title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: capture with their chelipeds and walking legs, and food is conveyed to the mouth using the anterior walking legs, assisted by the maxillipeds. There is evidence that "Nephrops norvegicus" is a major eater of jellyfish. "Nephrops norvegicus" is the host to a number of parasites and symbionts. A number of sessile organisms attach to the exoskeleton of "N. norvegicus", including the barnacle "Balanus crenatus" and the foraminiferan "Cyclogyra", but overall "Nephrops" suffers fewer infestations of such epibionts than other decapod crustaceans do. In December 1995, the commensal "Symbion pandora" was discovered attached to the mouthparts of "Nephrops norvegicus", and was


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: found to be the first member of a new phylum, Cycliophora, a finding described by Simon Conway Morris as "the zoological highlight of the decade". "S. pandora" has been found in many populations of "N. norvegicus", both in the north Atlantic and in the Mediterranean Sea. Individuals may be found on most segments of the lobster's mouthparts, but are generally concentrated on the central parts of the larger mouthparts, from the mandible to the third maxilliped. The most significant parasite of "N. norvegicus" is a dinoflagellate of the genus "Hematodinium", which has caused epidemic infection in fished populations of "N.


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: norvegicus" since the 1980s. "Hematodinium" is a genus that contains major pathogens of a wide variety of decapod crustaceans, although its internal taxonomy is poorly resolved. The species which attacks "N. norvegicus" causes a syndrome originally described as "post-moult syndrome", in which the carapace turns opaque and becomes highly pigmented, the haemolymph becomes milky white, and the animal appears moribund. Other parasites of "N. norvegicus" include the gregarine protozoan "Porospora nephropis", the trematode "Stichocotyle nephropis" and the polychaete "Histriobdella homari". The typical life span of "N. norvegicus" is 5–10 years, reaching 15 years in exceptional cases. Its reproductive cycle varies


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: depending on geographical position: "the periods of hatching and spawning, and the length of the incubation period, vary with latitude and the breeding cycle changes from annual to biennial as one moves from south to north". Incubation of eggs is temperature-dependent, and in colder climates, the duration of the incubation period increases. This means that, by the time hatching occurs, it may be too late for the females to take part in that year's breeding cycle. In warmer climates, the combined effects of recovery from moulting and ovary maturation mean that spawning can become delayed. This, in turn, has the


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: effect of the female missing out a year of egg carrying. Adult male "Nephrops norvegicus" moult once or twice a year (usually in late winter or spring) and adult females moult up to once a year (in late winter or spring, after hatching of the eggs). In annual breeding cycles, mating takes place in the spring or winter, when the females are in the soft, post-moult state. The ovaries mature throughout the spring and summer months, and egg-laying takes place in late summer or early autumn. After spawning, the berried (egg-carrying) females return to their burrows and remain there until


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: the end of the incubation period. Hatching takes place in late winter or early spring. Soon after hatching, the females moult and mate again. During the planktonic larval stage (typically 1 to 2 months in duration) the nephrops larvae exhibit a diel vertical migration behaviour as they are dispersed by the local currents. This complex biophysical interaction determines the fate of the larvae; the overlap between advective pathway destination and spatial distributions of suitable benthic habitats must be favourable in order for the larvae to settle and reach maturity. The muscular tail of "Nephrops norvegicus" is frequently eaten, and its


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: meat is known as "scampi". The "N. norvegicus" is eaten only on special occasions in Spain and Portugal, where it is less expensive than the common lobster, "Homarus gammarus". "N. norvegicus" is an important species for fisheries, being caught mostly by trawling. Around 60,000 tonnes are caught annually, half of it in the United Kingdom's waters. Besides the established trawling fleets, a significant number of fleets using lobster creels have developed. The better size and condition of lobsters caught by this method yield prices three to four times higher than animals netted by trawling. Creel fishing was found to have


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: a reduced impact on the seafloor, require lower fuel consumption, and allow fishermen with smaller boats to participate in this high-value fishery. It has therefore been described as a reasonable alternative to demersal towed gears, and the allocation of additional fishing rights for this type of take has been suggested. The North East Atlantic individual biological stocks of Nephrops are identified as functional units. A number of functional units make up the sea areas over which a total allowable catch (TAC) is set annually by the EU Council of Ministers. For example, the TAC set for North Sea Nephrops is


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: based on the aggregate total tonnage of removals recommended by science for nine separate functional unit areas. This method has attracted criticism because it can promote the over-exploitation of a specific functional unit even though the overall TAC is under-fished. In 2016, the UK implemented a package of emergency technical measures with the cooperation of the fishing industry aimed at reducing fishing activity to induce recovery of the Nephrops stock in the Farn(e) Deeps off North East England which was close to collapse. A stock assessment completed in 2018 by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: shows that fishing pressure has been cut and this stock is now below FMSY and that stock size is above MSY Btrigger meaning that the Farne Deeps nephrops stock is being fished at a sustainable level. However, ICES also warn that any substantial transfer of the current surplus fishing opportunities from other functional units to the Farne Deeps would rapidly lead to overexploitation. This suggests that controls on fishing effort should continue at least until the biomass reaches a size that is sustainable when measured against the level of fishing activity by all fishermen wanting to target the stock. Discards


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: from "Nephrops" fishery may account for up to 37% of the energy requirements of certain marine scavengers, such as the hagfish "Myxine glutinosa". Boats involved in "Nephrops" fishery also catch a number of fish species such as plaice and sole, and it is thought that without that revenue, "Nephrops" fishery would be economically unviable. "Nephrops norvegicus" was one of the species included by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of ', the starting point for zoological nomenclature. In that work, it was listed as ', with a type locality of "" ("in the Norwegian sea"). In choosing a lectotype,


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: Lipke Holthuis restricted the type locality to the Kattegat at the Kullen Peninsula in southern Sweden (). Two synonyms of the species have been published – ""Astacus rugosus"", described by the eccentric zoologist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1814 from material collected in the Mediterranean Sea, and ""Nephropsis cornubiensis"", described by Charles Spence Bate and Joshua Brooking Rowe in 1880. As new genera were erected, the species was moved, reaching its current position in 1814, when William Elford Leach erected the genus "Nephrops" to hold this species alone. Seven fossil species have since been described in the genus. Populations in the


title: "Nephrops norvegicus" content: Mediterranean Sea are sometimes separated as ""Nephrops norvegicus" var. "meridionalis" Zariquiey, 1935", although this taxon is not universally considered valid. Murray, F., & Cowie, P. R. (2011). « "Plastic contamination in the decapod crustacean Nephrops norvegicus (Linnaeus, 1758)"”. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 62(6), 1207-1217 Nephrops norvegicus Nephrops norvegicus, known variously as the Norway lobster, Dublin Bay prawn, (compare langostino) or scampi, is a slim, orange-pink lobster which grows up to long, and is "the most important commercial crustacean in Europe". It is now the only extant species in the genus "Nephrops", after several other species were moved to the closely related


title: "Transition economy" content: with respect to primary and secondary education, and matched that available in many other developed economies, they were weaker when it came to training and tertiary education. Over the decade 1994 to 2004, the transition economies had closed some of the gap in income per person with the average for the European Union in purchasing power parity terms. These gains had been driven by sustained growth in productivity as obsolete capital stock was scrapped and production shifted to take advantage of the opening-up of foreign trade, price liberalization and foreign direct investment. However the rapid growth rates of that period


title: Dermatopathology content: year. In the United States, dermatopathology is practiced in a variety of settings. Some biopsies are interpreted by the dermatologists who obtained them, some are sent to pathology laboratories and interpreted either by general pathologists or dermatopathologists, while others are interpreted at specialized dermatopathology laboratories. Only a few of the latter exist outside of the United States. Dermatopathology Dermatopathology (from Greek , "derma", "skin"; , "pathos", "fate, harm"; and , "-logia") is a joint subspecialty of dermatology and pathology and to a lesser extent of surgical pathology that focuses on the study of cutaneous diseases at a microscopic and molecular


title: Sundarbans content: Sundarbans The Sundarbans is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans from the Hooghly River in India's state of West Bengal to the Baleswar River in Bangladesh. It comprises closed and open mangrove forests, agriculturally used land, mudflats and barren land, and is intersected by multiple tidal streams and channels. Four protected areas in the Sundarbans are enlisted as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, viz Sundarbans National Park, Sundarbans West, Sundarbans South and Sundarbans East Wildlife Sanctuaries. The Sundarbans mangrove forest covers an area of


title: Sundarbans content: about . In West Bengal, they extend over across the South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas districts. Forests in Bangladesh's Khulna Division extend over . The most abundant tree species are Sundri ("Heritiera fomes") and Gewa ("Excoecaria agallocha"). The forests provide habitat to 453 faunal wildlife, including 290 bird, 120 fish, 42 mammal, 35 reptile and eight amphibian species. The name 'Sundarbans' means 'beautiful forest'. Despite a total ban on all killing or capture of wildlife other than fish and some invertebrates, it appears that there is a consistent pattern of depleted biodiversity or loss of species in the


title: Sundarbans content: 20th century, and that the ecological quality of the forest is declining. The Directorate of Forest is responsible for the administration and management of Sundarban National Park in West Bengal. In Bangladesh, a new Forest Circle was created in 1993 to preserve the forest, and Chief Conservators of Forests have been posted since. Despite preservation commitments from both Governments, the Sunderbans are under threat from both natural and human-made causes. In 2007, the landfall of Cyclone Sidr damaged around 40% of the Sundarbans. The forest is also suffering from increased salinity due to rising sea levels and reduced freshwater supply.


title: Sundarbans content: The proposed coal-fired Rampal power station situated north of the Sundarbans at Rampal Upazila of Bagerhat District in Khulna, Bangladesh is anticipated to further damage this unique mangrove forest according to a 2016 report by UNESCO. The Bengali name 'Sundarban' means 'beautiful forest'. It may have been derived from the word 'Sundari', the local name of the mangrove species "Heritiera fomes". Alternatively, it has been proposed that the name is a corruption of "Samudraban", "Shomudrobôn" ("Sea Forest"), or "Chandra-bandhe" (name of a primitive tribe). However, the generally accepted view is the one associated with "Sundari" or "Sundri" trees. The history


title: Sundarbans content: of the area can be traced back to 200–300 AD. A ruin of a city built by Chand Sadagar has been found in the Baghmara Forest Block. During the Mughal period, the Mughal Kings leased the forests of the Sundarbans to nearby residents. Many criminals took refuge in the Sundarbans from the advancing armies of Emperor Akbar. Many have been known to be attacked by tigers. Many of the buildings which were built by them later fell to hands of Portuguese pirates, salt smugglers and dacoits in the 17th century. Evidence of the fact can be traced from the ruins


title: Sundarbans content: at Netidhopani and other places scattered all over Sundarbans. The legal status of the forests underwent a series of changes, including the distinction of being the first mangrove forest in the world to be brought under scientific management. The area was mapped first in Persian, by the Surveyor General as early as 1764 following soon after proprietary rights were obtained from the Mughal Emperor Alamgir II by the British East India Company in 1757. Systematic management of this forest tract started in the 1860s after the establishment of a Forest Department in the Province of Bengal, in British India. The


title: Sundarbans content: management was entirely designed to extract whatever treasures were available, but labour and lower management mostly were staffed by locals, as the British had no expertise or adaptation experience in mangrove forests. The first Forest Management Division to have jurisdiction over the Sundarbans was established in 1869. In 1875 a large portion of the mangrove forests was declared as reserved forests under the Forest Act, 1865 (Act VIII of 1865). The remaining portions of the forests were declared a reserve forest the following year and the forest, which was so far administered by the civil administration district, was placed under


title: Sundarbans content: the control of the Forest Department. A Forest Division, which is the basic forest management and administration unit, was created in 1879 with the headquarters in Khulna, Bangladesh. The first management plan was written for the period 1893–98. In 1911, it was described as a tract of waste country which had never been surveyed nor had the census been extended to it. It then stretched for about from the mouth of the Hooghly River to the mouth of the Meghna river and was bordered inland by the three settled districts of the 24 Parganas, Khulna and Bakerganj. The total area


title: Sundarbans content: (including water) was estimated at . It was a water-logged jungle, in which tigers and other wild beasts abounded. Attempts at reclamation had not been very successful. The Sundarbans were intersected by river channels and creeks, some of which afforded water communication throughout the Bengal region both for steamboats and ships. The Sundarban forest lies in the vast delta on the Bay of Bengal formed by the super confluence of the Ganges, Hooghly, Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers across southern Bangladesh. The seasonally flooded Sundarbans freshwater swamp forests lie inland from the mangrove forests on the coastal fringe. The forest


title: Sundarbans content: covers of which about are in Bangladesh. It became inscribed as a UNESCO world heritage site in 1997. The Indian part of Sundarbans is estimated to be about , of which about is occupied by waterbodies in the forms of river, canals and creeks of width varying from a few metres to several kilometres. The Sundarbans is intersected by a complex network of tidal waterways, mudflats and small islands of salt-tolerant mangrove forests. The interconnected network of waterways makes almost every corner of the forest accessible by boat. The area is known for the Bengal tiger ("Panthera tigris tigris"), as


title: Sundarbans content: well as numerous fauna including species of birds, spotted deer, crocodiles and snakes. The fertile soils of the delta have been subject to intensive human use for centuries, and the ecoregion has been mostly converted to intensive agriculture, with few enclaves of forest remaining. The remaining forests, taken together with the Sundarbans mangroves, are important habitat for the endangered tiger. Additionally, the Sundarbans serves a crucial function as a protective barrier for the millions of inhabitants in and around Khulna and Mongla against the floods that result from the cyclones. The Sundarbans has also been enlisted among the finalists in


title: Sundarbans content: the New7Wonders of Nature. The mangrove-dominated Ganges Delta – the Sundarbans – is a complex ecosystem comprising one of the three largest single tracts of mangrove forests of the world. Larger part is situated in Bangladesh, a smaller portion of it lies in India. The Indian part of the forest is estimated to be about 40 percent, while the Bangladeshi part is 60 percent. To the south the forest meets the Bay of Bengal; to the east it is bordered by the Baleswar River and to the north there is a sharp interface with intensively cultivated land. The natural drainage


title: Sundarbans content: in the upstream areas, other than the main river channels, is everywhere impeded by extensive embankments and polders. The Sundarbans was originally measured (about 200 years ago) to be of about . Now it has dwindled into about 1/3 of the original size. The total land area today is , including exposed sandbars with a total area of ; the remaining water area of encompasses rivers, small streams and canals. Rivers in the Sundarbans are meeting places of salt water and freshwater. Thus, it is a region of transition between the freshwater of the rivers originating from the Ganges and


title: Sundarbans content: the saline water of the Bay of Bengal. The Sundarbans along the Bay of Bengal has evolved over the millennia through natural deposition of upstream sediments accompanied by intertidal segregation. The physiography is dominated by deltaic formations that include innumerable drainage lines associated with surface and subaqueous levees, splays and tidal flats. There are also marginal marshes above mean tide level, tidal sandbars and islands with their networks of tidal channels, subaqueous distal bars and proto-delta clays and silt sediments. The Sundarbans' floor varies from above sea level. Biotic factors here play a significant role in physical coastal evolution, and


title: Sundarbans content: for wildlife a variety of habitats have developed which include beaches, estuaries, permanent and semi-permanent swamps, tidal flats, tidal creeks, coastal dunes, back dunes and levees. The mangrove vegetation itself assists in the formation of new landmass and the intertidal vegetation plays a significant role in swamp morphology. The activities of mangrove fauna in the intertidal mudflats develop micromorphological features that trap and hold sediments to create a substratum for mangrove seeds. The morphology and evolution of the eolian dunes is controlled by an abundance of xerophytic and halophytic plants. Creepers, grasses and sedges stabilise sand dunes and uncompacted sediments.


title: Sundarbans content: The Sunderbans mudflats (Banerjee, 1998) are found at the estuary and on the deltaic islands where low velocity of river and tidal current occurs. The flats are exposed in low tides and submerged in high tides, thus being changed morphologically even in one tidal cycle. The tides are so large that approximately one third of the land disappears and reappears every day. The interior parts of the mudflats serve as a perfect home for mangroves. Sundarbans features two ecoregions — "Sundarbans freshwater swamp forests" (IM0162) and "Sundarbans mangroves" (IM1406). The Sundarbans freshwater swamp forests are a tropical moist broadleaf forest


title: Sundarbans content: ecoregion of Bangladesh. It represents the brackish swamp forests that lie behind the "Sundarbans Mangroves", where the salinity is more pronounced. The freshwater ecoregion is an area where the water is only slightly brackish and becomes quite fresh during the rainy season, when the freshwater plumes from the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers push the intruding salt water out and bring a deposit of silt. It covers of the vast Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta, extending from the northern part of Khulna District and finishing at the mouth of the Bay of Bengal with scattered portions extending into India's West Bengal state. The


title: Sundarbans content: Sundarbans freshwater swamp forests lie between the upland Lower Gangetic plains moist deciduous forests and the brackish-water Sundarbans mangroves bordering the Bay of Bengal. A victim of large-scale clearing and settlement to support one of the densest human populations in Asia, this ecoregion is under a great threat of extinction. Hundreds of years of habitation and exploitation have exacted a heavy toll on this ecoregion's habitat and biodiversity. There are two protected areas – Narendrapur (110 km) and Ata Danga Baor (20 km) that cover a mere 130 km of the ecoregion. Habitat loss in this ecoregion is so extensive,


title: Sundarbans content: and the remaining habitat is so fragmented, that it is difficult to ascertain the composition of the original vegetation of this ecoregion. According to Champion and Seth (1968), the freshwater swamp forests are characterised by "Heritiera minor", "Xylocarpus molluccensis", "Bruguiera conjugata", "Sonneratia apetala", "Avicennia officinalis", and "Sonneratia caseolaris", with "Pandanus tectorius", "Hibiscus tiliaceus", and "Nipa fruticans" along the fringing banks. The Sundarbans Mangroves ecoregion on the coast forms the seaward fringe of the delta and is the world's largest mangrove ecosystem, with of an area covered. The dominant mangrove species "Heritiera fomes" is locally known as "sundri" or "sundari". Mangrove


title: Sundarbans content: forests are not home to a great variety of plants. They have a thick canopy, and the undergrowth is mostly seedlings of the mangrove trees. Besides the "sundari", other tree species in the forest include "Avicennia", "Xylocarpus mekongensis", "Xylocarpus granatum", "Sonneratia apetala", "Bruguiera gymnorhiza", "Ceriops decandra", "Aegiceras corniculatum", "Rhizophora mucronata", and "Nypa fruticans" palms. Twenty-six of the fifty broad mangrove species found in the world grow well in the Sundarbans. The commonly identifiable vegetation types in the dense Sundarbans mangrove forests are salt water mixed forest, mangrove scrub, brackish water mixed forest, littoral forest, wet forest and wet alluvial grass


title: Sundarbans content: forests. The Bangladesh mangrove vegetation of the Sundarbans differs greatly from other non-deltaic coastal mangrove forests and upland forests associations. Unlike the former, the Rhizophoraceae are of minor importance. Ecological succession is generally defined as the successive occupation of a site by different plant communities. In an accreting mudflats the outer community along the sequence represents the pioneer community which is gradually replaced by the next community representing the seral stages and finally by a climax community typical of the climatic zone. Robert Scott Troup suggested that succession began in the newly accreted land created by fresh deposits of eroded


title: Sundarbans content: soil. The pioneer vegetation on these newly accreted sites is "Sonneratia", followed by "Avicennia" and "Nypa". As the ground is elevated as a result of soil deposition, other trees make their appearance. The most prevalent, though one of the late species to appear, is "Excoecaria". As the level of land rises through accretion and the land is only occasionally flooded by tides, "Heritiera fomes" begins to appear. A total 245 genera and 334 plant species were recorded by David Prain in 1903. While most of the mangroves in other parts of the world are characterised by members of the Rhizophoraceae,


title: Sundarbans content: Avicenneaceae or Combretaceae, the mangroves of Bangladesh are dominated by the Malvaceae and Euphorbiaceae. The Sundarbans flora is characterised by the abundance of sundari ("Heritiera fomes"), gewa ("Excoecaria agallocha"), goran ("Ceriops decandra") and keora ("Sonneratia apetala") all of which occur prominently throughout the area. The characteristic tree of the forest is the "sundari" ("Heritiera littoralis"), from which the name of the forest had probably been derived. It yields a hard wood, used for building houses and making boats, furniture and other things. New forest accretions is often conspicuously dominated by keora ("Sonneratia apetala") and tidal forests. It is an indicator


title: Sundarbans content: species for newly accreted mudbanks and is an important species for wildlife, especially spotted deer ("Axis axis"). There is abundance of dhundul or passur ("Xylocarpus granatum") and kankra ("Bruguiera gymnorhiza") though distribution is discontinuous. Among palms, "Poresia coaractata", "Myriostachya wightiana" and golpata ("Nypa fruticans"), and among grasses spear grass ("Imperata cylindrica") and khagra ("Phragmites karka") are well distributed. The varieties of the forests that exist in Sundarbans include mangrove scrub, littoral forest, saltwater mixed forest, brackish water mixed forest and swamp forest. Besides the forest, there are extensive areas of brackish water and freshwater marshes, intertidal mudflats, sandflats, sand dunes


title: Sundarbans content: with typical dune vegetation, open grassland on sandy soils and raised areas supporting a variety of terrestrial shrubs and trees. Since Prain's report there have been considerable changes in the status of various mangrove species and taxonomic revision of the man-grove flora. However, very little exploration of the botanical nature of the Sundarbans has been made to keep up with these changes. Differences in vegetation have been explained in terms of freshwater and low salinity influences in the Northeast and variations in drainage and siltation. The Sundarbans has been classified as a moist tropical forest demonstrating a whole mosaic of


title: Sundarbans content: seres, comprising primary colonisation on new accretions to more mature beach forests. Historically vegetation types have been recognised in broad correlation with varying degrees of water salinity, freshwater flushing and physiography. The Sundarbans provides a unique ecosystem and a rich wildlife habitat. According to the 2015 tiger census in Bangladesh, and the 2011 tiger census in India, the Sundarbans have about 180 tigers (106 in Bangladesh and 74 in India). Earlier estimates, based on counting unique pugmarks, were much higher. The more recent counts have used camera traps, an improved methodology that yields more accurate results. Tiger attacks are frequent


title: Sundarbans content: in the Sundarbans. Between 0 and 50 people are killed each year. There is much more wildlife here than just the endangered Bengal tiger ("Panthera tigris tigris"). Most importantly, mangroves are a transition from the marine to freshwater and terrestrial systems, and provide critical habitat for numerous species of small fish, crabs, shrimps and other crustaceans that adapt to feed and shelter, and reproduce among the tangled mass of roots, known as pneumatophores, which grow upward from the anaerobic mud to get the supply of oxygen. Fishing cats, macaques, wild boars, common grey mongooses, foxes, jungle cats, flying foxes, pangolins,


title: Sundarbans content: and spotted deer are also found in abundance in the Sundarbans. A 1991 study has revealed that the Indian part of the Sundarbans supports diverse biological resources including at least 150 species of commercially important fish, 270 species of birds, 42 species of mammals, 35 reptiles and 8 amphibian species, although new ones are being discovered. This represents a significant proportion of the species present in Bangladesh (i.e. about 30% of the reptiles, 37% the birds and 34% of the mammals) and includes many species which are now extinct elsewhere in the country. Two amphibians, 14 reptiles, 25 aves and


title: Sundarbans content: five mammals are endangered. The Sundarbans is an important wintering area for migrant water birds and is an area suitable for watching and studying avifauna. The management of wildlife is restricted to, firstly, the protection of fauna from poaching, and, secondly, designation of some areas as wildlife sanctuaries where no extraction of forest produce is allowed and where the wildlife face few disturbances. Although the fauna of Bangladesh have diminished in recent times and the Sundarbans has not been spared from this decline, the mangrove forest retains several good wildlife habitats and their associated fauna. Of these, the tiger and


title: Sundarbans content: dolphin are target species for planning wildlife management and tourism development. There are high profile and vulnerable mammals living in two contrasting environments, and their statuses and management are strong indicators of the general condition and management of wildlife. Some species are protected by legislation, notably by the Bangladesh Wildlife (Preservation) Order, 1973 (P.O. 23 of 1973). The fertile soils of the delta have been subject to intensive human use for centuries, and the ecoregion has been mostly converted to intensive agriculture, with few enclaves of forest remaining. The remaining forests, together with the Sundarbans mangroves, are important habitats for


title: Sundarbans content: the Bengal tiger ("Panthera tigris tigris"). The forest also provides habitat for small wild cats such as the jungle cat ("Felis chaus"), fishing cat ("Prionailurus viverrinus"), and leopard cat ("P. bengalensis"). Several predators dwell in the labyrinth of channels, branches and roots that poke up into the air. This is the only mangrove ecoregion that harbours the Indo-Pacific region's largest terrestrial predator, the Bengal tiger. Unlike in other habitats, tigers live here and swim among the mangrove islands, where they hunt scarce prey such as the chital deer ("Axis axis"), Indian muntjacs ("Muntiacus muntjak"), wild boar ("Sus scrofa"), and rhesus


title: Sundarbans content: macaque ("Macaca mulatta"). It is estimated that there are now 180 Bengal tigers and about 30,000 spotted deer in the area. The tigers regularly attack and kill humans who venture into the forest, human deaths ranging from 30–100 per year. The forest is also rich in bird life, with 286 species including the endemic brown-winged kingfishers ("Pelargopsis amauroptera") and the globally threatened lesser adjutants ("Leptoptilos javanicus") and masked finfoots ("Heliopais personata") and birds of prey such as the ospreys ("Pandion haliaetus"), white-bellied sea eagles ("Haliaeetus leucogaster") and grey-headed fish eagles ("Ichthyophaga ichthyaetus"). The Sundarbans was designated a Ramsar site on


title: Sundarbans content: 21 May 1992. Some more popular birds found in this region are open billed storks, black-headed ibis, water hens, coots, pheasant-tailed jacanas, pariah kites, brahminy kites, marsh harriers, swamp partridges, red junglefowls, spotted doves, common mynahs, jungle crows, jungle babblers, cotton teals, herring gulls, Caspian terns, gray herons, brahminy ducks, spot-billed pelicans, great egrets, night herons, common snipes, wood sandpipers, green pigeons, rose-ringed parakeets, paradise flycatchers, cormorants, white-bellied sea eagles, seagulls, common kingfishers, peregrine falcons, woodpeckers, whimbrels, black-tailed godwits, little stints, eastern knots, curlews, golden plovers, pintails, white-eyed pochards and lesser whistling ducks. The Sundarbans National Park is home to


title: Sundarbans content: olive ridley turtle, hawksbill turtle, green turtle, sea snake, dog-faced water snake, estuarine crocodile, chameleon, king cobra, Russell's viper, house gecko, monitor lizard, pythons, common krait, green vine snake, checkered keelback and rat snake. The river terrapin, Indian flap-shelled turtle ("Lissemys punctata"), peacock soft-shelled turtle ("Trionyx hurum"), "yellow monitor", Asian water monitor, and Indian python. Fish and amphibians found in the Sundarbans include sawfish, butter fish, electric ray, common carp, silver carp, barb, river eels, starfish, king crab, fiddler crab, hermit crab, prawn, shrimps, Gangetic dolphins, skipping frogs, common toads and tree frogs. One particularly interesting fish is the mudskipper,


title: Sundarbans content: a gobioid that climbs out of the water into mudflats and even climbs trees. Forest inventories reveal a decline in standing volume of the two main commercial mangrove species – sundari ("Heritiera" spp.) and gewa ("Excoecaria agallocha") — by 40% and 45% respectively between 1959 and 1983. Despite a total ban on all killing or capture of wildlife other than fish and some invertebrates, it appears that there is a consistent pattern of depleted biodiversity or loss of species (notably at least six mammals and one important reptile) in the 20th century, and that the "ecological quality of the original


title: Sundarbans content: mangrove forest is declining". The endangered species that live within the Sundarbans and extinct species that used to be include the royal Bengal tigers, estuarine crocodile, northern river terrapins ("Batagur baska"), olive ridley sea turtles, Gangetic dolphin, ground turtles, hawksbill sea turtles and king crabs (horse shoe). Some species such as hog deer ("Axis porcinus"), water buffalos ("Bubalus bubalis"), barasingha or swamp deer ("Cervus duvauceli"), Javan rhinoceros ("Rhinoceros sondaicus"), single horned rhinoceros ("Rhinoceros unicornis") and the mugger crocodiles or marsh crocodiles ("Crocodylus palustris") started to become extinct in the Sundarbans towards the middle of the 20th century, because of extensive


title: Sundarbans content: poaching and man hunting by the British. There are other threatened mammal species, such as the capped langurs ("Semnopithecus pileatus"), smooth-coated otters ("Lutrogale perspicillata"), Oriental small-clawed otters ("Aonyx cinerea"), and great Bengal civets ("Viverra zibetha"). The physical development processes along the coast are influenced by a multitude of factors, comprising wave motions, micro and macro-tidal cycles and long shore currents typical to the coastal tract. The shore currents vary greatly along with the monsoon. These are also affected by cyclonic action. Erosion and accretion through these forces maintains varying levels, as yet not properly measured, of physiographic change whilst the


title: Sundarbans content: mangrove vegetation itself provides a remarkable stability to the entire system. During each monsoon season almost all the Bengal Delta is submerged, much of it for half a year. The sediment of the lower delta plain is primarily advected inland by monsoonal coastal setup and cyclonic events. One of the greatest challenges people living on the Ganges Delta may face in coming years is the threat of rising sea levels caused mostly by subsidence in the region and partly by climate change. In many of the Bangladesh's mangrove wetlands, freshwater reaching the mangroves was considerably reduced from the 1970s because


title: Sundarbans content: of diversion of freshwater in the upstream area by neighbouring India through the use of the Farakka Barrage bordering Rajshahi, Bangladesh. Also, the Bengal Basin is slowly tilting towards the east because of neo-tectonic movement, forcing greater freshwater input to the Bangladesh Sundarbans. As a result, the salinity of the Bangladesh Sundarbans is much lower than that of the Indian side. A 1990 study noted that there "is no evidence that environmental degradation in the Himalayas or a 'greenhouse' induced rise in sea level have aggravated floods in Bangladesh"; however, a 2007 report by UNESCO, "Case Studies on Climate Change


title: Sundarbans content: and World Heritage" has stated that an anthropogenic rise in sea level (likely by the end of the 21st century, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), combined with other forms of anthropogenic stress on the Sundarbans, could lead to the destruction of 75 percent of the Sundarbans mangroves. Already, Lohachara Island and New Moore Island/South Talpatti Island have disappeared under the sea, and Ghoramara Island is half submerged. In a study conducted in 2012, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) found out that the Sunderban coast was retreating up to in a year. Agricultural activities had destroyed around


title: Sundarbans content: of mangroves within three decades (1975–2010). Shrimp cultivation had destroyed another . Researches from the School of Oceanographic Studies, Jadavpur University, estimated the annual rise in sea level to be in 2010. It had doubled from recorded in 2000. The rising sea levels had also submerged around of forest areas. This, coupled with an around rise in surface water temperatures and increased levels of salinity have posed a problem for the survival of the indigenous flora and fauna. The Sundari trees are exceptionally sensitive to salinity and are being threatened with extinction. Loss of the mangrove forest will result in


title: Sundarbans content: the loss of the protective biological shield against cyclones and tsunamis. This may put the surrounding coastal communities at high risk. Moreover, the submergence of land mass have rendered up to 6,000 families homeless and around 70,000 people are immediately threatened with the same. This is causing the flight of human capital to the mainland, about 13% in the decade of 2000–2010. A 2015 ethnographic study, conducted by a team of researchers from Heiderberg university in Germany, found a crisis brewing in the Sunderbans. The study contended that poor planning on the part of the India and Bangladesh governments coupled


title: Sundarbans content: with natural ecological changes were forcing the flight of human capital from the region According to a report created by UNESCO, the landfall of Cyclone Sidr damaged around 40% of Sundarbans in 2007. In August 2010, a "Memorandum of Understanding" was signed between Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and India's state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) where they designated to implement the coal-fired Rampal power station by 2016. The proposed project, on an area of over 1,834 acres of land, is situated 14 kilometres north of the Sundarbans. This project violates the environmental impact assessment guidelines for coal-based thermal power


title: Sundarbans content: plants. Environmental activists contend that the proposed location of the Rampal Station would violate provisions of the Ramsar Convention. The government of Bangladesh rejected the allegations that the coal-based power plant would adversely affect the world's largest mangrove forest. On 9 December 2014 an oil-tanker named "Southern Star VII", carrying of furnace oil, was sunk in the Sela river of Sundarbans after it had been hit by a cargo vessel. The oil spread over area after the clash, as of 17 December. The slick spread to a second river and a network of canals in the Sundarbans and blackened the


title: Sundarbans content: shoreline. The event was very threatening to trees, plankton, vast populations of small fishes and dolphins. The event occurred at a protected Sundarbans mangrove area, home to rare Irrawaddy and Ganges dolphins. Until 15 December 2014 only of oil from the area were cleaned up by local residents, Bangladesh Navy and the government of Bangladesh. Some reports indicated that the event killed some wildlife. On 13 December 2014, a dead Irrawaddy dolphin was seen floating on the Harintana-Tembulbunia channel of the Sela River. The Sundarbans plays an important role in the economy of the southwestern region of Bangladesh as well


title: Sundarbans content: as in the national economy. It is the single largest source of forest produce in the country. The forest provides raw materials for wood-based industries. In addition to traditional forest produce like timber, fuelwood, pulpwood etc., large-scale harvest of non-wood forest products such as thatching materials, honey, beeswax, fish, crustacean and mollusc resources of the forest takes place regularly. The vegetated tidal lands of the Sundarbans function as an essential habitat, produces nutrients and purifies water. The forest also traps nutrient and sediment, acts as a storm barrier, shore stabiliser and energy storage unit. Last but not the least, the


title: Sundarbans content: Sunderbans provides an aesthetic attraction for local and foreign tourists. The forest has immense protective and productive functions. Constituting 51% of the total reserved forest estate of Bangladesh, it contributes about 41% of total forest revenue and accounts for about 45% of all timber and fuel wood output of the country. A number of industries (e.g., newsprint mill, match factory, hardboard, boat building, furniture making) are based on raw materials obtained from the Sundarbans ecosystem. Non-timber forest products and plantations help generate considerable employment and income opportunities for at least half a million poor coastal people. It provides natural protection


title: Sundarbans content: to life and properties of the coastal population in cyclone-prone Bangladesh. Part of the Sunderbans is shielded from tidal inflow by levees and there one finds villages and agriculture. During the monsoon season, the low lying agricultural lands are waterlogged and the summer crop ("kharif" crop) is therefore mainly deepwater rice or floating rice. In the dry winter season the land is normally uncropped and used for cattle grazing. However, the lands near the villages are irrigated from ponds that were filled up during monsoon, and vegetable crops ("rabi" crops) can be grown here. The Sundarbans has a population of


title: Sundarbans content: over 4 million but much of it is mostly free of permanent human habitation. Despite human habitations and a century of economic exploitation of the forest well into the late 1940s, the Sundarbans retained a forest closure of about 70% according to the Overseas Development Administration (ODA) of the United Kingdom in 1979. The Sundarbans area is one of the most densely populated in the world, and the population is increasing. As a result, half of this ecoregion's mangrove forests have been cut down to supply fuelwood and other natural resources. Despite the intense and large-scale exploitation, this still is


title: Sundarbans content: one of the largest contiguous areas of mangroves in the world. Another threat comes from deforestation and water diversion from the rivers inland, which causes far more silt to be brought to the estuary, clogging up the waterways. The Directorate of Forest is responsible for the administration and management of Sundarban National Park in West Bengal. The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF), Wildlife & Bio-Diversity & ex-officio Chief Wildlife Warden, West Bengal is the senior most executive officer looking over the administration of the park. The Chief Conservator of Forests (South) & Director, Sundarban Biosphere Reserve is the administrative


title: Sundarbans content: head of the park at the local level and is assisted by a Deputy Field Director and an Assistant Field Director. The park area is divided into two ranges, overseen by range forest officers. Each range is further sub-divided into beats. The park also has floating watch stations and camps to protect the property from poachers. The park receives financial aid from the State Government as well as the Ministry of Environment and Forests under various Plan and Non-Plan Budgets. Additional funding is received under the Project Tiger from the Central Government. In 2001, a grant of US$20,000 was received


title: Sundarbans content: as a preparatory assistance for promotion between India and Bangladesh from the World Heritage Fund. A new Khulna Forest Circle was created in Bangladesh back in 1993 to preserve the forest, and Chief Conservators of Forests have been posted since. The direct administrative head of the Division is the Divisional Forest Officer, based at Khulna, who has a number of professional, subprofessional and support staff and logistic supports for the implementation of necessary management and administrative activities. The basic unit of management is the compartment. There are 55 compartments in four Forest Ranges and these are clearly demarcated mainly by


title: Sundarbans content: natural features such as rivers, canals and creeks. The Bangladesh part of the forest lies under two forest divisions, and four administrative ranges viz Chandpai (Khulna District), Sarankhola (Khulna), and Burigoalini (Satkhira District) and has sixteen forest stations. It is further divided into fifty-five compartments and nine blocks. There are three wildlife sanctuaries established in 1977 under the Bangladesh Wildlife (Preservation) Order, 1973 (P.O. 23 of 1973). The West Bengal part of the forest lies under the district of South & North 24 Parganas. Protected areas cover 15% of the Sundarbans mangroves including Sundarbans National Park and Sajnakhali Wildlife Sanctuary,


title: Sundarbans content: in West Bengal, Sundarbans East, Sundarbans South and Sundarbans West Wildlife Sanctuaries in Bangladesh. The Sundarban National Park is a National Park, Tiger Reserve, and a Biosphere Reserve in West Bengal, India. It is part of the Sundarbans on the Ganges Delta, and adjacent to the Sundarbans Reserve Forest in Bangladesh. The delta is densely covered by mangrove forests, and is one of the largest reserves for the Bengal tiger. It is also home to a variety of bird, reptile and invertebrate species, including the salt-water crocodile. The present Sundarbans National Park was declared as the core area of Sundarbans


title: Sundarbans content: Tiger Reserve in 1973 and a wildlife sanctuary in 1977. On 4 May 1984 it was declared a National Park. Sundarbans West Wildlife Sanctuary is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The region supports mangroves, including: sparse stands of Gewa ("Excoecaria agallocha") and dense stands of Goran ("Ceriops tagal"), with discontinuous patches of Hantal palm ("Phoenix paludosa") on drier ground, river banks and levees. The fauna of the sanctuary is very diverse with some 40 species of mammals, 260 species of birds and 35 species of reptiles. The greatest of these being the Bengal tiger of which an estimated 350 remain


title: Sundarbans content: in the Bangladesh Sundarbans. Other large mammals are wild boar, chital horin (spotted deer), Indian otter and macaque monkey. Five species of marine turtles frequent the coastal zone and two endangered reptiles are present – the estuarine crocodile and the Indian python. Sundarbans East Wildlife Sanctuary extends over an area of . Sundari trees ("Heritiera fomes") dominate the flora, interspersed with Gewa ("Excoecaria agallocha") and Passur ("Xylocarpus mekongensis") with Kankra ("Bruguiera gymnorhiza") occurring in areas subject to more frequent flooding. There is an understory of Shingra ("Cynometra ramiflora") where, soils are drier and Amur ("Aglaia cucullata") in wetter areas and


title: Sundarbans content: Goran ("Ceriops decandra") in more saline places. Nypa palm ("Nypa fruticans") is widespread along drainage lines. Sundarbans South Wildlife Sanctuary extends over an area of . There is evidently the greatest seasonal variation in salinity levels and possibly represents an area of relatively longer duration of moderate salinity where Gewa ("Excoecaria agallocha") is the dominant woody species. It is often mixed with Sundri, which is able to displace in circumstances such as artificially opened canopies where Sundri does not regenerate as effectively. It is also frequently associated with a dense understory of Goran ("Ceriops tagal") and sometimes Passur. Sajnakhali Wildlife


title: Sundarbans content: Sanctuary is a area in the northern part of the Sundarbans delta in South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, India. The area is mainly mangrove scrub, forest and swamp. It was set up as a sanctuary in 1976. It is home to a rich population of different species of wildlife, such as water fowl, heron, pelican, spotted deer, rhesus macaques, wild boar, tigers, water monitor lizards, fishing cats, otters, olive ridley turtles, crocodiles, batagur terrapins, and migratory birds. The Sundarbans is celebrated through numerous Bengali folk songs and dances, often centred around the folk heroes, gods and goddesses specific to


title: Sundarbans content: the Sunderbans (like Bonbibi and Dakshin Rai) and to the Lower Gangetic Delta (like Manasa and Chand Sadagar). The Bengali folk epic Manasamangal mentions "Netidhopani" and has some passages set in the Sundarbans during the heroine Behula's quest to bring her husband "Lakhindar" back to life. The area provides the setting for several novels by Emilio Salgari, (e.g. "The Mystery of the Black Jungle"). "Sundarbaney Arjan Sardar", a novel by Shibshankar Mitra, and "Padma Nadir Majhi", a novel by Manik Bandopadhyay, are based on the rigors of lives of villagers and fishermen living in the Sunderbans region, and are woven


title: Sundarbans content: into the Bengali psyche to a great extent. Part of the plot of Salman Rushdie's Booker Prize winning novel, "Midnight's Children" is set in the Sundarbans. This forest is adopted as the setting of Kunal Basu's short story "The Japanese Wife" and the subsequent film adaptation. Most of the plot of an internationally acclaimed novelist, Amitav Ghosh's 2004 novel, "The Hungry Tide", is set in the Sundarbans. The plot centres on a headstrong American cetologist who arrives to study a rare species of river dolphin, enlisting a local fisherman and translator to aid her. The book also mentions two accounts


title: Sundarbans content: of the Bonbibi story of "Dukhey's Redemption". Manik Bandopadhyay's "Padma Nadir Majhi" was made into a movie by Goutam Ghose. The Sunderbans has been the subject of a detailed and well-researched scholarly work on Bonbibi (a 'forest goddess' venerated by Hindus), on the relation between the islanders and tigers and on conservation and how it is perceived by the inhabitants of the Sundarbans, as well as numerous non-fiction books, including "The Man-Eating Tigers of Sundarbans" by Sy Montegomery for a young audience, which was shortlisted for the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award. In "Up The Country", Emily Eden discusses


title: Sundarbans content: her travels through the Sunderbans. Numerous documentary movies have been made about the Sunderbans, including the 2003 IMAX production "Shining Bright" about the Bengal tiger. The acclaimed BBC TV series "Ganges" documents the lives of villagers, especially honey collectors, in the Sundarbans. Sundarbans The Sundarbans is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans from the Hooghly River in India's state of West Bengal to the Baleswar River in Bangladesh. It comprises closed and open mangrove forests, agriculturally used land, mudflats and barren land, and


title: "British Rail Class 313" content: coach draws its supply directly through its shoe gear. 313s have series-wound DC GEC G310AZ traction motors controlled by a camshaft controlled resistance system with series and parallel motor groupings and weak field steps. Originally the heating in the motor coaches was provided by passing air over the hot traction and braking resistors in addition to conventional heaters, but this feature is no longer in use and the pneumatic dampers have been disabled. Great Northern and Southern units have been retro-fitted with cab air conditioning. 313s have rheostatic braking (which was disabled on London Overground) in addition to conventional three-step


title: "British Lung Foundation" content: in the political chambers of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The BLF also campaigns to raise public awareness of lung disease and the impact it has on so many lives through poster campaigns, events and by maintaining a media profile. In June 2012 the British Lung Foundation released a report looking at the health impacts of smoking cannabis. In one section, the report claimed ""each cannabis cigarette increases the chances of developing lung cancer by as much as an entire packet of 20 tobacco cigarettes"". The report referenced a 2008 study, "Cannabis use and risk of lung cancer: a case-control


title: Seletar content: of Upper Thomson. Seletar Planning Area, as defined by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, shares a land boundary with planning areas of Sengkang to the south, riverine boundaries with Punggol to the east and Yishun to the west. Its northern boundary is made up by the Straits of Johor. Seletar Planning Area is officially divided into 4 subzones – Seletar, Seletar Aerospace Park, Pulau Punggol Barat and Pulau Punggol Timor. Seletar was originally a rubber plantation estate owned and managed by the Singapore United Rubber Plantations Ltd. In 1923, the Straits Settlement government bought from the Singapore United Rubber Plantations Ltd


title: "Medium endurance cutter" content: service in the "Reliance" class. The Coast Guard plans to eventually phase out the vessels in both of these cutter classes and replace them with the Offshore Patrol Cutter as part of the Integrated Deepwater System Program. After World War II, the United States Coast Guard used the US Navy hull classification system. The large, sea-going cutters were classified primarily as Coast Guard gunboats (WPG), destroyer escorts (WDE), and seaplane tenders (WAVP). In 1965 the Coast Guard adopted its own designation system and these large cutters were then referred to as Coast Guard High Endurance Cutters (WHEC). The coastal cutters


title: "Chinese folk religion" content: the example of a Chenghuang Temple in Yulin, Shaanxi, that was turned into a granary during the Cultural Revolution; it was restored to its original function in the 1980s after seeds stored within were always found to have rotted. This phenomenon, which locals attributed to the god Chenghuang, was taken a sign to empty his residence of grain and allow him back in. The "ling qi", divine energy, is believed to accumulate in certain places, temples, making them holy. Temples with a longer history are considered holier than newly built ones, which still need to be filled by divine energy.


title: "Kaiser Chiefs" content: The album was produced by Ben H. Allen III (who has previously worked with Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, and Deerhunter), and recorded at The Maze Studio in Atlanta. Three songs were co-written with Fraser T Smith (CeeLo Green, Adele). It was mixed by Michael Brauer (My Morning Jacket, Coldplay) at Electric Lady Studios in New York City in November 2013. On 5 December 2013, Kaiser Chiefs released a song titled "Misery Company" onto their SoundCloud account. The song had previously been performed live during the band's 2013 summer tour. On 3 January 2014, "Bows & Arrows" premiered on "Rolling Stone"


title: "Hans Prutz" content: 1879), translated into English as "The Secret Teaching of the Knights Templar" (2015), and wrote the history of the rise and fall of the Templars ("Entwickelung und Untergang des Tempelherrenordens"). His "Preussische Geschichte" (4 vols., Stuttgart, 1899–1902), which is perhaps his most notable work, is an attempt to apply scientific rather than patriotic canons to a subject which has been mainly in the hands of historians with a patriotic bias. He also wrote "Aus des Grossen Kurfürsten letzten Jahren" (Berlin, 1897) and "Bismarcks Bildung, ihre Quellen und ihre Äusserungen" (Berlin, 1904). In 1902 Prutz resigned the chair of history in


title: "Danielle Brisebois" content: Gregg Alexander, and acted as the group's keyboardist, percussionist and backing vocalist. She has also recorded two solo albums, "Arrive All Over You" and "Portable Life", both of which were produced by Alexander. She has written or co-written a number of songs, including Natasha Bedingfield's hit singles "Unwritten", and "Pocketful of Sunshine". In January 2015, Brisebois and Alexander were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song "Lost Stars" from the film "Begin Again". Brisebois was born on June 28, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Mary and Frank Brisebois, a computer instructor. She


title: "Eastern mole" content: Eastern mole The eastern mole or common mole ("Scalopus aquaticus") is a medium-sized, overall grey North American mole and the only member of the genus Scalopus. Its large, hairless, spade-shaped forefeet are adapted for digging. The species is native to Canada (Ontario), Mexico, and the eastern United States, and has the widest range of any North American mole. The species prefers the loamy soils found in thin woods, fields, pastures, and meadows, and builds both deep and shallow burrows characterized by discarded excess soil collected in molehills. Its nest is composed of leaves and grasses, and its two to five


title: "Eastern mole" content: young are on their own at about four weeks. Its diet consists principally of earthworms and other soil life, but the mole will eat vegetable matter. Dogs, cats, foxes, and coyotes prey upon the mole, and the species hosts a variety of parasites. Unlike gophers, moles do not eat vegetation and pose no threat to human concerns; the occasional damage to lawns is offset by the aeration provided the soil and consumption of insects. The construction of golf courses has provided the mole with ideal habitat. The species is abundant, occurs in protected areas, faces no major threats and is


title: "Eastern mole" content: of little concern to conservationists. The eastern mole is a small, sturdy animal which lives principally underground and is highly specialized for a subterranean way of life. Its body is somewhat cylindrically shaped with an elongated head. A fleshy, moveable snout projecting over the mouth with nostrils on the upper part is used as an organ of touch. The minute, degenerative eyes are hidden in the fur; the eyelids are fused and sight is limited to simply distinguishing between light and dark. The ear opening is small and concealed in the fur, but hearing is fairly acute. A short, thick


title: "Eastern mole" content: tail is lightly furred and is used as an organ of touch, guiding the mole when it moves backward in the tunnel. The very large front feet are broader rather than long with well-developed claws, and possess a specialized sesamoid bone attached to the wrist that aids digging. The front feet are normally held in a vertical position with the palms facing outward. Both the front feet and the small hind feet are fringed with sensory hairs that help the mole in its excavations. The bones of the front limbs and the breast are hugely enlarged, and provide strong support


title: "Eastern mole" content: for the attached muscles used in digging. The hip girdle is narrow, permitting the mole to turn around in its tunnel by doing a partial somersault or doubling back upon itself. The mole has grey-brown, plush like fur with paler or browner underparts, and may appear to have a silver sheen depending on the angle it is viewed. The fur offers little resistance to backward movement in the tunnel. Compared to the female, the male tends to have a brighter orange strip on the belly being caused by secretion of skin glands in the region. Albinos occur but these may


title: "Eastern mole" content: appear white, orange, or cinnamon yellow depending on the skin gland secretion. The face, feet, and tail are whitish to pink. Molting occurs in the spring and fall with the new pelage appearing first on the underparts. On the back, the new fur appears first at the tail then works forward. A distinct line usually marks the old and new fur, and there is no distinct underfur. The hairs are of equal length, and, when viewed microscopically, are seen to possess a whip-like tip unlike the hairs of any other mammal. The sexes are determined externally by the number of


title: "Eastern mole" content: openings in the groin area: the female has three – the forward one is the urinary opening (in the urinary papilla or projection), the second is the vagina, and the third is the anus at the tail. The male has two openings – the combined urinary/reproductive opening in the penis, and the anus. The testes never descend into a scrotum but remain within the body cavity. There are six teats on the belly – a pair at the chest, a pair at the groin, and a pair between the two. A rank, musky odor is emitted from a scent gland


title: "Eastern mole" content: on the belly, and is left on the floor of the tunnel as the mole passes. It probably serves as a form of communication between the sexes during the breeding season, and to discourage predators. Other scent glands are found at the anus. The mole is about in length including a 3 cm long tail and weighs about . Males collected from various parts of the species' range showed the following extremes in measurements: total length 152–184mm, tail 22–30mm, hind foot 18–21 mm, and females displayed extremes of: total length 144–16 mm, tail 15–28 mm, hind foot 18–21 mm, weight


title: "Eastern mole" content: 40–50 grams. Males are larger than females and males collected in the northern Midwest were largest of all. Twelve adults from northeastern Florida averaged: total length 142, tail 24.5, hind foot 17.8 mm. In Hillsborough and Pasco Counties in Florida, the eastern mole is still smaller, and in the area north of Tampa Bay, total length does not exceed 140 mm, and the hind foot rarely exceeds 17 mm. The smallest and darkest moles are those found in the Miami area. In Pennsylvania, specimens range in weight from 40 to 64 grams. The tooth count numbers 36 (I3/2; C1/0; P3/3;


title: "Eastern mole" content: M3/3), and the chromosome diploid number is 34. The eastern mole is native to Canada (Ontario), Mexico, and the United States, and has the widest range of any North American mole. In the United States, the species is found from southern South Dakota and southern Wisconsin to eastern Massachusetts and south to the tip of Florida and Louisiana and west to Nebraska, Kansas, and central Texas. It is absent from the Appalachian Mountains, most of Canada, and Northern New England. The species is found in the southern tip of Ontario, and northern Tamaulipas, Mexico. Its distribution, however, is patchy. Colonies


title: "Eastern mole" content: in southwestern Texas and Coahuila, Mexico and Tamaulipas, Mexico are isolated and small. The species prefers well-drained, loose, sandy or loamy soil, and avoids heavy clay, stony or gravelly soils, and very dry or very wet soils. It frequents pastures, open fields, meadows, and thin woods. In some marginal areas, human activities such as the building of roads and golf courses often provide beneficial habitat due to higher quality soils and adequate moisture. In a study from 1976, home range areas of seven moles were calculated after each had been located periodically during periods ranging from 11 months to 3


title: "Eastern mole" content: years. The mean home range area was ; males averaged , and females . Because the male range is so large, males generally predominate in samples. The species' fossorial habit tends to limit its dispersal and gene flow, and soil character often limits populations. Eastern moles are good swimmers and not limited by rivers, but heavy clay soils associated with some waterways may limit dispersal. Moles probably have a long life span due to a paucity of predators and a low reproductive rate. The young are grayer than the adults, and, with age, the skull flattens and the teeth display


title: "Eastern mole" content: wear. Females live longer than males. Longevity has been estimated at 6 years with mark-recapture methods in South Carolina. In Kansas, longevity was estimated at greater than 3.5 years. The eastern mole is common in most of the United States, but populations in southern Texas and Mexico are considered extremely rare and possibly extinct. The species is more abundant in warm climes rather than cool or cold climes, and in the southern United States, cultivated fields will often be riddled with their burrows after a penetrating rain. The eastern mole is active at all hours, with peaks in activity near


title: "Eastern mole" content: dawn and at dusk. The length of time between bouts of activity averages about three hours, but may last up to 6.5 h. The eastern mole digs both deep, permanent burrows and shallow, temporary ones just under the surface, used for foraging. The regular, permanent highway is often built 25 cm or more below the surface and is used as a retreat during hot, dry weather or when frost has descended. The oxygen levels in the tunnels can be as low as 14.3%, and carbon dioxide as high as 5.5%. When digging new burrows, the mole will push excess soil


title: "Eastern mole" content: up through vertical shafts called "molehills". New burrows just below the surface are marked by ridges and molehills, and such burrows appear to be used to facilitate the capture of earthworms and other soil life after a rain. In building burrows and probably at other times, the mole uses its nose as a tactile organ, poking about here and there. In friable soil, the species can burrow at a rate of 6 m/h. The mole's nest is built of leaves and grasses, and is usually situated several inches to a foot or more below the surface. It is typically found


title: "Eastern mole" content: beneath a boulder, stump, or bush, and has several approaches, including one that enters from below. The eastern mole in Florida is reported to not build a nest. The eastern mole is a voracious predator and will daily consume food equal to 25 to 50% of its weight. In captivity, it will eat almost anything, including ground beef and dog food. In its natural environment, the species principally feeds on earthworms when these are available, but will eat many other foods, including slugs, snails, centipedes, larval and adult insects, scarab beetle grubs, and ants at all their life stages. Moles


title: "Eastern mole" content: vocalize by making high-pitched squeals, harsh, guttural squeaks, short snorting sounds, and grating the teeth. Gestation is usually 45 days and a single litter of two to five young is produced between mid-April and June. In warm climates, the young may be born in March. They are born blind and naked, and are relatively large compared to the size of the mother. At 10 days, they exhibit a fine, velvety light-gray fur which is retained for several weeks. Rapid growth permits the young to leave the nest and shift for themselves at about four weeks. Dogs, cats, foxes, and coyotes


title: "Eastern mole" content: are some of the predators of the species. The eastern mole harbors many parasites. One hundred four moles taken in Indiana exhibited four species of fleas, one species of sucking louse, one species of beetle, and at least 20 species of mites, several of them entirely new species, with one of them, "Scalopacarus", constituting a new genus. Linnaeus based the original description of the species upon a specimen found dead in the water, a fact noted on the collection label. He named the species "aquaticus", certainly a misnomer because the species is the least aquatic of North American moles. The


title: "Eastern mole" content: first part of the scientific name, "Scalopus", is from two Greek words which mean "digging" and "foot" ("skalops", "mole", derived from the word "to dig" and "pous", "foot"). The word refers to the species' large front feet which are used for digging. The second word of the name, "aquaticus", is Latin and means "found in water". The word is misleading but was given to the species because its webbed foot suggested it was accustomed to a water habitat, and the original specimen was found dead in water. The first part of the common name, "eastern", refers to the species' range,


title: "Eastern mole" content: and the second part, "mole" is from the Middle English "molle" which in turn is related to another Middle English word, "mold-warpe", which means "earth-thrower". Fossil remains have been reported from the upper Ohio Valley in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and Pleistocene cave faunas in Texas. Moles till and form soil, feed on destructive insects such as cutworms and Japanese beetles, and dig tunnels that aerate the soil and permit moisture to penetrate deeper soil layers. The pelt is small and does not take dyes well; it is thus of no commercial interest to the fur industry. When moles disfigure


title: "Eastern mole" content: lawns, damage the roots of garden plants while searching for food, or take sprouting corn, they are considered undesirable. In one anecdote, a homeowner reported the animal completely eradicated the Japanese beetles on his grounds. The species is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List because of its wide distribution, presumed large population, occurrence in a number of protected areas, tolerance to some degree of habitat modification, and because it is unlikely to be declining at nearly the rate required to qualify for listing in a threatened category. Eastern mole The eastern mole or common mole ("Scalopus aquaticus")


title: Haenertsburg content: and surrounding mountains. However, large areas of rare, and botanically very diverse, grassland (Woodbush Granite Grassland) have been planted to timber (primarily timber for pulping). These monoculture plantations extract a great deal of water and the resulting water shortages downstream (in the Kruger National Park and Mozambique) are cause for concern. A local volunteer group, FROHG (Friends of the Haenertsburg Grasslands) helps to conserve the indigenous flora and fauna. Funds are raised to create educational materials, maintain a hiking trail, remove alien invasive plants and alert the authorities to illegal developments like bulldozing for pipelines, fencing and even squatting. The


title: "Michael Craig-Martin" content: Australia in 1977, and the Tate gallery has an artist's copy. In the 1980s Craig-Martin was a tutor at Goldsmiths College, Department of Art, and was a significant influence on the emerging YBA generation, including Damien Hirst. He was also helpful in promoting the "Freeze" show to established art-world figures. In 1995 he curated Drawing the Line: a comprehensive touring exhibition on the history of line drawing for the Southbank Centre, London. Craig-Martin and his influence were described in an article in "the Observer" regarding the mentors of British art, entitled "Schools of Thought". Craig-Martin has been a trustee of


title: "Capital punishment in India" content: punishable with death. Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, 1989 was enacted to prevent the commission of offences of atrocities against the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Under Section 3(2)(i) of the Act, bearing false witness in a capital case against a member of a scheduled caste or tribe, resulting in that person's conviction and execution, carries the death penalty In 1989, the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act was passed which applied a mandatory death penalty for a second offence of "large scale narcotics trafficking". In recent years, the death


title: "Author mill" content: and prints its books "on demand." The books are listed with on-line booksellers such as amazon.com and bn.com, and on the publisher's website. Any marketing, promotion, or physical bookstore placement is up to the authors themselves. While authors are not "required" to buy any of their own books, authors who wish to find readers discover that they need to buy their own books for resale. The rise of the author mill is based on the rise of the on-line bookselling industry and digital printing technology which makes it cheap to print books on demand. The necessary ingredients are: Author mill


title: "Quorum (Latter Day Saints)" content: are typically high priests, counselors may hold other priesthood offices. Typically, the bishop is also set apart as the quorum president of the Priests Quorum, and he, together with two priests who serve as his assistants, form the presidency of the priests quorum. A quorum presidency is an administrative quorum consisting of a quorum president who holds keys to direct the affairs of the quorum, and two counselors who he has selected to assist him. In most cases, the president will also select a secretary whom he will delegate authority to as needed. Auxiliary presidencies and groups such as the


title: "J. R. Richards" content: sun, wind, and battery for storing and supplying electricity and enhancing the current and future quality of life. In 2013, the city of Los Angeles awarded Richards a proclamation for dedication to enhancing the lives of families in extreme poverty for his work in El Salvador with 20k Watts (details below). Richards has been producing since the 1990s and, along with Dishwalla, has gone on to produce other artists including Dom AD, Amy Grant and the British band BritRoyal. He also produced his solo albums as well as songs for the hit TV show "How I Met Your Mother", in


title: "Ancient music" content: harps while excavating in the ruins of the ancient city of Ur, located in what was Ancient Mesopotamia and is contemporary Iraq. Some of the fragments are now located at the University of Pennsylvania, in the British Museum in London, and in Baghdad. They have been dated to 2750 BCE. Various reconstructions have been attempted, but none have been totally satisfactory. Depending on various definitions, they could be classed as lyres rather than harps. The most famous is the bull-headed harp, held in Baghdad. The 2003 Iraq War led to the destruction of the bull-head lyre . Among the Hurrian


title: "Far from the Maddening Crowds" content: singles "Offshore", "Sunstroke" on 2 June 1997, and "Lost You Somewhere" on 8 December 1997. A vocal edit of "Offshore", titled "Offshore '97", was mixed by Anthony Pappa and credited as a collaboration with Power Circle. It was released as a single on 1 September 1997 and was featured on the album. A Benelux single release of "Red Skies" was also issued in 1998. After its release, the album appeared on the UK Albums Chart for one week, reaching number 49. In 2007, after its re-release, the album appeared on the UK Dance Albums Chart for one week, peaking at


title: "Embarcadero (San Francisco)" content: Embarcadero (San Francisco) The Embarcadero is the eastern waterfront and roadway of the Port of San Francisco, San Francisco, California, along San Francisco Bay. It was constructed on reclaimed land along a three mile long engineered seawall, from which piers extend into the bay. It derives its name from the Spanish verb "embarcar", meaning "to embark"; "embarcadero" itself means "the place to embark". The Central Embarcadero Piers Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 20, 2002. The Embarcadero right-of-way begins at the intersection of Second and King Streets near AT&T Park, and travels north,


title: "Embarcadero (San Francisco)" content: passing under the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. The Embarcadero continues north past the Ferry Building at Market Street, Pier 39, and Fisherman's Wharf, before ending at Pier 45. A section of The Embarcadero which ran between Folsom Street and Drumm Street was formerly known as East Street. For three decades, until it was torn down in 1991, the Embarcadero Freeway dominated the area. The subsequent redevelopment and restoration efforts have, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, "contributed to a remarkable urban waterfront renaissance", with the Embarcadero Historic District serving as a "major economic engine for the Bay Area".


title: "Embarcadero (San Francisco)" content: San Francisco's shoreline historically ran south and inland from Clark's Point below Telegraph Hill to present-day Montgomery Street and eastward toward Rincon Point, enclosing a cove named Yerba Buena Cove. As the city grew, the cove was filled. Over fifty years a large offshore seawall was built and the mudflats filled, creating what today is San Francisco's Financial District. The San Francisco Belt Railroad, a short line railroad for freight, ran along The Embarcadero. The roadway follows the seawall, a boundary first established in the 1860s and not completed until the 1920s. During the early-20th century when the seaport was


title: "Embarcadero (San Francisco)" content: at its busiest and before the construction of the Bay Bridge, piers 1, 1½, 3 and 5 were dedicated chiefly to inland trade and transport. These connections facilitated the growth of communities in the Sacramento- and San Joaquin Valleys and fostered California's agricultural business. Today, these piers comprise the Central Embarcadero Piers Historic District. The "Delta Queen" docked at Pier 1½, ferrying people between San Francisco and Sacramento. There was once a pedestrian footbridge that connected Market Street directly with the Ferry building and a subterranean roadway to move cars below the plaza. During World War II, San Francisco's waterfront


title: "Embarcadero (San Francisco)" content: became a military logistics center; troops, equipment and supplies left the Port in support of the Pacific theater. Almost every pier and wharf was involved in military activities, with troop ships and naval vessels tied up all along the Embarcadero. However, after the completion of the Bay Bridge and the rapid decline of ferries and the Ferry Building, the neighborhood fell into decline. The transition to container shipping, which moved most shipping to Oakland, led to further decline. Automobile transit efforts led to the Embarcadero Freeway being built in the 1960s. This improved automobile access to the Bay Bridge, but


title: "Embarcadero (San Francisco)" content: detracted aesthetically from the city. For 30 years, the highway divided the waterfront and the Ferry Building from downtown. It was torn down in 1991, after being severely damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. After the freeway had been cleared, massive redevelopment began as a grand palm-lined boulevard was created, squares and plazas were created and/or restored, and Muni's N Judah and T Third Street and F Market & Wharves lines were extended to run along it, with the N and T lines going south from Market Street to Fourth and King Streets (at AT&T Park and the Caltrain


title: "Embarcadero (San Francisco)" content: station) and the F line going north from Market to Fisherman's Wharf. The Muni also relaunched the ‘E’ line which was historically a seasonal service connecting Fishermans' Wharf to the Caltrain Depot, the line now operates weekends between Jefferson and Jones adjacent Fisherman's Wharf and Fourth and King streets near the Caltrain terminus. The sidewalk along the waterfront between China Basin and Fisherman's Wharf was named "Herb Caen Way..." after the death of celebrated local columnist Herb Caen in 1997. The three dots, or ellipsis, deliberately are included in honor of columnist Herb Caen's Pulitzer Prize winning writing style. A


title: "Embarcadero (San Francisco)" content: large public sculpture, "Cupid's Span", by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, was installed in 2002 along the Rincon Park area. Resembling Cupid's bow and arrow with the arrow implanted in the ground, the artists stated that the statue was inspired by San Francisco's reputation as the home port of Eros, hence the stereotypical bow and arrow of Cupid. In 2016, the Embarcadero was named on the list of "11 Most Endangered Historic Places" in the US by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, citing "the dual natural threats of sea-level rise and seismic vulnerability" to the seawall. Embarcadero Station,


title: "Embarcadero (San Francisco)" content: a BART and Muni Metro subway station, is located at the foot of Market Street, one block from The Embarcadero. While not in the original transit system plans, it has become the most highly trafficked BART station. As it is an infill station, the design is unique among the Market Street Subway. Embarcadero Center consists of four 30 to 45 story buildings and the Hyatt Regency San Francisco, located between the Ferry Building and the foot of Market Street. Until 2001, there was a viewing deck on top of the Embarcadero Center. During the winter holidays, the edges of all


title: "Embarcadero (San Francisco)" content: four buildings are illuminated, the effect resembling the outlines of four giant books on a shelf. At the eastern end of Market Street is Justin Herman Plaza, opened in 1972, named for M. Justin Herman. Right along the Embarcadero Center is the Embarcadero YMCA, the city's flagship branch of a group of a dozen locales. The center features the unique Youth Chance High School, an alternative high school that is a magnet for troubled students from throughout the Bay Area. The Embarcadero seawall is over a century old, originally constructed between 1878 and 1916, and is in need of upgrades


title: "Embarcadero (San Francisco)" content: in order to ensure its integrity in the event of a major earthquake. The Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and several other departments are partnering to deliver a project to upgrade the seawall and adjoining public spaces. The project is expected to cost at least $2 billion and the city is planning to present a ballot measure to the public in order to issue $500 million in bonds to finance the upgrades. Embarcadero (San Francisco) The Embarcadero is the eastern waterfront and roadway of the Port of San Francisco, San Francisco, California, along San Francisco


title: "Embarcadero (San Diego)" content: Embarcadero (San Diego) The Embarcadero in San Diego, California is the area along the San Diego harbor on the east side of San Diego Bay. "Embarcadero" is a Spanish word meaning "landing place". The Embarcadero sits on property administered by the Port of San Diego, in the Columbia district of Downtown San Diego. The Embarcadero is home to the San Diego cruise ship terminal, the USS Midway museum ship at Navy Pier, the Star of India and seven other historic vessels belonging to the San Diego Maritime Museum, and various restaurants and shops from the North Embarcadero down through Seaport


title: Feering content: ecclesiastical parish Church of All Saints is part of the United Benefice of Kelvedon and Feering. The church provides two services, Holy Communion on Sundays, and Family Services monthly. The church has stood at the centre of Feering village for 850 years, and is an English Heritage Grade I listed building. Feering Mission is an independent village church, opened in October 1907, on Little Tey Road. It is part of the Fellowship for Evangelising Britain's Villages (FEBV). The church currently serves the local community, working closely with the Scope Home Drummonds, Feering Childminders' Association, and Feering Primary School, and has


title: "Port Hood Island, Nova Scotia" content: storm in the late 19th century, the thin sand spit connecting Port Hood Island was washed away. In the late 1950s, a road was constructed from the (then) main fishing wharf of the mainland to the fishing wharf on the island but it did not stand up to the weather and washed away shortly after completion. Rocks that made up the road still remain and now form what residents call the "Breakwater". The island was originally settled by Protestant Loyalists, giving contrast to the Catholic majority in the Port Hood area. In the 1950s Port Hood Island had approximately 28


title: "Robert Cushman" content: contrary to Church of England doctrine. Thomas Reader, likely Cushman's brother-in-law, testified that "Cushman of Canterbury was also of Gore's opinion." And another St. George's parishioner stated that Cushman had been "corrupted " by Gore. There were many other depositions, mostly St. George parishioners, indicating the parish had a number of dissenters and a few Separatists. Several of these deponents were associated with Cushman in earlier religious controversies. A number of Canterbury Pilgrims are known to have moved to Sandwich in Kent where they resided prior to sailing for Leiden, Holland, with the James Chilton family, as an example, moving


title: "Boat-billed flycatcher" content: Boat-billed flycatcher The boat-billed flycatcher ("Megarynchus pitangua") is a passerine bird. It is a large tyrant flycatcher, the only member of the monotypic genus "Megarynchus". It breeds in open woodland with some tall trees from Mexico south to Bolivia and Argentina, and through to Trinidad. The nest, built by the female, is an open saucer of sticks. The typical clutch is two or three whitish eggs heavily blotched with brown. These are incubated mostly by the female for 17–18 days with a further 24 days to fledging. Adult boat-billed flycatchers are one of the largest species of tyrant flycatcher, measuring


title: "Boat-billed flycatcher" content: long and weighing . The head is black with a strong white eyestripe and a concealed yellow crown stripe. The upperparts are olive-brown, and the wings and tail are brown with only faint rufous fringes. The underparts are yellow and the throat is white. The massive black bill, which gives this species its English and generic names, is the best distinction from the similar great kiskadee, which also has more rufous tail and wings, and lacks the olive tone to the upperparts. The call is a strident trilled "nya, nya, nya". Boat-billed flycatchers wait on a concealed perch high in


title: "Boat-billed flycatcher" content: a tree and sally out to catch insects in flight. They will also take invertebrates off the foliage and eat some berries. Boat-billed flycatcher The boat-billed flycatcher ("Megarynchus pitangua") is a passerine bird. It is a large tyrant flycatcher, the only member of the monotypic genus "Megarynchus". It breeds in open woodland with some tall trees from Mexico south to Bolivia and Argentina, and through to Trinidad. The nest, built by the female, is an open saucer of sticks. The typical clutch is two or three whitish eggs heavily blotched with brown. These are incubated mostly by the female for


title: "Rodong Sinmun" content: Rodong Sinmun Rodong Sinmun (, , "Workers' Newspaper") is a North Korean newspaper that is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. It was first published on November 1, 1945, as Chǒngro (; "right path"), serving as a communication channel for the North Korea Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea. It was renamed in September 1946 to its current name upon the steady development of the Workers' Party of Korea. Quoted frequently by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and international media, it is regarded as a source of official North Korean viewpoints


title: "Amy Carter" content: the White House until Socks, owned by Bill Clinton. Carter was also given an elephant from Sri Lanka from an immigrant; the animal was given to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Carter attended Washington, D.C., public schools, including Stevens Elementary School and Hardy Middle School. Carter roller skated through the White House's East Room and had a treehouse on the South Lawn. When she invited friends over for slumber parties in her treehouse, Secret Service agents monitored the event from the ground. Carter did not receive the "hands off" treatment that most of the media later afforded to Chelsea


title: Schlumbergera content: Schlumbergera Schlumbergera is a small genus of cacti with 6-9 species found in the coastal mountains of south-eastern Brazil. Plants grow on trees or rocks in habitats that are generally shady with high humidity, and can be quite different in appearance from their desert-dwelling cousins. Most species of "Schlumbergera" have stems which resemble leaf-like pads joined one to the other and flowers which appear from areoles at the joints and tips of the stems. Two species have cylindrical stems more similar to other cacti. Recent phylogenetic studies using DNA have led to three species of the related genus "Hatiora" being


title: Schlumbergera content: transferred into "Schlumbergera," though this change has yet to receive widespread acceptance. Common names for these cacti generally refer to their flowering season. In the Northern Hemisphere, they are called Christmas cactus, Thanksgiving cactus, crab cactus and holiday cactus. In Brazil, the genus is referred to as (May flower), reflecting the period in which they flower in the Southern Hemisphere. Most of the popular houseplants are cultivars of "Schlumbergera," with flowers in white, pink, yellow, orange, red or purple. The Easter or Whitsun cactus is also called a holiday cactus and has flowers in red, orange, pink and white. It


title: Schlumbergera content: was until recently placed in the genus "Hatiora". The cultivars of "Schlumbergera" fall into two main groups: In the wild, the species of "Schlumbergera" grow either on trees (epiphytic) or on rocks (epilithic) and can form sizeable shrubs with woody bases; a height of up to has been reported for one species ("S. opuntioides"). They are leafless, the green stems acting as photosynthetic organs. The stems are composed of segments, which take one of two forms. In most species the segments are strongly flattened (cladodes), being made up of a central core with two (or more rarely three) "wings". Special


title: Schlumbergera content: structures characteristic of cacti, called "areoles", then occur at the ends of the segments of the stem. In two species the stems are less flattened, more cylinder-shaped, and the areoles are arranged in a more or less spiral pattern all over the segments. In both cases, the areoles, which may have wool and bristles, are where the flower buds appear. The flowers either hang downwards and are almost regular (radially symmetrical or actinomorphic) or, as in most species, are held more or less horizontally with the higher side of the flower different from the lower side (radially asymmetrical or zygomorphic).


title: Schlumbergera content: In those species whose flowers are held up, their angle with the horizontal is relatively constant and is characteristic of the species. Each flower has 20–30 tepals. The outer tepals – those closer to the base of the flower – are short and unconnected, and spread out or curve backwards. The inner tepals – those towards the tip of the flower – are longer and become progressively more fused together at the base to form a floral tube. In some species the difference between the outer and inner tepals creates the appearance of a "flower within a flower". The flowers


title: Schlumbergera content: produce nectar in a chamber at the base of the floral tube. The many stamens are arranged in two series, which is a distinctive characteristic of the genus. The inner stamens are fused at the base to form a short tubular structure. The outer stamens arise from along the floral tube. The style is usually dark red and has a stigma with 6–8 lobes; the style plus stigma is roughly the same length as the stamens. If the flower is fertilized, a fleshy fruit forms, either smooth or with ribs. The brown or black seeds are about 1 mm in


title: Schlumbergera content: diameter. The genus is one of a small number belonging to a group of cacti classified as the tribe Rhipsalideae. Species of cacti belonging to this group are quite distinct in appearance and habit from most other cacti since they grow on trees or rocks as epiphytes or lithophytes. Although the species are easy to identify as members of the Rhipsalideae, for many years there was confusion as to how they should be divided into genera. This confusion extended to "Schlumbergera", whose complicated taxonomic history has been detailed by McMillan and Horobin. The modern genus "Schlumbergera" was created by Charles


title: Schlumbergera content: Lemaire in 1858. The name commemorates Frédéric Schlumberger, who had a collection of cacti at his chateau near Rouen. Lemaire placed only one species in his new genus – a plant discovered in Brazil in 1837 which had been named "Epiphyllum russellianum" by William J. Hooker. Lemaire renamed it "Schlumbergera epiphylloides" (under the current rules of botanical nomenclature it should have been called "Schlumbergera russelliana", which is its current name). Lemaire noted the similarity of his "Schlumbergera epiphylloides" to a species first described as "Epiphyllum truncatum" by Adrian Hardy Haworth in 1819, but did not accept that the two species


title: Schlumbergera content: should be included in the same genus. In 1890, Karl Moritz Schumann created the new genus "Zygocactus", transferring "Epiphyllum truncatum" to "Zygocactus truncatus". Although he later placed it back in "Epiphyllum", abandoning "Zygocactus", the generic name "Zygocactus" continued to be widely used. In 1913, Nathaniel Britton and Joseph Rose followed Lemaire in keeping "Schlumbergera russelliana" and "Zygocactus truncatus" in separate genera. They also transferred the Easter cactus to "Schlumbergera" as "S. gaertneri", initiating a lasting confusion between these two genera. In 1953, Reid Venable Moran placed both "Schlumbergera russelliana" and "Zygocactus truncatus" in the genus "Schlumbergera". Other species were added


title: Schlumbergera content: later by David Hunt, including those formerly placed in "Epiphyllanthus", to form the modern total of six full species and a number of hybrids. "Schlumbergera" and "Hatiora" have long been confused. Species in the former genus generally have tubular flowers that are zygomorphic, while those in the latter have actinomorphic flowers with inconspicuous tubes. DNA data shows that the two genera are not monophyletic and the three species in "Hatiora" subgenus "Rhipsalidopsis" have been transferred into "Schlumbergera," although this change has not been universally adopted. The following genera are now synonyms of "Schlumbergera" (i.e. they have no species not moved


title: Schlumbergera content: into "Schlumbergera"): The case of "Epiphyllum" is complex. In 1753 Carl Linnaeus created the genus "Cactus". As more species were discovered this proved too broad, and new genera were set up to subdivide the cacti. The genus "Epiphyllum" was created in 1812 by Haworth, based on Linnaeus's "Cactus phyllanthus". In 1831 Johann Link created the genus "Phyllocactus" based on the same species. Following Ludwig Pfeiffer in 1837, the European tradition was to use "Phyllocactus" for epiphytic cacti with large regular flowers and "Epiphyllum" for the irregular-flowered species now called "Schlumbergera truncata". Under modern rules, "Phyllocactus" is an illegitimate name, as


title: Schlumbergera content: is "Epiphyllum" in the sense of Pfeiffer; thus "Epiphyllum" is a synonym of "Schlumbergera". The true genus "Epiphyllum" now has around 19 species. Six species are currently recognized. Only synonyms which have been widely used (and their basionyms) are given in the list below. Three species of "Hatiora" ("H. epiphylloides", "H. gaertneri" and "H. rosea") have been transferred into "Schlumbergera" (as "S. lutea", "S. gaertneri" and "S. rosea"), though this change has yet to be adopted by many Cactaceae authorities. Four hybrids have been named, all made in cultivation (although the first may possibly occur in the wild). The "International


title: Schlumbergera content: Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants" recommends that cultivated plants should be named under its rules, not those appropriate for natural species and hybrids. The Group names given below were provided by McMillan and Horobin. The Easter cactus was at one time placed in "Schlumbergera", but has flowers which are different in structure. See "Hatiora gaertneri": Taxonomy. "Schlumbergera" occurs only in the coastal mountains of south-east Brazil, in the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo. Sites where it has been found range from close to the Tropic of Capricorn northwards to 20°S, i.e. in


title: Schlumbergera content: the southernmost part of the tropics. Plants grow at altitudes from in the case of "S. truncata" to in the case of "S. microsphaerica", either in the coastal moist forests or in rocky areas. The natural distribution of "Schlumbergera" species has become confused because European cultivars were deliberately introduced into some areas, including the Serra dos Órgãos National Park, by the Brazilian Agricultural Department, to compensate for over-collecting of wild plants. Because of their height and proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, the coastal mountains produce high altitude moist forests – warm moist air is forced upwards into higher, colder locations


title: Schlumbergera content: where it condenses. "Schlumbergera" species grow in habitats which are generally relatively cool, shaded and of high humidity. David Hunt describes collecting specimens in conditions of cloud, drizzle and overnight temperatures down to . Plants are epiphytic or lithophytic, growing on moss-covered tree branches or in rock crevices, often in small pockets of substrate formed from decayed leaves and other vegetation. "S. microsphaerica" is found at higher altitudes, above , in barren rocky habitats, and tolerates higher light levels. The flowers of "Schlumbergera" have adaptations for pollination by hummingbirds: tubular flowers with abundant nectar, and colours towards the red end


title: Schlumbergera content: of the spectrum. Most species require cross-pollination to set seed. The exceptions are "S. kautskyi" and "S. microsphaerica"; as noted above, the latter is found at higher altitudes where humming birds may be absent or less common. The fruits of "Schlumbergera" do not open spontaneously when ripe, and appear to be adapted for distribution by birds, which eat the seeds and pulp contained in the fruit. Birds have been observed removing seeds which had stuck to their beaks by rubbing them on tree branches, where the seeds might be able to germinate. Segments may also break off from the stems