title: "Fraxinus americana" content: most part, fatal, both directly and indirectly, by weakening the tree's immune system so that it is more succeptible to attacks from pests or pathogens. Because of this fact, younger trees are affected far worse, and fully matured ash trees are capable of living long enough to reproduce. The disease has spread over most of Europe and has been confirmed in Britain, however, it has not yet been found in North America. The scale of the threat is not yet known, but is thought to be able to cause significant damage to the ash landscape of Europe and the UK.


title: "Fraxinus americana" content: Fraxinus americana Fraxinus americana, the white ash or American ash, is a species of "ash tree" native to eastern and central North America. It is found in mesophytic hardwood forests from Nova Scotia west to Minnesota, south to northern Florida, and southwest to eastern Texas. Isolated populations have also been found in western Texas, Wyoming, and Colorado, and the species is reportedly naturalized in Hawaii. There are an estimated 8 billion ash trees – the majority being the white ash trees and the green ash trees. The name white ash derives from the glaucous undersides of the leaves. It is


title: Niobe content: painting, Niobe was painted by post-Renaissance artists from varied traditions ("see below"). An early appearance, "The Death of Niobe's Children" by Abraham Bloemaert, was painted in 1591 towards the start of the Dutch Golden Age. The English artist Richard Wilson gained great acclaim for his "The Destruction of the Children of Niobe", painted in 1760. Three notable works, all dating from the 1770s, "Apollo and Diana Attacking Niobe and her Children" by Anicet-Charles-Gabriel Lemonnier, "The Children of Niobe Killed by Apollo and Diana" by Pierre-Charles Jombert and "Diana and Apollo Piercing Niobe’s Children with their Arrows" by Jacques-Louis David belong


title: "The Sandman: Dream Country" content: Fry, "The Hand of Glory", is seen in "Season of Mists". One of Madoc's works, "The Spirit Who Had Half Of Everything", takes its name from an unused chapter title in an early draft of James Branch Cabell's "Figures of Earth". This tale begins with a small, white cat being called by another cat to sneak away from her house one night. They speak of an event in a graveyard that they do not want to miss. When they arrive, they see that many cats are already there. A Siamese cat comes to tell her story. A long time ago,


title: "Alcmaeon (mythology)" content: poem "Alcmeonis" as well as the "Alcmaeon" of Sophocles, and those of Agathon and Achaeus, have all been lost. Alcmaeon (mythology) In Greek mythology, Alcmaeon ( "Alkmaíōn"), as one of the Epigoni, was the leader of the Argives who attacked Thebes, taking the city in retaliation for the deaths of their fathers, the Seven Against Thebes, who died while attempting the same thing. Alcmaeon was the son of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle and brother of Amphilochus. He had many progeny by different women including Clytius by Alphesiboea or Arsinoe, daughter of Phegeus; Amphoterus and Acarnan by Callirhoe, daughter of Achelous and


title: Rodeo content: Rodeo Rodeo ( or ) is a competitive sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later Central America, South America, the Philippines, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States, western Canada, and northern Mexico. Today it is a sporting event that involves horses and other livestock, designed to test the skill and speed of the cowboys and cowgirls. American style professional rodeos generally comprise the following events: tie-down roping,


title: Rodeo content: team roping, steer wrestling, saddle bronc riding, bareback bronc riding, bull riding and barrel racing. The events are divided into two basic categories: the rough stock events and the timed events. Depending on sanctioning organization and region, other events such as breakaway roping, goat tying, or pole bending may also be a part of some rodeos. American rodeo, particularly popular today within the Canadian province of Alberta and throughout the western United States, is the official state sport of Wyoming, South Dakota, and Texas. The iconic silhouette image of a "Bucking Horse and Rider" is a federal and state-registered trademark


title: Rodeo content: of the State of Wyoming. The Legislative Assembly of Alberta has considered making American rodeo the official sport of that province. However, enabling legislation has yet to be passed. In the United States, professional rodeos are governed and sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) and Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA), while other associations govern children's, high school, collegiate, and senior rodeos. Associations also exist for Native Americans and other minority groups. The traditional season for competitive rodeo runs from spring through fall, while the modern professional rodeo circuit runs longer, and concludes with the PRCA National Finals Rodeo


title: Rodeo content: (NFR) in Las Vegas, Nevada, now held in December. Rodeo has provoked opposition from animal rights and animal welfare advocates, who argue that various competitions constitute animal cruelty. The American rodeo industry has made progress in improving the welfare of rodeo animals, with specific requirements for veterinary care and other regulations that protect rodeo animals. However, rodeo is opposed by a number of animal welfare organizations in the United States and Canada. Some local and state governments in North America have banned or restricted rodeos, certain rodeo events, or types of equipment. Internationally, rodeo is banned in the United Kingdom


title: Rodeo content: and the Netherlands, with other European nations placing restrictions on certain practices. The American English word "rodeo" is taken directly from Spanish "rodeo" (), which roughly translates into English as "round up." The Spanish word is derived from the verb "rodear," meaning "to surround" or "go around," used to refer to "a pen for cattle at a fair or market," derived from the Latin "rota" or "rotare," meaning to rotate or go around. In Spanish America, the "rodeo" was the process that was used by vaqueros to gather cattle for various purposes, such as moving them to new pastures, separating


title: Rodeo content: the cattle owned by different ranchers, or gathering in preparation for slaughter ("matanza"). The yearly rodeos for separating the cattle were overseen by the "Juez del Campo," who decided all questions of ownership. The term was also used to refer to exhibitions of skills used in the working "rodeo". This evolved from these yearly gatherings where festivities were held and horsemen could demonstrate their equestrian skills. It was this latter usage which was adopted into the cowboy tradition of the United States and Canada. The term "rodeo" was first used in English in approximately 1834 to refer to a cattle


title: Rodeo content: round-up. Today the word is used primarily to refer to a public exhibition of cowboy skills, usually in the form of a competitive event. Many rodeo events were based on the tasks required by cattle ranching. The working cowboy developed skills to fit the needs of the terrain and climate of the American west, and there were many regional variations. The skills required to manage cattle and horses date back to the Spanish traditions of the "vaquero." Early rodeo-like affairs of the 1820s and 1830s were informal events in the western United States and northern Mexico with cowboys and "vaqueros"


title: Rodeo content: testing their work skills against one another. Following the American Civil War, rodeo competitions emerged, with the first held in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1872. Prescott, Arizona claimed the distinction of holding the first professional rodeo, as it charged admission and awarded trophies in 1888. Between 1890 and 1910, rodeos became public entertainment, sometimes combined Wild West shows featuring individuals such as Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, and other charismatic stars. By 1910, several major rodeos were established in western North America, including the Calgary Stampede, the Pendleton Round-Up, and the Cheyenne Frontier Days. Rodeo-type events also became popular for a


title: Rodeo content: time in the big cities of the Eastern United States, with large venues such as Madison Square Garden playing a part in popularizing them for new crowds. There was no standardization of events for a rodeo competition until 1929, when associations began forming. In the 1970s, rodeo saw unprecedented growth. Contestants referred to as "the new breed" brought rodeo increasing media attention. These contestants were young, often from an urban background, and chose rodeo for its athletic rewards. By 1985, one third of PRCA members had a college education and one half of the competitors had never worked on a


title: Rodeo content: cattle ranch. Today, some professional rodeos are staged in large, air-conditioned arenas; offer large purses, and are often telecast. Many other professional rodeos are held outside, under the same conditions of heat, cold, dust or mud as were the original events. Historically, women have long participated in rodeo. "Prairie Rose" Henderson debuted at the Cheyenne rodeo in 1901, and, by 1920, women were competing in rough stock events, relay races and trick riding. But after Bonnie McCarroll died in the Pendleton Round-Up in 1929 and Marie Gibson died in a horse wreck in 1933, women's competitive participation was curbed. Rodeo


title: Rodeo content: women organized into various associations and staged their own rodeos. Today, women's barrel racing is included as a competitive event in professional rodeo, with breakaway roping and goat tying added at collegiate and lower levels. They compete equally with men in team roping, sometimes in mixed-sex teams. Women also compete in traditional roping and rough stock events at women-only rodeos. Professional rodeos in the United States and Canada usually incorporate both timed events and "rough stock" events, most commonly calf roping, team roping, steer wrestling, saddle bronc and bareback bronc riding, bull riding, and barrel racing. Additional events may be


title: Rodeo content: included at the collegiate and high school level, including breakaway roping and goat tying. Some events are based on traditional ranch practices; others are modern developments and have no counterpart in ranch practice. Rodeos may also offer western-themed entertainment at intermission, including music and novelty acts, such as trick riding. Roping competitions are based on the tasks of a working cowboy, who often had to capture calves and adult cattle for branding, medical treatment and other purposes. The cowboy must throw a type of rope with a loop, known as a lariat, "riata" or "reata", or lasso, over the head


title: Rodeo content: of a calf or onto the horns and around the hind legs of adult cattle, and secure the animal in a fashion dictated by its size and age. In spite of popular myth, most modern "broncs" are not in fact wild horses, but are more commonly spoiled riding horses or horses bred specifically as bucking stock. Rough stock events also use at least two well-trained riding horses ridden by "pick up men" (or women), tasked with assisting fallen riders and helping successful riders get safely off the bucking animal. Several other events may be scheduled on a rodeo program depending


title: Rodeo content: upon the rodeo's governing association. Outside of competitive events, other activities are often associated with rodeos, particularly at local levels. A typical rodeo begins with a "Grand Entry", in which mounted riders, many carrying flags, including the American flag, state flags, banners representing sponsors, and others enter the arena at a gallop, circle once, come to the center of the arena and stop while the remaining participants enter. The grand entry is used to introduce some of the competitors, officials, and sponsors. It is capped by the presentation of the American flag, usually with a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner,"


title: Rodeo content: and, depending on region, other ceremonies. If a rodeo queen is crowned, the contestants or winner and runners-up may also be presented. Variety acts, which may include musicians, trick riders or other entertainment may occur halfway through the rodeo at intermission. Some rodeos may also include novelty events, such as steer riding for preteens or "mutton busting" for small children. In some places, various types of novelty races or events such as wild cow milking are offered for adults. Such contests often are unregulated, with a higher risk of injury to human participants and poor treatment of animals than in


title: Rodeo content: traditionally-sanctioned events, particularly if consumption of alcoholic beverages by participants is permitted. Formal organizations and detailed rules came late to rodeo. Until the mid-1930s, every rodeo was independent and selected its own events from among nearly one hundred different contests. Until World War I, there was little difference between rodeo and "charreada". Athletes from the US, Mexico and Canada competed freely in all three countries. Subsequently, "charreada" was formalized as an amateur team sport and the international competitions ceased. It remains popular in Mexico and Hispanic communities of the U.S. today. Numerous organizations govern rodeo in the United States, each


title: Rodeo content: with slightly different rules and different events. The oldest and largest sanctioning body of professional rodeo is the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) which governs about a third of all rodeos staged in the US annually. It was originally named the Cowboys Turtle Association, later became the Rodeo Cowboys Association, and finally the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association in 1975. The PRCA crowns the World Champions at the National Finals Rodeo (NFR), in Las Vegas on the UNLV campus, featuring the top fifteen money-winners in seven events. The Professional Bull Riders (PBR) is a more recent organization dedicated solely to bull


title: Rodeo content: riding. Rodeo gender bias was a problem for cowgirls, and in response women formed the Girls Rodeo Association in 1948 (now the Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA)) and held their own rodeos. The Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) is open exclusively to women. Women's barrel racing is governed by the WPRA, which holds finals for barrel racing along with the PRCA with the cowboys at the NFR. There are associations governing children's, teen, and college level rodeos as well as associations governing rodeo for gays, seniors, Native Americans and others. There are also high-school rodeos, sponsored by the National High


title: Rodeo content: School Rodeo Association (NHSRA). Many colleges, particularly land grant colleges in the west, have rodeo teams. The National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA) is responsible for the College National Finals Rodeo (CNFR) held each June in Casper, WY. Other rodeo governing bodies in the United States include American Junior Rodeo Association (AJRA) for contestants under twenty years of age; National Little Britches Rodeo Association (NLBRA), for youths ages five to eighteen; Senior Pro Rodeo (SPR), for people forty years old or over; and the International Gay Rodeo Association. Each organization has its own regulations and its own method of determining champions.


title: Rodeo content: Athletes participate in rodeos sanctioned by their own governing body or one that has a mutual agreement with theirs and their points count for qualification to their Association Finals. Rodeo committees must pay sanctioning fees to the appropriate governing bodies, and employ the needed stock contractors, judges, announcers, bull fighters, and barrel men from their approved lists. Other nations have similar sanctioning organizations. Until recently, the most important was PRCA, which crowns the World Champions at the National Finals Rodeo (NFR), held since 1985 at Las Vegas, Nevada, featuring the top fifteen money-winners in seven events. The athletes who have


title: Rodeo content: won the most money, including NFR earnings, in each event are the World's Champions. However, since 1992, Professional Bull Riders, Inc. (PBR) has drawn many top bull riders, and holds its own multimillion-dollar finals in Las Vegas prior to the NFR. Women's barrel racing is governed by the WPRA, and holds its finals along with the PRCA with the cowboys at the NFR. Contemporary rodeo is a lucrative business. More than 7,500 cowboys compete for over thirty million dollars at 650 rodeos annually. Women's barrel racing, sanctioned by the WRPA, has taken place at most of these rodeos. Over 2,000


title: Rodeo content: barrel racers compete for nearly four million dollars annually. Professional cowgirls also compete in bronc and bull riding, team roping and calf roping under the auspices of the PWRA, a WPRA subsidiary. However, numbers are small, about 120 members, and these competitors go largely unnoticed, with only twenty rodeos and seventy individual contests available annually. The total purse at the PWRA National Finals is $50,000. Meanwhile, the PBR has 700 members from three continents and ten million dollars in prize money. The first rodeo in Canada was held in 1902 in Raymond, Alberta when Raymond Knight funded and promoted a


title: Rodeo content: rodeo contest for bronc riders and steer ropers called the Raymond Stampede. Knight also coined the rodeo term "stampede" and built rodeo's first known shotgun style bucking chute. In 1903, Knight built Canada's first rodeo arena and grandstand and became the first rodeo producer and rodeo stock contractor. In 1912, Guy Weadick and several investors put up $100,000 to create what today is the Calgary Stampede. The Stampede also incorporated mythical and historical elements, including Native Indians in full regalia, chuckwagon races, the Mounted Police, and marching bands. From its beginning, the event has been held the second week in


title: Rodeo content: July, and since 1938, attendees were urged to dress for the occasion in western hats to add to the event's flavour. By 2003, it was estimated that 65 professional rodeos involving 700 members of the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association (CPRA) took place in Western Canada, along with professionals from the United States. Many Canadian contestants were part-timers who did not earn a significant living from rodeo. \ Canadians made several significant contributions to the sport of rodeo. In 1916, at the Bascom Ranch in Welling, Alberta, John W. Bascom and his sons Raymond, Mel, and Earl designed and built rodeo's


title: Rodeo content: first side-delivery bucking chute for the ranch rodeos they were producing. In 1919, Earl and John made rodeo's first reverse-opening side-delivery bucking chute at the Bascom Ranch in Lethbridge, Alberta. This Bascom-style bucking chute is now rodeo's standard design. Earl Bascom also continued his innovative contributions to the sport of rodeo by designing and making rodeo's first hornless bronc saddle in 1922, rodeo's first one-hand bareback rigging in 1924, and the first high-cut rodeo chaps in 1928. Earl and his brother Weldon also produced rodeo's first night rodeo held outdoors under electric lights in 1935. The Canadian Pro Rodeo Hall


title: Rodeo content: Of Fame is located in Ponoka, Alberta. Mexican Americans have had a long history with both rodeo and "charreada". In spite of long association with southwestern culture, there has been significant assimilation and cross-acculturation — Mexican Americans are so integrated into the southwestern cowboy culture that they are not visibly distinct. Native American and Hispanic cowboys compete in modern rodeos in small numbers. African Americans constitute a smaller minority of rodeo contestants, though many early rodeo champions, such as Nat Love, were African American. Bill Pickett and bronc rider Bill Stahl were both elected to the Cowboy Hall of Fame.


title: Rodeo content: During the 1940s and 1950s, African Americans created the Southwestern Colored Cowboys Association. Although the PRCA never formally excluded people of color, pre-1960s racism effectively kept many minority participants, particularly African Americans, out of white competitions. In the 1960s, bull rider Myrtis Dightman vied for national honors and qualified for the National Finals Rodeo. In the 1990s, the Black World Championship Rodeo was held in New York City and other locations across the United States. In 1976, the first gay rodeo was held in Reno, Nevada as a charity fundraiser. Several regional gay rodeo organizations were formed in the following


title: Rodeo content: years, and, in 1985, the existing organizations formed the International Gay Rodeo Association as a national sanctioning body. The melding of homosexuality and straight cowboy culture in gay rodeo simultaneously embraces archetypal Cowboy Code traits and contemporary gay identity. Openly gay competitors stage their own rodeos because they are not welcomed in the straight circuit. "We can ride with the best of them," one person stated, "But they don't want us around." The "charreada" is the national sport of Mexico. It is a display and contest of roping and riding with origins tracing to the cattle ranching life and culture


title: Rodeo content: of colonial Mexico. Over time, it became an event that included games, parades, foods, and contests involving humans, cattle, and horses. Following the Mexican Revolution of 1910, many rural Mexicans were displaced and took up residence in cities, where urban-based charros and others formed associations to establish and refine the charreada. During the "Chicano Movement" of the 1970s, Mexican Americans revitalized their heritage by establishing the event in the United States. The event historically enjoys greater prestige in Mexico, however, and due to animal cruelty concerns, some "charreada" events have been banned in the US. Unlike rodeos, most "charreadas" do


title: Rodeo content: not award money to the winners as "charreada" is considered an amateur sport, but trophies may be distributed. Until recently, the "charreada" was confined to men but a women's precision equestrian event called the "escaramuza" is now the tenth and final event in a "charreada". Unlike American rodeo, events are not timed, but judged and scored based on finesse and grace. After at least 30 years of American Rodeo being practiced in Mexico, La Federación Mexicana de Rodeo (FMR) formed in 1993 as the leading organization of the sport in the country. Since 1997, the Mexican National Finals Rodeo has


title: Rodeo content: been held to crown the national champions in each of the seven standard events in American Rodeo. This annual event is held each time in a different city. Coleo is a traditional Venezuelan and Colombian sport, similar to American rodeo, where a small group of llaneros (cowboys) on horseback pursue cattle at high speeds through a narrow pathway (called a manga de coleo) in order to drop or tumble them. Coleos are usually presented as a side attraction to a larger event, such as a religious festival. They are very popular in Venezuela and in parts of Colombia, mostly in


title: Rodeo content: the plains (llanos). A coleo starts with the participants and a calf or bull (this depends on the age and stature of the competitors) locked behind a trap door. The trap door leads to a narrow earthen pathway about 100 metres long with high guard rails, open at the other end. When a judge gives a signal, the calf is set loose and starts running. A couple of seconds later, the riders are released and they race to grab the calf by its tail. The rider who accomplishes this first will increase speed, dragging the calf until it finally stumbles.


title: Rodeo content: The object is to accomplish this in the shortest time. Brazilian "rodeios" can be traced to the town of Barretos where the primary economic activities involved livestock and the transporting the livestock to other locations, where one of the ways the cowboys found to get some entertainment was riding the animals. In 1956 the first ever Festa do Peão de Boiadeiro was created and as the years went by this rodeo became the biggest in Brazil and in Latin America. Barretos is the most famous rodeo in Brazil. However, rodeos are very common in inner state towns in Brazil, especially


title: Rodeo content: in Rio Grande do Sul, Mato Grosso do Sul and São Paulo state. Bull riding has become a significant niche sport in the country in recent years; PBR now runs a national circuit in Brazil, and Brazilian riders are a major presence on the main PBR circuit in the United States. Brazil also has its own unique style of bronc riding, called "Cutiano". PBR also hosts a Brazilian Finals. In the twentieth century, rodeo's popularity increased in Argentina. Buenos Aires, Rosario, and other major cities hosted rodeos. In 1909, the Sociedad Sportiva Argentina (Argentina Sports Society) announced a rodeo competition


title: Rodeo content: in which the winners would eventually compete in the United States against rodeo performers from other countries. Second to soccer, rodeo is the most popular sport in Chile, and became the national sport of Chile on January 10, 1962 by decree Nº269 of the National Council of Sports and the Comité Olímpico de Chile. Chilean rodeo traces to the 16th century, beginning with the gathering together lost or stray cattle in the Plaza de Armas de Santiago for branding and selection. Rodeo began to see regulation in the 17th century and talented riders received honors and awards. In Chilean rodeo,


title: Rodeo content: a team of two mounted men (called a "collera") attempt to pin a calf against large cushions lining the arena (medialuna). Points are earned for proper technique. Chilean Horses are employed to the exclusion of others and riders wear traditional "huaso" garb as a requirement. The sport has become so popular that in 2004, more spectators attended rodeo events than professional football matches. Chilean rodeo has experienced financial woes, lack of political support and poor promotion. Unlike other Chilean sports, rodeo does not receive any of the revenue from "Chiledeportes" because only sports that represent Chile overseas receive funds. The


title: Rodeo content: Chilean Rodeo Federation has criticized the lack of governmental funding and has pointed out that rodeo reaches a part of the population that does not have access to other Chilean sports. Rodeos have long been a popular competitor and spectator sport in Australia, but were not run on an organized basis until the 1880s. The National Agricultural Society of Victoria ran one of the earliest recorded events in 1888, when a roughriding competition was held at their annual show. Travelling tent rodeo shows increased the popularity of roughriding throughout much of Australia. However, by 1930, the depression left only a


title: Rodeo content: few of these travelling shows on the road. Bushmen's Carnivals, the Australian equivalent of American rodeos, originated in Northern New South Wales in the 1920s and were well established by the 1930s. Australian rodeo continued to grow following WWII, and by September 1978 riders from the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia competed in the World Rodeo Titles there for prize money totaling $60,000. In 1982, an Australian Bushmen's Carnival Association team competed in the North American Rodeo Commission's championships in Denver, Colorado, finishing sixth overall. In August 1944 the Australian Bushmen's Carnival Association (ABCA) was formed by the Royal


title: Rodeo content: Agricultural Society of New South Wales, as a result of the increase in the number of bushmen's carnivals. The purpose of this formation was to standardize regulations and rules, but insufficient support was given and the association was terminated in 1947. The Australian Professional Rodeo Association (APRA) was also formed in 1944 and is the national governing body for professional rodeo competition. Also formed in 1944 was the Australian Rough-Riders Association (ARRA) in South Australia. On 28 March 1946 the Northern (N.S.W.) Bushmen's Carnival Association was founded at Maitland, New South Wales. These two associations are now the Australian Bushmen's


title: Rodeo content: Campdraft & Rodeo Association (ABCRA). The ABCRA is the largest rodeo and campdraft organization in Australia. In May 1992 the National Rodeo Council of Australia (NRCA) was formed to further the sport of rodeo and has represented ABCRA and several other associations. Original events included buckjumping (saddle broncs), bullock riding, campdrafting, bulldogging, wild-cow milking, wild bullock races, wild horse races and releasing the surcingle. Other common sporting events such as flag and bending races (similar to pole bending) were held for the competitors' horses. Later the term "rodeo" became more commonly used, with American saddles used and the events took


title: Rodeo content: on American naming patterns. The ABCRA now affiliates the sports of campdrafting, roughriding (saddle bronc and bareback riding, steer and bull riding) and timed rodeo events: barrel races (ladies and junior), rope and tie, steer undecorating (ladies), steer wrestling, junior calf riding, team roping and breakaway roping (ladies). There are strict standards for the selection, care and treatment of rodeo livestock, arenas, plus equipment requirements and specifications. In 1992 the National Rodeo Queen Quest was founded by the National Rodeo Council of Australia to promote and encourage young women into the sport of Rodeo. The carnivals and rodeos typically take


title: Rodeo content: place during the spring and summer, and are usually arranged to avoid date clashes, so that competitors may take part in as many events as possible. The prize money is obtained from donations and entry fees, with the main prize money being for the open campdraft event. The biggest rodeos are in Queensland. Some large events are also held in New South Wales, where Sydney has the rodeo during the Royal Agricultural Society show and Walcha holds a four-day campdrafting and rodeo competition annually. There also is a National Finals Rodeo. Protests were first raised regarding rodeo animal cruelty in


title: Rodeo content: the 1870s, and, beginning in the 1930s, some states enacted laws curtailing rodeo activities and other events involving animals. In the 1950s, the then Rodeo Cowboys Association (RCA, later the PRCA) worked with the American Humane Association (AHA) to establish regulations protecting the welfare of rodeo animals that were acceptable to both organizations. The PRCA realized that public education regarding rodeo and the welfare of animals was needed to keep the sport alive. Over the years, conditions for animals in rodeo and many other sporting events improved. Today, the PRCA and other rodeo sanctioning organizations have stringent regulations to ensure


title: Rodeo content: rodeo animals' welfare. For example, these rules require, among other things, provisions for injured animals, a veterinarian's presence at all rodeos (a similar requirement exists for other equine events), padded flank straps, horn protection for steers, and spurs with dulled, free-spinning rowels. Rodeo competitors in general value and provide excellent care to the animals with which they work. Animals must also be protected with fleece-lined flank straps for bucking stock and horn wraps for roping steers. Laws governing rodeo vary widely. In the American west, some states incorporate the regulations of the PRCA into their statutes as a standard by


title: Rodeo content: which to evaluate if animal cruelty has occurred. On the other hand, some events and practices are restricted or banned in other states, including California, Rhode Island, and Ohio. St. Petersburg, Florida is the only locality in the United States with a complete ban on rodeo. Canadian Humane Societies are careful in criticizing Canadian rodeo as the event has become so indigenous to Western Canada that criticism may jeopardize support for the organization's other humane goals. The Calgary Humane Society itself is wary of criticizing the famous Calgary Stampede. Internationally rodeo itself is banned in the United Kingdom and the


title: Rodeo content: Netherlands, and other European nations have placed restrictions on certain practices. However, a number of humane and animal rights organizations have policy statements that oppose many rodeo practices and often the events themselves. Some also claim that regulations vary from vague to ineffective and are frequently violated. Other groups assert that any regulation still allows rodeo animals to be subjected to gratuitous harm for the sake of entertainment, and therefore rodeos should be banned altogether. In response to these concerns, a number of cities and states, mostly in the eastern half of the United States, have passed ordinances and laws


title: Rodeo content: governing rodeo. Pittsburgh, for example, specifically prohibits electric prods or shocking devices, flank or bucking straps, wire tie-downs, and sharpened or fixed spurs or rowels. Pittsburgh also requires humane officers be provided access to any and all areas where animals may go—specifically pens, chutes, and injury pens. The state of Rhode Island has banned tie-down roping and certain other practices.Other locales have similar ordinances and laws. There are three basic areas of concern to various groups. The first set of concerns surround relatively common rodeo practices, such as the use of bucking straps, also known as flank straps, the use


title: Rodeo content: of metal or electric cattle prods, and tail-twisting. The second set of concerns surround non-traditional rodeo events that operate outside the rules of sanctioning organizations. These are usually amateur events such as mutton busting, calf dressing, wild cow milking, calf riding, chuck wagon races, and other events designed primarily for publicity, half-time entertainment or crowd participation. Finally, some groups consider some or all rodeo events themselves to be cruel. Groups such as PETA, SHARK, and the Humane Society of the United States generally take a position of opposition to all rodeos and rodeo events. A more general position is taken


title: Rodeo content: by the ASPCA, only opposing rodeo events that "involve cruel, painful, stressful and potentially harmful treatment of livestock, not only in performance but also in handling, transport and prodding to perform." The group singles out children's rodeo events such as goat tying, calf riding and sheep riding (“mutton busting”), "which do not promote humane care and respect for animals." The American Humane Association (AHA) does not appear to oppose rodeos per se, though they have a general position on events and contests involving animals, stating that "when animals are involved in entertainment, they must be treated humanely at all times."


title: Rodeo content: The AHA also has strict requirements for the treatment of animals used for rodeo scenes in movies, starting with the rules of the PRCA and adding additional requirements consistent with the association's other policies. Unique among animal protection groups, the ASPCA specifically notes that practice sessions are often the location of more severe abuses than competitions. However, many state animal cruelty laws provide specific exemptions for "training practices." The American Humane Association is the only organization addressing the legislative issue, advocating the strengthening of animal cruelty laws in general, with no exceptions for "training practices." Some accusations of cruelty are


title: Rodeo content: based on misunderstanding. For example, it is a myth that a bucking horse is a wild, terrified animal. The modern bronc is not a truly feral horse. A significant number of bucking horses are riding horses that learned to buck off their riders. Many bucking horses today are specifically bred for use in rodeos. A proven bucking horse can be sold for $8000 to $10,000, making "rough stock" a valuable investment worth caring for and keeping in good health for many years. Likewise, bucking bulls are also selectively bred. Most are allowed to grow up in a natural, semi-wild condition


title: Rodeo content: on the open range, but also have to be trained in order to be managed from the ground, safely loaded into trailers, vaccinated and wormed, and be loaded in and out of bucking chutes. Young bucking horses are initially introduced to work with cloth dummies attached to the saddle. Others are already well-trained on the ground. Some champion bucking horses got their start as spoiled riding horses that learned to quickly and effectively unseat riders. Due to the rigors of travel and the short bursts of high intensity work required, most horses in a bucking string are at least 6


title: Rodeo content: or 7 years old before they are used extensively, and are expected to be sound performers for many years. Awards are given to the owners of the best bucking horses, who are respected as equine athletes and perform for many years. Many are retired to pasture at the end of their careers. Many bucking horses understand their job well and reduce or stop their bucking, even while still wearing a flank strap, as soon as they either unseat the rider or hear the buzzer. Likewise, some bulls appear to understand that their "job" is to throw the rider; they learned


title: Rodeo content: not to buck when in the chute and buck far less once the rider is thrown. Modern rodeos in the United States are closely regulated and have responded to accusations of animal cruelty by instituting a number of rules to guide how rodeo animals are to be managed. In 1994, a survey of 28 sanctioned rodeos was conducted by on-site independent veterinarians. Reviewing 33,991 animal runs, the injury rate was documented at 16 animals or 0.047 percent, less than five-hundredths of one percent or one in 2000 animals. A study of rodeo animals in Australia found a similar injury rate.


title: Rodeo content: Basic injuries occurred at a rate of 0.072 percent, or one in 1405, with injuries requiring veterinary attention at 0.036 percent, or one injury in every 2810 times the animal was used, and transport, yarding and competition were all included in the study. A later PRCA survey of 60,971 animal performances at 198 rodeo performances and 73 sections of "slack" indicated 27 animals were injured, again approximately five-hundredths of 1 percent—0.0004. However, accusations of cruelty in the USA persist. The PRCA acknowledges that they only sanction about 30 percent of all rodeos, while another 50 percent are sanctioned by other


title: Rodeo content: organizations and 20 percent are completely unsanctioned. The PRCA opposes the general concept of animal rights, but supports animal welfare—the view that humans have the right to use animals but are responsible for their humane treatment and care. The PRCA takes the position that the organization does this and even goes beyond expectation. Not all rodeos are governed by the PRCA however, though organizations governing collegiate and high school rodeos base their rules on those of the PRCA. Nonetheless, certain amateur and "backyard" rodeos are unregulated, and do not follow PRCA rules. Advocates for rodeo state that sick, injured, hungry,


title: Rodeo content: or severely abused animals cannot perform well in a given event. Rough stock must be healthy and well fed to give the cowboy a powerful and challenging ride sufficient to obtain a high score. The bucking strap has to be an incentive to an animal that already wants to buck off a rider, not a prod, or the animal will either flee the pain, not buck, quickly sour and refuse to work, regardless of any pain that might be inflicted. Steers and roping calves will not break from the chute fast enough for ropers to achieve a fast time if


title: Rodeo content: they are lame or weak, and they are not generally used for more than a single season. Health regulations mandate vaccinations and blood testing of animals crossing state lines, so rodeo stock receives routine care. An injured animal will not buck well and hence a cowboy cannot obtain a high score for his ride, so sick or injured animals are not run through the chutes, but instead are given appropriate veterinary care so they can be returned to their usual level of strength and power. PRCA regulations require veterinarians to be available at all rodeos to treat both bucking stock


title: Rodeo content: and other animals as needed. The PRCA emphasizes that they first promulgated rules for proper and humane treatment of livestock in 1947, a full 7 years before the founding of the Humane Society of the United States. Participants are fined for animal abuse, and a study of 21 PRCA rodeos found only 15 animals injured in 26,584 performances, a 0.06 percent rate. On the other hand, there are occasions of rule violations and animal mistreatment at sanctioned rodeos. However, the major national rodeos are also under the most intense scrutiny and are the most likely to rigorously follow the rules.


title: Rodeo content: Rodeos not subject to the rules of the PRCA or other organizations, and rodeos outside of the United States and Canada, where animal cruelty laws are weaker, are more likely to be the sites of abusive practices. However, animal rights groups are less likely to target these cases. The largest state-of-the-art rodeos are professional, commercial athletic contests held in climate-controlled stadiums, with broadcasting by CBS Sports Network and other television networks. Outside of the rodeo world itself, there is disagreement about exactly what rodeo is. Professional competitors, for example, view rodeo as a sport and call themselves professional athletes while


title: Rodeo content: also using the title of cowboy. Fans view rodeo as a spectator sport with animals, having aspects of pageantry and theater unlike other professional sport. Non-westerners view the spectacle as a quaint but exciting remnant of the Wild West while animal activists view rodeo as a cruel Roman circus spectacle, or an Americanized bullfight. Anthropologists studying the sport of rodeo and the culture surrounding it have commented that it is "a blend of both performance and contest", and that rodeo is far more expressive in blending both these aspects than attempting to stand alone on one or the other. Rodeo's


title: Rodeo content: performance level permits pageantry and ritual which serve to "revitalize the spirit of the Old West" while its contest level poses a man-animal opposition that articulates the transformation of nature and "dramatizes and perpetuates the conflict between the wild and the tame." "On its deepest level, rodeo is essentially a ritual addressing itself to the dilemma of man's place in nature." Rodeo is a popular topic in country-western music, such as the 1991 Garth Brooks hit single "Rodeo", and has also been featured in numerous movies, television programs and in literature. "Rodeo" is a ballet score written by Aaron Copland


title: Rodeo content: in 1942, and choreographer Agnes de Mille's ballet, "Rodeo" was commissioned by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1942 with the Copeland score. Country singer Chris Ledoux competed in bareback riding and wrote many of his songs based on his experiences. Rodeo has also been featured in a number of films, including 8 Seconds, Cowboy Up, The Longest Ride, and the Cowboy Way. There are thousands of rodeos held worldwide each year. Rodeo Rodeo ( or ) is a competitive sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later Central America, South


title: Cougar content: Cougar The cougar ("Puma concolor"), also commonly known as the puma, mountain lion, panther or catamount, is a large felid of the subfamily Felinae native to the Americas. Its range, from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes of South America, is the widest of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. An adaptable, generalist species, the cougar is found in most American habitat types. It is the biggest cat in North America, and the second-heaviest cat in the New World after the jaguar. Secretive and largely solitary by nature, the cougar is properly considered both nocturnal and


title: Cougar content: crepuscular, although daytime sightings do occur. The cougar is more closely related to smaller felines, including the domestic cat (subfamily Felinae), than to any species of subfamily Pantherinae, of which only the jaguar is native to the Americas. The cougar is an ambush predator that pursues a wide variety of prey. Primary food sources are ungulates, particularly deer. It also hunts species as small as insects and rodents. This cat prefers habitats with dense underbrush and rocky areas for stalking, but can also live in open areas. The cougar is territorial and survives at low population densities. Individual territory sizes


title: Cougar content: depend on terrain, vegetation, and abundance of prey. While large, it is not always the apex predator in its range, yielding to the jaguar, gray wolf, American black bear, and grizzly bear. It is reclusive and mostly avoids people. Fatal attacks on humans are rare, but have recently been increasing in North America as more people enter cougar territories. Intensive hunting following European colonization of the Americas and the ongoing human development of cougar habitat has caused populations to drop in most parts of its historical range. In particular, the North American cougar was extirpated in eastern North America in


title: Cougar content: the beginning of the 20th century, except for the isolated Florida panther subpopulation. Transient males have been verified in Minnesota, Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois (where a cougar was shot in the city limits of Chicago), and in at least one instance, observed as far east as coastal Connecticut. Reports of eastern cougars "(P. c. cougar)" still surface, although it was declared extirpated in 2011. With its vast range across the length of the Americas, "P. concolor" has dozens of names and various references in the mythology of the indigenous Americans and in contemporary culture. Currently, it is referred


title: Cougar content: to as "puma" by most scientists and by the populations in 21 of the 23 countries in the Americas. "Puma" is the common name in Spanish or Portuguese-speaking countries but the cat has many local or regional names in the United States and Canada, of which cougar, puma, and mountain lion are popular. "Mountain lion" was a term first used in writing in 1858 from the diary of George Andrew Jackson of Colorado. Other names include catamount (probably a contraction from "cat of the mountain"), mountain screamer, and painter. Lexicographers regard painter as a primarily upper-Southern US regional variant on


title: Cougar content: panther. "P. concolor" holds the Guinness record for the animal with the greatest number of names, with over 40 in English alone. "Cougar" is borrowed from the Portuguese "çuçuarana", via French; the term was originally derived from the Tupi language. A current form in Brazil is "suçuarana". In the 17th century, German naturalist Georg Marcgrave named the cat the "cuguacu ara". Marcgrave's rendering was reproduced in 1648 by his associate, Dutch naturalist Willem Piso. "Cuguacu ara" was then adopted by English naturalist John Ray in 1693. The French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1774 (probably influenced by the


title: Cougar content: word "jaguar") converted the "cuguacu ara" to "cuguar", which was later modified to "cougar" in English. The first English record of "puma" was in 1777, where it had come from the Spanish, who in turn borrowed it from the Peruvian Quechua language in the 16th century, where it means "powerful". Cougars are the largest of the small cats. They are placed in the subfamily Felinae, although their physical characteristics are similar to those of the big cats in the subfamily Pantherinae. The family Felidae is believed to have originated in Asia about 11 million years ago. Taxonomic research on felids


title: Cougar content: remains partial, and much of what is known about their evolutionary history is based on mitochondrial DNA analysis, as cats are poorly represented in the fossil record, and significant confidence intervals exist with suggested dates. In the latest genomic study of the Felidae, the common ancestor of today's "Leopardus", "Lynx", "Puma", "Prionailurus", and "Felis" lineages migrated across the Bering land bridge into the Americas 8.0 to 8.5 million years ago (Mya). The lineages subsequently diverged in that order. North American felids then invaded South America 2–4Mya as part of the Great American Interchange, following formation of the Isthmus of Panama.


title: Cougar content: Linnaeus placed the cougar in "Felis" ("Felis concolor"), the genus which includes the domestic cat. The cougar is now placed in "Puma", and is most closely related to the jaguarundi, as well as the modern cheetah of Africa and western Asia, but the relationship is unresolved. The cheetah lineage is suggested by some studies to have diverged from the "Puma" lineage in the Americas (see American cheetah) and migrated back to Asia and Africa, while other research suggests the cheetah diverged in the Old World itself. A high level of genetic similarity has been found among North American cougar populations,


title: Cougar content: suggesting they are all fairly recent descendants of a small ancestral group. Culver "et al." propose the original North American population of "P.concolor" was extirpated during the Pleistocene extinctions some 10,000 years ago, when other large mammals, such as "Smilodon", also disappeared. North America was then repopulated by a group of South American cougars. The jaguarundi, which is known as the cougar's closest relative, was formerly placed within the same genus, Puma. It is now most often placed in the genus Herpailurus. Until the late 1980s, as many as 32 subspecies were recorded; genetic study of mitochondrial DNA found many


title: Cougar content: of these are too similar to be recognized as distinct at a molecular level. Following the research, the canonical "Mammal Species of the World" (3rded.) recognized six subspecies, five of which were solely found in Latin America: , the Cat Classification Taskforce of the Cat Specialist Group recognizes only two subspecies: "P. c. concolor" for South America, possibly excluding the region northwest of the Andes, and "P. c. couguar" for Central and North America, and possibly northwest South America. Incerta sedis The status of the Florida panther remains uncertain. It is still regularly listed as subspecies "P. c. coryi" in


title: Cougar content: research works, including those directly concerned with its conservation. Culver et al. noted low microsatellite variation in the Florida panther, possibly due to inbreeding; responding to the research, one conservation team suggests, "the degree to which the scientific community has accepted the use of genetics in puma taxonomy is not resolved at this time." The head of the cat is round and the ears are erect. Its powerful forequarters, neck, and jaw serve to grasp and hold large prey. It has five retractable claws on its forepaws (one a dewclaw) and four on its hind paws. The larger front feet


title: Cougar content: and claws are adaptations to clutching prey. Cougars are slender and agile members of the Cat Family. They are the fourth-largest cat species worldwide; adults stand about tall at the shoulders. Adult males are around long from nose to tail tip, and females average , with overall ranges between nose to tail suggested for the species in general. Of this length, the tail typically accounts for . Males generally weigh , averaging . Females typically weigh between , averaging . Cougar size is smallest close to the equator and larger towards the poles. The largest recorded cougar, shot in 1901,


title: Cougar content: weighed ; claims of and have been reported, though they were most likely exaggerated. On average, adult male cougars in British Columbia weigh and adult females , though several male cougars in British Columbia weighed between . Depending on the locality, cougars can be smaller or bigger than jaguars, but are less muscular and not as powerfully built. Whereas cougars tend to be larger as distance increases from the equator, which crosses South America, jaguars north of the Amazon River in South America tend to be smaller. For example, while South American jaguars are comparatively large and may exceed ,


title: Cougar content: those in Mexico's Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve weigh about the same as female cougars (approximately ). The cougar is on average larger than all felid species apart from the lion, tiger, and jaguar. Despite its size, it is not typically classified among the "big cats" because it cannot roar, lacking the specialized larynx and hyoid apparatus of "Panthera". Compared to "big cats", cougars are often silent with minimal communication through vocalizations outside of the mother-offspring relationship. Cougars sometimes voice low-pitched hisses, growls, and purrs, as well as chirps and whistles, many of which are comparable to those of domestic cats. They


title: Cougar content: are well known for their screams, as referenced in some of their common names, although these screams are often misinterpreted to be the calls of other animals or humans. Cougar coloring is plain (hence the Latin "concolor") but can vary greatly across individuals and even siblings. The coat is typically tawny like that of the lion, which is why it was initially called the "mountain lion", but it otherwise ranges from silvery-grey or reddish with lighter patches on the underbody, including the jaws, chin, and throat. Infants are spotted and born with blue eyes and rings on their tails; juveniles


title: Cougar content: are pale and dark spots remain on their flanks. Despite anecdotes to the contrary, all-black coloring (melanism) has never been documented in cougars. The term "black panther" is used colloquially to refer to melanistic individuals of other species, particularly jaguars and leopards. Cougars have large paws and proportionally the largest hind legs in Felidae, allowing for their great leaping and short-sprint ability. The cougar's top running speed ranges between , but is best adapted for sprints rather than long chases. It is adept at climbing, which allows it to evade canine competitors. Although it is not strongly associated with water,


title: Cougar content: it can swim. A successful generalist predator, the cougar will eat any animal it can catch, from insects to large ungulates (over ). Like other cats, it is an obligate carnivore, meaning it must feed on meat to survive. The mean weight of vertebrate prey (MWVP) that pumas attack increases with the puma's body weight; in general, MWVP is lower in areas closer to the equator. Its most important prey species are various deer species, particularly in North America; mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, and even bull moose are taken. Other species such as the bighorn and Dall's sheep, horse,


title: Cougar content: fallow deer, caribou, mountain goat, coyote and pronghorn. A survey of North America research found 68% of prey items were ungulates, especially deer. Only the Florida panther showed variation, often preferring feral hogs and armadillos. Investigations at Yellowstone National Park showed that elk, followed by mule deer, were the cougar's primary targets; the prey base is shared with the park's gray wolves, with which the cougar competes for resources. Another study on winter kills (November–April) in Alberta showed that ungulates accounted for greater than 99% of the cougar diet. Learned, individual prey recognition was observed, as some cougars rarely killed


title: Cougar content: bighorn sheep, while others relied heavily on the species. In Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, scat samples showed raccoons to make up 28% of the cougar's diet, harbor seals and blacktail deer 24% each, North American river otters 10%, California sea lion 7%, and American mink 4%; the remaining 3% were unidentified. In the Central and South American cougar range, the ratio of deer in the diet declines. Small to mid-sized mammals are preferred, including large rodents such as the capybara. Ungulates accounted for only 35% of prey items in one survey, about half that of North America. Competition with


title: Cougar content: the larger jaguar in South America has been suggested for the decline in the size of prey items. However, a study by Gutiérrez-González and López-González showed that the cougar and jaguar in Central or North America may share the same prey, depending on its abundance. Other listed prey species of the cougar include mice, porcupines, beavers, raccoons, hares, guanaco, peccary, vicuna, rhea, and wild turkey. Birds and small reptiles are sometimes preyed upon in the south, but this is rarely recorded in North America. Although capable of sprinting, the cougar is typically an ambush predator. It stalks through brush and


title: Cougar content: trees, across ledges, or other covered spots, before delivering a powerful leap onto the back of its prey and a suffocating neck bite. The cougar is capable of breaking the neck of some of its smaller prey with a strong bite and momentum bearing the animal to the ground. Kills are generally estimated around one large ungulate every two weeks. The period shrinks for females raising young, and may be as short as one kill every three days when cubs are nearly mature around 15 months. The cat drags a kill to a preferred spot, covers it with brush, and


title: Cougar content: returns to feed over a period of days. The cougar is generally reported to not be a scavenger, but deer carcasses left exposed for study were scavenged by cougars in California, suggesting more opportunistic behavior. Females reach sexual maturity between one-and-a-half to three years of age. They typically average one litter every two to three years throughout their reproductive lives, though the period can be as short as one year. Females are in estrus for about 8 days of a 23-day cycle; the gestation period is approximately 91 days. Females are sometimes reported as monogamous, but this is uncertain and


title: Cougar content: polygyny may be more common. Copulation is brief but frequent. Chronic stress can result in low reproductive rates when in captivity as well as in the field. Only females are involved in parenting. Litter size is between one and six cubs; typically two. Caves and other alcoves that offer protection are used as litter dens. Born blind, cubs are completely dependent on their mother at first, and begin to be weaned at around three months of age. As they grow, they begin to go out on forays with their mother, first visiting kill sites, and after six months beginning to


title: Cougar content: hunt small prey on their own. Kitten survival rates are just over one per litter. Newborn cougars have spots that fade and eventually disappear by the age of 21/2 years. Juveniles remain with their mothers at least for two years. Young adults leave their mother to attempt to establish their own territories at around two years of age and sometimes earlier; males tend to leave sooner. One study has shown high mortality amongst cougars that travel farthest from the maternal range, often due to conflicts with other cougars (intraspecific competition). Research in New Mexico has shown that "males dispersed significantly


title: Cougar content: farther than females, were more likely to traverse large expanses of non-cougar habitat, and were probably most responsible for nuclear gene flow between habitat patches." Life expectancy in the wild is reported at eight to 13 years, and probably averages eight to 10; a female of at least 18 years was reported killed by hunters on Vancouver Island. Cougars may live as long as 20 years in captivity. A male North American cougar ("P. c. couguar") named "Scratch" was two months short of his 30th birthday when he died in 2007. Causes of death in the wild include disability and


title: Cougar content: disease, competition with other cougars, starvation, accidents, and, where allowed, human hunting. Feline immunodeficiency virus, an endemic HIV-like virus in cats, is well-adapted to the cougar. Like almost all cats, the cougar is a mostly solitary animal. Only mothers and kittens live in groups, with adults meeting rarely. While generally loners, cougars will reciprocally share kills with one another and seem to organize themselves into small communities defined by the territories of dominant males. Cats within these areas socialize more frequently with each other than with outsiders. Estimates of territory sizes for cougars vary greatly. "Canadian Geographic" reports large male


title: Cougar content: territories of 150 to 1000 km (58 to 386 sq mi) with female ranges half that size. Other research suggests a much smaller lower limit of 25 km (10 sq mi), but an even greater upper limit of 1300 km (500 sq mi) for males. In the United States, very large ranges have been reported in Texas and the Black Hills of the northern Great Plains, in excess of 775 km (300 sq mi). Male ranges may include or overlap with those of females but, at least where studied, not with those of other males, which reduces conflict between cougars.


title: Cougar content: Ranges of females may overlap slightly with each other. Scrape marks, urine, and feces are used to mark territory and attract mates. Males may scrape together a small pile of leaves and grasses and then urinate on it as a way of marking territory. Home range sizes and overall cougar abundance depend on terrain, vegetation, and prey abundance. One female adjacent to the San Andres Mountains was found with a large range of 215 km (83 sq mi), necessitated by poor prey abundance. Research has shown cougar abundances from 0.5 animals to as much as 7 (in one study in


title: Cougar content: South America) per 100 km (38 sq mi). Because males disperse farther than females and compete more directly for mates and territory, they are more likely to be involved in conflict. Where a juvenile fails to leave his maternal range, for example, he may be killed by his father. When males encounter each other, they hiss, spit, and may engage in violent conflict if neither backs down. Hunting or relocation of the cougar may increase aggressive encounters by disrupting territories and bringing young, transient animals into conflict with established individuals. The cougar has the largest range of any wild land


title: Cougar content: animal in the Americas. Its range spans 110 degrees of latitude, from northern Yukon in Canada to the southern Andes. Its wide distribution stems from its adaptability to virtually every habitat type; it is found in all forest types, as well as in lowland and mountainous deserts. The cougar prefers habitats that include precipitous canyons, escarpments, rim rocks, and dense brush, but can also live in open areas with little vegetation. The cougar was extirpated across nearly all of its eastern North American range (with the exception of Florida) in the two centuries after European colonization, and faced grave threats


title: Cougar content: elsewhere. It currently ranges across most western American states, the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, and the Canadian territory of Yukon. There have been widely debated reports of possible recolonization of eastern North America. DNA evidence has suggested its presence in eastern North America, while a consolidated map of cougar sightings shows numerous reports from the mid-western Great Plains through to eastern Canada. The Quebec wildlife services also considers cougar to be present in the province as a threatened species after multiple DNA tests confirmed cougar hair in lynx mating sites. The only unequivocally known eastern population


title: Cougar content: is the critically endangered Florida panther. There have been unconfirmed sightings in Elliotsville Plantation, Maine (north of Monson) and as early as 1997 in New Hampshire. In 2009, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources confirmed a cougar sighting in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Typically, extreme-range sightings of cougars involve young males, which can travel great distances to establish ranges away from established males. All four confirmed cougar kills in Iowa since 2000 involved males. On April 14, 2008, police fatally shot a cougar on the north side of Chicago, Illinois. DNA tests were consistent with cougars from the Black Hills of


title: Cougar content: South Dakota. Less than a year later, on March5, 2009, a cougar was photographed and unsuccessfully tranquilized by state wildlife biologists in a tree near Spooner, Wisconsin, in the northwestern part of the state. Other eastern sightings since 2010 have occurred in locations such as Greene County, Indiana, Greenwich and Milford, Connecticut, Morgan County Pike County, and Whiteside County, Illinois, and Bourbon County, Kentucky. In Tennessee, no confirmed sightings had been made since the early 1900s. The first confirmed sighting in a century was made on September 20, 2015, in Obion county in the north-western corner of West Tennessee. Six


title: Cougar content: days later, and about 35 miles to the southeast, a hair sample was found in Carroll County. DNA analysis revealed that it was from a female genetically similar to South Dakota cougars. Since then there have been at least eight additional confirmed sightings in the state; all were immediately east of the Tennessee River in Middle Tennessee: initially in Humphreys county and on September 4, 2016, further south in Wayne county. South of the Rio Grande, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the cat in every Central and South American country. While specific state and provincial statistics


title: Cougar content: are often available in North America, much less is known about the cat in its southern range. The cougar's total breeding population is estimated at less than 50,000 by the IUCN, with a declining trend. US state-level statistics are often more optimistic, suggesting cougar populations have rebounded. In Oregon, a healthy population of 5,000 was reported in 2006, exceeding a target of 3,000. California has actively sought to protect the cat and has an estimated population of 4,000 to 6,000. A 2012 study using 18 motion-sensitive cameras in Río Los Cipreses National Reserve counted a population of two males and


title: Cougar content: two females, one of them with at least two cubs, in an area of 600 km (0.63 cougars per 100 km). With the increase of human development and infrastructure growth in California, the North American Cougar populations are becoming more isolated from one another. Aside from humans, no species preys upon mature cougars in the wild, although conflicts with other predators or scavengers occur. Of the three large predators in Yellowstone National Park – the grizzly bear, gray wolf, and cougar – the massive grizzly bear appears dominant, often (but not always) able to drive both the gray wolf pack


title: Cougar content: and the cougar off their kills. One study found that grizzlies and American black bears visited 24% of cougar kills in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, usurping 10% of carcasses. Bears gained up to 113% and cougars lost up to 26% of their respective daily energy requirements from these encounters. In Colorado and California, black bears were found to visit 48% and 77% of kills, respectively. In general, cougars are subordinate to black bears when it comes to kills and when bears are most active, the cats take prey more frequently and spend less time feeding on each kill. Unlike


title: Cougar content: several subordinate predators from other ecosystems, cougars do not appear to take advantage of spatial or temporal refuges to avoid their competitors. The gray wolf and the cougar compete more directly for prey, mostly in winter. Packs of wolves can steal cougars' kills and occasionally kill the cat. One report describes a large pack of 7 to 11 wolves killing a female cougar and her kittens. Conversely, lone female wolves have in various documented accounts been ambushed and killed by cougars, including in one involving a six-year-old female wolf. Wolves more broadly affect cougar population dynamics and distribution by dominating


title: Cougar content: territory and prey opportunities, and disrupting the feline's behavior. Preliminary research in Yellowstone, for instance, has shown displacement of the cougar by wolves. In nearby Sun Valley, Idaho, a cougar/wolf encounter that resulted in the death of the cougar was documented. One researcher in Oregon noted: "When there is a pack around, cougars are not comfortable around their kills or raising kittens [...] A lot of times a big cougar will kill a wolf, but the pack phenomenon changes the table." Both species are capable of killing mid-sized predators, such as bobcats and coyotes, and tend to suppress their numbers.


title: Cougar content: Although cougars can kill coyotes, the latter have been documented attempting to prey on cougar cubs. In the southern portion of its range, the cougar and jaguar share overlapping territory. The jaguar tends to take the larger prey where ranges overlap, reducing both the cougar's potential size and the likelihood of direct competition between the two cats. Cougars appear better than jaguars at exploiting a broader prey niche and smaller prey. As with any predator at or near the top of its food chain, the cougar impacts the population of prey species. Predation by cougars has been linked to changes


title: Cougar content: in the species mix of deer in a region. For example, a study in British Columbia observed that the population of mule deer, a favored cougar prey, was declining while the population of the less frequently preyed-upon white-tailed deer was increasing. The Vancouver Island marmot, an endangered species endemic to one region of dense cougar population, has seen decreased numbers due to cougar and gray wolf predation. Nevertheless, there is a measurable effect on the quality of deer populations by puma predation. In the southern part of South America, the puma is a top level predator that has controlled the


title: Cougar content: population of guanaco and other species since prehistoric times. Cougars also prey on bear cubs. A pumapard is a hybrid animal resulting from a union between a puma and a leopard. Whether born to a female puma mated to a male leopard or to a male puma mated to a female leopard, pumapards inherit a form of dwarfism. Those reported grew to only half the size of the parents. They have a puma-like long body (proportional to the limbs, but nevertheless shorter than either parent), but short legs. The coat is variously described as sandy, tawny or greyish with brown,


title: Cougar content: chestnut or "faded" rosettes. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) currently lists the cougar as a "least concern" species. The cougar is regulated under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), rendering illegal international trade in specimens or parts. In the United States east of the Mississippi River, the only unequivocally known cougar population is the Florida panther. Until 2011, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) recognized both an Eastern cougar (claimed to be a subspecies by some, denied by others) and the Florida panther, affording protection under the


title: Cougar content: Endangered Species Act. Certain taxonomic authorities have collapsed both designations into the North American cougar, with Eastern or Florida subspecies not recognized, while a subspecies designation remains recognized by some conservation scientists. In 2003 the documented count for the Florida sub-population was 87 individuals. In March 2011, the USFWS declared the Eastern cougar extinct. With the taxonomic uncertainty about its existence as a subspecies as well as the possibility of eastward migration of cougars from the western range, the subject remains open. This uncertainty has been recognized by Canadian authorities. The Canadian federal agency called Committee on the Status of


title: Cougar content: Endangered Wildlife in Canada rates its current data as "insufficient" to draw conclusions regarding the eastern cougar's survival and its website says that "despite many sightings in the past two decades from eastern Canada, there are insufficient data to evaluate the taxonomy or assign a status to this cougar." Notwithstanding numerous reported sightings in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, it has been said that the evidence is inconclusive as "there may not be a distinct 'eastern' subspecies, and some sightings may be of escaped pets." The cougar is also protected across much of the rest of its range.


title: Cougar content: As of 1996, cougar hunting was prohibited in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, French Guiana, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, and Uruguay. The cat had no reported legal protection in Ecuador, El Salvador, and Guyana. Regulated cougar hunting is still common in the United States and Canada. Although cougars are protected from all hunting in the Yukon; hunting is permitted in every U.S. state except California from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Texas is the only U.S. state with a viable population of cougars that does not protect that population in some way. In


title: Cougar content: Texas, cougars are listed as nuisance wildlife and any person holding a hunting or a trapping permit can kill a cougar regardless of the season, number killed, sex or age of the animal. Killed animals are not required to be reported to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Conservation work in Texas is the effort of a non-profit organization, Balanced Ecology Inc. (BEI) as part of their Texas Mountain Lion Conservation Project. Cougars are generally hunted with packs of dogs until the animal is "treed," after which the hunter shoots the cat from the tree at close range. The cougar cannot


title: Cougar content: be legally killed without a permit in California except under very specific circumstances, such as when a cougar is in act of pursuing livestock or domestic animals, or is declared a threat to public safety. The Bay Area Puma Project aims to obtain information on cougar populations in the San Francisco Bay area and the animals' interactions with habitat, prey, humans, and residential communities. Conservation threats to the species include persecution as a pest animal, environmental degradation and habitat fragmentation, and depletion of their prey base. Wildlife corridors and sufficient range areas are critical to the sustainability of cougar populations.


title: Cougar content: Research simulations have shown that the animal faces a low extinction risk in areas of 2200 km (850 sq mi) or more. As few as one to four new animals entering a population per decade markedly increases persistence, highlighting the importance of habitat corridors. On March 2, 2011, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service declared the Eastern cougar ("Puma concolor couguar") officially extinct. The grace and power of the cougar have been widely admired in the cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The Inca city of Cusco is reported to have been designed in the shape of


title: Cougar content: a cougar, and the animal also gave its name to both Inca regions and people. The Moche people represented the puma often in their ceramics. The sky and thunder god of the Inca, Viracocha, has been associated with the animal. In North America, mythological descriptions of the cougar have appeared in the stories of the Hocąk language ("Ho-Chunk" or "Winnebago") of Wisconsin and Illinois and the Cheyenne, amongst others. To the Apache and Walapai of Arizona, the wail of the cougar was a harbinger of death. The Algonquins and Ojibwe believe that the cougar lived in the underworld and was


title: Cougar content: wicked, whereas it was a sacred animal among the Cherokee. Several college sports teams, such as Brigham Young University and the University of Houston, as well as some high schools, have chosen the cougar as their mascot. The University of Vermont also uses the mascot, but uses the term "catamount" instead of cougar, as is common in the region where the school is located. During the early years of ranching, cougars were considered on par with wolves in destructiveness. According to figures in Texas in 1990, 86 calves (0.0006% of Texas's 13.4 million cattle and calves), 253 mohair goats, 302


title: Cougar content: mohair kids, 445 sheep (0.02% of Texas's 2 million sheep and lambs) and 562 lambs (0.04% of Texas's 1.2 million lambs) were confirmed to have been killed by cougars that year. In Nevada in 1992, cougars were confirmed to have killed nine calves, one horse, four foals, five goats, 318 sheep, and 400 lambs. In both reports, sheep were the most frequently attacked. Some instances of surplus killing have resulted in the deaths of 20 sheep in one attack. A cougar's killing bite is applied to the back of the neck, head, or throat and the cat inflicts puncture marks


title: Cougar content: with its claws usually seen on the sides and underside of the prey, sometimes also shredding the prey as it holds on. Coyotes also typically bite the throat but the work of a cougar is generally clean, while bites inflicted by coyotes and dogs leave ragged edges. The size of the tooth puncture marks also helps distinguish kills made by cougars from those made by smaller predators. Remedial hunting appears to have the paradoxical effect of increased livestock predation and complaints of human-puma conflicts. In a 2013 study the most important predictor of puma problems were remedial hunting of puma


title: Cougar content: the previous year. Each additional puma on the landscape increased predation and human-puma complaints by 5%, but each additional animal killed on the landscape during the previous year increased complaints by 50%. The effect had a dose-response relationship with very heavy (100% removal of adult puma) remedial hunting leading to a 150% – 340% increase in livestock and human conflicts. This effect is attributed to the removal of older pumas that have learned to avoid people and their replacement by younger males that react differently to humans. Remedial hunting enables younger males to enter the former territories of the older


title: Cougar content: animals. The pertinent North American subspecies is "P. concolor couguar". Due to the expanding human population, cougar ranges increasingly overlap with areas inhabited by humans. Attacks on humans are very rare, as cougar prey recognition is a learned behavior and they do not generally recognize humans as prey. In a 10-year study in New Mexico of wild cougars who were not habituated to humans, the animals did not exhibit threatening behavior to researchers who approached closely (median distance=18.5 m; 61 feet) except in 6% of cases; 14/16 of those were females with cubs. Attacks on people, livestock, and pets may


title: Cougar content: occur when a puma habituates to humans or is in a condition of severe starvation. Attacks are most frequent during late spring and summer, when juvenile cougars leave their mothers and search for new territory. Between 1890 and 1990, in North America there were 53 reported, confirmed attacks on humans, resulting in 48 nonfatal injuries and 10 deaths of humans (the total is greater than 53 because some attacks had more than one victim). By 2004, the count had climbed to 88 attacks and 20 deaths. Within North America, the distribution of attacks is not uniform. The heavily populated state


title: Cougar content: of California has seen a dozen attacks since 1986 (after just three from 1890 to 1985), including three fatalities. Washington state was the site of a fatal attack in 2018, its first since 1924. Lightly populated New Mexico reported an attack in 2008, the first there since 1974. As with many predators, a cougar may attack if cornered, if a fleeing human stimulates their instinct to chase, or if a person "plays dead". Standing still may cause the cougar to consider a person easy prey. Exaggerating the threat to the animal through intense eye contact, loud shouting, and any other


title: Cougar content: action to appear larger and more menacing, may make the animal retreat. Fighting back with sticks and rocks, or even bare hands, is often effective in persuading an attacking cougar to disengage. When cougars do attack, they usually employ their characteristic neck bite, attempting to position their teeth between the vertebrae and into the spinal cord. Neck, head, and spinal injuries are common and sometimes fatal. Children are at greatest risk of attack, and least likely to survive an encounter. Detailed research into attacks prior to 1991 showed that 64% of all victims – and almost all fatalities – were


title: Cougar content: children. The same study showed the highest proportion of attacks to have occurred in British Columbia, particularly on Vancouver Island where cougar populations are especially dense. Preceding attacks on humans, cougars display aberrant behavior, such as activity during daylight hours, a lack of fear of humans, and stalking humans. There have sometimes been incidents of pet cougars mauling people. Research on new wildlife collars may be able to reduce human-animal conflicts by predicting when and where predatory animals hunt. This may save the lives of humans, pets, and livestock as well as the lives of these large predatory mammals that


title: Cougar content: are important to the balance of ecosystems. Pumas in the Southern cone of America – often called Argentine cougars by North Americans – are reputed to be extremely reluctant to attack man; in legend, they defended people against jaguars. The nineteenth century naturalists Félix de Azara and William Henry Hudson thought that attacks on people, even children or sleeping adults, did not happen. Hudson, citing anecdotal evidence from hunters, claimed that pumas were positively inhibited from attacking people, even in self-defense. In fact, attacks on humans, although exceedingly rare, have occurred. An early, authenticated, non-fatal case occurred near Lake Viedma,


title: Cougar content: Patagonia in 1877 when a female mauled the Argentine scientist Francisco P. Moreno; Moreno afterwards showed the scars to Theodore Roosevelt. In this instance, however, Moreno had been wearing a guanaco-hide poncho round his neck and head as protection against the cold; in Patagonia the guanaco is the puma's chief prey animal. Another authenticated case occurred In 1997 in Iguazú National Park, northeast Argentina when the 20-month son of a ranger was killed by a female puma. Forensic analysis found specimens of the child's hair and clothing fibers in the animal's stomach. In this area the coatí is the puma's


title: Cougar content: chief prey. Despite prohibitory signs, coatis are hand-fed by tourists in the park, causing unnatural approximation between cougars and humans. This particular puma had been raised in captivity and released into the wild. In 2012 a 23-year-old woman was found dead in a mountainous area in Salta Province in northwest Argentina. Claw incisions, which severed a jugular vein, indicated that the attacker was a felid; differential diagnosis ruled out other possible perpetrators. There were no bite marks on the victim, who had been herding goats. Fatal attacks by other carnivores such as feral dogs can be misattributed to pumas without


title: Cougar content: appropriate forensic knowledge. Cougar The cougar ("Puma concolor"), also commonly known as the puma, mountain lion, panther or catamount, is a large felid of the subfamily Felinae native to the Americas. Its range, from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes of South America, is the widest of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. An adaptable, generalist species, the cougar is found in most American habitat types. It is the biggest cat in North America, and the second-heaviest cat in the New World after the jaguar. Secretive and largely solitary by nature, the cougar is properly considered


title: Atomium content: Atomium The Atomium ( ) is a landmark building in Brussels, originally constructed for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (Expo 58). It is located on the Heysel Plateau, where the exhibition took place. It is now a museum. Designed by the engineer André Waterkeyn and architects André and Jean Polak, it stands tall. Its nine diameter stainless steel clad spheres are connected, so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. Tubes of diameter connect the spheres along the 12 edges of the cube and all eight vertices to the


title: Atomium content: centre. They enclose stairs, escalators and a lift (in the central, vertical tube) to allow access to the five habitable spheres, which contain exhibit halls and other public spaces. The top sphere includes a restaurant which has a panoramic view of Brussels. In the 1950s, faith in scientific progress was great, and a structure depicting atoms was chosen to embody this. The Atomium depicts nine iron atoms in the shape of the body-centred cubic unit cell of an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times.Though the Atomium depicts an iron unit cell, the balls were originally clad with aluminium. Following the


title: Atomium content: 2004–2007 renovations, however, the aluminium was replaced with stainless steel, which is primarily iron. Likewise, while the subject of Atomium was chosen to depict the enthusiasm of the Atomic Age, iron is not and cannot be used as fuel in nuclear reactions. The Atomium was built as the main pavilion and icon of the 1958 World's Fair of Brussels. The construction of the Atomium was a technical feat. Of the nine spheres, six are accessible to the public, each with two main floors and a lower floor reserved for service. The central tube contains the fastest elevator of the time


title: Atomium content: at , installed by the Belgian branch of the Swiss firm Schlieren (subsequently taken over by Schindler). It allows 22 people to reach the summit in 23 seconds. The escalators installed in the oblique tubes are among the longest in Europe. The biggest is long. Three of the four top spheres lack vertical support and hence are not open to the public for safety reasons, although the sphere at the pinnacle is open to the public. The original design called for no supports; the structure was simply to rest on the spheres. Wind tunnel tests proved that the structure would


title: Atomium content: have toppled in an wind ( winds have been recorded in Belgium). Support columns were added to achieve enough resistance against overturning. The Atomium, designed to last six months, was not destined to survive the 1958 World's Fair, but its popularity and success made it a major element of the Brussels landscape. Its destruction was therefore postponed year after year, until the city's authorities decided to keep it. However, for thirty years, little maintenance work was done. By the turn of the millennium, the state of the building had become quite deteriorated and a comprehensive renovation was sorely needed. Renovation


title: Atomium content: of the Atomium began in March 2004; it was closed to the public in October, and remained closed until 18 February 2006. The renovations included replacing the faded aluminium sheets on the spheres with stainless steel. On 21 December 2005, the new Atomium outdoor lighting was tested. The meridians of each sphere were covered with rectangular steel plates, in which LED lighting was integrated. The LED application illuminates the bulbs at night. The lights can also flash simultaneously or in turns at each meridian, symbolising the range of an electron around its core. On 14 February 2006, the Atomium was


title: Atomium content: officially reopened by then Prince Philippe, and on 18 February 2006, it opened again to the public. The renovation cost €26 million. Brussels and the Atomium Association paid one-third of the costs, the Belgian government financed two thirds. To help pay for renovations, pieces of the old aluminium plates were sold to the public as souvenirs. One triangular piece about long sold for €1,000. On the occasion of the reopening, a 2 euro commemorative coin depicting the building was issued, in March 2006, to celebrate the renovation. Of the six spheres accessible to the public: SABAM, Belgium's society for collecting


title: Atomium content: copyrights, has claimed worldwide intellectual property rights on all reproductions of the image via the United States Artists Rights Society (ARS). For example, SABAM issued a demand that a United States website remove all images of the Atomium from its pages. The website responded by replacing all such images with a warning not to take photographs of the Atomium, and that A.S.B.L. Atomium will sue if you show them to anyone. SABAM confirmed that permission is required. Ralf Ziegermann remarked on the complicated copyright instructions on the Atomium's website specific to "private pictures". The organisers of Belgian heritage, Anno Expo


title: Atomium content: (planning the 50th anniversary celebrations of Expo 58), in the city of Mechelen announced a "cultural guerrilla strike" by asking people to send in their old photographs of the Atomium and requested 100 photoshoppers to paint over the balls. SABAM responded that they would make an exception for 2008 and that people could publish private photographs for one year only on condition they were for non-commercial purposes. Anno Expo later announced they had censored part of their own report due to "complications" and referred to a meeting they had with SABAM. Mechelen's Mayor, Bart Somers, called the Atomium copyright rules


title: Atomium content: absurd. On 23 February 2009, Axel Addington, web content manager for Atomium, emailed a clarification to the Glass Steel and Stone website, which some years earlier redacted its photographs of the Atomium after being threatened. He stated: From the Atomium's website, the current copyright restrictions exempt private individuals under the following conditions: In the summer of 2015, Belgian political party Open Vld, proposed a bill to enable Freedom of Panorama in Belgium. The bill was enacted into law in June 2016, allowing pictures of the Atomium, and other public buildings under copyright, to be legally distributed. Atomium The Atomium (


title: "Flag of Chile" content: 11 January 1912, concerning the colors and proportions of the national flag, the presidential sash and rosette or cockade, and Supreme Decree No. 5805 of the Ministry of the Interior, published 26 August 1927, sets the size of the national flag for use in buildings and public offices.) According to the decree, the ratio between length and width of the flag is 3:2, being divided horizontally into two bands of equal size. While the lower section corresponds to the color red, the upper area is divided once in a blue square and a white rectangle whose lengths are in proportion


title: "Louis IV of France" content: with the son of Louis the Pious: "Lotharius puer, filius Ludowici" (infant Lothair, son of Louis)–, Mathilde – who in 964 married King Conrad I of Burgundy – and Charles – who was invested as Duke of Lower Lorraine by his cousin Emperor Otto II in 977–. During the 950s, the royal power network was entrenched by construction of several palaces in the towns that were recovered by the King. Under Louis IV (and also during the reign of his son), there is a geographical tightening of royal lands around Compiègne, Laon and Reims which eventually gave Laon an incontestable


title: Echidna content: Echidna Echidnas (), sometimes known as spiny anteaters, belong to the family Tachyglossidae in the monotreme order of egg-laying mammals. The four extant species, together with the platypus, are the only surviving members of the order Monotremata, and are the only living mammals that lay eggs. The diet of some species consists of ants and termites, but they are not closely related to the true anteaters of the Americas. Echidnas live in Australia and New Guinea. Echidnas evolved between 20 and 50 million years ago, descending from a platypus-like monotreme. This ancestor was aquatic, but echidnas adapted to life on


title: Echidna content: land. The echidnas are named after Echidna, a creature from Greek mythology who was half-woman, half-snake, as the animal was perceived to have qualities of both mammals and reptiles. Echidnas are medium-sized, solitary mammals covered with coarse hair and spines. Superficially, they resemble the anteaters of South America and other spiny mammals such as hedgehogs and porcupines. They are usually black or brown in colour. There have been several reports of albino echidnas, their eyes pink and their spines white. They have elongated and slender snouts that function as both mouth and nose. Like the platypus, they are equipped with


title: Echidna content: electrosensors, but while the platypus has 40,000 electroreceptors on its bill, the long-beaked echidna has only 2,000 electroreceptors, and the short-beaked echidna, which lives in a drier environment, has no more than 400 located at the tip of its snout. They have very short, strong limbs with large claws, and are powerful diggers. Their claws on their hind limbs are elongated and curved backwards to help aid in digging. Echidnas have tiny mouths and toothless jaws. The echidna feeds by tearing open soft logs, anthills and the like, and using its long, sticky tongue, which protrudes from its snout, to


title: Echidna content: collect prey. The ears are slits on the sides of their heads that are usually unseen, as they are blanketed by their spines. The external ear is created by a large cartilaginous funnel, deep in the muscle. At 33 °C, the echidna also possess the second lowest active body temperature of all mammals, behind the platypus. The short-beaked echidna's diet consists largely of ants and termites, while the "Zaglossus" (long-beaked) species typically eat worms and insect larvae. The tongues of long-beaked echidnas have sharp, tiny spines that help them capture their prey. They have no teeth, and break down their


title: Echidna content: food by grinding it between the bottoms of their mouths and their tongues. Echidnas' faeces are long and are cylindrical in shape; they are usually broken and unrounded, and composed largely of dirt and ant-hill material. Echidnas do not tolerate extreme temperatures; they use caves and rock crevices to shelter from harsh weather conditions. Echidnas are found in forests and woodlands, hiding under vegetation, roots or piles of debris. They sometimes use the burrows of animals such as rabbits and wombats. Individual echidnas have large, mutually overlapping territories. Despite their appearance, echidnas are capable swimmers. When swimming, they expose their


title: Echidna content: snout and some of their spines, and are known to journey to water in order to groom and bathe themselves. Echidnas and the platypus are the only egg-laying mammals, known as monotremes. The average lifespan of an echidna in the wild is estimated around 14–16 years. When fully grown, a female can weigh up to and a male can weigh up to . The echidnas' sex can be inferred from their size, as males are 25% larger than females on average. The reproductive organs also differ, but both sexes have a single opening called a cloaca, which they use to


title: Echidna content: urinate, release their faeces and to mate. Male echidnas have non-venomous spurs on the hind feet. The neocortex makes up half of the echidna's brain, compared to 80% of a human brain. Due to their low metabolism and accompanying stress resistance, echidnas are long-lived for their size; the longest recorded lifespan for a captive echidna is 50 years, with anecdotal accounts of wild individuals reaching 45 years. Contrary to previous research, the echidna does enter REM sleep, but only when the ambient temperature is around 25 °C (77 °F). At temperatures of 15 °C (59 °F) and 28 °C (82


title: Echidna content: °F), REM sleep is suppressed. The female lays a single soft-shelled, leathery egg 22 days after mating, and deposits it directly into her pouch. An egg weighs and is about long. While hatching, the baby echidna opens the leather shell with a reptile-like egg tooth. Hatching takes place after 10 days of gestation; the young echidna, called a puggle, born larval and fetus-like, then sucks milk from the pores of the two milk patches (monotremes have no nipples) and remains in the pouch for 45 to 55 days, at which time it starts to develop spines. The mother digs a


title: Echidna content: nursery burrow and deposits the young, returning every five days to suckle it until it is weaned at seven months. Puggles will stay within their mother's den for up to a year before leaving. Male echidnas have a four-headed penis. During mating, the heads on one side "shut down" and do not grow in size; the other two are used to release semen into the female's two-branched reproductive tract. Each time it copulates, it alternates heads in sets of two. When not in use, the penis is retracted inside a preputial sac in the cloaca. The male echidna's penis is


title: Echidna content: long when erect, and its shaft is covered with penile spines. These may be used to induce ovulation in the female.
 It is a challenge to study the echidna in its natural habitat and they show no interest in mating while in captivity. Therefore, no one has ever seen an echidna ejaculate. There have been previous attempts, trying to force the echidna to ejaculate through the use of electrically stimulated ejaculation in order to obtain semen samples but has only resulted in the penis swelling.
 Breeding season begins in late June and extends through