title: "Barn owl" content: facial disk becomes visible soon after hatching. Contrary to popular belief, the barn owl does not hoot (such calls are made by typical owls, like the tawny owl or other members of the genus "Strix"). It instead produces the characteristic "shree" scream, ear-shattering at close range, an eerie, long-drawn-out shriek. Males in courtship give a shrill twitter. Both young and old can hiss like a snake to scare away intruders. Other sounds produced include a purring chirrup denoting pleasure, and a "kee-yak", which resembles one of the vocalisations of the tawny owl. When captured or cornered, the barn owl throws


title: "Barn owl" content: itself on its back and flails with sharp-taloned feet, making for an effective defence. In such situations it may emit rasping sounds or clicking snaps, produced probably by the beak but possibly by the tongue. The barn owl is the most widespread landbird species in the world, occurring in every continent except Antarctica. Its range includes all of Europe (except Fennoscandia and Malta), most of Africa apart from the Sahara, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Australia, many Pacific Islands, and North, Central and South America. In general it is considered to be sedentary, and indeed many individuals, having taken up


title: "Barn owl" content: residence in a particular location, remain there even when better foraging areas nearby become vacant. In the British Isles, the young seem largely to disperse along river corridors and the distance travelled from their natal site averages about . In continental Europe the distance travelled is greater, commonly somewhere between but exceptionally , with ringed birds from the Netherlands ending up in Spain and in Ukraine. In the United States, dispersal is typically over distances of , with the most travelled individuals ending up some from the point of origin. Movements in the African continent include from Senegambia to Sierra


title: "Barn owl" content: Leone and up to within South Africa. In Australia there is some migration as the birds move towards the northern coast in the dry season and southward in the wet, and also nomadic movements in association with rodent plagues. Occasionally, some of these birds turn up on Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island or New Zealand, showing that crossing the ocean is not beyond their capabilities. In 2008, barn owls were recorded for the first time breeding in New Zealand. The barn owl has been successfully introduced into the Hawaiian island of Kauai in an attempt to control rodents, however it


title: "Barn owl" content: has been found to also feed on native birds. Like most owls, the barn owl is nocturnal, relying on its acute sense of hearing when hunting in complete darkness. It often becomes active shortly before dusk and can sometimes be seen during the day when relocating from one roosting site to another. In Britain, on various Pacific Islands and perhaps elsewhere, it sometimes hunts by day. This practice may depend on whether the owl is mobbed by other birds if it emerges in daylight. However, in Britain, some birds continue to hunt by day even when mobbed by such birds


title: "Barn owl" content: as magpies, rooks and black-headed gulls, such diurnal activity possibly occurring when the previous night has been wet making hunting difficult. By contrast, in southern Europe and the tropics, the birds seem to be almost exclusively nocturnal, with the few birds that hunt by day being severely mobbed. Barn owls are not particularly territorial but have a home range inside which they forage. For males in Scotland this has a radius of about from the nest site and an average size of about 300 hectares. Female home ranges largely coincide with that of their mates. Outside the breeding season, males


title: "Barn owl" content: and females usually roost separately, each one having about three favoured sites in which to conceal themselves by day, and which are also visited for short periods during the night. Roosting sites include holes in trees, fissures in cliffs, disused buildings, chimneys and haysheds and are often small in comparison to nesting sites. As the breeding season approaches, the birds move back to the vicinity of the chosen nest to roost. The barn owl is a bird of open country such as farmland or grassland with some interspersed woodland, usually at altitudes below but occasionally as high as in the


title: "Barn owl" content: tropics. This owl prefers to hunt along the edges of woods or in rough grass strips adjoining pasture. It has an effortless wavering flight as it quarters the ground, alert to the sounds made by potential prey. Like most owls, the barn owl flies silently; tiny serrations on the leading edges of its flight feathers and a hairlike fringe to the trailing edges help to break up the flow of air over the wings, thereby reducing turbulence and the noise that accompanies it. Hairlike extensions to the barbules of its feathers, which give the plumage a soft feel, also minimise


title: "Barn owl" content: noise produced during wingbeats. The behaviour and ecological preferences may differ slightly even among neighbouring subspecies, as shown in the case of the European "T. a. guttata" and "T. a. alba" that probably evolved, respectively, in allopatric glacial refugia in southeastern Europe, and in Iberia or southern France. The diet of the barn owl has been much studied; the items consumed can be ascertained from identifying the prey fragments in the pellets of indigestible matter that the bird regurgitates. Studies of diet have been made in most parts of the bird's range, and in moist temperate areas over 90% of


title: "Barn owl" content: the prey tends to be small mammals, whereas in hot, dry, unproductive areas, the proportion is lower, and a great variety of other creatures are eaten depending on local abundance. Most prey is terrestrial but bats and birds are also taken, as well as lizards, amphibians and insects. Even when they are plentiful and other prey scarce, earthworms do not seem to be consumed. In North America and most of Europe, voles predominate in the diet and shrews are the second most common food choice. Mice and rats form the main foodstuffs in the Mediterranean region, the tropics, sub-tropics and


title: "Barn owl" content: Australia. Barn owls are usually more specialist feeders in productive areas and generalists in drier areas. On the Cape Verde Islands, geckos are the mainstay of the diet, supplemented by birds such as plovers, godwits, turnstones, weavers and pratincoles, and on a rocky islet off the coast of California, a clutch of four young were being reared on a diet of Leach's storm petrel ("Oceanodroma leucorhoa"). In Ireland, the accidental introduction of the bank vole in the 1950s led to a major shift in the barn owl's diet: where their ranges overlap, the vole is now by far the largest


title: "Barn owl" content: prey item. Locally superabundant rodent species in the weight class of several grams per individual usually make up the single largest proportion of prey. In the United States, rodents and other small mammals usually make up ninety-five percent of the diet and worldwide, over ninety percent of the prey caught. The barn owl hunts by flying slowly, quartering the ground and hovering over spots that may conceal prey. It may also use branches, fence posts or other lookouts to scan its surroundings, and this is the main means of prey location in the oil palm plantations of Malaysia. The bird


title: "Barn owl" content: has long, broad wings, enabling it to manoeuvre and turn abruptly. Its legs and toes are long and slender which improves its ability to forage among dense foliage or beneath the snow and gives it a wide spread of talons when attacking prey. Studies have shown that an individual barn owl may eat one or more voles (or their equivalent) per night, equivalent to about twenty-three percent of the bird's bodyweight. Excess food is often cached at roosting sites and can be used when food is scarce. Small prey is usually torn into chunks and eaten completely including bones and


title: "Barn owl" content: fur, while prey larger than about 100 g (4 oz), such as baby rabbits, "Cryptomys" blesmols, or "Otomys" vlei rats, is usually dismembered and the inedible parts discarded. Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, the barn owl does not eat domestic animals on any sort of regular basis. Regionally, non-rodent foods are used as per availability. On bird-rich islands, a barn owl might include some fifteen to twenty percent of birds in its diet, while in grassland it will gorge itself on swarming termites, or on Orthoptera such as Copiphorinae katydids, Jerusalem crickets (Stenopelmatidae) or true crickets (Gryllidae). Bats and


title: "Barn owl" content: even frogs, lizards and snakes may make a minor but significant contribution to the diet; small Soricomorpha like "Suncus" shrews may be a secondary prey of major importance. The barn owl has acute hearing, with ears placed asymmetrically. This improves detection of sound position and distance and the bird does not require sight to hunt. The facial disc plays a part in this process, as is shown by the fact that with the ruff feathers removed, the bird can still locate the source in azimuth but fails to do so in elevation. Hunting nocturnally or crepuscularly, this bird can target


title: "Barn owl" content: its prey and dive to the ground, penetrating its talons through snow, grass or brush to seize small creatures with deadly accuracy. Compared to other owls of similar size, the barn owl has a much higher metabolic rate, requiring relatively more food. Weight for weight, barn owls consume more rodents—often regarded as pests by humans—than possibly any other creature. This makes the barn owl one of the most economically valuable wildlife animals for agriculture. Farmers often find these owls more effective than poison in keeping down rodent pests, and they can encourage barn owl habitation by providing nest sites. Barn


title: "Barn owl" content: owls living in tropical regions can breed at any time of year, but some seasonality in nesting is still evident. Where there are distinct wet and dry seasons, egg-laying usually takes place during the dry season, with increased rodent prey becoming available to the birds as the vegetation dies off. In arid regions, such as parts of Australia, breeding may be irregular and may happen in wet periods, triggered by temporary increases in the populations of small mammals. In temperate climates, nesting seasons become more distinct and there are some seasons of the year when no egg-laying takes place. In


title: "Barn owl" content: Europe and North America, most nesting takes place between March and June when temperatures are increasing. The actual dates of egg-laying vary by year and by location, being correlated with the amount of prey-rich foraging habitat around the nest site and often with the phase of the rodent abundance cycle. An increase in rodent populations will usually stimulate the local barn owls to begin nesting; thus, even in the cooler parts of its range, two broods are often raised in a good year. Females are ready to breed at ten to eleven months of age although males sometimes wait till


title: "Barn owl" content: the following year. Barn owls are usually monogamous, sticking to one partner for life unless one of the pair dies. During the non-breeding season they may roost separately, but as the breeding season approaches they return to their established nesting site, showing considerable site fidelity. In colder climates, in harsh weather and where winter food supplies may be scarce, they may roost in farm buildings and in barns between hay bales, but they then run the risk that their selected nesting hole may be taken over by some other, earlier-nesting species. Single males may establish feeding territories, patrolling the hunting


title: "Barn owl" content: areas, occasionally stopping to hover, and perching on lofty eminences where they screech to attract a mate. Where a female has lost her mate but maintained her breeding site, she usually seems to manage to attract a new spouse. Once a pair-bond has been formed, the male will make short flights at dusk around the nesting and roosting sites and then longer circuits to establish a home range. When he is later joined by the female, there is much chasing, turning and twisting in flight, and frequent screeches, the male's being high-pitched and tremulous and the female's lower and harsher.


title: "Barn owl" content: At later stages of courtship, the male emerges at dusk, climbs high into the sky and then swoops back to the vicinity of the female at speed. He then sets off to forage. The female meanwhile sits in an eminent position and preens, returning to the nest a minute or two before the male arrives with food for her. Such feeding behaviour of the female by the male is common, helps build the pair-bond and increases the female's fitness before egg-laying commences. Barn owls are cavity nesters. They choose holes in trees, fissures in cliff faces, the large nests of


title: "Barn owl" content: other birds such as the hamerkop ("Scopus umbretta") and, particularly in Europe and North America, old buildings such as farm sheds and church towers. Buildings are preferred to trees in wetter climates in the British Isles and provide better protection for fledglings from inclement weather. Trees tend to be in open habitats rather than in the middle of woodland and nest holes tend to be higher in North America than in Europe because of possible predation by raccoons ("Procyon lotor"). No nesting material is used as such but, as the female sits incubating the eggs, she draws in the dry


title: "Barn owl" content: furry material of which her regurgitated pellets are composed, so that by the time the chicks are hatched, they are surrounded by a carpet of shredded pellets. Oftentimes other birds such as jackdaws ("Corvus monedula") nest in the same hollow tree or building and seem to live harmoniously with the owls. Before commencing laying, the female spends much time near the nest and is entirely provisioned by the male. Meanwhile, the male roosts nearby and may cache any prey that is surplus to their requirements. When the female has reached peak weight, the male provides a ritual presentation of food


title: "Barn owl" content: and copulation occurs at the nest. The female lays eggs on alternate days and the clutch size averages about five eggs (range two to nine). The eggs are chalky white, somewhat elliptical and about the size of bantam's eggs, and incubation begins as soon as the first egg is laid. While she is sitting on the nest, the male is constantly bringing more provisions and they may pile up beside the female. The incubation period is about thirty days, hatching takes place over a prolonged period and the youngest chick may be several weeks younger than its oldest sibling. In


title: "Barn owl" content: years with plentiful supplies of food, there may be a hatching success rate of about 75%. The male continues to copulate with the female when he brings food which makes the newly hatched chicks vulnerable to injury. The chicks are at first covered with greyish-white down and develop rapidly. Within a week they can hold their heads up and shuffle around in the nest. The female tears up the food brought by the male and distributes it to the chicks. Initially these make a "chittering" sound but this soon changes into a food-demanding "snore". By two weeks old they are


title: "Barn owl" content: already half their adult weight and look naked as the amount of down is insufficient to cover their growing bodies. By three weeks old, quills are starting to push through the skin and the chicks stand, making snoring noises with wings raised and tail stumps waggling, begging for food items which are now given whole. The male is the main provider of food until all the chicks are at least four weeks old at which time the female begins to leave the nest and starts to roost elsewhere. By the sixth week the chicks are as big as the adults


title: "Barn owl" content: but have slimmed down somewhat by the ninth week when they are fully fledged and start leaving the nest briefly themselves. They are still dependent on the parent birds until about thirteen weeks and receive training from the female in finding, and eventually catching, prey. Feathers become abraded over time and all birds need to replace them at intervals. Barn owls are particularly dependent on their ability to fly quietly and manoeuvre efficiently, and in temperate areas their prolonged moult lasts through three phases over a period of two years. The female starts to moult while incubating the eggs and


title: "Barn owl" content: brooding the chicks, a time when the male feeds her so she does not need to fly much. The first primary feather to be shed is the central one, number 6, and it has regrown completely by the time the female resumes hunting. Feathers 4, 5, 7 and 8 are dropped at a similar time the following year and feathers 1, 2, 3, 9 and 10 in the bird's third year of adulthood. The secondary and tail feathers are lost and replaced over a similar timescale, again starting while incubation is taking place. In the case of the tail, the


title: "Barn owl" content: two outermost tail feathers are first shed followed by the two central ones, the other tail feathers being moulted the following year. In temperate areas, the male owl moults rather later in the year than the female, at a time when there is an abundance of food, the female has recommenced hunting and the demands of the chicks are lessening. Unmated males without family responsibilities often start losing feathers earlier in the year. The moult follows a similar prolonged pattern to that of the female and the first sign that the male is moulting is often when a tail feather


title: "Barn owl" content: has been dropped at the roost. A consequence of moulting is the loss of thermal insulation. This is of little importance in the tropics and barn owls here usually moult a complete complement of flight feathers annually. The hot-climate moult may still take place over a long period but is usually concentrated at a particular time of year outside the breeding season. Predators of the barn owl include large American opossums ("Didelphis"), the common raccoon, and similar carnivorous mammals, as well as eagles, larger hawks and other owls. Among the latter, the great horned owl ("Bubo virginianus") in the Americas


title: "Barn owl" content: and the Eurasian eagle-owl ("B. bubo") are noted predators of barn owls. Despite some sources claiming that there is little evidence of predation by great horned owls, one study from Washington found that 10.9% of the local great horned owl's diet was made up of barn owls. In Africa, the principle predators of barn owls are Verreaux's eagle-owls and cape eagle-owls. In Europe, although less dangerous than the eagle owl, the chief diurnal predators are the northern goshawk ("Accipiter gentilis") and the common buzzard ("Buteo buteo"). About a dozen other large diurnal raptors and owls have also been reported as


title: "Barn owl" content: predators of barn owls, ranging from the similar-sized Cooper's hawk and scarcely larger tawny owl to huge bald and golden eagles. The goshawk and the eagle owl are on the increase because of the greater protection these birds now receive. When disturbed at its roosting site, an angry barn owl lowers its head and sways it from side to side, or the head may be lowered and stretched forward and the wings drooped while the bird emits hisses and makes snapping noises with its beak. A defensive attitude involves lying flat on the ground or crouching with wings spread out.


title: "Barn owl" content: Barn owls are hosts to a wide range of parasites. Fleas are present at nesting sites and externally the birds are attacked by feather lice and feather mites which chew the barbules of the feathers and which are transferred from bird to bird by direct contact. Blood-sucking flies such as "Ornithomyia avicularia" are often present, moving about among the plumage. Internal parasites include the fluke "Strigea strigis", the tape worm "Paruternia candelabraria", several species of parasitic round worm and spiny-headed worms in the genus "Centrorhynchus". These gut parasites are acquired when the birds feed on infected prey which provide intermediate


title: "Barn owl" content: hosts for the parasites. There is some indication that female birds with more and larger spots have a greater resistance to external parasites. This is correlated with smaller bursae of Fabricius, glands associated with antibody production, and a lower fecundity of the blood-sucking fly "Carnus hemapterus" that attacks nestlings. Unusually for such a medium-sized carnivorous animal, the barn owl exhibits "r"-selection, producing large number of offspring with a high growth rate, many of which have a relatively low probability of surviving to adulthood. While wild barn owls are thus decidedly short-lived, the actual longevity of the species is much higher


title: "Barn owl" content: – captive individuals may reach twenty years of age or more. But occasionally, a wild bird reaches an advanced age. The American record age for a wild barn owl is eleven and a half years, while a Dutch bird was noted to have reached an age of seventeen years, ten months. Another captive barn owl, in England, lived to be over twenty-five years old. Taking into account such extremely long-lived individuals, the average lifespan of the barn owl is about four years, and statistically two-thirds to three-quarters of all adults survive from one year to the next. However, the mortality


title: "Barn owl" content: is not evenly distributed throughout the bird's life, and only one young in three manages to live to its first breeding attempt. The most significant cause of death in temperate areas is likely to be starvation, particularly over the autumn and winter period when first year birds are still perfecting their hunting skills. In northern and upland areas, there is some correlation between mortality in older birds and adverse weather, deep-lying snow and prolonged low temperatures. Collision with road vehicles is another cause of mortality, and may result when birds forage on mown verges. Some of these birds are in


title: "Barn owl" content: poor condition and may have been less able to evade oncoming vehicles than fit individuals would have been. Historically, many deaths were caused by the use of pesticides, and this may still be the case in some parts of the world. Collisions with power-lines kill some birds and shooting accounts for others, especially in Mediterranean regions. Barn owls are relatively common throughout most of their range and not considered globally threatened. However, locally severe declines from organochlorine (e.g., DDT) poisoning in the mid-20th century and rodenticides in the late 20th century have affected some populations, particularly in Europe and North


title: "Barn owl" content: America. Intensification of agricultural practices often means that the rough grassland that provides the best foraging habitat is lost. While barn owls are prolific breeders and able to recover from short-term population decreases, they are not as common in some areas as they used to be. A 1995–1997 survey put their British population at between 3,000 and 5,000 breeding pairs, out of an average of about 150,000 pairs in the whole of Europe. In the US, barn owls are listed as endangered species in seven Midwestern states, and in the European Community they are considered a Species of European Concern.


title: "Barn owl" content: In Canada, they are no longer common, most likely to be found in coastal British Columbia south of Vancouver, having become extremely rare in a previous habitat, southern Ontario. In spite of a Recovery Strategy particularly in 2007-2010 in Ontario, only a handful of wild, breeding barn owls existed in the province in 2018. This is primarily because of disappearing grasslands where bird hunted in the past, but according to a study, also because of "harsh winters, predation, road mortality and use of rodenticides". The species is listed as endangered overall in Canada due to loss of habitat and a


title: "Barn owl" content: lack of nesting sites. On Lanzarote a somewhat larger number of these birds still seem to exist, but altogether this particular subspecies is precariously rare: Probably less than three hundred and perhaps fewer than two hundred individuals still remain. Similarly, the birds on the western Canary Islands which are usually assigned to the nominate subspecies have declined much, and here wanton destruction seems still to be significant. On Tenerife they seem relatively numerous but on the other islands, the situation looks about as bleak as on Fuerteventura. Due to their assignment to the nominate subspecies, which is common in mainland


title: "Barn owl" content: Spain, the western Canary Islands population is not classified as threatened. The Canary barn owl is particularly at risk, and as late as 1975, hunting by fearful locals was limiting the population on Fuerteventura where only a few dozen pairs remain. In some areas, it may be an insufficiency of suitable nesting sites that is the factor limiting barn owl numbers. Nest boxes are popular among conservationists who motivate farmers and land owners to install them for use as natural rodent control. Common names such as "demon owl", "death owl", "ghost owl" or "lich owl" (from "lich", an old term


title: "Barn owl" content: for a corpse) show that traditionally, rural populations in many places considered barn owls to be birds of evil omen. For example, the Tzeltal people in Mexico regard them as "disease givers". These owls don't "hoot" but emit raspy screeches and hissing noises or that their white face and underbelly feathers that are visible as they fly overhead make them look "ghostly". Consequently, they were often persecuted by farmers who were unaware of the benefits these birds bring. Negative emotions can also be attributed to the false belief that they could eat large animals such as chickens and cats. The


title: "Barn owl" content: provision of nest boxes under the eaves of buildings and in other locations can be very successful in increasing the local population. The upper bound to the number of barn owl pairs is set by food or nesting sites. Nest boxes are used primarily when populations suffer declines although these have many causes. Among them are the availability of natural sites. Early successes among conservationists have led to the widespread application of this method which has become the most used form of population management. The barn owl accepts the provided nest boxes and sometimes prefers them to natural sites, when


title: "Barn owl" content: these are available. A nest box can also be regarded as an animal surveillance device. Surveilling animals can lead to the discovery of new scientific and industrial fields. For example, biologists and engineers can work on barn owl surveillance techniques and devices, while social scientists document the practices that cause humans to observe an animal. While the diet of the barn owl has been studied, other areas like breeding success are not well known. Nest boxes provide direct physical access to the breeding location. In Switzerland, a research group aims to install RFID tag readers on the entrance of the


title: "Barn owl" content: nest boxes, thus allowing tracking of barn owl movements from nest box to nest box. Information about the behavior of the owls prior to breeding could be obtained using surveillance. In the United Kingdom, the "Barn Owl Nest Box Scheme" is promoted by the World Owl Trust and has many participants in local areas such as Somerset, where a webcam has been set up inside a nest box in which seven young were reared in 2014. Another barn owl nest box live-streaming webcam located in California, United States has proved popular online. In May 2012, it was revealed that farmers


title: "Barn owl" content: in Israel and Jordan had, over a period of ten years, replaced pesticides with barn owls in a joint conservation venture called "Project Barn Owl". Other research tools include using GPS trackers fitted onto the barn owl allowing precise location tracking of the owl. In some projects, use of rodenticides for biological pest control was replaced by the installation of nest boxes. It has been shown that the use of nest boxes is less costly than traditional control with rodenticides. In Israel, a first use for pest control was in 1983 at the Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, where pesticides were becoming


title: "Barn owl" content: a health hazard to local residents. A local farmer sought after an alternative which he found in installing nest boxes. In Malaysia, large areas of rainforest were felled to make way for oil palm plantations and with few tree cavities for breeding, the barn owl population, with its ability to control rodent pests, diminished. The provision of two hundred nest boxes in a trial saw almost one hundred percent occupancy and as the programme expanded, the plantations supported one of the densest barn owl populations in the world. Similarly, providing nesting boxes has increased the number of barn owls in


title: "Barn owl" content: rice-growing areas of Malaysia where the rodents do much damage to the crop. However, although barn owl numbers have increased in both these instances, it is unclear as to how effective this biological control of the rats is as compared to the trapping and baiting that occurred previously. Barn owl The barn owl ("Tyto alba") is the most widely distributed species of owl and one of the most widespread of all birds. It is also referred to as the common barn owl, to distinguish it from other species in its family, Tytonidae, which forms one of the two main lineages


title: "Wild Wild West" content: not included on the album) – ironically, this was one of the few elements to be faithful to the original series which also didn't credit Markowitz for the theme. Additional parts of the score were composed by Elmer Bernstein's son, Peter and daughter Emilie served as one of the orchestrators and producers. All tracks are written by Elmer Bernstein, except as noted. Like most of Will Smith's films during the 1990s, a hip hop single by the rapper/actor titled "Wild Wild West" served as the promotional theme song for the film. "Wild Wild West" was a #1 hit on the


title: "Magic: The Gathering World Championship" content: score advanced to Day 2. On Day 2, all qualified teams will only start with three players, along with their advisor (the lowest scoring player in their team on Day 1). The 32 teams were being sorted, according to seeding, into eight pools of four teams. The teams played in three rounds with the format being "Magic 2013" Team . After these rounds, the top two teams from each pool advanced to the second stage, leaving sixteen teams. These teams were then sorted into four pools of four teams, and played three rounds of Team Constructed, with a player from


title: "Tiger beetle" content: Tiger beetle Tiger beetles are a large group of beetles, from the Cicindelinae subfamily, known for their aggressive predatory habits and running speed. The fastest species of tiger beetle, "Cicindela hudsoni", can run at a speed of , or about 125 body lengths per second. As of 2005, about 2,600 species and subspecies were known, with the richest diversity in the Oriental (Indo-Malayan) region, followed by the Neotropics. Tiger beetles often have large bulging eyes, long, slender legs and large curved mandibles. All are predatory, both as adults and as larvae. The genus "Cicindela" has a cosmopolitan distribution. Other well-known


title: "Tiger beetle" content: genera include "Tetracha", "Omus", "Amblycheila" and "Manticora". While members of the genus "Cicindela" are usually diurnal and may be out on the hottest days, "Tetracha", "Omus", "Amblycheila" and "Manticora" are all nocturnal. Both "Cicindela" and "Tetracha" are often brightly colored, while the other genera mentioned are usually uniform black in color. Tiger beetles in the genus "Manticora" are the largest in size of the subfamily. These live primarily in the dry regions of southern Africa. The larvae of tiger beetles live in cylindrical burrows as much as a meter deep. They are large-headed, hump-backed grubs and use their humpbacks to


title: "Tiger beetle" content: flip backwards, for the purpose of capturing prey insects that wander over the ground. The fast-moving adults run down their prey and are extremely fast on the wing, their reaction times being of the same order as that of common houseflies. Some tiger beetles in the tropics are arboreal, but most run on the surface of the ground. They live along sea and lake shores, on sand dunes, around playa lakebeds and on clay banks or woodland paths, being particularly fond of sandy surfaces. Tiger beetles are considered a good indicator species and have been used in ecological studies on


title: "Tiger beetle" content: biodiversity. Several species of wingless parasitic wasps in the genus "Methocha" (family Thynnidae), lay their eggs on larvae of various "Cicindela spp.", such as "Cicindela dorsalis". Tiger beetles display an unusual form of pursuit in which they alternatively sprint quickly toward their prey, then stop and visually reorient. This may be because while running, the beetle is moving too fast for its visual system to accurately process images. To avoid obstacles while running they hold their antennae rigidly and directly in front of them to mechanically sense their environment. The oldest fossil tiger beetle yet found, "Cretotetracha grandis", comes from


title: "Tiger beetle" content: the Yixian Formation in China, and dates to the early Cretaceous Period, 125 million years ago. Traits that identify "Cretotetracha" as Cicindelinae include long mandibles shaped like sickles, simple teeth arranged along the mandible's inner surface, antennae that attach to the head between the base of the mandibles and the eye, a long body form where the combined eyes and head are wider than the thorax, and long running legs. Previously known Mesozoic fossils of tiger beetles have been described from the Crato Formation, about 113 million years ago and "Oxycheilopsis cretacicus" from the Santana Formation, 112 million years ago,


title: "Tiger beetle" content: both in Brazil. Tiger beetles were traditionally classified as the family Cicindelidae but most authorities now treat them as the subfamily Cicindelinae of the Carabidae (ground beetles). The most recent classifications, however, have relegated them to a monophyletic subgroup within the subfamily Carabinae, though this is not yet universally accepted. Accordingly, there is no consensus classification for this group, at any level from family down to subspecies, and it can be exceedingly difficult to decipher the taxonomic literature surrounding this group. Many genera are the result of the splitting of the large genus "Cicindela", and many were described by the


title: "Tiger beetle" content: German entomologist Walther Horn. The genera of tiger beetles include: Tiger beetle Tiger beetles are a large group of beetles, from the Cicindelinae subfamily, known for their aggressive predatory habits and running speed. The fastest species of tiger beetle, "Cicindela hudsoni", can run at a speed of , or about 125 body lengths per second. As of 2005, about 2,600 species and subspecies were known, with the richest diversity in the Oriental (Indo-Malayan) region, followed by the Neotropics. Tiger beetles often have large bulging eyes, long, slender legs and large curved mandibles. All are predatory, both as adults and as


title: "Weil conjectures" content: that a generalization of Rankin's result for higher even values of "k" would imply the Ramanujan conjecture, and Deligne realized that in the case of zeta functions of varieties, Grothendieck's theory of zeta functions of sheaves provided an analogue of this generalization. The deduction of the Riemann hypothesis from this estimate is mostly a fairly straightforward use of standard techniques and is done as follows. found and proved a generalization of the Weil conjectures, bounding the weights of the pushforward of a sheaf. In practice it is this generalization rather than the original Weil conjectures that is mostly used in


title: "Music of Germany" content: electronic music scene in the world . The band Kraftwerk was one of the first bands in the world to make music entirely on electronic equipment, and the band Tangerine Dream is often credited as being among the originators and primary influences of the "Berlin School" of electronic music, which would later influence trance music. Some other bands like Liaisons Dangereuses, Tyske Ludder, Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft and Die Krupps created a style later called Electronic body music. Also well-known are Scooter. Recently a few electronica artists have become successful in the mainstream, such as Monika Kruse, Marusha, Blümchen and MIA.


title: "Paul Walker" content: on three films at the time of his death which were released posthumously: "Hours" (2013), "Brick Mansions" (2014), and "Furious 7" (2015). The Wiz Khalifa song "See You Again", featuring Charlie Puth, was commissioned for the "Furious 7" soundtrack as a tribute to Walker. It was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Original Song in 2015 and was the number-one song in the United States for 12 weeks. Walker was born in Glendale, California, and was the son of Cheryl (née Crabtree), a fashion model, and Paul William Walker III, a sewer contractor and boxer who was a two-time


title: "Mars, Incorporated" content: in the diet improved memory and angiogenesis, and more so if coupled with exercise. Mars has been criticized for buying cocoa beans from West African farmers who reportedly use unpaid or poorly paid child laborers. In 2009, Mars announced that the company would work towards only purchasing cocoa from suppliers who meet environmental, labor and production standards. TransFair USA, an organization which certifies products as Fair Trade, applauded the move and expressed hope that it would include a provision for fair wages for laborers and farmers. In 2010, Mars Inc. received the U.S. Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence.


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: Great Sphinx of Giza The Great Sphinx of Giza (, , ; literally: Father of Dread), commonly referred to as the Sphinx of Giza or just the Sphinx, is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human. Facing directly from West to East, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The face of the Sphinx is generally believed to represent the Pharaoh Khafre. Cut from the bedrock, the original shape of the Sphinx has been restored with


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: layers of blocks. It measures long from paw to tail, high from the base to the top of the head and wide at its rear haunches. It is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt and is commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of the Pharaoh Khafre (). The Sphinx is a monolith carved into the bedrock of the plateau, which also served as the quarry for the pyramids and other monuments in the area. The nummulitic limestone of the area consists of layers which offer differing resistance to erosion


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: (mostly caused by wind and windblown sand), leading to the uneven degradation apparent in the Sphinx's body. The lowest part of the body, including the legs, is solid rock. The body of the lion up to its neck is fashioned from softer layers that have suffered considerable disintegration. The layer in which the head was sculpted is much harder. The Great Sphinx is one of the world's largest and oldest statues, but basic facts about it are still subject to debate, such as when it was built, by whom and for what purpose. It is impossible to identify what name


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: the creators called their statue, as the Great Sphinx does not appear in any known inscription of the Old Kingdom and there are no inscriptions anywhere describing its construction or its original purpose. In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx was revered as the solar deity "Hor-em-akhet" (; ; Hellenized: "Harmachis"), and the pharaoh Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC) specifically referred to it as such in his "Dream Stele". The commonly used name "Sphinx" was given to it in classical antiquity, about 2000 years after the commonly accepted date of its construction by reference to a Greek mythological beast with


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: a lion's body, a woman's head and the wings of an eagle (although, like most Egyptian sphinxes, the Great Sphinx has a man's head and no wings). The English word "sphinx" comes from the ancient Greek Σφίγξ ( ) apparently from the verb σφίγγω ( / ), after the Greek sphinx who strangled anyone who failed to answer her riddle. The name may alternatively be a linguistic corruption of the phonetically different ancient Egyptian word "Ssp-anx" (in Manuel de Codage). This name is given to royal statues of the Fourth dynasty of ancient Egypt (2575–2467 BC) and later in the


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: New Kingdom () to the Great Sphinx more specifically. Medieval Arab writers, including al-Maqrīzī, call the Sphinx "balhib" and "bilhaw", which suggest a Coptic influence. The modern Egyptian Arabic name is (, ). Though there have been conflicting evidence and viewpoints over the years, the view held by modern Egyptology at large remains that the Great Sphinx was built in approximately 2500 BC for the pharaoh Khafra, the builder of the Second Pyramid at Giza. Selim Hassan, writing in 1949 on recent excavations of the Sphinx enclosure, summed up the problem: The "circumstantial" evidence mentioned by Hassan includes the Sphinx's


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: location in the context of the funerary complex surrounding the Second Pyramid, which is traditionally connected with Khafra. Apart from the Causeway, the Pyramid and the Sphinx, the complex also includes the Sphinx Temple and Valley Temple, both of which display similar design of their inner courts. The Sphinx Temple was built using blocks cut from the Sphinx enclosure, while those of the Valley Temple were quarried from the plateau, some of the largest weighing upwards of 100 tons. A diorite statue of Khafre, which was discovered buried upside down along with other debris in the Valley Temple, is claimed


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: as support for the Khafra theory. The Dream Stele, erected much later by the pharaoh Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC), associates the Sphinx with Khafra. When the stele was discovered, its lines of text were already damaged and incomplete, and only referred to "Khaf", not Khafra. An extract was translated: Egyptologist Thomas Young, finding the "Khaf" hieroglyphs in a damaged cartouche used to surround a royal name, inserted the glyph "ra" to complete Khafra's name. When the Stele was re-excavated in 1925, the lines of text referring to "Khaf" flaked off and were destroyed. Theories held by academic Egyptologists


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: regarding the builder of the Sphinx and the date of its construction are not universally accepted, and various persons have proposed alternative hypotheses about both the builder and dating. Some early Egyptologists and excavators of the Giza pyramid complex believed the Great Sphinx and associated temples to predate the fourth dynasty rule of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. Flinders Petrie wrote in 1883 regarding the state of opinion regarding the age of the nearby temples, and by extension the Sphinx: "The date of the Granite Temple [Valley Temple] has been so positively asserted to be earlier than the fourth dynasty, that


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: it may seem rash to dispute the point". In 1857, Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, unearthed the much later Inventory Stela (estimated Dynasty XXVI, c. 678–525 BC), which tells how Khufu came upon the Sphinx, already buried in sand. Although certain tracts on the Stela are considered good evidence, this passage is widely dismissed as Late Period historical revisionism, a purposeful fake, created by the local priests with the attempt to certify the contemporary Isis temple an ancient history it never had. Such an act became common when religious institutions such as temples, shrines and priest's


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: domains were fighting for political attention and for financial and economic donations. Gaston Maspero, the French Egyptologist and second director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, conducted a survey of the Sphinx in 1886. He concluded that because the Dream stela showed the cartouche of Khafre in line thirteen, it was he who was responsible for the excavation and therefore the Sphinx must predate Khafre and his predecessors—possibly Dynasty IV, . English Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge agreed that the Sphinx predated Khafre's reign, writing in "The Gods of the Egyptians" (1914): "This marvelous object [the Great Sphinx] was in


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: existence in the days of Khafre, or Khephren, and it is probable that it is a very great deal older than his reign and that it dates from the end of the archaic period []." Maspero believed the Sphinx to be "the most ancient monument in Egypt". Rainer Stadelmann, former director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, examined the distinct iconography of the "nemes" (headdress) and the now-detached beard of the Sphinx and concluded the style is more indicative of the Pharaoh Khufu (2589–2566 BC), known to the Greeks as Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza and


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: Khafra's father. He supports this by suggesting Khafra's Causeway was built to conform to a pre-existing structure, which, he concludes, given its location, could only have been the Sphinx. Colin Reader, an English geologist who independently conducted a more recent survey of the enclosure, agrees the various quarries on the site have been excavated around the Causeway. Because these quarries are known to have been used by Khufu, Reader concludes that the Causeway (and the temples on either end thereof) must predate Khufu, thereby casting doubt on the conventional Egyptian chronology. Frank Domingo, a forensic scientist in the New York


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: City Police Department and an expert forensic anthropologist, used detailed measurements of the Sphinx, forensic drawings and computer imaging to conclude the face depicted on the Sphinx is not the same face as is depicted on a statue attributed to Khafra. In 2004, Vassil Dobrev of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo announced he had uncovered new evidence the Great Sphinx may have been the work of the little-known Pharaoh Djedefre (2528–2520 BC), Khafra's half brother and a son of Khufu. Dobrev suggests Djedefre built the Sphinx in the image of his father Khufu, identifying him with the sun


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: god Ra in order to restore respect for their dynasty. Dobrev also notes, like Stadelmann and others, the causeway connecting Khafre's pyramid to the temples was built around the Sphinx, suggesting it was already in existence at the time. The Orion correlation theory, as expounded by popular authors Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval, is based on the proposed exact correlation of the three pyramids at Giza with the three stars ζ Ori, ε Ori and δ Ori, the stars forming Orion's Belt, in the relative positions occupied by these stars in 10500 BC. The authors argue that the geographic relationship


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: of the Sphinx, the Giza pyramids and the Nile directly corresponds with Leo, Orion and the Milky Way respectively. Sometimes cited as an example of pseudoarchaeology, the theory is at variance with mainstream scholarship. The Sphinx water erosion hypothesis contends that the main type of weathering evident on the enclosure walls of the Great Sphinx could only have been caused by prolonged and extensive rainfall, and must therefore predate the time of the pharaoh Khafra. The hypothesis is championed by René Schwaller de Lubicz (1887–1961), who lived and studied Egyptology for 12 years in Egypt, and by Robert M. Schoch,


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: a geologist and associate professor of natural science at the College of General Studies at Boston University, as well as by John Anthony West, an author and alternative Egyptologist. Colin Reader, a British geologist, studied the erosion patterns and noticed that they are found predominantly on the western enclosure wall and not on the Sphinx itself. He proposed the rainfall water runoff hypothesis, which also recognizes climate change transitions in the area. Author Robert K. G. Temple proposes that the Sphinx was originally a statue of the Jackal-Dog Anubis, the God of the Necropolis, and that its face was recarved


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: in the likeness of a Middle Kingdom pharaoh, Amenemhet II. Temple bases his identification on the style of the eye make-up and style of the pleats on the headdress. Over the years several authors have commented on what they perceive as "Negroid" characteristics in the face of the Sphinx. This issue has become part of the Ancient Egyptian race controversy, with respect to the ancient population as a whole. At some unknown time the Giza Necropolis was abandoned, and the Sphinx was eventually buried up to its shoulders in sand. The first documented attempt at an excavation dates to ,


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: when the young Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC) gathered a team and, after much effort, managed to dig out the front paws, between which he placed a granite slab, known as the Dream Stele, inscribed with the following excerpt: Later, Ramesses II the Great (1279–1213 BC) may have undertaken a second excavation. Mark Lehner, an Egyptologist who has excavated and mapped the Giza plateau, originally asserted that there had been a far earlier renovation during the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2184 BC), although he has subsequently recanted this viewpoint. In AD 1817 the first modern archaeological dig, supervised by the


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: Italian Giovanni Battista Caviglia, uncovered the Sphinx's chest completely. One of the people working on clearing the sands from around the Great Sphinx was Eugène Grébaut, a French Director of the Antiquities Service The entire Sphinx was finally excavated in 1925 to 1936, in digs led by Émile Baraize. In 1931 engineers of the Egyptian government repaired the head of the Sphinx. Part of its headdress had fallen off in 1926 due to erosion, which had also cut deeply into its neck. This questionable repair was by the addition of a concrete collar between the headdress and the neck, creating


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: an altered profile. Many renovations to the stone base and raw rock body were done in the 1980s, and then redone in the 1990s. The one-metre-wide nose on the face is missing. Examination of the Sphinx's face shows that long rods or chisels were hammered into the nose, one down from the bridge and one beneath the nostril, then used to pry the nose off towards the south. The Arab historian al-Maqrīzī, writing in the 15th century, attributes the loss of the nose to iconoclasm by Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr—a Sufi Muslim from the khanqah of Sa'id al-Su'ada—in AD 1378, upon


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: finding the local peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest. Enraged, he destroyed the nose, and was later hanged for vandalism. Al-Maqrīzī describes the Sphinx as the "talisman of the Nile" on which the locals believed the flood cycle depended. There is a story that the nose was broken off by a cannonball fired by Napoleon's soldiers. Other variants indict British troops, the Mamluks, and others. Sketches of the Sphinx by the Dane Frederic Louis Norden, made in 1738 and published in 1757, show the Sphinx missing its nose. This predates Napoleon's birth in


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: 1769. In addition to the lost nose, a ceremonial pharaonic beard is thought to have been attached, although this may have been added in later periods after the original construction. Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev has suggested that had the beard been an original part of the Sphinx, it would have damaged the chin of the statue upon falling. The lack of visible damage supports his theory that the beard was a later addition. Residues of red pigment are visible on areas of the Sphinx's face. Traces of yellow and blue pigment have been found elsewhere on the Sphinx, leading Mark Lehner


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: to suggest that the monument "was once decked out in gaudy comic book colors". Colin Reader has proposed that the Sphinx was probably the focus of solar worship in the Early Dynastic Period, before the Giza Plateau became a necropolis in the Old Kingdom (). He ties this in with his conclusions that the Sphinx, the Sphinx temple, the Causeway and the Khafra mortuary temple are all part of a complex which predates Dynasty IV (). The lion has long been a symbol associated with the sun in ancient Near Eastern civilizations. Images depicting the Egyptian king in the form


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: of a lion smiting his enemies date as far back as the Early Dynastic Period. In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx became more specifically associated with the god "Hor-em-akhet" (Hellenized: "Harmachis") or "Horus-at-the-Horizon", which represented the pharaoh in his role as the "Shesep-ankh" (English: "Living Image") of the god Atum. Pharaoh Amenhotep II (1427–1401 or 1397 BC) built a temple to the north east of the Sphinx nearly 1000 years after its construction, and dedicated it to the cult of "Hor-em-akhet". In the last 700 years, there has been a proliferation of travellers and reports from Lower Egypt, unlike Upper


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: Egypt, which was seldom reported from prior to the mid-18th century. Alexandria, Rosetta, Damietta, Cairo and the Giza Pyramids are described repeatedly, but not necessarily comprehensively. Many accounts were published and widely read. These include those of George Sandys, André Thévet, Athanasius Kircher, Balthasar de Monconys, Jean de Thévenot, John Greaves, Johann Michael Vansleb, Benoît de Maillet, Cornelis de Bruijn, Paul Lucas, Richard Pococke, Frederic Louis Norden and others. But there is an even larger set of more anonymous people who wrote obscure and little-read works, sometimes only unpublished manuscripts in libraries or private collections, including Henry Castela, Hans Ludwig


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: von Lichtenstein, Michael Heberer von Bretten, Wilhelm von Boldensele, Pierre Belon du Mans, Vincent Stochove, Christophe Harant, Gilles Fermanel, Robert Fauvel, Jean Palerne Foresien, Willian Lithgow, Joos van Ghistele, etc. Over the centuries, writers and scholars have recorded their impressions and reactions upon seeing the Sphinx. The vast majority were concerned with a general description, often including a mixture of science, romance and mystique. A typical description of the Sphinx by tourists and leisure travelers throughout the 19th and 20th century was made by John Lawson Stoddard: From the 16th century far into the 19th century, observers repeatedly noted that


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: the Sphinx has the face, neck and breast of a woman. Examples included Johannes Helferich (1579), George Sandys (1615), Johann Michael Vansleb (1677), Benoît de Maillet (1735) and Elliot Warburton (1844). Most early Western images were book illustrations in print form, elaborated by a professional engraver from either previous images available or some original drawing or sketch supplied by an author, and usually now lost. Seven years after visiting Giza, André Thévet ("Cosmographie de Levant", 1556) described the Sphinx as "the head of a colossus, caused to be made by Isis, daughter of Inachus, then so beloved of Jupiter". He,


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: or his artist and engraver, pictured it as a curly-haired monster with a grassy dog collar. Athanasius Kircher (who never visited Egypt) depicted the Sphinx as a Roman statue, reflecting his ability to conceptualize ("Turris Babel", 1679). Johannes Helferich's (1579) Sphinx is a pinched-face, round-breasted woman with a straight haired wig; the only edge over Thévet is that the hair suggests the flaring lappets of the headdress. George Sandys stated that the Sphinx was a harlot; Balthasar de Monconys interpreted the headdress as a kind of hairnet, while François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz's Sphinx had a rounded hairdo with bulky


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: collar. Richard Pococke's Sphinx was an adoption of Cornelis de Bruijn's drawing of 1698, featuring only minor changes, but is closer to the actual appearance of the Sphinx than anything previous. The print versions of Norden's careful drawings for his "Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie", 1755 are the first to clearly show that the nose was missing. However, from the time of the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt onwards, a number of accurate images were widely available in Europe, and copied by others. "Mystery of the Sphinx", narrated by Charlton Heston, a documentary presenting the theories of John Anthony West, was


title: "Great Sphinx of Giza" content: shown as an NBC Special on 10 November 1993. A 95-minute DVD, "Mystery of the Sphinx: Expanded Edition", was released in 2007. "Age of the Sphinx", a BBC Two Timewatch documentary presenting the theories of John Anthony West and critical to both sides of the argument, was shown on 27 November 1994. In 2008, the film "10,000 BC" showed a supposed original Sphinx with a lion's head. Before this film, this lion head theory had been published in documentary films about the origin of the Sphinx. Great Sphinx of Giza The Great Sphinx of Giza (, , ; literally: Father


title: "Mammoth Hot Springs" content: Mammoth Hot Springs Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine in Yellowstone National Park adjacent to Fort Yellowstone and the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District. It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two tons flow into Mammoth each day in a solution). Because of the huge amount of geothermal vents, travertine flourishes. Although these springs lie outside the caldera boundary, their energy has been attributed to the same magmatic system that fuels other Yellowstone geothermal areas. The hot water that


title: "Mammoth Hot Springs" content: feeds Mammoth comes from Norris Geyser Basin after traveling underground via a fault line that runs through limestone and roughly parallel to the Norris-to-Mammoth road. The limestone from rock formations along the fault is the source of the calcium carbonate. Shallow circulation along this corridor allows Norris' superheated water to slightly cool before surfacing at Mammoth, generally at about . Algae living in the warm pools have tinted the travertine shades of brown, orange, red, and green. Thermal activity here is extensive both over time and distance. The thermal flows show much variability with some variations taking place over periods


title: "Mammoth Hot Springs" content: ranging from decades to days. Terrace Mountain at Mammoth Hot Springs is the largest known carbonate-depositing spring in the world. The most famous feature at the springs is the Minerva Terrace, a series of travertine terraces. The terraces have been deposited by the spring over many years but, due to recent minor earthquake activity, the spring vent has shifted, rendering the terraces dry. The Mammoth Terraces extend all the way from the hillside, across the Parade Ground, and down to Boiling River. The Mammoth Hotel, as well as all of Fort Yellowstone, is built upon an old terrace formation known


title: "Mammoth Hot Springs" content: as Hotel Terrace. There was some concern when construction began in 1891 on the fort site that the hollow ground would not support the weight of the buildings. Several large sink holes (fenced off) can be seen out on the Parade Ground. This area has been thermally active for several thousand years. The Mammoth area exhibits much evidence of glacial activity from the Pinedale Glaciation. The summit of Terrace Mountain is covered with glacial till, thereby dating the travertine formation there to earlier than the end of the Pinedale Glaciation. Several thermal kames, including Capitol Hill and Dude Hill, are


title: "Mammoth Hot Springs" content: major features of the Mammoth Village area. Ice-marginal stream beds are in evidence in the small, narrow valleys where Floating Island Lake and Phantom Lake are found. In Gardner Canyon one can see the old, sorted gravel bed of the Gardner River covered by unsorted glacial till. Mammoth Hot Springs Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine in Yellowstone National Park adjacent to Fort Yellowstone and the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District. It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two


title: "Leyte (province)" content: No. 2227" was passed into law that separated the third Congressional District of Leyte into a separate province of Southern Leyte. During the World War II era, the Leyte Provincial Capitol briefly became the seat of Philippine Commonwealth Government. The Battle of Leyte Gulf took place in the seas surrounding this island from 23 October to 26 October 1944. It was the largest naval battle in modern history, when at least 212 Allied ships clashed with the remnants of the Imperial Japanese Navy, some 60 ships, including the super battleships Yamato and Musashi. The First Battle of Leyte occurred on


title: Liberec content: finally Liberec (1845). In Czech, words starting with "R" were often dissimilated into "L". Since then, the city was known as Liberec in Czech and as Reichenberg in German (changing to Liberec after World War II). Hablau, the name of the old street near city center, is considered to be a trace of the old village possibly founded by Havel of Lemberk, husband of Saint Zdislava Berka. Liberec's prominent buildings are the Town Hall (1893), the Liberec Castle (Liberecký zámek), built in the 16th century, and the Ještěd Tower (1968) upon the Ještěd Mountain, build by architect Karel Hubáček, which


title: "ALF (TV series)" content: four seasons and produced 99 episodes, including three one-hour episodes that were divided into two parts for syndication, totaling 102 episodes. In August 2018, Warner Bros. Television announced development of an "ALF" reboot. ALF is an alien from the planet Melmac who follows an amateur radio signal to Earth and crash-lands into the garage of the Tanners. The Tanners are a suburban middle-class family in the San Fernando Valley area of California. The family consists of social worker Willie (Max Wright), his wife Kate (Anne Schedeen), their teenage daughter Lynn (Andrea Elson), younger son Brian (Benji Gregory), and their cat


title: "Oil Springs Reservation" content: the spring at this site for medicinal purposes. French Jesuit missionaries learned about its properties from the Seneca and recorded the spring as early as the 17th century. Today the Seneca operate two tax-free gas stations on this reservation to generate revenue for their people's welfare. When the French Jesuit missionary Joseph de La Roche Daillon reached this area in 1627, the Oil Springs were held by the now defunct Wenro, an Iroquoian-speaking tribe. The Wenro abandoned the area in 1639, hoping to retrench with their allies the Huron further northwest, as their eastern neighbors, the Seneca of the Iroquois


title: "Elimination theory" content: ignored, until the introduction of computers, and more specifically of computer algebra, which set the problem of designing elimination algorithms that are sufficiently efficient for being implemented. The main methods for this renewing of elimination theory are Gröbner bases and cylindrical algebraic decomposition, which were introduced around 1970. There is also a logical facet to elimination theory, as seen in the Boolean satisfiability problem. In the worst case, it is presumably hard to eliminate variables computationally. "Quantifier elimination" is a term used in mathematical logic to explain that, in some theories, every formula is equivalent to a formula without quantifier.


title: "M. Witmark & Sons" content: Alley M. Witmark & Sons M. Witmark & Sons was a leading publisher of sheet music for the United States "Tin Pan Alley" music industry. The firm of Marcus Witmark & Sons was established in New York City in 1886. The father, Marcus Witmark, was the legal head of the company; but from the beginning it was run by his sons Isidore, Julius, and Jay, who were under legal age when the company started (ranging in age from 17 to 14 years old). They started out publishing their own compositions. They were adept at "plugging" songs, and within a few


title: "Creative Commons license" content: for content and data. Work licensed under a Creative Commons license is governed by applicable copyright law. This allows Creative Commons licenses to be applied to all work falling under copyright, including: books, plays, movies, music, articles, photographs, blogs, and websites. While Software is also governed by copyright law and CC licenses are applicable, the Creative Commons recommends Free and open-source software software licenses instead of Creative Commons licenses. Outside the FOSS licensing use case for software there are to utilize CC licenses to specify a "Freeware" license model; examples are The White Chamber, Mari0 or Assault Cube. Also the


title: "Battle of Myriokephalon" content: Empire, with the sultan recognising a form of subordination to the Byzantine emperor. Immediately after peace was negotiated the Seljuk sultan Kilij Arslan II visited Constantinople where he was treated by Emperor Manuel I Komnenos as both an honoured guest and an imperial vassal. Following this event there was no overt hostility between the two powers for many years. It was a fragile peace, however, as the Seljuks wanted to push from the arid central plateau of Asia Minor into the more fertile coastal lands, while the Byzantines wanted to recover the Anatolian territory they had lost since the Battle


title: "Cheyney University of Pennsylvania" content: the first ever NCAA men's and women's basketball coaches who are brother and sister. The men's coach was Dominique Stephens, a North Carolina Central University graduate and member of the NCAA Division II Basketball Championship team, and the women's coach was Marilyn Stephens, the Temple University Hall of Famer. During the 2007-08 through 2010-11 academic years, the university violated NCAA rules in the certification of initial, transfer and continuing eligibility involving all sports programs. During the four-year period, numerous student-athletes competed while ineligible due to improper certification. In amateurism certification alone, 109 student-athletes practiced, competed and received travel expenses and/or


title: Kinkaku-ji content: Kinkaku-ji , officially named , is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. It is one of the most popular buildings in Japan, attracting a large number of visitors annually. It is designated as a National Special Historic Site, a National Special Landscape and is one of 17 locations making up the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto which are World Heritage Sites. The site of Kinkaku-ji was originally a villa called "Kitayama-dai" (北山第), belonging to a powerful statesman, Saionji Kintsune. Kinkaku-ji's history dates to 1397, when the villa was purchased from the Saionji family by "shōgun" Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and transformed


title: Kinkaku-ji content: into the Kinkaku-ji complex. When Yoshimitsu died the building was converted into a Zen temple by his son, according to his wishes. During the Ōnin war (1467–1477), all of the buildings in the complex aside from the pavilion were burned down. On July 2, 1950, at 2:30 am, the pavilion was burned down by a 22-year-old novice monk, Hayashi Yoken, who then attempted suicide on the Daimon-ji hill behind the building. He survived, and was subsequently taken into custody. The monk was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released because of mental illnesses (persecution complex and schizophrenia) on


title: Kinkaku-ji content: September 29, 1955; he died of tuberculosis in March 1956. During the fire, the original statue of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was lost to the flames (now restored). A fictionalized version of these events is at the center of Yukio Mishima's 1956 book "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion". The present pavilion structure dates from 1955, when it was rebuilt. The pavilion is three stories high, in height. The reconstruction is said to be a copy close to the original, although some doubt such an extensive gold-leaf coating was used on the original structure. In 1984 the coating of Japanese lacquer was


title: Kinkaku-ji content: found to be a little decayed and a new coating, as well as gilding with gold-leaf, much thicker than the original coatings (0.5 µm instead of 0.1 µm), was completed in 1987. Additionally, the interior of the building, including the paintings and Yoshimitsu's statue, were also restored. Finally, the roof was restored in 2003. The name Kinkaku is derived from the gold leaf that the pavilion is covered in. Gold was an important addition to the pavilion because of its underlying meaning. The gold employed was intended to mitigate and purify any pollution or negative thoughts and feelings towards death.


title: Kinkaku-ji content: Other than the symbolic meaning behind the gold leaf, the Muromachi period heavily relied on visual excesses. With the focus on the Golden Pavilion, the way that the structure is mainly covered in that material creates an impression that stands out because of the sunlight reflecting and the effect the reflection creates on the pond. The is a three-story building on the grounds of the Rokuon-ji temple complex. The top two stories of the pavilion are covered with pure gold leaf. The pavilion functions as a "shariden" (舎利殿), housing relics of the Buddha (Buddha's Ashes). The building was an important


title: Kinkaku-ji content: model for Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion Temple) and Shōkoku-ji, which are also located in Kyoto. When these buildings were constructed, Ashikaga Yoshimasa employed the styles used at Kinkaku-ji and even borrowed the names of its second and third floors. The pavilion successfully incorporates three distinct styles of architecture, which are shinden, samurai and zen, specifically on each floor. Each floor of the Kinkaku uses a different architectural style. The first floor, called "The Chamber of Dharma Waters" (法水院, Hō-sui-in), is rendered in "shinden-zukuri" style, reminiscent of the residential style of the 11th century Heian imperial aristocracy. It is evocative of the


title: Kinkaku-ji content: Shinden palace style. It is designed as an open space with adjacent verandas and uses natural, unpainted wood and white plaster. This helps to emphasize the surrounding landscape. The walls and fenestration also affect the views from inside the pavilion. Most of the walls are made of shutters that can vary the amount of light and air into the pavilion and change the view by controlling the shutters' heights. The second floor, called "The Tower of Sound Waves" (潮音洞, Chō-on-dō ), is built in the style of warrior aristocrats, or "buke-zukuri". On this floor, sliding wood doors and latticed windows


title: Kinkaku-ji content: create a feeling of impermanence. The second floor also contains a Buddha Hall and a shrine dedicated to the goddess of mercy, Kannon. The third floor is built in traditional Chinese "chán" (Jpn. zen) style, also known as "zenshū-butsuden-zukuri". It is called the "Cupola of the Ultimate" (究竟頂, Kukkyō-chō). The zen typology depicts a more religious ambiance in the pavilion, as was popular during the Muromachi period. The roof is in a thatched pyramid with shingles. The building is topped with a bronze "hōō" (phoenix) ornament. From the outside, viewers can see gold plating added to the upper stories of


title: Kinkaku-ji content: the pavilion. The gold leaf covering the upper stories hints at what is housed inside: the shrines. The outside is a reflection of the inside. The elements of nature, death, religion, are formed together to create this connection between the pavilion and outside intrusions. The Golden Pavilion is set in a magnificent Japanese . The location implements the idea of borrowing of scenery ("shakkei") that integrates the outside and the inside, creating an extension of the views surrounding the pavilion and connecting it with the outside world. The pavilion extends over a pond, called , that reflects the building. The


title: Kinkaku-ji content: pond contains 10 smaller islands. The zen typology is seen through the rock composition; the bridges and plants are arranged in a specific way to represent famous places in Chinese and Japanese literature. Vantage points and focal points were established because of the strategic placement of the pavilion to view the gardens surrounding the pavilion. A small is attached to the rear of the pavilion building, allowing a small boat to be moored under it. The pavilion grounds were built according to descriptions of the Western Paradise of the Buddha Amida, intending to illustrate a harmony between heaven and earth.


title: Kinkaku-ji content: The largest islet in the pond represents the Japanese islands. The four stones forming a straight line in the pond near the pavilion are intended to represent sailboats anchored at night, bound for the "Isle of Eternal Life" in Chinese mythology. The garden complex is an excellent example of Muromachi period garden design. The Muromachi period is considered to be a classical age of Japanese garden design. The correlation between buildings and its settings were greatly emphasized during this period. It was a way to integrate the structure within the landscape in an artistic way. The garden designs were characterized


title: Kinkaku-ji content: by a reduction in scale, a more central purpose and a distinct setting. A minimalistic approach was brought to the garden design, by recreating larger landscapes in a smaller scale around a structure. Kinkaku-ji , officially named , is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. It is one of the most popular buildings in Japan, attracting a large number of visitors annually. It is designated as a National Special Historic Site, a National Special Landscape and is one of 17 locations making up the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto which are World Heritage Sites. The site of Kinkaku-ji was


title: "Music of South Africa" content: today, outselling even kwaito artists. Their debut album "Wangisiza Baba" was a major hit in the country. Cape Town-based female artist Verity has been recognised internationally for innovation in the music industry for selling 2000 copies of her album Journey before it was actually recorded. Rap group "2 and a Half Secondz" has found recognition in Cape Town suburb, Delft since 2009. Cape town based band Crimson House has made waves throughout the live circuit being hailed as one of the greatest live acts in the country garners healthy ever growing fanbase. In addition Willim Welsyn, part of the Afrikaans


title: "Golden rice" content: no further questions concerning human or animal food derived from GR2E rice at this time." This marks the fourth national health organisation to approve the use of golden rice in 2018, joining Australia, Canada and New Zealand who issued their assessments earlier in the year. On August 8, 2013 an experimental plot of golden rice being developed at IRRI in the Philippines was uprooted by protesters. British author Mark Lynas reported in Slate that the vandalism was carried out by a group of activists led by the extreme left-inclined "Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas" (KMP) (unofficial translation: "Farmers' Movement of the


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: Monarch butterfly The monarch butterfly or simply monarch ("Danaus plexippus") is a milkweed butterfly (subfamily Danainae) in the family Nymphalidae. Other common names depending on region include milkweed, common tiger, wanderer, and black veined brown. It may be the most familiar North American butterfly, and is considered an iconic pollinator species. Its wings feature an easily recognizable black, orange, and white pattern, with a wingspan of The viceroy butterfly is similar in color and pattern, but is markedly smaller and has an extra black stripe across each hindwing. The eastern North American monarch population is notable for its annual southward


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: late-summer/autumn migration from the northern and central United States and southern Canada to Florida and Mexico. During the fall migration, monarchs cover thousands of miles, with a corresponding multi-generational return north. The western North American population of monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains often migrates to sites in southern California but has been found in overwintering Mexican sites as well. Monarchs were transported to the International Space Station and were bred there. The name "monarch" is believed to be given in honor of King William III of England, whose secondary title Prince of Orange makes a reference to the butterfly's


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: main color. The monarch was originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his "Systema Naturae" of 1758 and placed in the genus "Papilio". In 1780, Jan Krzysztof Kluk used the monarch as the type species for a new genus "Danaus". Danaus (Ancient Greek ), a great-grandson of Zeus, was a mythical king in Egypt or Libya, who founded Argos; "Plexippus" () was one of the 50 sons of Aegyptus, the twin brother of Danaus. In Homeric Greek, his name means "one who urges on horses", i.e. "rider" or "charioteer". In the 10th edition of "Systema Naturae", at the bottom of page


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: 467, Linnaeus wrote that the names of the "Danai festivi", the division of the genus to which "Papilio plexippus" belonged, were derived from the sons of Aegyptus. Linnaeus divided his large genus "Papilio", containing all known butterfly species, into what we would now call subgenera. The "Danai festivi" formed one of the "subgenera", containing colorful species, as opposed to the "Danai candidi", containing species with bright white wings. Linnaeus wrote: "" (English: "The names of the "Danai candidi" have been derived from the daughters of Danaus, those of the "Danai festivi" from the sons of Aegyptus.") Robert Michael Pyle suggested


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: "Danaus" is a masculinized version of Danaë (Greek ), Danaus's great-great-granddaughter, to whom Zeus came as a shower of gold, which seemed to him a more appropriate source for the name of this butterfly. There are three species of monarch butterflies: Six subspecies and two color morphs of "D. plexippus" have been identified: The percentage of the white morph in Oahu is nearing 10%. On other Hawaiian islands, the white morph occurs at a relatively low frequency. White monarchs ("nivosus") have been found throughout the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, and the United States. Some taxonomists disagree on these


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: classifications. Monarchs belong in the subfamily Danainae of the family Nymphalidae; Danainae was formerly considered a separately family Danaidae. A 2015 paper identified genes from wasp bracoviruses in the genome of the North American monarch leading to articles about monarch butterflies being genetically modified organisms. Commonly and easily mistaken for the similar viceroy butterfly, the monarch's wingspan ranges from . The uppersides of the wings are tawny orange, the veins and margins are black, and there are two series of small white spots in the margins. Monarch forewings also have a few orange spots near their tips. Wing undersides are


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: similar, but the tips of forewings and hindwings are yellow brown instead of tawny orange and the white spots are larger. The shape and color of the wings change at the beginning of the migration and appear redder and more elongated than later migrants. Wings size and shape differ between migratory and non-migratory monarchs. Monarchs from eastern North America have larger and more angular forewings than those in the western population. Monarch flight has been described as "slow and sailing". Monarch flight speed has been estimated by a number of researchers. One scientist examined all prior estimates and concluded their


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: flight speed is approximately 9 km/hr or 5.5 mph. For comparison, the average human jogs at a rate of 6–8 mph. Adults exhibit sexual dimorphism. Males are slightly larger than females and have a black patch or spot of androconial scales on each hindwing (in some butterflies, these patches disperse pheromones, but are not known to do so in monarchs). The male's black wing veins are lighter and narrower than those of females. One variation, the "white monarch", observed in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and the United States, is called "nivosus" by lepidopterists. It is grayish white in all areas


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: of its wings that are normally orange and is only about 1% or less of all monarchs, but populations as high as 10% exist on Oahu in Hawaii. The monarch has six legs like all insects, but uses only its middle legs and hindlegs as the forelegs are vestigial, as in all other Nymphalidae, and held against its body. A study in 2015 examined a preserved collection of male and female monarch specimens from eastern North America to evaluate the sex-based differences in fine-scale wing and body structure. The study found significant differences in overall wing size and in the


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: physical dimensions of wings. Males tended to have larger wings than females, and were heavier than females, on average. Both males and females had similar thorax dimensions (wing muscles are contained in the thorax). Female monarchs tended to have thicker wings, which is thought to convey greater tensile strength. This would make female wings less likely to be damaged during migration. Also, females had lower wing loading than males (wing loading is a value derived from the ratio of wing size to body weight), which would mean females require less energy to fly. The range of the western and eastern


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: populations of "D. plexippus plexippus" expands and contracts depending upon the season. The range differs between breeding areas, migration routes, and winter roosts. However, no genetic differences between the western and eastern monarch populations exist; reproductive isolation has not led to subspeciation of these populations, as it has elsewhere within the species' range. In the Americas, the monarch ranges from southern Canada through northern South America. It has also been found in Bermuda, Cook Islands, Hawaii, Cuba, and other Caribbean islands the Solomons, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Australia, the Azores, the Canary Islands, Gibraltar, the Philippines, and


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: North Africa. It appears in the UK in some years as an accidental migrant. Overwintering populations of "D. plexippus plexippus" are found in Mexico, California, along the Gulf Coast, year round in Florida, and in Arizona where the habitat has the specific conditions necessary for their survival. On the US East Coast, they have overwintered as far north as Lago Mar, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Their wintering habitat typically provides access to streams, plenty of sunlight (enabling body temperatures that allow flight), and appropriate roosting vegetation, and is relatively free of predators. Overwintering, roosting butterflies have been seen on basswoods, elms,


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: sumacs, locusts, oaks, osage-oranges, mulberries, pecans, willows, cottonwoods, and mesquites. While breeding, monarch habitats can be found in agricultural fields, pasture land, prairie remnants, urban and suburban residential areas, gardens, trees, and roadsides – anywhere where there is access to larval host plants. Habitat restoration is a primary goal in monarch conservation efforts. Habitat requirements change during migration. During the fall migration, butterflies must have access to nectar-producing plants. During the spring migration, butterflies must have access to larval food plants and nectar plants. The monarch butterfly undergoes four stages of complete metamorphosis: The eggs are derived from materials ingested


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: as a larva and from the spermatophores received from males during mating. Eggs are laid singly on the underside of a young leaf of a milkweed plant during the spring and summer months. The eggs are cream colored or light green, ovate to conical in shape, and about 1.2×0.9 mm in size. The eggs weigh less than 0.5 mg each and have raised ridges that form longitudinally from the point to apex to the base. Though each egg is the mass of the female, she may lay up to her own mass in eggs. Females lay smaller eggs as they


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: age. Larger females lay larger eggs. The number of eggs laid by a female, who may mate several times, ranges from 290 to 1180. Females lay their eggs on milkweed; the offsprings' consumption of the milkweed benefits health and helps defend them against predators. Eggs take 3 to 8 days to develop and hatch into larva or caterpillars. Monarchs will lay eggs along the southern migration route. The caterpillar goes through five major, distinct stages of growth and after each one, it molts. Each caterpillar, or instar, that molts is larger than the previous as it eats and stores energy


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: in the form of fat and nutrients to carry it through the nonfeeding pupal stage. The first instar caterpillar that emerges out of the egg is pale green and translucent. It lacks banding coloration or tentacles. The larvae or caterpillar eats its egg case and begins to feed on milkweed. It is during this stage of growth that the caterpillar begins to sequester cardenolides. The circular motion a caterpillar uses while eating milkweed prevents the flow of latex that could entrap it. The second instar larva develops a characteristic pattern of white, yellow and black transverse bands. It is no


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: longer translucent but is covered in short setae. Pairs of black tentacles begin to grow. One pair grows on the thorax and another pair on the abdomen. The third instar larva has more distinct bands and the two pairs of tentacles become longer. Legs on the thorax differentiate into a smaller pair near the head and larger pairs further back. These third-stage caterpillars begin to eat along the leaf edges. The fourth instar has a different banding pattern. It develops white spots on the prolegs near the back of the caterpillar. The fifth instar larva has a more complex banding


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: pattern and white dots on the prolegs, with front legs that are small and very close to the head. At this stage of development, it is relatively large compared to the earlier instars. The caterpillar completes its growth. At this point, it is 25 to 45 mm long and 5 to 8 mm wide. This can be compared to the first instar, which was 2 to 6 mm long and 0.5 to 1.5 mm wide. Fifth-instar larvae increase in weight 2000 times from first instars. Fifth-stage instar larva chew through the petiole or midrib of milkweed leaves and stop the


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: flow of latex. After this, they eat more leaf tissue. Before pupation, larvae must consume milkweed to increase their mass. Larvae stop feeding and search for a pupation site. The caterpillar attaches itself securely to a horizontal surface, using a silk pad. At this point, it latches on with its hindlegs and hangs down. It then molts into an opaque, blue-green chrysalis with small gold dots. At normal summer temperatures, it matures in 8–15 days. The cuticle of the chrysalis becomes transparent and the monarch's characteristic orange-and-black wings become visible. At the end of metamorphosis, the adult emerges from the


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: chrysalis, expands and dries its wings, and flies away. Monarch metamorphosis from egg to adult occurs during the warm summer temperatures in as little as 25 days, extending to as many as seven weeks during cool spring conditions. During the development, both larvae and their milkweed hosts are vulnerable to weather extremes, predators, parasites and diseases; commonly fewer than 10% of monarch eggs and caterpillars survive. In the pupa or chrysalis stage, the caterpillar spins a silk pad on to a horizontal substrate. It then hangs from the pad by the last pair of prolegs upside down, resembling the letter


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: "J". It sheds its skin, leaving itself encased in an articulated green exoskeleton. During this pupal stage, the adult butterfly forms inside. The exoskeleton becomes transparent before it ecloses (emerges), and its adult colors can finally be seen. An adult butterfly emerges after about two weeks as a chrysalid, and hangs upside down until its wings are dry. Fluids are pumped into the wings, and they expand and stiffen. The monarch expands and retracts its wings, and once conditions allow, it then flies and feeds on a variety of nectar plants. During the breeding season adults reach sexual maturity in


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: four or five days. However, the migrating generation does not reach maturity until overwintering is complete. Monarchs typically live for two to five weeks during their breeding season. Larvae growing in high densities are smaller, have lower survival, and weigh less as adults compared to lower densities. Healthy males are more likely to mate than unhealthy ones. Females and males typically mate more than once. Females that mate several times lay more eggs. Mating for the overwintering populations occurs in the spring, prior to dispersion. Mating is less dependent on pheromones than other species in its genus. Courtship occurs in


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: two phases. During the aerial phase, a male pursues and often forces a female to the ground. During the ground phase, the butterflies copulate and remain attached for about 30 to 60 minutes. Only 30% of mating attempts end in copulation, suggesting that females may be able to avoid mating, though some have more success than others. During copulation, a male transfers his spermatophore to a female. Along with sperm, the spermatophore provides a female with nutrition, which aids her in egg laying. An increase in spermatophore size increases the fecundity of female monarchs. Males that produce larger spermatophores also


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: fertilize more females' eggs. The host plants used by the monarch caterpillar include: "Asclepias curassavica" or tropical milkweed, is often planted as an ornamental in butterfly gardens. Its distribution is probably worldwide. Year-round plantings may be the cause of new overwintering sites along the U.S. Gulf Coast. At these locations, it rarely freezes so the plants are present year round. This leads to year-round breeding of monarchs, which is not beneficial to the migration. This also leads to a dramatic buildup of the dangerous parasite, "Ophryocystis elektroscirrha". Because of the risks to the monarch population posed by this plant, it


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: is not recommended for planting. Although larvae eat only milkweed, adult monarchs feed on the nectar of many plants including: Monarchs obtain moisture and minerals from damp soil and wet gravel, a behavior known as mud-puddling. The monarch has also been noticed puddling at an oil stain on pavement. In North America, monarchs migrate both north and south on an annual basis. The population east of the Rocky Mountains migrates to the sanctuaries of the Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve in Mexico and parts of Florida. The western population overwinters in various coastal sites in central and southern California. The overwintered


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: population of those east of the Rockies may reach as far north as Texas and Oklahoma during the spring migration. The second, third and fourth generations return to their northern locations in the United States and Canada in the spring. Captive-raised monarchs appear capable of migrating to overwintering sites in Mexico, though they have a much lower migratory success rate than wild monarchs do. Recent discoveries have located monarch overwintering sites in Arizona. In both caterpillar and butterfly form, monarchs are aposematic—warding off predators with a bright display of contrasting colors to warn potential predators of their undesirable taste and


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: poisonous characteristics. Large larvae are able to avoid wasp predation by dropping from the plant or by jerking their bodies. Monarchs are foul tasting and poisonous due to the presence of cardenolide aglycones in their bodies, which the caterpillars ingest as they feed on milkweed. By ingesting a large amount of plants in the genus "Asclepias", primarily milkweed, monarch caterpillars are able to sequester cardiac glycosides, or more specifically cardenolides, which are steroids that act in heart-arresting ways similar to digitalis. It has been found that monarchs are able to sequester cardenolides most effectively from plants of intermediate cardenolide content


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: rather than those of high or low content. Additional studies have shown that different species of milkweed have different effects on growth, virulence, and transmission of parasites. One species, "Asclepias curassavica", appears to reduce the proportion of monarchs infected by parasites. There are two possible explanations for the positive role of "A. curassavica" on the monarch caterpillar: that it promotes overall monarch health to boost the monarch's immune system; or that chemicals from the plant have a direct negative effect on the parasites. After the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, the toxins shift to different parts of the body. Since many


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: birds attack the wings of the butterfly, having three times the cardiac glycosides in the wings leaves predators with a very foul taste and may prevent them from ever ingesting the body of the butterfly. In order to combat predators that remove the wings only to ingest the abdomen, monarchs keep the most potent cardiac glycosides in their abdomens. Monarchs share the defense of noxious taste with the similar-appearing viceroy butterfly in what is perhaps one of the most well-known examples of mimicry. Though long purported to be an example of Batesian mimicry, the viceroy is actually reportedly more unpalatable


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: than the monarch, making this a case of Müllerian mimicry. The monarch is the state insect of Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia. Legislation was introduced to make it the national insect of the United States, but this failed in 1989 and again in 1991. A growing number of homeowners are establishing butterfly gardens; monarchs can be attracted by cultivating a butterfly garden with specific milkweed species and nectar plants. Efforts are underway to establish these monarch waystations. An IMAX film, "Flight of the Butterflies", describes the story of the Urquharts, Brugger and Trail to document the


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: then unknown monarch migration to Mexican overwintering areas. Sanctuaries and reserves have been created at overwintering locations in Mexico and California to limit habitat destruction. These sites can generate significant tourism revenue. Organizations and individuals participate in tagging programs. Tagging information is used to study migration patterns. The 2012 novel by Barbara Kingsolver, "Flight Behavior", deals with the appearance of a large population in the Appalachians. One of the most direct ways humans are interacting with monarchs is by rearing them in captivity, which has become increasingly popular, although there are risks to this activity, and this has become a


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: controversial topic. On the one hand there are many positive aspects of captive rearing. Monarchs are bred in schools and used for butterfly releases at hospices, memorial events and weddings. Memorial services for the September 11 attacks include the release of captive-bred monarchs. Monarchs are used in schools and nature centers for educational purposes. Many homeowners raise monarchs in captivity as a hobby and for educational purposes. Where this practice becomes problematic is when monarchs are "mass-reared". Stories in the "Huffington Post" in 2015 and "Discover" magazine in 2016 have summarized the controversy around this issue. The frequent media reports


title: "Monarch butterfly" content: of monarch declines has empowered many homeowners to attempt to rear as many monarchs as possible in their homes and then release them to the wild in an effort to "boost the monarch population". Some individuals have taken this practice to the extreme, with massive operations that rear thousands of monarchs at once, like one in Linn County, Iowa. However, the practice of rearing "large" numbers of monarchs in captivity for release into the wild is not condoned by monarch scientists, because of the risks of genetic issues and disease spread. One of the biggest concerns of mass-rearing is the