and forests. The common name is derived from its coat colour, which is a shade of green-grey at a distance. A variety of communications, vocal and non-vocal, facilitate a complex social structure.


The species inhabits a strip of 25 equatorial African countries, very nearly ranging from the east to west coasts of the continent. The exact boundaries of this strip are not clearly defined, as the species' territory overlaps with that of other baboon species. In many places, this has resulted in cross-breeding between species. For example, considerable hybridisation has occurred between the olive baboon and the hamadryas baboon in Ethiopia. Cross-breeding with the yellow baboon and the Guinea baboon has also been observed. Although this has been noted, the hybrids have not as yet been well studied.
Throughout its wide range, the olive baboon can be found in a number of different habitats. It is usually classified as savannah-dwelling, living in the wide plains of the grasslands. The grasslands, especially those near open woodland, do make up a large part of its habitat, but the baboon also inhabits rainforests and deserts. Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance, both support olive baboon populations in dense tropical forests.


Palearctic: Fennoscandia south to Iberia and the Mediterranean basin, Israel and Turkey, Ireland eastward through Central Europe and Southern Europe (Italy, the former Yugoslavia) into European Russia. Nearctic: from the Yukon south to Costa Rica also in parts of the Afrotropical region.


Parapediasia teterrellus, the bluegrass webworm moth, bluegrass webworm, bluegrass sod webworm moth or bluegrass sod webworm, is a moth of the family Crambidae.
The wingspan is about 21 mm. Adults are on wing from May to October in two generations per year.
The larvae feed on Poa species, Festuca arundinacea and occasionally Cynodon dactylon. Full-grown larvae overwinter within a silk-lined tunnel in the soil or thatch.
Parapediasia teterrellus was first described in 1821 from Georgia, one of the first pyralid moths recorded in North America. Its geographic distribution has been affected by the human colonization of North America. By the late 1800s, Parapediasia teterrellus encompassed the midwestern United States. It was recorded in Albuquerque, NM and Tucson, AZ in 1935-1940, Los Angeles in 1954, and the San Francisco Bay area in 1988. It has effectively replaced its lawn moth competitors Tehama bonifatella and Crambus sperryellus in urban areas.
Parapediasia teterrellus is currently found in North America from Ontario and New England to Florida, west to California and north to Nebraska. It has also been introduced to Japan and eastern China, where it is an invasive species.


Parapoynx allionealis, the watermilfoil leafcutter moth, is a moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by Francis Walker in 1859. It is found in North America, where it has been recorded from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Manitoba, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Quebec, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
Adults have been recorded on wing year round in the southern part of the range.
The larvae feed on various aquatic plants, including Nymphaea odorata, Potamogeton natans, Potamogeton pusillus, Myriophyllum spicatum, Myriophyllum heterophyllum, Hydrochtoa caroliniensis, Eleocharis vivipara, Utricularia inflata and Salvinia rotundifolia. They live in a portable case made of plant material.


The genus Paratrechina probably originated in the tropics of Africa. It has spread to temperate regions around the world, and is now present in North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. It is a tropical species, but because of its ability to live in disturbed and artificial habitats, inside buildings, and in urban areas, it has been able to spread northwards to Estonia and Sweden and southwards to New Zealand. In the United States, it is present outdoors in much of the southeast of the country and also indoors in buildings and warehouses in California, Arizona, and the eastern seaboard. In tropical and subtropical areas, as well as being found in buildings, it is found in gardens, coastal scrub, lowland rainforest, dry forest, and savannah shrubland, and by the roadside at elevations of up to 1,765 m (5,791 ft), but at an average elevation of 175 m (574 ft). It is considered a pest, both agricultural and domestic, in most parts of the tropics and subtropics, and an indoor pest in temperate areas. It is said to be the most widespread species of ant in the world, although the pharaoh ant (Monomorium pharaonis) is another challenger for this position.


P. quadrifolia is a perennial herbaceous plant that is 25 to 40 cm (10 to 15.5 in) tall. It may have 3–8 leaves but typically there are four leaves arranged as opposing pairs. The flowers are wispy and inconspicuous.
The plant flowers during the months of June and July. It has a solitary flower with four narrow greenish filiform (threadlike) petals, four green petaloid sepals, eight golden yellow stamens, and a round purple to red ovary. The flower is borne above a single whorl of four leaves.
Each plant produces at most one blueberry-like berry, which is poisonous, as are other plant tissues. Poisonings are rare because the plant's solitary berry has a repulsive taste that makes it difficult to mistake for a bilberry.


The northern waterthrush (Parkesia noveboracensis) is a species of ground-feeding migratory New World warbler of the genus Parkesia. It breeds in the northern part of North America in Canada and the northern United States including Alaska, and winters in Central America, the West Indies and Florida, as well as in Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador.  It is a rare vagrant to other South American countries and to western Europe. Its closest relative is the Louisiana waterthrush.


The yellow-billed cardinal (Paroaria capitata) is a bird species in the tanager family (Thraupidae). It is not very closely related to the cardinals proper (Cardinalidae).
It occurs in Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, and northern Argentina and has been introduced on the island of Hawai'i. It breeds in moist shrubland. The yellow-billed cardinal could be easily confused with the red-crested cardinal. The yellow-billed cardinal does not have a crest.


This species can be found mainly in northern Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul and southern part of the Pantanal.
It has also been introduced to Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Chile. In Brazil, it has been introduced to various places outside its historical range, as in the Tietê Ecological Park in São Paulo.


Parthenocissus inserta (syn. Parthenocissus vitacea), also known as thicket creeper, false Virginia creeper, woodbine, or grape woodbine, is a woody vine native to North America, in southeastern Canada (west to southern Manitoba) and a large area of the United States, from Maine west to Montana and south to New Jersey and Missouri in the east, and Texas to Arizona in the west. It is present in California, but it may be an introduced species that far west. It is introduced in Europe.


The flowers of thicket creeper are frequently visited by Mordella marginata, a tumbling flower beetle. Several bee species have been observed collecting pollen from the flowers, including the sweat bees Augochlora pura, Lasioglossum subviridatum, and Lasioglossum zephyrus. The fruits are eaten by birds.


The great tit has a wide distribution across much of Eurasia. It can be found across all of Europe except for Iceland and northern Scandinavia, including numerous Mediterranean islands. In North Africa it lives in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. It also occurs across the Middle East, and parts of Central Asia from northern Iran and Afghanistan to Mongolia, as well as across northern Asia from the Urals as far east as northern China and the Amur Valley.
The great tit occupies a range of habitats. It is most commonly found in open deciduous woodland, mixed forests, forest edges and gardens. In dense forests, including conifer forests it prefers forest clearings. In northern Siberia it lives in boreal taiga. In North Africa it rather resides in oak forests as well as stands of Atlas cedar and even palm groves. In the east of its range in Siberia, Mongolia and China it favours riverine willow and birch forest. Riverine woodlands of willows, poplars are among the habitats of the Turkestan subspecies, as well as low scrubland, oases; at higher altitudes it occupies habitats ranging from dense deciduous and coniferous forests to open areas with scattered trees.
The great tit is generally not migratory. Pairs will usually remain near or in their territory year round, even in the northern parts of their range. Young birds will disperse from their parents' territory, but usually not far. Populations may become irruptive in poor or harsh winters, meaning that groups of up to a thousand birds may unpredictably move from northern Europe to the Baltic and also to Netherlands, Britain, even as far as the southern Balkans.
The great tit was unsuccessfully introduced into the United States; birds were set free near Cincinnati, Ohio between 1872 and 1874 but failed to become established. Suggestions that they were an excellent control measure for codling moths nearly led to their introduction to some new areas particularly in the United States of America, however this plan was not implemented. A small population is present in the upper Midwest, believed to be the descendants of birds liberated in Chicago in 2002 along with European goldfinches, Eurasian jays, common chaffinches, European greenfinches, saffron finches, blue tits and Eurasian linnets, although sightings of some of these species pre-date the supposed introduction date. Birds were introduced to the Almaty Province in what is now Kazakhstan in 1960–61 and became established, although their present status is unclear.


The Spanish sparrow is a close relative of the house sparrow in the genus Passer and the sparrow family Passeridae. Its taxonomy is greatly complicated by the "biological mix-up" it forms with the house sparrow in the Mediterranean. In most of the Mediterranean, one or both of the two species occurs, with only a limited degree of hybridisation. On the Italian Peninsula and Corsica, the two species are replaced by the Italian sparrow, a puzzling type of sparrow apparently intermediate between the Spanish sparrow and the house sparrow.
The Italian sparrow has been classified as a hybrid between the Spanish sparrow and the house sparrow, a subspecies of the Spanish sparrow, a subspecies of the house sparrow and/or a separate species. The Spanish sparrow also hybridises freely with the house sparrow in parts of North Africa (northeastern Algeria, Tunisia, and northwestern Libya), forming highly variable mixed populations with a full range of characters from pure house sparrows to pure Spanish sparrows. On the Mediterranean islands of Malta, Gozo, Crete, Rhodes and Karpathos, there are more apparently intermediate birds of unknown status.
Phylogenetic studies of nuclear mitochondrial DNA pseudogenes show that the house sparrow is closely related genetically to the Italian sparrow, but not the Spanish sparrow.
The Spanish sparrow was first described by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck as Fringilla hispaniolensis, from a specimen collected at Algeciras, in southern Spain. The usual English name refers to the description of the species from Spain. The name willow sparrow, referring to the moist habitat of this bird, is sometimes used, especially when the Italian sparrow is considered the same species. The genus name Passer is the Latin word for sparrow, and hispaniolensis is  New Latin for "Spanish".
Two subspecies of Spanish sparrow are usually recognised, the western nominate subspecies hispaniolensis, and the eastern transcaspicus, described by Austrian ornithologist Viktor von Tschusi zu Schmidhoffen in 1902 from Ýolöten, Turkmenistan. Birds in Anatolia and Cyprus are usually considered to belong to P. h. transcaspicus, but birds as far east as Ceylanpınar have been noted as intermediates and the difference between the two subspecies may actually be clinal.


The Spanish sparrow has a highly complex distribution in the Mediterranean region, Macaronesia, and southwest to central Asia. It breeds mostly in a band of latitude about 15 degrees wide, from the Danube Valley and the Aral Sea in the north to Libya and central Iran in the south. Its range has expanded greatly by natural colonisation over the last two centuries, in the Balkans, where it reached Romania, Serbia, and Moldova from 1950 onwards; and in Macaronesia, where its range expansion has been attributed to introductions and travel by ship, but was more likely natural colonisation by migrating birds. Vagrants occur widely, as far north as Scotland and Norway.
A study has shown that vagrant individuals tend to occur very close to railway lines, much closer than with other vagrant passerines. This results suggests that Spanish sparrows' vagrancy and expansion may be facilitated in part by cargo trains.


The western subspecies hispaniolensis breeds in parts of Iberia and North Africa, some islands, and the Balkans. In Iberia it is uncommon, occurring in the Tagus valley and sporadically in the northern meseta, the eastern coast, and in the Guadalquivir and Guadiana valleys. While the house sparrow and the Spanish sparrow form a "hybrid swarm" in the eastern half of the Maghreb, they coexist with little hybridisation in the western half. In northern Italy and Corsica, the Spanish sparrow is replaced by the Italian sparrow and the two intergrade in southern Italy, as well as Malta, Crete and nearby islands such as Rhodes. The Spanish sparrow is not known to breed in the Balearic Islands, the Aegean Islands, Corfu or the Peloponnese, but it occurs on Sardinia, Pantelleria and smaller islands near the coast. In the Balkans, it occurs patchily from Montenegro across into the Danube Valley of Romania and northern Serbia. It is found in mainland Greece and Bulgaria, where it is also uncommon.
The Spanish sparrow is likely to have been established on the western Canary Islands for some time, as it was found on Lanzarote when a naturalist first visited the island in 1828. In the 1830s, it was recorded on Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria and Tenerife and since the 1940s it has reached all the other islands. It reached Madeira in May 1935, when numbers of sparrows were found across the island after nine days of strong, continuous easterly winds. It seems to have reached Cape Verde around the same time it reached the Canaries and it was first recorded there on Santiago by Charles Darwin in 1832. From then onwards it reached all the other larger islands, in a poorly recorded extension of its range.


The Italian sparrow (Passer italiae), also known as the cisalpine sparrow, is a passerine bird of the sparrow family Passeridae, found in Italy and other parts of the Mediterranean region. In appearance, it is intermediate between the house sparrow, and the Spanish sparrow, a species of the Mediterranean and Central Asia closely related to the house sparrow. The Italian sparrow occurs in northern Italy and neighbouring regions, with intermediates with the house sparrow in a very narrow contact zone in the Alps, a slow gradation in appearance from the Italian to Spanish sparrows across central and southern Italy, and more birds of intermediate appearance in Malta, Crete, and other parts of the Mediterranean.
There has been much debate on the origins and taxonomic status of the Italian sparrow, especially given its possible hybrid origin. Some have classified it as a subspecies of the house sparrow, a subspecies of the Spanish sparrow, or as a separate species, a treatment followed if only for convenience by authorities such as the Handbook of the Birds of the World. A DNA analysis by Glenn-Peter Sætre and colleagues published in 2011 indicated an origin of the Italian sparrow through hybridisation between the Spanish and house sparrows, and Sætre and colleagues argued that given its origins and the limited extent of hybridisation, the treatment as a distinct species was supported.


The Cape sparrow was first taxonomically described by Philipp Ludwig Statius Müller in 1776, as Loxia melanura. Some other earlier biologists described the Cape sparrow in Loxia or Fringilla, but it has otherwise been regarded as a member of the genus Passer along with the house sparrow and other sparrows of the Old World. Within this genus, morphological comparisons and geography were insufficient to elucidate to which species the Cape sparrow is most closely related. Mitochondrial DNA phylogenies have strongly suggested that the Cape sparrow is among the most basal members of its genus, having diverged from the rest of the genus during the late Miocene, over 5 million years ago. It is genetically closest to the southern grey-headed sparrow and the other grey-headed sparrows of Africa and the saxaul sparrow of Central Asia, so these species may be sibling species of the Cape sparrow or similarly early offshoots.
The Cape sparrow's specific epithet comes from the Greek μέλας (melas, "black") and ουρά (oura, "tail"), while the name of the genus Passer comes from a Latin word for small birds.
The Cape sparrow has three subspecies. The nominate subspecies Passer melanurus melanurus is found in western South Africa, east to the western part of Free State. The subspecies vicinus, which is sometimes included in subspecies melanurus, occurs from Free State east to Eastern Cape and Lesotho. The subspecies damarensis ranges from the extreme southern coastal areas of Angola into Namibia, Botswana and southern Zimbabwe, as well as northern South Africa.


The Cape sparrow inhabits southern Africa south of Angola and as far east as Eswatini. The northernmost point in its range is Benguela in Angola, and it is found in the coastal and central parts of Namibia, except for the driest parts of the Namib Desert. It occurs in all of South Africa except the farthest east, in southern Botswana and spottily in the Kalahari Basin of central Botswana. In the east, it breeds at a small number of localities in southeastern Zimbabwe. It has been recorded as a vagrant in Harare, in central Zimbabwe. The eastern limit of its range is reached in the wet forests of Limpopo and KwaZulu Natal, extending into the hills of western Eswatini.
The original habitats of this species were the semi-arid savanna, thornveld, and light woodland typical of southern Africa. When settled agriculture arrived in its range about a thousand years ago, it adapted to cultivated land, and since the arrival of settlement, it has moved into towns. The Cape sparrow prefers habitats with an annual rainfall of less than 75 centimetres (30 in), though in desert areas it is usually found near watercourses or watering holes. While it occurs in urban centres, it prefers parks, gardens, and other open spaces, and has a low reproductive success in more built-up areas.
In towns, the Cape sparrow competes with both the native southern grey-headed sparrow and house sparrow, which was introduced to southern Africa in the 19th century. Since it is more established around humans in its range than either, it successfully competes with both species, though they may exclude it from nesting in holes. A survey by birdwatchers completed in 2000 found the Cape sparrow increasing in abundance in some suburban areas of South Africa (the northern Johannesburg area, and Pietermaritzburg) and decreasing in others (the southern Cape Town area). The house sparrow was reported decreasing in several urban areas, as it has in parts of Europe, declines which are attributed to factors including the increasing density of garden plantings and increases in predation.


The Cape sparrow is an abundant and familiar bird of human habitations and cultivation in most of southern Africa. It is not believed to be threatened, and accordingly is listed as a species of least concern on the IUCN's Red List. It can be an agricultural pest, especially of grain cultivation and vineyards.
When vineyards in the south-west Cape started letting weeds grow between vines to conserve moisture, around 1956, the Cape sparrow moved in. Cape sparrows quickly exhausted the seeds and started eating the grapes. The Cape sparrow is now a serious pest in vineyards. Vineyards are not an optimal habitat, and some populations have had such a low reproductive success that they could not be maintained without immigration.
The Cape sparrow was featured on the lowest-denomination South African coin, from the farthing (¼-cent) in 1923 to the cent that ceased to be minted in 2002, with designs based on an original by George Kruger Gray. This was said to be because women interned at a concentration camp in Bethulie during the Boer War adopted a biblical quotation (from Matthew 10) as their motto: "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father." It has also been featured on stamps from Lesotho and the Central African Republic.


The Eurasian tree sparrow's natural breeding range comprises most of temperate Europe and Asia south of about latitude 68°N (north of this the summers are too cold, with July average temperatures below 12 °C (54 °F)) and through Southeast Asia to Java and Bali. It formerly bred in the Faroes, Malta and Gozo. In South Asia it is found mainly in the temperate zone. It is sedentary over most of its extensive range, but northernmost breeding populations migrate south for the winter, and small numbers leave southern Europe for North Africa and the Middle East. The eastern subspecies P. m. dilutus reaches coastal Pakistan in winter and thousands of birds of this race move through eastern China in autumn.
The Eurasian tree sparrow has been introduced outside its native range, but has not always become established, possibly due to competition with the house sparrow. It was introduced successfully to Sardinia, eastern Indonesia, the Philippines and Micronesia, but introductions to New Zealand and Bermuda did not take root. Ship-carried birds colonised Borneo. This sparrow has occurred as a natural vagrant to Gibraltar, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Iceland.
In North America, a population of about 15,000 birds has become established around St. Louis and neighbouring parts of Illinois and southeastern Iowa. These sparrows are descended from 12 birds imported from Germany and released in late April 1870 as part of a project to enhance the native North American avifauna. Within its limited US range of about 22,000 square kilometres (8,500 sq mi), the Eurasian tree sparrow has to compete with the house sparrow in urban centres, and is therefore mainly found in parks, farms and rural woods. The American population is sometimes referred to as the "German sparrow", to distinguish it from both the native American tree sparrow species and the much more widespread "English" house sparrow.
In Australia, the Eurasian tree sparrow is present in Melbourne, towns in central and northern Victoria and some centres in the Riverina region of New South Wales. It is a prohibited species in Western Australia, where it often arrives on ships from Southeast Asia.
Despite its scientific name, Passer montanus, this is not typically a mountain species, and reaches only 700 m (2,300 ft) in Switzerland, although it has bred at 1,700 m (5,600 ft) in the northern Caucasus and as high as 4,270 m (14,010 ft) in Nepal. In Europe, it is frequently found on coasts with cliffs, in empty buildings, in pollarded willows along slow water courses, or in open countryside with small isolated patches of woodland. The Eurasian tree sparrow shows a strong preference for nest-sites near wetland habitats, and avoids breeding on intensively managed mixed farmland.
When the Eurasian tree sparrow and the larger house sparrow occur in the same area, the house sparrow generally breeds in urban areas while the smaller Eurasian tree sparrow nests in the countryside. Where trees are in short supply, as in Mongolia, both species may utilise man-made structures as nest sites. The Eurasian tree sparrow is rural in Europe, but is an urban bird in eastern Asia; in southern and central Asia, both Passer species may be found around towns and villages. In parts of the Mediterranean, such as Italy, both the tree and the Italian or Spanish sparrows may be found in settlements. In Australia, the Eurasian tree sparrow is largely an urban bird, and it is the house sparrow which utilises more natural habitats.


The Eurasian tree sparrow has a large range estimated as 98.3 million square kilometres (38.0 million sq mi) and a population of 190–310 million individuals. Although the population is declining, the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (that is, declining more than 30% in 10 years or three generations). For these reasons, the species' conservation status is evaluated at the global level as being of Least Concern.
Although the Eurasian tree sparrow has been expanding its range in Fennoscandia and eastern Europe, populations have been declining in much of western Europe, a trend reflected in other farmland birds such as the skylark, corn bunting and northern lapwing. From 1980 to 2003, common farmland bird numbers fell by 28%. The collapse in populations seems to have been particularly severe in Great Britain, where there was a 95% decline between 1970 and 1998, and Ireland, which had only 1,000–1,500 pairs in the late 1990s. In the British Isles, such declines may be due to natural fluctuations, to which Eurasian tree sparrows are known to be prone. Breeding performance has improved substantially as population sizes have decreased, suggesting that decreases in productivity were not responsible for the decline and that survival was the critical factor. The large decline in Eurasian tree sparrow numbers is probably the result of agricultural intensification and specialisation, particularly the increased use of herbicides and a trend towards autumn-sown crops (at the expense of spring-sown crops that produce stubble fields in winter). The change from mixed to specialised farming and the increased use of insecticides has reduced the amount of insect food available for nestlings.


The blue grosbeak was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Loxia caerulea. The specific epithet caerulea is the Latin word for "blue", "azure-blue", "sky-blue" or "dark-blue". Linnaeus based his own description on the "blew gross-beak" described and illustrated by Mark Catesby in his The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. The book had been published in 1729–1732. Catesby gave the location as Carolina and Linnaeus specified America. The type location is now restricted to South Carolina.
Some taxonomists placed the blue grosbeak in its own monotypic genus Guiraca but in 2001 a molecular phylogenetic study of mitochondrial DNA sequences found that the blue grosbeak, in spite of being physically larger, nested within the Passerina and was most closely related to the lazuli bunting. The species is therefore now placed with the North American buntings in Passerina, a genus that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816.
Seven subspecies are recognised:
P. c. caerulea (Linnaeus, 1758) – southeast and south central USA
P. c. interfusa (Dwight & Griscom, 1927) – west central USA and north Mexico
P. c. salicaria (Grinnell, 1911) – southwest USA and northwest Mexico
P. c. eurhyncha (Coues, 1874) – central and south Mexico
P. c. chiapensis (Nelson, 1898) – south Mexico to Guatemala
P. c. deltarhyncha (Van Rossem, 1938) – west Mexico
P. c. lazula (Lesson, R, 1842) – south Guatemala to northwest Costa Rica


The painted bunting occupies typical habitat for a member of its family. It is found in thickets, woodland edges with riparian thickets, shrubbery and brushy areas. In the east, the species breeds in maritime hammocks and scrub communities. Today, it is often found along roadsides and in suburban areas, and in gardens with dense, shrubby vegetation. The wintering habitat is typically the shrubby edges along the border of tropical forests or densely vegetated savanna.  The breeding range is divided into two geographically separate areas.  These include southern Arizona, southern New Mexico, southern and eastern Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, northern Florida, coastal Georgia, the southern coast and inland waterways such as the Santee River of South Carolina and northern Mexico. They winter in South Florida, Cuba, the Bahamas, along both coasts of Mexico and through much of Central America. Occasionally, they may be vagrants further north, including to New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The bird is also found every few years as far north as New Brunswick, Canada. Genetic analyses showed that the species can be divided into three main groups on their breeding grounds: a western, central and eastern group.


Painted buntings are shy, secretive and often difficult to observe with the human eye, though can be fairly approachable where habituated to bird feeders. Males sing in spring from exposed perches to advertise their territories. They also engage in visual displays including flying bouncingly like a butterfly or in an upright display, body-fluff display, bow display and wing-quiver display. These displays are used in agonistic conflicts with other males or in breeding displays for females, with females rarely engaging in displays. Occasionally, males may physically clash with each other and may even kill each other in such conflicts. When their breeding season has concluded, buntings migrate by night over short to medium distances. Western birds (Arizona and northern Mexico) molt in mid-migration, while eastern birds tend to molt before they migrate.


Painted buntings often feed by hopping along the ground, cautiously stopping every few moments to look around. They regularly eat seeds of grasses, such as Panicum, of sedges such as Carex, and forbs such as Amaranthus, Oxalis, and Euphorbia. In winter painted bunting eat seeds almost exclusively, but while breeding, and in feeding their nestlings, they mainly seek out small invertebrates, including spiders, snails, and insects such as grasshoppers and caterpillars. Sometimes they visit spider webs opportunistically to pick off insects caught in them.


The male painted bunting was once a very popular caged bird, but its capture and holding is currently illegal. Trapping for overseas sale may still occur in Central America. Populations are primarily declining due to habitat being lost to development, especially in coastal swamp thickets and woodland edges in the east and riparian habitats in migration and winter in the Southeastern United States and Mexico. They are protected by the U.S. Migratory Bird Act.


The indigo bunting is a smallish songbird, around the size of a small sparrow. It measures 11.5–15 cm (4.5–5.9 in) long, with a wingspan of 18–23 cm (7.1–9.1 in). Body mass averages 14.5 g (0.51 oz), with a reported range of 11.2–21.4 g (0.40–0.75 oz). During the breeding season, the adult male appears mostly a vibrant cerulean blue. Only the head is indigo. The wings and tail are black with cerulean blue edges. In fall and winter plumage, the male has brown edges to the blue body and head feathers, which overlap to make the bird appear mostly brown. The adult female is brown on the upperparts and lighter brown on the underparts. It has indistinct wing bars and is faintly streaked with darker markings underneath. The immature bird resembles the female in coloring, although a male may have hints of blue on the tail and shoulders and have darker streaks on the underside. The beak is short and conical. In the adult female, the beak is light brown tinged with blue, and in the adult male the upper half is brownish-black while the lower is light blue. The feet and legs are black or gray.
First years and adult males are distinguishable through close observations of the skull and its degree of ossification. Juvenile skulls have a slightly pinkish color that gives under pressure due to its singular layer. Adults instead have a double layer skull, which gives more resistance when applying pressure. First year birds also tend to have a fleshy, yellow gape in the corner of the mouth, apparent in all months except October and November. When comparing males to females that both have brown molt, increased wing length and weight typically indicate a bunting is a male.
As indicated by data collected from Charles H. Blake from his banding experiments in Hillsborough, NC, the Indigo Bunting has a weighted annual survival rate of 0.585. Using his own methods (Blake 1967, p. 5) and a pool of 25 indigo buntings captured and observed, it was determined that approximately two out of twenty-five indigo buntings should live up to six years. Using the calculated annual rate of six-year-old birds obtained (2/25 = 0.08), an annual rate of 0.656 was calculated, 12% higher than the annual rate of 0.585, leading to the 1 out of 25 statistic. The oldest recorded bunting was at least 13 years and 3 months old. However, not much emphasis should be placed on these values since the pool of individuals is small, where any individual can affect the weighted average.


{{Listen|filename=Indigo Bunting.ogg|title=Indigo bunting Recording|description=American robin song of dawn song of chickadee to background of Indigo bunting.
Migration takes place in April and May and then again in September and October. Previous research indicates that towards the end of August there is a spike in migration, indicated by a rapid surge of captures in the last ten days of August. Migration activities peak in late September and fall off rapidly as October approaches. Only a small percentage of buntings remain as summer residents instead of migrating (7.2% of banded birds in Burke's observation).
The Indigo Bunting often migrates during the night, using the stars to navigate. This is not an unusual proposal, for many other birds such as the blackcaps or red-barked shrikes were used to test if birds have orientated migratory behavior or Zugunruhe. Research indicates that Indigo Buntings placed in funnel cages outside on cloudless autumn nights or in artificial planetariums made more southern directional choices. When introduced to increasingly overcast nights, many bunting's abilities to distinctively make southern directional changes decreased, possibly indicating a negative correlation between Zugunruhe and cloud coverage. When in the artificial planetarium scenario and in the presence of a magnetic field similar to Earth's, birds were unable to orientate themselves in a no-star environment, indicating that past hypotheses supporting that birds use geophysical clues as well may be incorrect.
Indigo Buntings do not rely on individual stars or the general brightness of groups of stars, but instead use them as clues in navigation. Prior experiments removing certain constellations and stars (Big Dipper, Cassiopeia or Polaris) from the sky had minimal effect on Zugunruhe. Indigo Buntings do use the northern sky to help navigate both in the fall and in the spring. It was thought that the bunting has an internal clock, being able to compensate for the movement of stars. However, temporal compensation for stellar motion is not a part of their migratory methods.
In captivity, since it cannot migrate, it experiences disorientation in April and May and in September and October if it cannot see the stars from its enclosure.
While debate has occurred over the years about how birds migrate near the Gulf of Mexico, Indigo Buntings migrate to South America by flying both over the Gulf of Mexico and around the Gulf of Mexico, with a majority of buntings choosing the trans-Gulf path. Past evidence indicated that Indigo Buntings did not have a high enough fat content to travel across the Gulf, but that evidence is misleading since most of those birds supporting that study were immature, not having a high body fat content.
Since Indigo Buntings and many other birds are at their lightest after mating season, questions arose whether increases in overall weight were attributed to fat or other faucets such as water weight, or carbohydrates. Research indicates that most if not all weight gain are a gain in fat content.
Quantitative methods of estimating flight range instead look at metabolic rates of the bunting and how much fat it has to use as fuel. Research indicates that the metabolic rate of a lean 13 g (0.46 oz) Indigo Bunting is 0.64 kcal/hour. With an average speed of 20 mph, 5 extra grams of fat (47.5 kcal of energy) extends a bunting's range to six hundred and eighty-eight miles (1,107 km). 19 g (0.67 oz) is equivalent to eight hundred and twenty-six miles (1,329 km). Given that the trip across the Gulf of Mexico from Florida is approximately six hundred miles (966 km), Buntings weighing at least 18 g could make the trip without any stops.


The pale-vented pigeon (Patagioenas cayennensis) is a large pigeon (family Columbidae) found in the tropical Americas. Formerly often placed in Columba, it actually belongs to a clade of the older New World genus Patagioenas. With its relatives it represents an evolutionary radiation extending through most of the warm-temperate to tropical Americas. Grey-hued birds, even their males generally lack iridescent display plumage, although the present species has some coppery gloss on the nape.
It is a resident breeder from southern Mexico south to Bolivia and northern Argentina and on Tobago and Trinidad, although it is very localised on the latter island. Vagrants are occasionally seen in adjacent regions; for example, the species is noted to stray into Uruguay from Argentina and occasionally from Brazil, but it has never been noted to breed or even maintain a permanent presence in the former country.


It is a resident breeder mainly in the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica and Antigua. It breeds in smaller numbers in Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Anguilla and other Caribbean islands. It also breeds along the Caribbean coast of Central America. In the United States it is found only in the Florida Keys, Everglades, and the southern tip of mainland Florida.  They will often spend the wintertime in the Caribbean islands.
The white-crowned pigeon primarily lives and breeds in nest colonies or individually in low lying, coastal, mangrove forests, and will travel inland to feed on the fruits and seeds of a wide variety of plants. In Florida, the white-crowned pigeon has historically been documented nesting exclusively on remote, tidally inundated mangrove islands in wildlife refuges.  Recent observations have confirmed nesting on the southern tip of mainland Florida.
With few exceptions, this species requires isolated offshore mangrove islets with limited disturbance for breeding. These tidally inundated mangrove islands which provide some protection from predators such as raccoons.  However, several instances of white-crowned pigeons nesting in heavily-trafficked, urban areas, such as downtown Key West and Miami Florida, have recently been observed.  This could be due to habitat loss as a result of hurricanes, and/or increased predation pressure in their historic nesting habitat.


The spot-winged pigeon (Patagioenas maculosa) is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.


The picazuro pigeon is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. It has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 5,800,000 km² and although an accurate population count has not taken place, it is believed that the species is common and the population is thought to be increasing. Picazuro pigeons survive in a variety of habitats; from woodland and forest to agricultural land.


The collared peccary (Dicotyles tajacu) is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed) mammal in the family Tayassuidae found in North, Central, and South America. It is the only member of the genus Dicotyles. They are commonly referred to as javelina, saíno, or báquiro, although these terms are also used to describe other species in the family. The species is also known as the musk hog. In Trinidad, it is colloquially known as quenk.


Common lousewort is found in most of Europe, apart from the southeast. In the British Isles it occurs on damp acidic soils in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, northern and southwestern England, and in scattered locations elsewhere in England, at altitudes up to about 915 m (3,000 ft). Typical habitats include moorland, wet flushes in mountainous areas, grassy heathland, lakesides and the drier parts of marshes and bogs.


Fishers are widespread throughout the northern forests of North America. They are found in the boreal and mixed deciduous-coniferous forest belt that runs across Canada from Nova Scotia in the east to the Pacific shore of British Columbia and north to Alaska. They can be found as far north as Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories and as far south as the mountains of Oregon. Isolated populations occur in the Sierra Nevada of California, throughout New England, in the Catskill mountains of New York and the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fishers were virtually eliminated from the southern and eastern parts of their range, including most American states and eastern Canada including Nova Scotia. Overtrapping and loss of forest habitat were the reasons for the decline.
Most states had placed restrictions on fisher trapping by the 1930s, coincidental with the end of the logging boom. A combination of forest regrowth in abandoned farmlands and improved forest management practices increased available habitat and allowed remnant populations to recover. Populations have since recovered sufficiently that the species is no longer endangered. Increasing forest cover in eastern North America means that fisher populations will remain sufficiently robust for the near future. Between 1955 and 1985, some states had allowed limited trapping to resume. In areas where fishers were eliminated, porcupine populations subsequently increased. Areas with a high density of porcupines were found to have extensive damage to timber crops. In these cases, fishers were reintroduced by releasing adults relocated from other places into the forest. Once the fisher populations became re-established, porcupine numbers returned to natural levels. In Washington, fisher sightings were reported into the 1980s, but an extensive survey in the 1990s did not locate any.
Scattered fisher populations now exist in the Pacific Northwest. In 1961, fishers from British Columbia and Minnesota were reintroduced in Oregon to the southern Cascades near Klamath Falls and to the Wallowa Mountains near La Grande. From 1977–1980, fishers were introduced to the region around Crater Lake. Starting in January 2008, fishers were reintroduced into Washington State. The initial reintroduction was on the Olympic peninsula (90 animals), with subsequent reintroductions into the south Cascade Mountains. The reintroduced animals are monitored by radio collars and remote cameras, and have been shown to be reproducing. From 2008 to 2011, about 40 fishers were reintroduced in the northern Sierra Nevada near Stirling City, complementing fisher populations in Yosemite National Park and along California's northern boundary between the Pacific Coast Ranges and the Klamath Mountains. Fishers are a protected species in Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. In Idaho and California, fishers are protected through a closed trapping season, but they are not afforded any specific protection; however, in California the fisher has been granted threatened status under the Endangered Species Act. In June 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that fishers be removed from the endangered list in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
Recent studies, as well as anecdotal evidence, show that fishers have begun making inroads into suburban backyards, farmland, and periurban areas in several US states and eastern Canada, as far south as most of northern Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Minnesota and Iowa, and even northwestern New Jersey. Having virtually disappeared after the construction of the Cape Cod Canal in the early 1900s, some reports have shown that populations have become re-established on Cape Cod, although the populations are likely smaller than the populations in the western part of New England.


Fishers have been trapped since the 18th century. They have been popular with trappers due to the value of their fur, which has been used for scarves and neck pieces. It is reported that fisher tails were used in the making of spodiks, a form of ceremonial hat worn by Jews of certain Hasidic sects.
The best pelts are from winter trapping, with secondary-quality pelts from spring trapping. The lowest-quality furs come from out-of-season trapping when fishers are moulting. They are easily trapped, and the value of their fur was a particular incentive for catching this species.
Prices for pelts have varied considerably over the past 100 years. They were highest in the 1920s and 1930s, when average prices were about US$100. In 1936, pelts were being offered for sale in New York City for $450–750 per pelt. Prices declined through the 1960s, but picked up again in the late 1970s. In 1979, the Hudson's Bay Company paid $410 for one female pelt. In 1999, 16,638 pelts were sold in Canada for C$449,307 at an average price of $27.
Between 1900 and 1940, fishers were threatened with near extinction in the southern part of their range due to overtrapping and alterations to their habitat. In New England, fishers, along with most other furbearers, were nearly exterminated due to unregulated trapping. Fishers became extirpated in many northern U.S. states after 1930, but were still abundant enough in Canada to maintain a harvest over 3,000 fishers per year. Limited protection was afforded in the early 20th century, but total protection was not given to the few remaining fishers until 1934. Closed seasons, habitat recovery, and reintroductions have restored fishers to much of their original range.
Trapping resumed in the U.S. after 1962, once numbers had recovered sufficiently. During the early 1970s, the value of fisher pelts soared, leading to another population crash in 1976. After a few years of closed seasons, fisher trapping reopened in 1979 with a shortened season and restricted bag limits. The population has steadily increased since then, with steadily increasing numbers of trapped animals, despite a much lower pelt value.