The Australian pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) is a large waterbird in  the family Pelecanidae, widespread on the inland and coastal waters of Australia and New Guinea, also in Fiji, parts of Indonesia and as a vagrant in New Zealand. It is a predominantly white bird with black wings and a pink bill. It has been recorded as having the longest bill of any living bird. It mainly eats fish, but will also consume birds and scavenge for scraps if the opportunity arises.


This species can occur in large expanses of mainland Australia and Tasmania. Australian pelicans occur primarily in large expanses of open water without dense aquatic vegetation. The habitats that can support them include large lakes, reservoirs, billabongs and rivers, as well as estuaries, swamps, temporarily flooded areas in arid zones, drainage channels in farmland, salt evaporation ponds and coastal lagoons. The surrounding environment is unimportant: it can be forest, grassland, desert, estuarine mudflats, an ornamental city park, or industrial wasteland, provided only that there is open water able to support a sufficient supply of food. However, they do seem to prefer areas where disturbance is relatively low while breeding. They may also roost on mudflats, sandbars, beaches, reefs, jetties and pilings.
The species became first known to occur in New Zealand from a specimen shot at Jerusalem in 1890 and small numbers of subfossil bones, the first found at Lake Grassmere in 1947, followed by records of other stray individuals. The bones were later described as a new (sub)species, Pelecanus (conspicillatus) novaezealandiae (Scarlett, 1966: "New Zealand pelican") as they appeared to be larger, but Worthy (1998), reviewing new material, determined that they were not separable from the Australian population. These fossils were first found in 1930.
Australian pelicans follow no particular schedule of regular movement, simply following the availability of food supplies. Drought frequently precedes movements. When the normally barren Lake Eyre filled during 1974 to 1976, for example, only a handful of pelicans remained around the coastal cities: when the great inland lakes dried again, the population dispersed once more, flocks of thousands being seen on the northern coasts. On some occasions, they are simply blown by the wind to new locations.  It is a fairly regular visitor to the southern coast of New Guinea, as well as the Bismarck Islands and Solomon Islands. It occurs as a vagrant to Christmas Island, Vanuatu, Fiji, Palau and New Zealand. A population irruption occurred in 1978 into Indonesia, with Australian pelicans reaching Sulawesi, Java and possibly also Sumatra.


Australian pelicans feed by plunge-diving while swimming on the surface of the water. They work in groups to drive fish to shallower water, where they stick their sensitive bills in to snatch their prey. Some feeding grounds in large bodies of water have included up to 1,900 individual birds. They will sometimes also forage solitarily. Their predominant prey is fish and they commonly feed on introduced species such as goldfish, European carp and European perch. When possible, they also eat native fish, with a seeming preference for the perch Leiopotherapon unicolor. However, the Australian pelican seems to be less of a piscivore and more catholic in taste than other pelicans. It regularly feeds on insects and many aquatic crustaceans, especially the common yabby and the shrimps in the genus Macrobrachium. This pelican also takes other birds with some frequency, such as silver gulls, Australian white ibis and grey teal, including eggs, nestlings, fledglings and adults, which they may kill by pinning them underwater and drowning them. Reptiles and amphibians are also taken when available. Reportedly even small dogs have been swallowed. The Australian pelican is an occasional kleptoparasite of other water birds, such as cormorants. Cannibalism of young pelicans has also been reported.


Among a highly social family in general, Dalmatian pelicans may have the least social inclinations. This species naturally nests in relatively small groups compared to most other pelican species and sometimes may even nest alone. However, small colonies are usually formed, which regularly include upwards of 250 pairs (especially historically). Occasionally, Dalmatian pelicans may mix in with colonies of great white pelicans. Nesting sites selected are usually either islands in large bodies of water (typically lagoons or river deltas) or dense mats of aquatic vegetation, such as extensive reedbeds of Phragmites and Typha. Due to their large size, these pelicans often trample the vegetation in the area surrounding their nests into the muddy substrate and thus nesting sites may become unsuitably muddy after around three years of usage.
The nest is a moderately-sized pile of grass, reeds, sticks and feathers, usually measuring about 1 m (3.3 ft) deep and 63 cm (25 in) across. Nests are usually located on or near the ground, often being placed on dense floating vegetation. Nests tend to be flimsy until cemented together by droppings. Breeding commences in March or April, about a month before the great white pelican breeds. The Dalmatian pelican lays a clutch of one to six eggs, with two eggs being the norm. Eggs weigh between 120 and 195 g (4.2 and 6.9 oz). Incubation, which is split between both parents, lasts for 30 to 34 days. The chicks are born naked but soon sprout white down feathers. When the young are 6 to 7 weeks of age, the pelicans frequently gather in "pods". The offspring fledge at around 85 days and become independent at 100 to 105 days old. Nesting success relies on local environmental conditions, with anywhere from 58% to 100% of hatchlings successfully surviving to adulthood. Predation on Dalmatian pelicans is relatively poorly known despite the species' threatened status. The nesting sites often insure limited nest predation, though carnivorous mammals which eat eggs and nestlings can access nests when water levels are low enough for them to cross, as has been recorded with wild boars (Sus scrofa) destroying nests in Bulgaria. Golden jackals (Canis aureus) are also known to access and destroy nests when water levels are too low and the same is possibly true of other canids such as foxes, gray wolves (Canis lupus) and dogs (C. l. familiaris), not to mention other predatory animals such as potentially Eurasian lynxes (Lynx lynx). Some eagles may attack pelicans at colonies, although this is not verified. Large gulls are known to be virulent predators of Dalmatian pelican eggs in Russia, Albania and Turkey. Sexual maturity is thought to be obtained at three or four years of age.


This species of pelican has declined greatly throughout its range, more so than the white pelican. It is possible that up to 10,000–20,000 pelicans exist at the species level. During the 20th century, the species' numbers underwent a dramatic decline for reasons that are not entirely understood. The most likely reason was habitat loss due to human activities such as the drainage of wetlands and land development. Colonies are regularly disturbed by human activity, and, like all pelicans, the parents may temporarily leave their nest if threatened, which then exposes the chicks to the risk of predation. Occasionally, Dalmatian pelicans may be shot by fishermen who believe the birds are dangerously depleting the fish population and hence threatening their livelihood. While such killings are generally on a small scale, the worry that these pelicans over-exploit the fishing stock persists in many locales. Another probable reason for the decline in the species' population is poaching. In Mongolia, the local people clandestinely kill these pelicans to use or sell their bills as pouches. On a typical day in a commercial Mongolian marketplace, as many as fifty pelican bills may be on offer for sale, and they are considered such a rare prize that ten horses and thirty sheep are considered a fair price to trade for a single pelican. Due to exploitation at all stages of the life cycle, the species is critically endangered in its Mongolian range, with a total population of fewer than 130 individual birds. Dalmatian pelicans also regularly fly into power-lines and are killed by electrocution. In Greece, pelicans are often so disturbed by power boats, usually ones bearing tourists—that they become unable to feed and die of malnourishment. In 1994 in Europe there were over a thousand breeding pairs, most of them in Greece, but also in Ukraine, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria (Srebarna Nature Reserve) and Albania (Karavasta Lagoon). They have been considered extinct in Croatia since the 1950s, although a single Dalmatian pelican was observed there in 2011. The largest single remaining colony is at Small Prespa Lake (shared between Albania and Greece), with around 1,600 pairs, with approximately 450 pairs left in the Danube Delta. The country with the largest breeding population today, including about 70% of pairs or possibly over 3,000 pairs, is Russia. Worldwide, there are an estimated 3,000–5,000 breeding pairs. One report of approximately 8,000 Dalmatian pelicans in India turned out to be a congregation of misidentified great white pelicans.
The Dalmatian pelican is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies. Conservation efforts have been undertaken on behalf of the species, especially in Europe. Although they normally nest on the ground, Dalmatian pelicans have nested on platforms put out in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania in order to encourage them to breed. Rafts over water have also been set up for the species to use in Greece and Bulgaria. Power-lines have also been marked or dismantled in areas adjacent to colonies in these countries. Additionally, water-level management and educational programs may be aiding them at a local level. Although efforts have been undertaken in Asia, there is a much higher rate of poaching, shooting and habitat destruction there, which may make conservation efforts more difficult. In 2012, when unusually frigid winter conditions caused the Caspian Sea to freeze over, it resulted in the death from starvation of at least twenty of the Dalmatian pelicans that overwinter there. Despite local authorities' initial attempts to discourage it, many people there turned out with fish and hand-fed the birds, apparently enabling the huge pelicans to survive the winter.


The American white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) is a large aquatic soaring bird from the order Pelecaniformes. It breeds in interior North America, moving south and to the coasts, as far as Central America and South America, in winter.


This species is protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. It has the California Department of Fish and Game protective status California species of special concern (CSC). On a global scale however, the species is common enough to qualify as a Species of Least Concern according to the IUCN.
Habitat loss is the largest known cause of nesting failure, with flooding and drought being recurrent problems. Human-related losses include entanglement in fishing gear, boating disturbance and poaching as well as additional habitat degradation.
There was a pronounced decline in American white pelican numbers in the mid-20th century, attributable to the excessive spraying of DDT, endrin and other organochlorides in agriculture as well as widespread draining and pollution of wetlands. But populations have recovered well after stricter environmental protection laws came into effect, and are stable or slightly increasing today. By the 1980s, more than 100,000 adult American white pelicans were estimated to exist in the wild, with 33,000 nests altogether in the 50 colonies in Canada, and 18,500 nests in the 14–17 United States colonies. Shoreline erosion at breeding colonies remains a problem in some cases, as are the occasional mass poisonings when pesticides are used near breeding or wintering sites.


The brown pelican lives on the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific Coasts in the Americas. On the Atlantic Coast, it is found from the New Jersey coast to the mouth of the Amazon River. Along the Pacific Coast, it is found from British Columbia to south-central Chile, including the Galapagos Islands. After nesting, North American birds move in flocks further north along the coasts, returning to warmer waters for winter. In the non-breeding season, it is found as far north as Canada. It is a rare and irregular visitor south of the Piura in Peru, where generally it is replaced by the Peruvian pelican, and can occur as a non-breeding visitor south at least to Ica during El Niño years. Small numbers of brown pelicans have been recorded from Arica in far northern Chile. It is fairly common along the coast of California, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, the West Indies, and many Caribbean islands as far south as Guyana. Along the Gulf Coast, it inhabits Alabama, Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Mexico.
The brown pelican is a strictly marine species, primarily inhabiting marine subtidal, warm estuarine, and marine pelagic waters. It is also found in mangrove swamps, and prefers shallow waters, especially near salty bays and beaches. It avoids the open sea, seldom venturing more than 20 miles from the coast. Some immature birds may stray to inland freshwater lakes. Its range may also overlap with the Peruvian pelican in some areas along the Pacific coast of South America. It roosts on rocks, water, rocky cliffs, piers, jetties, sand beaches, and mudflats.


The brown pelican is a monogamous breeder within a breeding season, but does not pair for life. Nesting season peaks during March and April. The male chooses a nesting site and performs a display of head movements to attract a female. At the proposed nest site, major courtship displays such as head swaying, bowing, turning, and upright (standing on its legs without any support) are performed by both the sexes. They may also be accompanied by low raaa calls.
Once a pair forms a bond, overt communication between them is minimal. It is a colonial species, with some colonies maintained for many years. Probably owing to disturbance, tick infestation, or alteration in food supply, colonies frequently shift. It nests in secluded area, often on islands, vegetated spots among sand dunes, thickets of shrubs and trees, and in mangroves, although sometimes on cliffs, and less often in bushes or small trees. Nesting territories are clumped, as individual territories may be at a distance of just 1 m (3.3 ft) from each other. They are usually built by the female from reeds, leaves, pebbles, and sticks, and consist of feather-lined impressions protected with a 10 to 25 cm (3.9 to 9.8 in) rim of soil and debris. They are usually found 0.9 to 3 m (3 to 10 ft) above the ground. Renesting may occur if eggs are lost from the nest early in the breeding season.
There are usually two to three, or sometimes even four, oval eggs in a clutch, and only one brood is raised per year. The egg is chalky white, and can measure about 76 mm (3.0 in) in length and 51 mm (2.0 in) in width. Incubation takes 28 to 30 days with both sexes sharing duties, keeping the eggs warm by holding them on or under their webbed feet. It takes 28 to 30 days for the eggs to hatch, and about 63 days to fledge. After that, the juvenile leave the nest and gather into small groups known as pods. The newly hatched chicks are pink and weigh about 60 g (0.13 lb). Within 4 to 14 days, they turn gray or black. After that, they develop a coat of white, black or grayish down. Fledging success may be as high as 100% for the first hatched chick, 60% for the second chick, and just 6% for the third chick.
The parents regurgitate predigested food for the young to feed upon until they reach their fledging stage. After about 35 days, the young venture out of the nest by walking. The young start flying about 71 to 88 days after hatching. The adults remain with them until some time afterwards and continue to feed them. In the 8- to 10-month period during which they are cared for, the nestling pelicans are fed by regurgitated, partially digested food of around 70 kg (150 lb) of fish. The young reach sexual maturity (and full adult plumage) at anywhere from three to five years of age. A brown pelican has been recorded to have lived for over 31 years in captivity.


The brown pelican is the national bird of Saint Martin, Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. In 1902, it was made a part of the official Louisiana seal and, in 1912, a pelican and her young became part of the Flag of Louisiana as well. One of Louisiana's state nicknames is "The Pelican State", and the brown pelican is the official state bird of Louisiana. It is one of the mascots of Tulane University, present on its seal, and is also present on the crest of the University of the West Indies. The National Basketball Association (NBA)'s New Orleans Pelicans are named in the honor of the brown pelican.
In the 1993 film The Pelican Brief, based on the novel of the same name by John Grisham, a legal brief speculates that the assassins of two supreme court justices were motivated by a desire to drill for oil on a Louisiana marshland that was a habitat of the endangered brown pelican. In the same year, Jurassic Park showed a pod of brown pelicans at the end of the film. In 1998, American conductor David Woodard performed a requiem for a California brown pelican on the seaward limit of the berm of a beach where the animal had fallen. In the 2003 Disney/Pixar film Finding Nemo, a brown pelican (voiced by Geoffrey Rush in an Australian accent) was illustrated as a friendly, virtuous talking character named Nigel.


Since 1988, the brown pelican has been rated as least concern on the IUCN Red List of Endangered species based on its large range—greater than 20,000 km² (7700 mi²)—and an increasing population trend. The population size is also well beyond the threshold for vulnerable species. The nominate race population is thought to number at least 290,000 in the West Indies, and 650,000 globally. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt set aside Pelican Island, now known as Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, to solely protect the brown pelican from hunters.
Starting in the 1940s with the invention and extensive use of pesticides such as DDT, the brown pelican population had drastically declined due to a lack of breeding success. By the 1960s, it had almost disappeared along the Gulf Coast and, in southern California, it had suffered almost total reproductive failure, due to DDT usage in the United States. The brown pelican was listed under the United States Endangered Species Act from 1970 to 2009. A research group from the University of Tampa, headed by Ralph Schreiber, conducted research in Tampa Bay, and found that DDT caused the pelican eggshells to be too thin to support the embryo to maturity. In 1972, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) banned DDT usage in the United States and limited the use of other pesticides. There has been a decline in chemical contaminant levels in brown pelican eggs since then, and a corresponding increase in its nesting success. It became extinct in 1963 in Louisiana. Between 1968 and 1980, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries' reintroduction program re-established the brown pelican, and its population numbers in California and Texas were restored due to improved reproduction and natural recolonization of the species. By 1985, its population in the eastern United States, including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and northward along the Atlantic Coast, had recovered and the species was removed from the Endangered Species List. Its population has grown by about 68% per decade over a period of 40 years in North America, and this trend appears to be continuing. It is still listed as endangered in the Pacific Coast region of its range and in the southern and central United States. Although the United States Gulf Coast populations in Louisiana and Texas are still listed as endangered, they were recently estimated in 2009 about 12,000 breeding pairs.  Since that time the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has adversely affected populations, and current population figures are not available.


The breeding range of the great white pelican extends to Ethiopia, Tanzania, Chad, northern Cameroons, and Nigeria in Africa, and has been observed or reported breeding in Zambia, Botswana, and South Africa. In the 1990s, 6,700 to 11,000 breeding pairs in 23 to 25 breeding sites, were found in the Palearctic region. A 1991 study noted about 3,070 to 4,300 pairs were present in the Soviet Union. Only two breeding colonies are located in the Mediterranean basin, one having 250 to 400 pairs in Turkey and the other having 50 to 100 pairs in northern Greece. The breeding colony at Lake Rukwa, Tanzania is the largest known breeding colony in Africa, followed by the Lake Shala, Ethiopia colony which is probably of crucial importance to the species in Africa.
The African population of about 75,000 pairs of the great white pelican is resident. The ones breeding in the Palearctic region are migrants, although it is possible that the majority of the western Palearctic populations stop-over in Israel during their autumn migration. The migration routes are only partially known. Migratory populations are found from Eastern Europe to Kazakhstan during the breeding season. More than 50% of Eurasian great white pelicans breed in the Danube Delta in Romania. They also prefer staying in the Lakes near Burgas, Bulgaria and in Srebarna Lake in Bulgaria. The pelicans arrive in the Danube in late March or early April and depart after breeding from September to late November. Wintering locations for European pelicans are not exactly known but wintering birds may occur in northeastern Africa through Iraq to north India, with a particularly large number of breeders from Asia wintering around Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Northern populations migrate to China, India, Myanmar, with stragglers reaching Java and Bali in Indonesia. These are birds that are found mostly in lowlands, though in East Africa and Nepal may be found living at elevations of up to 1,372 m (4,501 ft).
Overall, the great white pelican is one of the most widely distributed species. Although some areas still hold quite large colonies, it ranks behind the brown pelican and possibly the Australian pelican in overall abundance. Europe now holds an estimated 7,345–10,000 breeding pairs, with over 4,000 pairs that are known to nest in Russia. During migration, more than 75,000 have been observed in Israel and, in winter, over 45,000 may stay in Pakistan. In all its colonies combined, 75,000 pairs are estimated to nest in Africa. It is possibly extinct in Serbia and Montenegro, and regionally extinct in Hungary.
Great white pelicans usually prefer shallow, (seasonally or tropical) warm fresh water. Well scattered groups of breeding pelicans occur through Eurasia from the eastern Mediterranean to Vietnam. In Eurasia, fresh or brackish waters may be inhabited and the pelicans may be found in lakes, deltas, lagoons and marshes, usually with dense reed beds nearby for nesting purposes. Additionally, sedentary populations are found year-round in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert although these are patchy. In Africa, great white pelicans occur mainly around freshwater and alkaline lakes and may also be found in coastal, estuarine areas. Beyond reed beds, African pelicans have nested on inselbergs and flat inshore islands off of Banc d'Arguin National Park.


The great white pelican mainly eats fish. It leaves its roost to feed early in the morning and may fly over 100 km (62 mi) in search of food, as has been observed in Chad and in Mogode, Cameroon. It needs from 0.9 to 1.4 kg (2.0 to 3.1 lb) of fish every day, which corresponds to around 28,000,000 kg (62,000,000 lb) annual fish consumption at the largest colony of the great white pelican, on Tanzania's Lake Rukwa (with almost 75,000 birds). Fish targeted are usually fairly large ones, in the 500–600 g (1.1–1.3 lb) weight range, and are taken based on regional abundance. Common carp are preferred in Europe, mullets in China, and Arabian toothcarp in India. In Africa, often the commonest cichlids, including many species in the Haplochromis and Tilapia genera, seem to be preferred.
The pelican's pouch serves simply as a scoop. As the pelican pushes its bill underwater, the lower bill bows out, creating a large pouch which fills with water and fish. As it lifts its head, the pouch contracts, forcing out the water but retaining the fish. A group of 6 to 8 great white pelicans gather in a horseshoe formation in water to feed together. They dip their bills in unison, creating a circle of open pouches, ready to trap every fish in the area. Most feeding is cooperative and done in groups, especially in shallow waters where fish schools can be corralled easily, though they may also forage alone as well.
Great white pelicans are not restricted to fish, however, and are often opportunistic foragers. In some situations, they eat chicks of other birds, such as the well documented case off the southwest coast of South Africa. Here, breeding pelicans from the Dassen Island prey on chicks weighing up to 2 kg (4.4 lb) from the Cape gannet colony on Malgas Island. Similarly, in Walvis Bay, Namibia the eggs and chicks of Cape cormorants are fed regularly to young pelicans. The local pelican population is so reliant on the cormorants, that when the cormorant species experienced a population decline, the numbers of pelicans appeared to decline as well.
They also rob other birds of their prey. During periods of starvation, they also eat seagulls and ducklings. The gulls are held under water and drowned before being eaten headfirst. A flock of captive great white pelicans in St James's Park, London is well known for occasionally eating local pigeons, despite being well-fed.


The Peruvian pelican (Pelecanus thagus) is a member of the pelican family. It lives on the west coast of South America, breeding in loose colonies from about 33.5° in central Chile to Piura in northern Peru, and occurring as a visitor in southern Chile and Ecuador.


Pelecinus polyturator is a species of wasp in the family Pelecinidae. The large (up to 7 cm) glossy black insects are the most common and well-known members of the family. The adults drink nectar, and they live in crop fields, woods, and suburban gardens throughout North, Central, and South America. Their antennae are long and the females have an elongated, cylindrical, articulated metasoma. They are parasitoids that lay their eggs directly into grubs of the June beetle (genus Phyllophaga) buried in the soil. The adults can be found in the late summer.
Some populations of Pelecinus polyturator are parthenogenic; females do not require fertilization by males to reproduce.  Females are common throughout its range, but males are rare in the United States and Canada specially in some populations, and more common farther south.


Penstemon davidsonii is a species of penstemon known by the common name Davidson's penstemon, honoring Dr. George Davidson. It is native to North America from the Sierra Nevada Range in California and Nevada through the Coast and Cascade ranges of Oregon and Washington into British Columbia.


Penstemon newberryi is a species of penstemon known by the common name mountain pride or Newberry's penstemon. It is native to the mountains of northern California, Oregon, and Nevada, where it grows in rocky habitat, often at high elevation, such as talus. It is a bushy, mat-forming subshrub growing up to 30 centimeters tall. The leaves are mostly basal on the plant, oblong or oval and toothed, measuring 1 to 4 centimeters in length, with a few smaller pairs along the stem. The glandular inflorescence bears showy magenta flowers 2 to over 3 centimeters in length. The flower is generally tubular or funnel-shaped and has a coating of short to long and curly hairs in the mouth and on the staminode.
Penstemon newberryi is included in Penstemon subgenus Dasanthera, along with P. barrettiae, P. cardwellii, P. davidsonii, P. ellipticus, P. fruticosus, P. lyallii, P. montanus, and P. rupicola.
In cultivation in the UK it has received the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. It tolerates a wide range of positions, but requires full sun.
This was John Muir's favorite flower.
The Latin specific epithet newberryi honors the American geologist and botanist John Strong Newberry (1822-1892).


Penthorum sedoides is widely distributed in the United States and Canada. It has been recorded in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and West Virginia, as well as the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec. It is listed as a species of special concern by the state of Rhode Island. Penthorum sedoides is only native to the eastern half of the continent, in the Pacific Northwest it is an introduced species found in commercial cranberry bogs. In Virginia, Penthorum sedoides grows in habitats such as alluvial swamps, floodplain pools, rocky or sandy shores, fens, marshes, beaver ponds, and disturbed wetlands.


This species is widespread in Europe (with the exception of the north of the British Isles and Scandinavia), across Siberia and Central Asia up to northern China and Japan. These shieldbugs prefer dry to moderately moist, warm areas. They usually occur in clearings and in rather damp environments.


The willow beauty (Peribatodes rhomboidaria) is a moth of the family Geometridae. It is a common species of Europe and adjacent regions (Near East and the Maghreb). While it is found widely throughout Scandinavian countries, which have a maritime climate, it is absent from parts of the former USSR which are at the same latitude but have a more continental climate.
Up to four subspecies are listed by some authors, while others consider the willow beauty a monotypic species or accept only rhomboidaria and sublutearia as distinct:
Peribatodes rhomboidaria corsicaria (Schawerda 1931)
Peribatodes rhomboidaria defloraria (Dannehl 1928)
Peribatodes rhomboidaria rhomboidaria (Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775)
Peribatodes rhomboidaria sublutearia (Zerny 1927)
Under its junior synonym Geometra rhomboidaria, the willow beauty is the type species of its genus Peribatodes. This was initially proposed as a subgenus of Boarmia but eventually elevated to full genus rank.


The scarlet minivet (Pericrocotus speciosus) is a small passerine bird. This minivet is found in tropical southern Asia from Northeast India to southern China, Indonesia, and the Philippines. They are common resident breeding birds in forests and other well-wooded habitats including gardens, especially in hilly country. While the male of most subspecies are scarlet to orange with black upper parts, the females are usually yellow with greyish olive upper parts. Several former subspecies have been elevated to a species status in recent works. These include the orange minivet.  All subspecies have the same habits of gleaning for insects and are often seen in mixed-species foraging flocks, usually foraging in small groups, high up in the forest canopy.


The tricolored bat is a seasonal breeder, with copulation (mating) occurring in the fall before hibernation. Ovulation does not occur until the spring, however, and females store the males' sperm in their uteruses through the winter. Gestation (pregnancy) length is about forty-four days, with females giving birth in June or July. The litter size is typically two individuals. As newborns, the combined mass of twin pups can be as great as 58% of the mother's postpartum mass. At birth, the young lack fur and their eyes are closed. The mother leaves the offspring behind at the roost while she forages at night. Offspring develop rapidly, beginning to fly at three weeks old. By four weeks old, they are foraging for themselves. Young do not reach sexual maturity in their first fall; they do not breed until their second fall.
Individuals can live at least 14.8 years in the wild; juveniles have higher mortality rates than adults, and females have higher mortality rates than males.


The tricolored bat is common throughout eastern North America, with the southern extent of its range in Central America and the northern extent in southern Canada. Its range has expanded since the 1980s, with westward expansion reaching the US states of Colorado, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Additionally, its range started to include the Great Lakes Basin.


The american cockroach (Periplaneta americana) is the largest species of common cockroach, and often considered a pest. In certain regions of the U.S. it is colloquially known as the waterbug, though it is not a true waterbug since it is not aquatic. It is also known as the ship cockroach, kakerlac, and Bombay canary. It is often misidentified as a palmetto bug.
Despite their name, American cockroaches are native to Africa and the Middle East.  They are believed to have been introduced to the Americas only from the 17th century AD onward as a result of human commercial patterns, including the Atlantic slave trade.


The crested honey buzzard breeds in woodland, and is inconspicuous except in the spring, when the mating display includes wing-clapping. The display of roller-coasting in flight and fluttering wings at the peak of the ascent are characteristic of the genus Pernis.  It is as yet uncertain whether the roller-coaster display is related to courtship. The breeding season in the migratory range is June to mid-September for central Siberia and April to August in Japan.  In India, it is April - June, though it starts in February in South India.
The nest is a platform of sticks 40–80 cm (16–31 in) across, lined with dry or green leaves.  It is located at a height of 10–28 m (33–92 ft) in conifers in the north, and 6–20 m (20–66 ft) in banyan, mango, casuarina or coconut in India.  The female normally lays 2 eggs.  The colour is variable, ranging from pale cream to chestnut brown.  Incubation takes 4-5 weeks, the chicks are fledged in 5-6 weeks and they become independent after a further 5-8 weeks.  Male and female share the responsibilities of rearing the young.


The avocado (Persea americana) is a tree originating in the Americas which is likely native to the highland regions of south-central Mexico to Guatemala. It is classified as a member of the flowering plant family Lauraceae. The fruit of the plant, also called an avocado (or avocado pear or alligator pear, colloquially avo), is botanically a large berry containing a single large seed. Avocado trees are partially self-pollinating, and are often propagated through grafting to maintain  predictable fruit quality and quantity.
Avocados are cultivated in tropical and Mediterranean climates of many countries, with Mexico as the leading producer of avocados in 2019, supplying 32% of the world total. Avocado production is one of the most environmentally intensive fruits, using  70 litres (18 US gallons; 15 imperial gallons) of water per avocado, and over 400 grams of CO₂ emissions. In major production regions like Chile, Mexico and California, the water demands for avocado puts pressure on overall water resources.  Avocado production is also connected to other concerns, including environmental justice and human rights concerns, deforestation and connections of Mexican avocados with organized crime. Climate change is expected to cause significant changes in the suitable growing zones for avocados, and put additional pressure due to heat waves and drought.
The fruit of domestic varieties has smooth, buttery, golden flesh when ripe. Depending on the variety, avocados have green, brown, purplish, or black skin, and may be pear-shaped, egg-shaped, or spherical. Commercially, the fruits are picked while immature, and ripened after harvesting. The high nutrient and fat contents and texture of avocado flesh are useful for different cuisines, including salads and vegetarian diets.


Persea americana, or the avocado, possibly originated in the Tehuacan Valley in the state of Puebla, Mexico,  although fossil evidence suggests similar species were much more widespread millions of years ago. However, there is evidence for three possible separate domestications of the avocado, resulting in the currently recognized Mexican (aoacatl), Guatemalan (quilaoacatl), and West Indian (tlacacolaocatl) landraces. The Mexican and Guatemalan landraces originated in the highlands of those countries, while the West Indian landrace is a lowland variety that ranges from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador to Peru, achieving a wide range through human agency before the arrival of the Europeans. The three separate landraces were most likely to have already intermingled in pre-Columbian America and were described in the Florentine Codex.
The earliest residents of northern coastal Peru were living in temporary camps in an ancient wetland and eating avocados, along with chilies, mollusks, sharks, birds, and sea lions. The oldest discovery of an avocado pit comes from Coxcatlan Cave, dating from around 9,000 to 10,000 years ago. Other caves in the Tehuacan Valley from around the same time period also show early evidence for the presence and consumption of avocado. There is evidence for avocado use at Norte Chico civilization sites in Peru by at least 3,200 years ago and at Caballo Muerto in Peru from around 3,800 to 4,500 years ago.
The native, undomesticated variety is known as a criollo, and is small, with dark black skin, and contains a large seed. It probably coevolved with extinct megafauna. In 1982, evolutionary biologist Daniel H. Janzen concluded that the avocado is an example of an "evolutionary anachronism", a fruit adapted for ecological relationship with now-extinct large mammals (such as giant ground sloths or gomphotheres). Most large fleshy fruits serve the function of seed dispersal, accomplished by their consumption by large animals. There are some reasons to think that the fruit, with its mildly toxic pit, may have coevolved with Pleistocene megafauna to be swallowed whole and excreted in their dung, ready to sprout. No extant native animal is large enough to effectively disperse avocado seeds in this fashion.
The avocado tree also has a long history of cultivation in Central and South America, likely beginning as early as 5,000 BC. A water jar shaped like an avocado, dating to AD 900, was discovered in the pre-Incan city of Chan Chan.
The earliest known written account of the avocado in Europe is that of Martín Fernández de Enciso (circa 1470–1528) in 1519 in his book, Suma De Geographia Que Trata De Todas Las Partidas Y Provincias Del Mundo. The first detailed account that unequivocally describes the avocado was given by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés in his work Sumario de la natural historia de las Indias in 1526. The first written record in English of the use of the word 'avocado' was by Hans Sloane, who coined the term, in a 1696 index of Jamaican plants. The plant was introduced to Spain in 1601, Indonesia around 1750, Mauritius in 1780, Brazil in 1809, the United States mainland in 1825, South Africa and Australia in the late 19th century, and the Ottoman Empire in 1908. In the United States, the avocado was introduced to Florida and Hawaii in 1833 and in California in 1856.
Before 1915, the avocado was commonly referred to in California as ahuacate and in Florida as alligator pear. In 1915, the California Avocado Association introduced the then-innovative term avocado to refer to the plant.


In Central American, Caribbean Spanish-speaking countries, and Spain it is known by the Mexican Spanish name aguacate, while South American Spanish-speaking countries Argentina, Chile, Perú and Uruguay use a Quechua-derived word, palta. In Portuguese, it is abacate. The Nahuatl āhuacatl can be compounded with other words, as in ahuacamolli, meaning avocado soup or sauce, from which the Spanish word guacamole derives.
In the United Kingdom the term avocado pear, applied when avocados first became commonly available in the 1960s, is sometimes used.
Originating as a diminutive in Australian English, a clipped form, avo, has since become a common colloquialism in South Africa and the United Kingdom.
It is known as "butter fruit" in parts of India.


In 2020, world production of avocados was 8.1 million tonnes, led by Mexico with 30% (2.4 million tonnes) of the total (table). Other major producers were Colombia, Dominican Republic, Peru, and Indonesia, together producing 35% of the world total. Despite market effects of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, volume production of avocados in Mexico increased by 40% over 2019 levels.
In 2018, the US Department of Agriculture estimated that 231,028 hectares (570,880 acres) in total were under cultivation for avocado production in Mexico, a 6% increase over the previous year, and that 2 million tonnes would be exported. The Mexican state of Michoacán is the world leader in avocado production, accounting for 80% of all Mexican output. Most Mexican growers produce the Hass variety due to its longer shelf life for shipping and high demand among consumers.


Seventy-six percent of Mexico's avocado exports go to the United States, with the free trade agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico in July 2020 facilitating avocado shipments within the North American free trade zone. The Mexican domestic market was expanding during 2020. Mexican avocado exports are challenged by growth of production by Peru and the Dominican Republic to supply the US and European markets.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mexican avocado farmers restricted harvesting as the overall demand and supply chain slowed due to labor and shipping restrictions. Later in 2020, demand in the United States and within Mexico increased at a time when American retail prices continued to rise. During 2020 in the United States, month-to-month volume sales of avocados were similar to those of tomatoes at about 250 million pounds (110 million kg) per month. A report issued in mid-2020 forecast that the worldwide market, which was US$13.7 billion in 2018, would recover after the end of the pandemic and rise to US$21.6 billion by 2026.


In the Philippines, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, and southern India (especially the coastal Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka region), avocados are frequently used for milkshakes and occasionally added to ice cream and other desserts. In Brazil, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia, a dessert drink is made with sugar, milk or water, and pureed avocado. Chocolate syrup is sometimes added. In Morocco, a similar chilled avocado and milk drink is sweetened with confectioner's sugar and flavored with a touch of orange flower water.
In Ethiopia, avocados are made into juice by mixing them with sugar and milk or water, usually served with Vimto and a slice of lemon. It is also common to serve layered multiple fruit juices in a glass (locally called Spris) made of avocados, mangoes, bananas, guavas, and papayas. Avocados are also used to make salads.
Avocados in savory dishes, often seen as exotic, are a relative novelty in Portuguese-speaking countries, such as Brazil, where the traditional preparation is mashed with sugar and lime, and eaten as a dessert or snack. This contrasts with Spanish-speaking countries such as Chile, Mexico, or Argentina, where the opposite is true and sweet preparations are rare.
In Australia and New Zealand, avocados are commonly served on sandwiches, sushi, toast, or with chicken. In Ghana, they are often eaten alone on sliced bread as a sandwich. In Sri Lanka, their well-ripened flesh, thoroughly mashed or pureed with milk and kitul treacle (a liquid jaggery made from the sap of the inflorescence of jaggery palms), is a common dessert. In Haiti, they are often consumed with cassava or regular bread for breakfast.
In Mexico and Central America, avocados are served mixed with white rice, in soups, salads, or on the side of chicken and meat. They are also commonly added to pozole. In Peru, they are consumed with tequeños as mayonnaise, served as a side dish with parrillas, used in salads and sandwiches, or as a whole dish when filled with tuna, shrimp, or chicken. In Chile, it is used as a puree-like sauce with chicken, hamburgers, and hot dogs; and in slices for celery or lettuce salads. The Chilean version of Caesar salad contains large slices of mature avocado. In Kenya and Nigeria, the avocado is often eaten as a fruit alone or mixed with other fruits in a fruit salad, or as part of a vegetable salad.
In the United Kingdom, the avocado became available during the 1960s when introduced by Sainsbury's under the name 'avocado pear'. Much of the success of avocados in the UK is attributed to a long-running promotional campaign initiated by South African growers in 1995.


Persicaria chinensis (synonym Polygonum chinense), commonly known as creeping smartweed or Chinese knotweed, is a plant species from the family Polygonaceae.
It is widespread across China, Japan, the Indian Subcontinent, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. It is a common plant in Malaysia and Vietnam, where it is used in herbal remedies, such as for the treatment of dysentery, enteritis, and sore throat. It is a weed in some coastal areas of New South Wales and Queensland in Australia.
Persicaria chinensis is a perennial climber that grows to 2–3 m high. Its stems are glabrous and red-brown, with longitudinal stripes. Its leaves have oval blades, are 4–8 cm long and 3–5 cm wide, with pointed apex and round or nearly cordate base. Its cymes emerge at terminals, and are 5–7 cm long, with small white or pink flowers. Its fruits are berries, globose in shape and enclosed in the enlarged and fleshy calyx at maturity. They are edible and sour tasting. The seeds are small and black.


The cave swallow (Petrochelidon fulva) is a medium-sized, squarish-tailed swallow belonging to the same genus as the more familiar and widespread cliff swallow of North America. The cave swallow, also native to the Americas, nests and roosts primarily in caves and sinkholes.
Cave swallows are found in Mexico and the Greater Antilles, with fall and winter vagrants reaching the east and Gulf Coasts of the U.S. Breeding colonies occur in south-eastern New Mexico, Texas, Florida, the Greater Antilles, portions of southern Mexico, and along the west coast of South America. Five subspecies are currently recognized according to Birds of North America, three occurring in North America and two in South America.


P. f. pallida is found farther west in the south-western United States and into north-eastern Mexico. P. f. citata has the southernmost range of the North American subspecies and is found on the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. P. f. aequatorialis is found in Ecuador, and it is speculated that it may extend its range into Peru. P. f. rufocollaris occurs in north-western Peru.
Breeding is known to occur in Mexico, south-eastern New Mexico, southern Florida, Greater Antilles and in areas of Texas. The South American populations, as well as most Mexican and Caribbean populations, are considered resident populations which breed and overwinter in the same geographic range. The New Mexico and other northern populations migrate south; however, it is not known where they migrate to or which migration routes they take. Cave swallows have been observed to overwinter in southern Texas since at least the 1980s.


Cave swallow chicks begin giving faint calls shortly after hatching. As the chicks develop their calls become louder and more aggressive. These calls allow the chicks to communicate to the attending parent(s) their basic needs, such as hunger.
There is currently no data regarding differences in vocalizations between the subspecies of cave swallows; however, the following descriptions are based on observations of P. f. pallida. Adults utilize five main vocalizations: a song, "che" note, and three types of chattering described by Selander and Baker (1957).
The cave swallow's song typically lasts 3–4 seconds and is described as a "series of squeaks that gradually blend into a 'complex melodic warble' and end in a series of double-toned notes in which a 'gua' sound and a very low 'nock' sound are given simultaneously." Sometimes the song ends with a "sharp eep note."
A high-pitched, nasal "che" note is often given in response to the presence of predators in the nest area, other birds passing near the cave swallow's nest, or while the swallow is in flight. It is the note given most frequently when the bird is away from its nest site.
The first type of chattering is the most common, it is described as a "short, clear weet or cheweet given at medium pitch with an ascending or descending inflection."
The second type of chattering is given in response to predators, most often occurring in series of 2 to 4. It is described as "a high-pitched che or chu note."
The third type of chattering is the least commonly given and usually only when the bird has been disturbed. It is described as a "lower pitched, clearer choo with a descending inflection."
Cave swallows are most often heard singing from March to August in Texas and New Mexico, corresponding more or less to their breeding season. In general, birds are vocal throughout the day when their nesting colony is active; however, they are usually loud and vocal at their nest site, becoming quieter as they move away from their nest.


Rufous-winged sparrows usually breed during the monsoon months of July and August. The nest is built low in small trees, bushes, or cactus, including hackberry, palo verde, cholla, and mesquite. The average clutch size is four; pairs may have two broods per year.


Peucephyllum is a monotypic genus of flowering plants containing the single species Peucephyllum schottii. Its common names include pygmy cedar, Schott's pygmy cedar, desert fir, and desert pine. It is not a cedar, fir, or pine, but a member of the aster family, Asteraceae. It is a leafy evergreen shrub with glandular, resinous foliage. It flowers in yellow flower heads which have only disc florets. The fruits are woody, bristly seeds with a pappus. This plant is native to the deserts of Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah in the United States and Baja California and Sonora in northern Mexico.
The species form is similar to that of the common creosote bush (Larrea tridentata): small, greenish, and hemispherical with similar yellow flowers in the spring.


The female constructs one to five 2-centimeter (0.8 in) egg sacs in September and October, each containing 25 to 600 bright orange eggs, which she guards, usually hanging upside down from a sac and attacking everything that comes near. Remarkably, one of her means of defense is to squirt (spit) venom from her chelicerae, sometimes for a distance of about a foot (300 mm). The eggs hatch after about two weeks, and after another two weeks fully functional spiderlings emerge from the sac. They pass through eight instars to reach maturity.


Phacelia purshii, common name Miami mist, is a spring flowering annual forb with blue flowers, which is native to eastern and central North America. It is native to the Appalachian Mountains and adjacent regions from Alabama to Pennsylvania, with additional populations in the Tennessee/Ohio Valley, the mid-section of the Mississippi Valley (Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas) and the Great Lakes region (Ohio, Michigan, Ontario, etc.). It grows in floodplain forests and alluvial clearings.


Phacelia sericea consists of several upright or ascending stems to 0.6 m (2 ft) from a tap-rooted, branched woody base. Its leaves are pinnatifid with cleft or entire segments. The basal leaves are somewhat larger than the upper cauline leaves and are more persistent and petiolate. The leaves and stems are generally covered with silvery silky hairs but are scarcely glandular.
The inflorescence consists of several short panicles, tightly packed, at the end of the stem, resembling a bottle-brush. The dark blue to purple bell-shaped corolla is 4–6 mm across. It is hairy inside and out but not glandular. The filaments are two to three times as long as the corolla and give the inflorescence a fuzzy appearance. The anthers are bright yellow or orange and the style is shortly cleft. The fruit consists of two-chambered capsules with 8 to 18 seeds.
A subalpine to alpine species of open well-drained slopes, usually above 1500 m elevation, it is found in the mountains of Vancouver Island, the southern British Columbia Pacific Ranges, the Rocky Mountains from Banff National Park to southern Colorado, Olympic National Park, the Cascade Range of Washington, the mountains of eastern Oregon and the northernmost counties of California, and the mountains of Idaho, Nevada and Utah.  It generally blooms from near the end of May through the end of August.


Phacellophora camtschatica has symbiotic relationships with larval crabs (Cancer gracilis), in which the crabs feed on the parasitoid Amphipoda (Hyperia medusarum) that also resides on the bell of the jellyfish. Larval crabs benefit from this relationship by riding on the bell of the medusa or within the tentacles to gain food and develop faster due to locomotion through warmer surface waters without expending extra energy. When the juvenile crabs first associate with the jellyfish, the crab feeds on the tentacles and preys on small plankton from the water and the hosts’ surface. As the crab develops into an instar, it begins to feed on the parasitoid Amphipoda (Hyperia medusarum), which aids the jellyfish in keeping the parasitic impact low. Although a symbiotic relationship exists between juvenile Cancer gracilis and the jellyfish, when the C. gracilis matures it begins to feed more substantially on the jellyfish itself; other predators include crabs (Cancer productus and Pugettia producta) and the giant deep-sea octopus, Haliphron atlanticus, which clings to the jellyfish and consumes its oral arms and stomach.


Neptis columella, the short banded sailer, is a species of nymphalid butterfly found in South and Southeast Asia.


The phainopepla ranges as far north as central California with the San Joaquin Valley and southern Utah, and south to central Mexico, the interior Mexican Plateau region; the southern edge of the plateau, the transverse mountains is its non-breeding home. It is found in hot areas, including desert oases, and is readily seen in the deserts of Arizona, southern Nevada, and southern California; also the Baja Peninsula, both Baja California-(north), and Baja California Sur where they are the only breeding resident birds. Extreme individuals have travelled as far as Canada, with one bird in 2009 reaching as far north as Brampton, Ontario, Canada.


The European shag can be readily be seen at the following breeding locations in the season (late April to mid July): Saltee Islands, Ireland; Farne Islands, England;  Isle of May, Deerness and Fowlsheugh, Scotland; Runde, Norway; Iceland, Denmark; Faroe Islands, Spain; Galicia, Croatia; Dalmatia and Istria. In April 2017, eight new European shags were born in Monaco.
The largest colony of European shags is in the Cíes Islands, Spain, with 2,500 pairs (25% of the world's population).


The neotropic cormorant or olivaceous cormorant (Nannopterum brasilianum) is a medium-sized cormorant found throughout the American tropics and subtropics, from the middle Rio Grande and the Gulf and Californian coasts of the United States south through Mexico and Central America to southern South America, where it is called by the Indian name of biguá. It also breeds on the Bahamas, Cuba and Trinidad. It can be found both at coasts (including some mangrove areas) and on inland waters. There are at least two subspecies: N. b. mexicanum from Nicaragua northwards and N. b. brasilianum further south. In Peru the neotropic cormorant is used by the Uru people for fishing.


The pelagic cormorant inhabits the shores and the neritic zone of the North Pacific. Its North American range extends from Alaska to the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. It furthermore is found on the Aleutian and other Bering Strait islands, and from the Russian Far East Chukchi Peninsula via Sakhalin south to Kamchatka, and ultimately Kyūshū (though not the rest of  Japan). The subarctic populations are migratory, while the birds from temperate and subtropical regions only disperse locally after breeding, but even so Asian birds may reach China or Korea. Vagrants have been recorded in the Hawaiian Islands.


The common poorwill (Phalaenoptilus nuttallii)  is a nocturnal bird of the family Caprimulgidae, the nightjars.  It is found from British Columbia and southeastern Alberta, through the western United States to northern Mexico. The bird's habitat is dry, open areas with grasses or shrubs, and even stony desert slopes with very little vegetation.
Many northern birds migrate to winter within the breeding range in central and western Mexico, though some remain further north. The common poorwill is the only bird known to go into torpor for extended periods (weeks to months).  This happens on the southern edge of its range in the United States, where it spends much of the winter inactive, concealed in piles of rocks. Such an extended period of torpor is close to a state of hibernation and is not known among other birds.


Phalaris aquatica originated from Southern Europe and the Caucasus. It is naturalized in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Although very recently introduced there, its pasture value was first recognised in Australia. Domesticated cultivation then spread to the United States, Argentina and several other countries in South America, and New Zealand.


The red phalarope or grey phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius) is a small wader. This phalarope breeds in the Arctic regions of North America and Eurasia. It is migratory, and, unusually for a wader, migrating mainly on oceanic routes and wintering at sea on tropical oceans.


The red-necked phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus), also known as the northern phalarope and hyperborean phalarope, is a small wader. This phalarope breeds in the Arctic regions of North America and Eurasia. It is migratory, and, unusually for a wader, winters at sea on tropical oceans.


The red-necked phalarope is a rare and localised breeding species in Ireland and Britain, which lie on the extreme edge of its world range. The most reliable place for them is Shetland, particularly the Loch of Funzie on Fetlar, with a few birds breeding elsewhere in Scotland in the Outer Hebrides (e.g. at Loch na Muilne, where a "phalarope watchpoint" has been set up) and sometimes the Scottish Mainland in Ross-shire or Sutherland. They have also bred in western Ireland since about 1900, where the population reached a peak of about 50 pairs. There have been very few breeding records in Ireland since the 1970s, but breeding was reported from County Mayo in 2015, involving a male and three females.
The tracking of a tagged bird from Fetlar unexpectedly revealed that it wintered with a North American population in the tropical Pacific Ocean; it took a 16,000 mi (26,000 km) round trip across the Atlantic via Iceland and Greenland, then south down the Eastern seaboard of America, across the Caribbean and Mexico, before ending up off the coast of Ecuador and Peru. For this reason, it is suspected that the Shetland population could be an offshoot of a North American population rather than the geographically closer Scandinavian population that is believed to winter in the Arabian Sea.


This species lives among lush vegetation, in very moist rainforests at high elevations (900–3,200 m (3,000–10,500 ft)). They populate trees that make up the canopy and subcanopy of the rainforest, though they can also be found in ravines and cliffs. It prefers to inhabit decaying trees, stumps, and abandoned woodpecker hollows. The bright colors of the quetzal are camouflaged by their natural habitat in the rainforest. The resplendent quetzal can be found from southern Mexico (southernmost Oaxaca and Chiapas) to western Panama (Chiriquí). The ranges of the two subspecies differ: P. m. mocinno is found in southern Mexico, northern El Salvador, and northwestern Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras, while P. m. costaricensis is found in Costa Rica and western Panama. The geographical isolation between the two subspecies is caused by the Nicaraguan depression, a 50 km (31 mi) wide, 600 km (370 mi) long bottomland that contains the two largest lakes in Central America, Lake Managua and Lake Nicaragua, and the deficiency of the breeding habitats in regions adjoining to. The quetzal migrates from its breeding areas in lower montane rainforest to pre-montane rainforest on the Pacific slopes for three to four months (July–October), after which they move across the continental divide to the Atlantic slopes.
A 2006 study showed that quetzal's abundance in its mating areas was correlated with the total number of fruiting species, although the correlation between quetzal abundance and the number of fruiting Lauraceae species was only marginal.


The koala or, inaccurately, koala bear (Phascolarctos cinereus) is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae and its closest living relatives are the wombats. The koala is found in coastal areas of the mainland's eastern and southern regions, inhabiting Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. It is easily recognisable by its stout, tailless body and large head with round, fluffy ears and large, spoon-shaped nose. The koala has a body length of 60–85 cm (24–33 in) and weighs 4–15 kg (9–33 lb). Fur colour ranges from silver grey to chocolate brown. Koalas from the northern populations are typically smaller and lighter in colour than their counterparts further south. These populations possibly are separate subspecies, but this is disputed.
Koalas typically inhabit open Eucalyptus woodland, as the leaves of these trees make up most of their diet. Because this eucalypt diet has limited nutritional and caloric content, koalas are largely sedentary and sleep up to twenty hours a day. They are asocial animals, and bonding exists only between mothers and dependent offspring. Adult males communicate with loud bellows that intimidate rivals and attract mates. Males mark their presence with secretions from scent glands located on their chests. Being marsupials, koalas give birth to underdeveloped young that crawl into their mothers' pouches, where they stay for the first six to seven months of their lives. These young koalas, known as joeys, are fully weaned around a year old. Koalas have few natural predators and parasites, but are threatened by various pathogens, such as Chlamydiaceae bacteria and the koala retrovirus.
Because of its distinctive appearance, the koala is recognised worldwide as a symbol of Australia. They were hunted by Indigenous Australians and depicted in myths and cave art for millennia. The first recorded encounter between a European and a koala was in 1798, and an image of the animal was published in 1810 by naturalist George Perry. Botanist Robert Brown wrote the first detailed scientific description of the koala in 1814, although his work remained unpublished for 180 years. Popular artist John Gould illustrated and described the koala, introducing the species to the general British public. Further details about the animal's biology were revealed in the 19th century by several English scientists. Koalas are listed as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Among the many threats to their existence are habitat destruction caused by agriculture, urbanisation, droughts, and associated bushfires, some related to climate change.  In February of 2022, the koala was officially listed as endangered in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, and Queensland.


The koala's geographic range covers roughly 1,000,000 km² (390,000 sq mi), and 30 ecoregions. It extends throughout eastern and southeastern Australia, encompassing northeastern, central and southeastern Queensland, eastern New South Wales, Victoria, and southeastern South Australia. The koala was reintroduced near Adelaide and on several islands, including Kangaroo Island and French Island. The population on Magnetic Island represents the northern limit of its range. Fossil evidence shows that the koala's range stretched as far west as southwestern Western Australia during the late Pleistocene. Koalas were introduced to Western Australia at Yanchep. They were likely driven to extinction in these areas by environmental changes and hunting by Indigenous Australians. In South Australia, koalas were only known to exist in recent times in the lower South East, with a remnant population in the Bangham Forest between Bordertown and Naracoorte, until introduced to the Mount Lofty Ranges in the 20th-century. Doubts have been cast on Eyre's identification as koala pelt a girdle being worn by an Aboriginal man, the only evidence of their existence elsewhere in the State.
Koalas can be found in habitats ranging from relatively open forests to woodlands, and in climates ranging from tropical to cool temperate. In semi-arid climates, they prefer riparian habitats, where nearby streams and creeks provide refuge during times of drought and extreme heat.


The first written reference to the koala was recorded by John Price, servant of John Hunter, the Governor of New South Wales. Price encountered the "cullawine" on 26 January 1798, during an expedition to the Blue Mountains, although his account was not published until nearly a century later in Historical Records of Australia. In 1802, French-born explorer Francis Louis Barrallier encountered the animal when his two Aboriginal guides, returning from a hunt, brought back two koala feet they were intending to eat. Barrallier preserved the appendages and sent them and his notes to Hunter's successor, Philip Gidley King, who forwarded them to Joseph Banks. Similar to Price, Barrallier's notes were not published until 1897. Reports of the first capture of a live "koolah" appeared in The Sydney Gazette in August 1803. Within a few weeks Flinders' astronomer, James Inman, purchased a specimen pair for live shipment to Joseph Banks in England. They were described as 'somewhat larger than the Waumbut (Wombat)'. These encounters helped provide the impetus for King to commission the artist John Lewin to paint watercolours of the animal. Lewin painted three pictures, one of which was subsequently made into a print that was reproduced in Georges Cuvier's Le Règne Animal (The Animal Kingdom) (first published in 1817) and several European works on natural history.
Botanist Robert Brown was the first to write a detailed scientific description of the koala in 1803, based on a female specimen captured near what is now Mount Kembla in the Illawarra region of New South Wales. Austrian botanical illustrator Ferdinand Bauer drew the animal's skull, throat, feet, and paws. Brown's work remained unpublished and largely unnoticed, however, as his field books and notes remained in his possession until his death, when they were bequeathed to the British Museum (Natural History) in London. They were not identified until 1994, while Bauer's koala watercolours were not published until 1989. British surgeon Everard Home included details of the koala based on eyewitness accounts of William Paterson, who had befriended Brown and Bauer during their stay in New South Wales. Home, who in 1808 published his report in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, gave the animal the scientific name Didelphis coola.

The first published image of the koala appeared in George Perry's (1810) natural history work Arcana. Perry called it the "New Holland Sloth" on account of its perceived similarities to the Central and South American tree-living mammals of the genus Bradypus. His disdain for the koala, evident in his description of the animal, was typical of the prevailing early 19th-century British attitude about the primitiveness and oddity of Australian fauna:
...  the eye is placed like that of the Sloth, very close to the mouth and nose, which gives it a clumsy awkward appearance, and void of elegance in the combination ... they have little either in their character or appearance to interest the Naturalist or Philosopher. As Nature however provides nothing in vain, we may suppose that even these torpid, senseless creatures are wisely intended to fill up one of the great links of the chain of animated nature ...
Naturalist and popular artist John Gould illustrated and described the koala in his three-volume work The Mammals of Australia (1845–1863) and introduced the species, as well as other members of Australia's little-known faunal community, to the general British public. Comparative anatomist Richard Owen, in a series of publications on the physiology and anatomy of Australian mammals, presented a paper on the anatomy of the koala to the Zoological Society of London. In this widely cited publication, he provided the first careful description of its internal anatomy, and noted its general structural similarity to the wombat. English naturalist George Robert Waterhouse, curator of the Zoological Society of London, was the first to correctly classify the koala as a marsupial in the 1840s. He identified similarities between it and its fossil relatives Diprotodon and Nototherium, which had been discovered just a few years before. Similarly, Gerard Krefft, curator of the Australian Museum in Sydney, noted evolutionary mechanisms at work when comparing the koala to its ancestral relatives in his 1871 The Mammals of Australia.
The first living koala in Britain arrived in 1881, purchased by the Zoological Society of London. As related by prosecutor to the society, William Alexander Forbes, the animal suffered an accidental demise when the heavy lid of a washstand fell on it and it was unable to free itself. Forbes used the opportunity to dissect the fresh female specimen, thus was able to provide explicit anatomical details on the female reproductive system, the brain, and the liver—parts not previously described by Owen, who had access only to preserved specimens. Scottish embryologist William Caldwell—well known in scientific circles for determining the reproductive mechanism of the platypus—described the uterine development of the koala in 1884, and used the new information to convincingly place the koala and the monotremes into an evolutionary time frame.


The koala is well known worldwide and is a major draw for Australian zoos and wildlife parks.  It has been featured in advertisements, games, cartoons, and as soft toys. It benefited the national tourism industry by over an estimated billion Australian dollars in 1998, a figure that has since grown. In 1997, half of the visitors to Australia, especially those from Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, sought out zoos and wildlife parks; about 75% of European and Japanese tourists placed the koala at the top of their list of animals to see. According to biologist Stephen Jackson: "If you were to take a straw poll of the animal most closely associated with Australia, it's a fair bet that the koala would come out marginally in front of the kangaroo". Factors that contribute to the koala's enduring popularity include its childlike body proportions and teddy bear-like face.
The koala is featured in the Dreamtime stories and mythology of Indigenous Australians. The Tharawal people believed that the animal helped row the boat that brought them to the continent. Another myth tells of how a tribe killed a koala and used its long intestines to create a bridge for people from other parts of the world. This narrative highlights the koala's status as a game animal and the length of its intestines. Several stories tell of how the koala lost its tail. In one, a kangaroo cuts it off to punish the koala for being lazy and greedy. Tribes in both Queensland and Victoria regarded the koala as a wise animal and sought its advice. Bidjara-speaking people credited the koala for turning barren lands into lush forests. The animal is also depicted in rock carvings, though not as much as some other species.
Early European settlers in Australia considered the koala to be a prowling sloth-like animal with a "fierce and menacing look". At the beginning of the 20th century, the koala's reputation took a more positive turn, largely due to its growing popularity and depiction in several widely circulated children's stories. It is featured in Ethel Pedley's 1899 book Dot and the Kangaroo, in which it is portrayed as the "funny native bear". Artist Norman Lindsay depicted a more anthropomorphic koala in The Bulletin cartoons, starting in 1904. This character also appeared as Bunyip Bluegum in Lindsay's 1918 book The Magic Pudding. Perhaps the most famous fictional koala is Blinky Bill. Created by Dorothy Wall in 1933, the character appeared in several books and has been the subject of films, TV series, merchandise, and a 1986 environmental song by John Williamson. The first Australian stamp featuring a koala was issued by the Commonwealth in 1930. A television ad campaign for Australia's national airline Qantas, starting in 1967 and running for several decades, featured a live koala (voiced by Howard Morris), who complained that too many tourists were coming to Australia and concluded "I hate Qantas". The series has been ranked among the greatest commercials of all time.
The song "Ode to a Koala Bear" appears on the B-side of the 1983 Paul McCartney/Michael Jackson duet single Say Say Say. A koala is the main character in Hanna-Barbera's The Kwicky Koala Show and Nippon Animation's Noozles, both of which were animated cartoons of the early 1980s. Food products shaped like the koala include the Caramello Koala chocolate bar and the bite-sized cookie snack Koala's March. Dadswells Bridge in Victoria features a tourist complex shaped like a giant koala and the Queensland Reds rugby team has a koala as its mascot. The Platinum Koala and Australian Silver Koala coins feature the animal on the reverse and Elizabeth II on the obverse.
The drop bear is an imaginary creature in contemporary Australian folklore featuring a predatory, carnivorous version of the koala. This hoax animal is commonly spoken about in tall tales designed to scare tourists. While koalas are typically docile herbivores, drop bears are described as unusually large and vicious marsupials that inhabit treetops and attack unsuspecting people (or other prey) that walk beneath them by dropping onto their heads from above.


Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, visited the Koala Park Sanctuary in Sydney in 1934 and was "intensely interested in the bears". His photograph, with Noel Burnet, the founder of the park, and a koala, appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald. After World War II, when tourism to Australia increased and the animals were exported to zoos overseas, the koala's international popularity rose. Several political leaders and members of royal families had their pictures taken with koalas, including Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Harry, Crown Prince Naruhito, Crown Princess Masako, Pope John Paul II, US President Bill Clinton, Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev and South African President Nelson Mandela
At the 2014 G20 Brisbane summit, hosted by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, many world leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama were photographed holding koalas. The event gave rise to the term "koala diplomacy", which then became the Oxford Word of the Month for December 2016.
The term also includes the loan of koalas by the Australian government to overseas zoos in countries such as Singapore and Japan, as a form of "soft power diplomacy", like the "panda diplomacy" practised by China.


The koala was originally classified as Least Concern on the Red List, and reassessed as Vulnerable in 2014. In the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and Queensland, the species was listed under the EPBC Act in February 2022 as endangered by extinction. The described population was determined in 2012 to be "a species for the purposes of the EPBC Act 1999" in Federal legislation.
Australian policymakers had declined a 2009 proposal to include the koala in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. In 2012, the Australian government listed koala populations in Queensland and New South Wales as Vulnerable, because of a 40% population decline in the former and a 33% decline in the latter. A 2017 WWF report found a 53% decline per generation in Queensland, and a 26% decline in New South Wales. The koala population in South Australia and Victoria and appear to be abundant; however, the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) argued that the exclusion of Victorian populations from protective measures was based on a misconception that the total koala population was 200,000, whereas they believed in 2012 that it was probably less than 100,000. AKF estimated in 2022 that there could be as few as 43,000 individuals. This is compared with 8 to 10 million at the start of the 20th century.
The koala was heavily hunted by European settlers in the early 20th century, largely for its thick, soft fur. More than two million pelts are estimated to have left Australia by 1924. Pelts were in demand for use in rugs, coat linings, muffs, and as trimming on women's garments. The first successful efforts at conserving the species were initiated by the establishment of Brisbane's Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and Sydney's Koala Park Sanctuary in the 1920s and 1930s. The owner of the latter park, Noel Burnet, became the first to successfully breed koalas and earned a reputation as the foremost contemporary authority on the marsupial.
One of the biggest anthropogenic threats to the koala is habitat destruction and fragmentation. In coastal areas, the main cause of this is urbanisation, while in rural areas, habitat is cleared for agriculture. Native forest trees are also taken down to be made into wood products. In 2000, Australia ranked fifth in the world by deforestation rates, having cleared 564,800 hectares (1,396,000 acres). The distribution of the koala has shrunk by more than 50% since European arrival, largely due to fragmentation of habitat in Queensland. Nevertheless, koalas live in many protected areas.
While urbanisation can pose a threat to koala populations, the animals can survive in urban areas provided enough trees are present. Urban populations have distinct vulnerabilities: collisions with vehicles and attacks by domestic dogs. To reduce road deaths, government agencies have been exploring various wildlife crossing options, such as the use of fencing to channel animals toward an underpass, in some cases adding a ledge as a walkway to an existing culvert. Dogs kill about 4,000 animals every year. Injured koalas are often taken to wildlife hospitals and rehabilitation centres. In a 30-year retrospective study performed at a New South Wales koala rehabilitation centre, trauma (usually resulting from a motor vehicle accident or dog attack) was found to be the most frequent cause of admission, followed by symptoms of Chlamydia infection.


The first birds leave the breeding grounds as early as August, while the last ones do not return until mid-late May. In general, however, they migrate south in late September or in October, and return in late April or early May. It appears as if they remain on their breeding grounds longer today than they did in the early 20th century, when migrants were more commonly seen in May and August than in April or September. The rose-breasted grosbeak occurs as a very rare vagrant in western Europe. During breeding it is fairly territorial; in winter, it roams the lands in groups of about a handful of birds, and sometimes in larger flocks of a dozen or more.


Apocheima strigataria, the small phigalia moth, is a moth of the family Geometridae. The species was first described by Charles Sedgwick Minot in 1869. It is found in North America, where it has been recorded from North Dakota to Texas and further east. The habitat consists of woodlands and forests.
The length of the forewings is 14–18 mm for males. Females are flightless with reduced wings. Adults are on wing from January onwards in the south. In the north, adults are on wing from March to May.
The larvae feed on Juglans nigra, Carya ovata, Carya tomentosa, Carya glabra, Betula lenta, Corylus americana, Quercus alba, Quercus prinus, Quercus stellata, Quercus rubra, Quercus coccinea, Quercus velutina, Ulmus rubra, Celtis occidentalis, Hamamelis virginiana, Crataegus, Amelanchier canadensis, Amelanchier grandiflora, Malus sylvestris, Malus coronaria, Rubus, Prunus serotina, Cercis canadensis, Acer negundo, Acer saccharum, Acer rubrum, Acer pensylvaticum, Tilia americana, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, Nyssa sylvatica, Cornus florida and Vaccinium angustifolium.


In the more northerly parts of its distribution the European beewolf is univoltine and the flight period is between mid-July and September. In the warmer area in which it occurs there can be more than one generation per year, for example in Central Europe there may be two broods in the summer.
Female European beewolves excavate their burrows in sandy soil or in vertical soil faces in open sunny places and these can be up to a metre in length with no less than three and as many as 34 short side tunnels at the end, each of which contains a brood cell. The material displaced by the burrowing wasp is flicked behind it as it excavates the nest.  They nest in aggregations which may have as many as 15,000 burrows. The females hunt honeybees Apis mellifera, which are paralysed with the stinger, the female stinging the prey through the articular membranes which are situated behind the front legs, the female then carries the immobilised bee to the nest in flight between the wasp's legs. On reaching the nest she often hovers over the entrance before slowly descending into the burrow. Each brood cell is provisioned with between one and five honeybees for the larva. After the larva has fed sufficiently it spins a cocoon, the cocoon is attached to the wall of the brood cell at its base. In cooler regions the larva overwinters and the adults emerge the following summer. Other species of bee, other than honeybees, have been reported as prey including Andrena flavipes, Lasioglossum zonulus and Nomada sp in Britain as well as bees of the genera Dasypoda, Halictus and Megachile in continental Europe. Each female may collect up to 100 bees during its flight period.
The humid and warm conditions in the brood cells provide good growth conditions a number of species of mould fungi which can colonise the cells opportunistically from the surrounding soil, especially Aspergillus flavus,  which can either infect the larva or the stored immobilised bees and this normally causes the larva to die. Female beewolves protect their offspring against pathogens, and they have evolved strategies to reduce the mortality of their offspring in the brood cell. The first strategy is to apply copious amounts of an anti-condensation secretion from a cephalic gland on to the paralysed bees to reduce water condensation on those bees and thereby delay fungal germination. The second strategy consists of a concentrated release of nitric oxide from the beewolf egg itself once the brood cells is closed by the mother that sterilises the deposited bees by killing actively growing fungi. The third strategy is that the female wasp secretes a whitish substance from specialised glands in its antennae in to the brood cell, this secretion contains symbiotic bacteria of the genus Streptomyces, which are ingested by the larva and before the larva pupates the bacteria are applied to the cocoon to protect the larva from fungal infection.
The males set up territories in vegetation near to the females' nesting aggregations, these territories do not hold any resources to interest the females. The territories are around a quarter of a square metre in extent and are marked with a pheromone from the male's cephalic glands. The males defend these territories from intruding males but the defence does not involve physical contact between the antagonists. Males may have territories which are often close to one another, constituting a form of lek, which allows the females to choose their mates from among the males. The males do not appear to attract the females by using any form of visual display and it is thought that the females choose the males to copulate with based on the quality of the pheromones the male produces. The amount of time the male occupies a territory is dependent on the number of female nests near that territory.
The adult wasps feed on nectar and have been recorded as feeding on nectar from bramble, sea-holly, Erica, thrift, pale toadflax Linaria repens, common ragwort, hemp-agrimony and creeping thistle.


The bare-faced ibis occurs in open areas such as wet meadows, savannas, marshes, and rice fields. The ibis is usually near sea level but was recorded in Venezuela and Colombia. When an ibis is about to lay its eggs it builds a nest out of sticks and twigs to put them in and it will lay between 2 and 5 eggs and will then sit on them for protection purposes for up to three weeks.


This fern is rarely terrestrial in habitat, usually colonizing the canopies of tropical rainforests and the dwarf palms of subtropical forests. It is common in the cloud forests of the Caribbean and northern South America. It grows in varied habitats in Florida, including swamps and hammocks, and can thus apparently tolerate a wide range of microclimates. Its restriction to the tropics and subtropics is readily explained by its intolerance of anything other than very brief, light frosts. High levels of light are also critical for the growth of this species, and its deciduous habit allows it to invade relatively dry areas.


Phoberia atomaris, the common oak moth, is a species of moth in the family Erebidae. The species is found in North America, from Quebec and Ontario south to Florida, and west to Kansas and Texas.
The wingspan is about 38 mm. Adults are on wing from March to July depending on the location.
The larvae feed on Oak species, including Northern red oak.


There are an estimated 350,000–500,000 harbor seals worldwide. While the population is not threatened as a whole, the Greenland, Hokkaidō and Baltic Sea populations are exceptions. Local populations have been reduced or eliminated through disease (especially the phocine distemper virus) and conflict with humans, both unintentionally and intentionally.  Killing seals perceived to threaten fisheries is legal in Norway, and Canada, but commercial hunting is illegal. Seals are also taken in subsistence hunting and accidentally as bycatch (mainly in bottomset nets). Along the Norwegian coast, bycatch accounted for 48% of pup mortality. Killing or taking seals has been illegal in the United Kingdom since 1 March 2021.
Seals in the United Kingdom are protected by the 1970 Conservation of Seals Act, which prohibits most forms of killing. In the United States, the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 prohibits the killing of any marine mammals and most local ordinances, as well as NOAA, instruct citizens to leave them alone unless serious danger to the seal exists.


Harbor seals prefer to frequent familiar resting sites. They may spend several days at sea and travel up to 50 km in search of feeding grounds, and will also swim more than a hundred miles upstream into fresh water in large rivers in search of migratory fish like shad and likely salmon. Resting sites may be both rugged, rocky coasts, such as those of the Hebrides or the shorelines of New England, or sandy beaches, like the ones that flank Normandy in Northern France or the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Harbor seals frequently congregate in harbors, bays, sandy intertidal zones, and estuaries in pursuit of prey fish such as salmon, menhaden, anchovy, sea bass, herring, mackerel, cod, whiting and flatfish, and occasionally shrimp, crabs, mollusks, and squid. Atlantic subspecies of either Europe or North America also exploit deeper-dwelling fish of the genus Ammodytes as a food source and Pacific subspecies have been recorded occasionally consuming fish of the genus Oncorhynchus. Although primarily coastal, dives of over 500 m have been recorded.  Harbor seals have been recorded to attack, kill and eat several kinds of ducks.


The California population of subspecies P. v. richardsi amounted to about 25,000 individuals as of 1984. Pacific harbor seals or California harbor seals are found along the entire Pacific Coast shoreline of the state. They prefer to remain relatively close to shore in subtidal and intertidal zones, and have not been seen beyond the Channel Islands as a pelagic form; moreover, they often venture into bays and estuaries and even swim up coastal rivers. They feed in shallow littoral waters on herring, flounder, hake, anchovy, codfish, and sculpin.
Breeding occurs in California from March to May, with pupping between April and May, depending on local populations. As top-level feeders in the kelp forest, harbor seals enhance species diversity and productivity. They are preyed upon by killer whales (orcas) and white sharks. Haul out sites in California include urban beaches and from time to time they can be seen having a nap on the beach in all of San Francisco Bay, which would include the conurbation of Richmond, Oakland, and San Francisco, the Greater Los Angeles area, which would include Santa Barbara, the city of Los Angeles itself, and Long Beach, and all of San Diego Bay, most famously beaches near La Jolla.
Considerable scientific inquiry has been carried out by the Marine Mammal Center and other research organizations beginning in the 1980s regarding the incidence and transmission of diseases in harbor seals in the wild, including analysis of phocine herpesvirus. In  San Francisco Bay, some harbor seals are fully or partially reddish in color, possibly caused by an accumulation of trace elements such as iron or selenium in the ocean, or a change in the hair follicles.
Although some of the largest harbor seal pupping areas are found in California, they are also found north along the Pacific Coast in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska. Large populations move with the season south along the west coast of Canada and may winter on the islands in Washington and Oregon. Pupping is known to occur in both Washington and Oregon as of 2020. People are advised to stay at least 50m away from harbor seals that have hauled out on land, especially the pups, as mothers will abandon them if there's too much human activity nearby.


Historically, the range of the harbor seal extended from the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and Greenland to the sandy beaches of North Carolina, a distance of well over a thousand miles (greater than 1600 km.) Evidence of their presence in these areas is consistent with both the fossil record as well as a few landmarks named for them during colonization: Robbin's Reef, off of Bayonne, New Jersey, gets its name from the Dutch word robben, meaning "seals". On the border between Canada and the US is an island known as Machias Seal Island, a place where today the harbor seal will occasionally visit but is now a sanctuary for puffins. Over the course of hundreds of years, however, the seal was wiped out steadily by being shot on sight by fishermen and by massive pollution. The evidence for this is found in documents all along the coast of New England which put a bounty on the head of every seal shot, as well as the accounts of harbormasters. New York City, when it was founded in the 1640s, was founded on top of an enormous estuary teeming with life that included the harbor seal. Oil in the 1800s started the process of pollution that was later compounded by even more toxic 20th century chemicals that included PCB's and dioxin. By the 1972 Clean Water Act, New York Harbor was almost dead-almost no living thing could survive in it. Approximately 300 miles to the north, Boston Harbor was equally polluted. Raw sewage had been dumped in the harbor since the late 1800s and the stench of fecal matter in the Charles River was overpowering, as evidenced by the song "Dirty Water" by the Standells, written in 1966. Flatfish, abundant in the area, had enormous tumors in their livers by the 1980s and the harbor seal was long gone, shot to oblivion.
As of 2020, however, the seals have returned. They never were extirpated from Canada and certain pockets of the Maine coast, and thus an important mother population was created from whence the species could reclaim the home of their ancestors. Currently, they are sighted as far south as the barrier islands of North Carolina on a regular basis, with Massachusetts being the southernmost point of known pupping areas along the Atlantic Coast. Harbor seals move south from eastern Canadian waters to breed along the coast of Maine, Cape Cod, and the South Shore in Massachusetts in May and June, and return northward in fall. Others will head south from these areas to "vacation" in warmer waters, particularly young seals unable to compete with adults for food and territory; they do not return north until spring.
One park ranger in New York City, which is dead center of its West Atlantic range, says that "New York is like their Miami resort." This refers to the habit of young seals leaving Cape Cod and even some Arctic waters to inhabit the harbor in winter. In 2018 the New York Post reported that the harbor is now "cleaner than it has been in 110 years," and since the first decade of the 21st century, the harbor seal has found the old turf of its ancestors to be a land of plenty and the water to be livable. Within sight of the New York skyline, known colonies of harbor seals are found on Hoffman and Swinburne Islands as well as portions of Red Hook and Staten Island, readily hauling out every from October until very early May. Known favorite foods of the seal are returning in grand numbers to New York Harbor as well as nearby New Jersey, from Raritan Bay all the way down the entire Jersey Shore, with schools of mossbunker regularly attracting harbor seals, their cousins the grey seals, dolphins and, most recently, whales. Both the northern and southern shores of Long Island have a reliable population of harbor seals as well as greys, where they will take sand lance as well as some species of crab as part of their diet.


Phocides polybius, the bloody spot or guava skipper, is a species of butterfly in the skipper family, Hesperiidae, that is native to the Americas. It is found from the lower Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas in the United States south through Mexico and Central America to Argentina. The species was first described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1793.
The wingspan is 42–63 mm (1.7–2.5 in). There are several generations with adults on wing in February, April, and June to December in southern Texas.
The larvae feed on Psidium species, including Psidium guajava and Psidium cattleianum. Adults probably feed on flower nectar.


The IUCN had classified the Laysan albatross as vulnerable due to drastic reductions in populations, but the population may be rebounding. The IUCN now classifies the Laysan albatross as near threatened. The Laysan albatross, while a common species, has not yet recovered from the wide-scale hunting of the early 1900s, with feather hunters killing many hundreds of thousands and wiping them out from Wake Island and Johnston Atoll. This slaughter led to efforts to protect the species (and others) which led eventually to the protection of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The species is still vulnerable to longline fisheries and the ingestion of floating plastics due to high rates of plastic pollution. Feral cats are known to prey on nesting birds and chicks on some of the more newly colonized islands. In some places, big headed ants are a threat to young albatross chicks.
The Laysan albatross has an occurrence range of 38,800,000 km² (15,000,000 sq mi) and a breeding range of 3,500 km² (1,400 sq mi) with a population of 1,180,000 mature birds estimated in 2006. Midway Atoll, Laysan Island, and the French Frigate Shoals have more than 90% of the breeding pairs at 551,940. Bonin Island has 23 pairs and offshore Mexico has about 400 pairs, with 337 pairs on Isla Guadalupe. The northwestern Hawaiian Islands have suffered a 32% reduction in breeders from 1992 to 2002. However, the last three years have had a rebound that stabilized the period between 1992 and 2005. This species was extirpated from Wake Atoll, Johnston Atoll, and Minami Torishima. The Mexican population has been increasing since its inception.
In the past, harvesting for feathers was a major threat, along with high-seas drift net, but both of these have ceased, barring some small-scale illegal drift net operations. Current threats today are the longline fisheries.


The black-footed albatross, along with the laysan albatross and the rare short-tailed albatross, are the three species of albatross that range in the northern hemisphere, as opposed to the rest of the family which range from the Equator south. There are at least 12 known breeding locations, but 97.5% of the total population is found  colonially on the isolated Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, from Kure Atoll to Kaula Island, (such as Laysan, Midway, and the French Frigate Shoals). Small populations can be found on the Japanese islands of Tori Shima, Bonin, and Senkaku, and off the Mexican coast, primarily on Isla Guadalupe. They are extirpated from the Iwo Jima, Agrihan, Taongi Atoll, Marcus Island, Wake Island, and Johnston Island. Their range at sea varies during the seasons (straying farther from the breeding islands when the chicks are older or they don't have chicks) but they make use of great areas of the North Pacific, feeding from Alaska to California and Japan; however they do prefer the northeastern Pacific Ocean. They overlap greatly in breeding and feeding range with the other two species of northern albatross, although the other two will range further north into the Bering Sea than the Black-footed will. They have, on occasion, been sighted in the southern hemisphere.