title: "Foie gras" content: Interest in alternative production methods has grown recently due to ethical concerns in gavage-based foie gras production. Such livers are alternatively termed fatty goose liver, ethical foie gras, or humane foie gras. The British supermarket chain Waitrose also provides a version of ethical foie gras which it calls (and has been trademarked) "faux gras". This is not to be confused with the American product by the same name, produced by Regal Vegan, which has the U.S. trademark for "faux gras", and is actually a vegan, nut-based spread. The term "ethical foie gras" or "humane foie gras" is also used for


title: "Foie gras" content: gavage-based foie gras production that is more concerned with the animal's welfare (using rubber hoses rather than steel pipes for feeding). Others have expressed skepticism at these claims of humane treatment, as earlier attempts to produce fattened livers without gavage have not produced satisfactory results. More radical approaches have been studied. A duck or goose with a ventromedian hypothalamic (VMH) lesion will tend not to feel satiated after eating, and will therefore eat more than a non-lesioned animal. By producing such lesions surgically, it is possible to increase the bird's food consumption when permitted to eat "ad libitum", by a


title: "Foie gras" content: factor of more than two. Generally, French preparations of foie gras are made over low heat, as fat melts faster from the traditional goose foie gras than the duck foie gras produced in most other parts of the world. American and other New World preparations, typically employing duck foie gras, have more recipes and dish preparations for serving foie gras hot, rather than cool or cold. In Hungary, goose foie gras traditionally is fried in goose fat, which is then poured over the foie gras and left to cool; it is also eaten warm, after being fried or roasted, with


title: "Foie gras" content: some chefs smoking the foie gras over a cherry wood fire. In other parts of the world foie gras is served in dishes such as foie gras sushi rolls, in various forms of pasta or alongside steak tartare or atop a steak as a garnish. Traditional low-heat cooking methods result in terrines, "pâtés", parfaits, foams and mousses of foie gras, often flavored with truffle, mushrooms or brandy such as cognac or armagnac. These slow-cooked forms of "foie gras" are cooled and served at or below room temperature. In a very traditional form of terrine, "au torchon" ("in a towel"), a


title: "Foie gras" content: whole lobe of foie is molded, wrapped in a towel and slow-cooked in a "bain-marie". For added flavor (from the Maillard reaction), the liver may be seared briefly over a fire of grape vine clippings ("sarments") before slow-cooking in a bain-marie; afterwards, it is pressed served cold, in slices. Raw foie gras is also cured in salt (""cru au sel""), served slightly chilled. A pastry containing fatty goose liver and other ingredients is known as the "Strasburg pie" since Strasbourg was a major producer of foie gras. The pie is mentioned in William Makepeace Thackeray's novel "Vanity Fair" as being


title: "Foie gras" content: popular with the diplomatic corps. Given the increased internationalization of cuisines and food supply, "foie gras" is increasingly found in hot preparations not only in the United States, but in France and elsewhere. Duck foie gras (""foie gras de canard"") has slightly lower fat content and is generally more suitable in texture to cooking at high temperature than is goose foie gras (""foie gras d'oie""), but chefs have been able to cook goose "foie gras" employing similar techniques developed for duck, albeit with more care. Raw foie gras can be roasted, sauteed, pan-seared ("poêlé") or (with care and attention), grilled.


title: "Foie gras" content: As foie gras has high fat content, contact with heat needs to be brief and therefore at high temperature, lest it burn or melt. Optimal structural integrity for searing requires the foie gras to be cut to a thickness between 15 and 25 mm (½ – 1 inch), resulting in a rare, uncooked center. Some chefs prefer not to devein the foie gras, as the veins can help preserve the integrity of the fatty liver. It is increasingly common to sear the "foie gras" on one side only, leaving the other side uncooked. Practitioners of molecular gastronomy such as Heston


title: "Foie gras" content: Blumenthal of The Fat Duck restaurant first flash-freeze foie gras in liquid nitrogen as part of the preparation process. Hot foie gras requires minimal spices; typically black pepper, paprika (in Hungary) and salt. Chefs have used fleur de sel as a gourmet seasoning for hot foie gras to add an "important textural accent" with its crunch. Foie gras is a regarded as a gourmet luxury dish. In France, it is mainly consumed on special occasions, such as Christmas or New Year's Eve "réveillon" dinners, though the recent increased availability of foie gras has made it a less exceptional dish. In


title: "Foie gras" content: some areas of France "foie gras" is eaten year-round. Duck foie gras is the slightly cheaper and, since a change of production methods in the 1950s to battery, by far the most common kind, particularly in the US. The taste of duck foie gras is often referred to as musky with a subtle bitterness. Goose foie gras is noted for being less gamey and smoother, with a more delicate flavor. Gavage-based foie gras production is controversial due to the animal welfare consequences of the force-feeding procedure, intensive housing and husbandry, an enlarged liver and the potential for being detrimental to


title: "Foie gras" content: human health. Some countries find foie gras to be "morally objectionable". One EU committee report noted that up to 1998, there was only a small number of scientific studies on the welfare of birds used for foie gras production, however, the Committee found sufficient evidence to conclude that "force-feeding, as currently practised, is detrimental to the welfare of the birds." The industry repeatedly faces accusations of torture and cruelty. The production of foie gras occurs on the argument that migrating wildfowl seasonally eat such that their liver naturally enlarges. However, the bird used predominantly in foie gras production is a


title: "Foie gras" content: hybrid of a male Muscovy duck and a female Pekin duck. It has been noted that the Muscovy duck is non-migratory, and both the Pekin and the mulard hybrid cannot fly. Domestic ducks (including the Pekin) are derived from the mallard duck, which is sometimes migratory and sometimes not. Therefore, although the domestic goose might well be adapted to store food before migration, it is less likely that the Mulard hybrid duck has the same potential. Geese and ducks show avoidance behaviour (indicating aversion) of the person who feeds them and the feeding procedure. Although an EU committee in 1998


title: "Foie gras" content: reported seeing this aversion, they noted that at the time, there was no "conclusive" scientific evidence on the aversive nature of force-feeding. The AVMA (Animal Welfare Division) when considering foie gras production stated "The relatively new Mulard breed used in foie gras production seems to be more prone than its parent breeds to fear of people". An EU committee in 1998 reported that there was usually clear evidence of tissue damage in the esophagus of birds which had been gavage fed, although one 1972 study cited by the report observed no alteration of the esophageal tissue. More recent scientific studies


title: "Foie gras" content: have shown that the esophagus of birds can be injured or inflamed by gavage feeding. After measuring a range of physiological parameters in male Mulard ducks, it was concluded in one study that the acute stress caused by force feeding is similar at the beginning and end of the commercial production of foie gras. A similar study on Muscovy ducks found that gavage feeding was related to an increase in panting behaviour and serum corticosterone levels, indicating increased stress attributable to this feeding method. In France, at the end of 2015, individual cages were prohibited to improve animal welfare. They


title: "Foie gras" content: will be replaced by cages which house 4 to 5 birds. During the force-feeding period, the birds are kept in individual cages, with wire or plastic mesh floors, or sometimes in small groups on slatted floors. Individual caging restricts movements and behaviours by preventing the birds from standing erect, turning around, or flapping their wings. Birds cannot carry out other natural waterfowl behaviours, such as bathing and swimming. Furthermore, ducks and geese are social animals and individual cages prevent such interactions. During the force feeding period, when the birds are not being fed, they are sometimes kept in near darkness;


title: "Foie gras" content: this prevents normal investigatory behaviour and results in poor welfare. Lesions can occur on the sternum of the birds due to necrosis of the skin. This is observed more frequently in birds reared in cages rather than on the floor. The prevalence is higher in Mulard ducks (40–70%) compared to under 6% in Muscovy ducks. This is due to the larger pectoralis profundus major and minor muscles in Muscovy ducks compared to Mulards. The relatively new Mulard breed used in foie gras production seems more prone to developing lesions in the area of the sternum when kept in small cages,


title: "Foie gras" content: and to bone breakage during transport and slaughter. Where ducks are fattened in group pens, it has been suggested that the increased effort required to capture and restrain ducks in pens might cause them to experience more stress during force feeding. Injuries and fatalities during transport and slaughter occur in all types of poultry production, however, fattened ducks are more susceptible to conditions such as heat stress. Foie gras production results in the bird's liver being swollen. In some species of ducks, liver size changes seasonally, increasing by as much as 30 to 50%, with more pronounced changes in females.


title: "Foie gras" content: However, foie gras production enlarges the livers up to 10 times their normal size. This impairs liver function due to obstructing blood flow, and expands the abdomen making it difficult for the birds to breathe. Death occurs if the force-feeding is continued. The mortality rate in force-fed birds varies from 2% to 4%, compared with approximately 0.2% in age-matched, non-force-fed drakes. Mortality rates do not differ between the force-feeding period and the previous rearing phase, with both being approximately 2.5%. The polarising and controversial nature of foie gras production was identified in a paper that juxtaposed the views of "foie


title: "Foie gras" content: gras production as the apotheosis of murderous meat production, and those who consider it to be a co-production between humans and animals". Animal rights and welfare advocates such as PETA, Viva!, and the Humane Society of the United States contend that foie gras production methods, and force-feeding in particular, constitute cruel and inhumane treatment of animals. An Ipsos MORI poll found that 63% of the UK population would like to see a complete ban on the sale of foie gras in the UK. In April–May 2013, an investigator from Mercy for Animals recorded undercover video at Hudson Valley Foie Gras


title: "Foie gras" content: farm in New York state. The video showed workers forcefully pushing tubes down ducks' throats. One worker said of the force-feeding process: "Sometimes the duck doesn't get up and it dies. There have been times that 20 ducks were killed." Hudson Valley operations manager Marcus Henley replied that the farm's mortality statistics are not above average for the poultry industry. Because Hudson Valley provides foie gras to Amazon.com, Mercy for Animals began a campaign urging Amazon to stop selling foie gras, a move that has already been made by Costco, Safeway, and Target. In November 2013, the "Daily Mirror" published


title: "Foie gras" content: a report based on the video they obtained depicting cruelty towards ducks in a farm owned by French firm Ernest Soulard, which is a supplier to celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's restaurants. The restaurant chain suspended purchasing from the supplier following the exposé. The process of force-feeding can make animals sick by stressing the liver. If the stress is prolonged, excess protein may build up and clump together as amyloids, consumption of which has been found to induce amyloidosis in laboratory mice. It has been hypothesized this may be a route of transmission in humans too and so be a risk


title: "Foie gras" content: for people with inflammatory complaints such as rheumatoid arthritis. A number of countries and regions have laws against force-feeding or the sale or importation of foie gras, and even where it is legal some retailers have ceased to sell it. In 2017, foie gras production was banned in Brussels - the capital of Belgium, which is one of the few remaining countries that produces foie gras. A more humane version of foie gras was pioneered in the Spanish region of Extremadura, whereby the bird is tricked into preparing for migration rather than force-fed. Foie gras Foie gras (, ; )


title: CAPTCHA content: York Times and books from Google Books in 2011. In recent years, Google has used an image-based CAPTCHA to improve its driverless car data set, identifying objects like trees and crosswalks. Critics point to the un-witting participation of the end-user in advancing Google's commercial interests. In response, competitors have emerged with alternative models including compensation for the website host or end-user for their effort. Two teams of people have claimed to be the first to invent the CAPTCHAs used widely on the Web today. The first team consists of Mark D. Lillibridge, Martín Abadi, Krishna Bharat, and Andrei Broder, who


title: "Vauxhall Viva" content: in September 1966 and sold by Vauxhall until 1970, was a larger car than the HA, featuring coke bottle styling, and was modelled after American General Motors (GM) models such as the Chevrolet Impala/Caprice of the period. It featured the same basic engine as the HA, but enlarged to 1,159 cc, but with the added weight of the larger body the final drive gearing was reduced from 3.9 to 1 to 4.1 to keep the nippy performance (except the SL90 which retained the 3.9 diff having the power to cope with the higher ratio). The automatic Viva HB was offered


title: WinMX content: and corrupted data in the networks. The people hosting the files, called 'flooders', connected as secondary users. If certain trigger words were included by a user when searching for a file, that user got many results that were not real. Along with wasting the user's time, the resulting large bandwidth sometimes crashed the client. This flooding continued when the efforts of third parties resurrected WinMX days after its closure. However, the later community patches blocked the sources of these connections as well as the search results they generated. WinMX allowed a person to host chatrooms with its built-in Chat function.


title: "Yoshiko Kawashima" content: various actresses. She was featured in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film "The Last Emperor", where she appeared as "Eastern Jewel", played by Maggie Han. A film titled "Sen'un Ajia no Joō" about her was released in Japan in 1957. Anita Mui portrayed Yoshiko Kawashima in a 1990 Hong Kong film, "Kawashima Yoshiko". She was also portrayed by Rei Kikukawa in the 2007 Japanese drama "Ri Kouran", which tells the story of the life of Yoshiko Yamaguchi. Meisa Kuroki portrayed Kawashima in the 2008 Japanese drama "Dansō no Reijin: Kawashima Yoshiko no Shōgai". In the Chinese language, Kawashima's name (both Chuandao Fangzi


title: "Robert Morris (cryptographer)" content: to include the answer to this puzzle in "The Cuckoo's Egg", to the frustration of many readers. Robert Morris died in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Robert Morris (cryptographer) Robert H. Morris Sr. (July 25, 1932 – June 26, 2011) was an American cryptographer and computer scientist. Morris was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were Walter W. Morris, a salesman, and Helen Kelly Morris. He received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard University in 1957 and a master's degree in applied mathematics from Harvard in 1958. He married Anne Farlow, and they had three children together: Robert Tappan Morris, author


title: Mallard content: Mallard The mallard ( or ) ("Anas platyrhynchos") is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, the Falkland Islands, and South Africa. This duck belongs to the subfamily Anatinae of the waterfowl family Anatidae. The male birds (drakes) have a glossy green head and are grey on their wings and belly, while the females (hens or ducks) have mainly brown-speckled plumage. Both sexes have an area of white-bordered black or iridescent blue feathers called a speculum on their


title: Mallard content: wings; males especially tend to have blue speculum feathers. The mallard is long, of which the body makes up around two-thirds the length. The wingspan is and the bill is long. It is often slightly heavier than most other dabbling ducks, weighing . Mallards live in wetlands, eat water plants and small animals, and are social animals preferring to congregate in groups or flocks of varying sizes. This species is the main ancestor of most breeds of domesticated ducks. The female lays eight to thirteen creamy white to greenish-buff spotless eggs, on alternate days. Incubation takes 27 to 28 days


title: Mallard content: and fledging takes 50 to 60 days. The ducklings are precocial and fully capable of swimming as soon as they hatch. The mallard is considered to be a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Unlike many waterfowl, mallards are considered an invasive species in some regions. It is a very adaptable species, being able to live and even thrive in urban areas which may have supported more localised, sensitive species of waterfowl before development. The non-migratory mallard interbreeds with indigenous wild ducks of closely related species through genetic pollution by producing fertile offspring.


title: Mallard content: Complete hybridisation of various species of wild duck gene pools could result in the extinction of many indigenous waterfowl. The wild mallard is the ancestor of most domestic ducks, and its naturally evolved wild gene pool gets genetically polluted by the domesticated and feral mallard populations. The mallard was one of the many bird species originally described in the 1758 10thedition of "Systema Naturae" by Carl Linnaeus. He gave it two binomial names: "Anas platyrhynchos" and "Anas boschas". The latter was generally preferred until 1906 when Einar Lönnberg established that "A.platyrhynchos" had priority as it appeared on an earlier page


title: Mallard content: in the text. The scientific name comes from Latin "Anas", "duck" and Ancient Greek πλατυρυγχος, "platyrhynchus", "broad-billed" (from πλατύς, "platys", "broad" and ρυγχός, "rhunkhos", "bill"). The genome of "Anas platyrhynchos" was sequenced in 2013. The name "Mallard" originally referred to any wild drake, and it is sometimes still used this way. It was derived from the Old French ' or ' for "wild drake" although its true derivation is unclear. It may be related to, or at least influenced by, an Old High German masculine proper name "", clues lying in the alternate English forms "maudelard" or "mawdelard". "Masle" (male)


title: Mallard content: has also been proposed as an influence. Mallards frequently interbreed with their closest relatives in the genus "Anas", such as the American black duck, and also with species more distantly related, such as the northern pintail, leading to various hybrids that may be fully fertile. This is quite unusual among such different species, and is apparently because the mallard evolved very rapidly and recently, during the Late Pleistocene. The distinct lineages of this radiation are usually kept separate due to non-overlapping ranges and behavioural cues, but have not yet reached the point where they are fully genetically incompatible. Mallards and


title: Mallard content: their domesticated conspecifics are also fully interfertile. Genetic analysis has shown that certain mallards appear to be closer to their Indo-Pacific relatives while others are related to their American relatives. Mitochondrial DNA data for the D-loop sequence suggests that mallards may have evolved in the general area of Siberia. Mallard bones rather abruptly appear in food remains of ancient humans and other deposits of fossil bones in Europe, without a good candidate for a local predecessor species. The large ice age palaeosubspecies that made up at least the European and west Asian populations during the Pleistocene has been named "Anas


title: Mallard content: platyrhynchos palaeoboschas". Mallards are differentiated in their mitochondrial DNA between North American and Eurasian populations, but the nuclear genome displays a notable lack of genetic structure. Haplotypes typical of American mallard relatives and spotbills can be found in mallards around the Bering Sea. The Aleutian Islands hold a population of mallards that appear to be evolving towards a subspecies, as gene flow with other populations is very limited. Also, the paucity of morphological differences between the Old World mallards and the New World mallard demonstrates the extent to which the genome is shared among them such that birds like the


title: Mallard content: Chinese spot-billed duck are highly similar to the Old World mallard, and birds such as the Hawaiian duck are highly similar to the New World mallard. The size of the mallard varies clinally; for example, birds from Greenland, though larger, have smaller bills, paler plumage, and stockier bodies than birds further south, and are sometimes classified as a separate subspecies, the Greenland mallard ("A.p.conboschas"). The mallard is a medium-sized waterfowl species that is often slightly heavier than most other dabbling ducks. It is longof which the body makes up around two-thirdshas a wingspan of , and weighs . Among standard


title: Mallard content: measurements, the wing chord is , the bill is , and the tarsus is . The breeding male mallard is unmistakable, with a glossy bottle-green head and a white collar that demarcates the head from the purple-tinged brown breast, grey-brown wings, and a pale grey belly. The rear of the male is black, with white-bordered dark tail feathers. The bill of the male is a yellowish-orange tipped with black, with that of the female generally darker and ranging from black to mottled orange and brown. The female mallard is predominantly mottled, with each individual feather showing sharp contrast from buff


title: Mallard content: to very dark brown, a coloration shared by most female dabbling ducks, and has buff cheeks, eyebrow, throat, and neck, with a darker crown and eye-stripe. Both male and female mallards have distinct iridescent purple-blue speculum feathers edged with white, which are prominent in flight or at rest but temporarily shed during the annual summer moult. Upon hatching, the plumage of the duckling is yellow on the underside and face (with streaks by the eyes) and black on the back (with some yellow spots) all the way to the top and back of the head. Its legs and bill are


title: Mallard content: also black. As it nears a month in age, the duckling's plumage starts becoming drab, looking more like the female, though more streaked, and its legs lose their dark grey colouring. Two months after hatching, the fledgling period has ended, and the duckling is now a juvenile. Between three and four months of age, the juvenile can finally begin flying, as its wings are fully developed for flight (which can be confirmed by the sight of purple speculum feathers). Its bill soon loses its dark grey colouring, and its sex can finally be distinguished visually by three factors: 1)the bill


title: Mallard content: is yellow in males, but black and orange in females; 2)the breast feathers are reddish-brown in males, but brown in females; and 3)in males, the centre tail feather (drake feather) is curled, but in females, the centre tail feather is straight. During the final period of maturity leading up to adulthood (6–10 months of age), the plumage of female juveniles remains the same while the plumage of male juveniles gradually changes to its characteristic colours. This change in plumage also applies to adult mallard males when they transition in and out of their non-breeding eclipse plumage at the beginning and


title: Mallard content: the end of the summer moulting period. The adulthood age for mallards is fourteen months, and the average life expectancy is three years, but they can live to twenty. Several species of duck have brown-plumaged females that can be confused with the female mallard. The female gadwall ("A.strepera") has an orange-lined bill, white belly, black and white speculum that is seen as a white square on the wings in flight, and is a smaller bird. More similar to the female mallard in North America are the American black duck ("A.rubripes"), which is notably darker-hued in both sexes than the mallard,


title: Mallard content: and the mottled duck ("A.fulvigula"), which is somewhat darker than the female mallard, and with slightly different bare-part colouration and no white edge on the speculum. In captivity, domestic ducks come in wild-type plumages, white, and other colours. Most of these colour variants are also known in domestic mallards not bred as livestock, but kept as pets, aviary birds, etc., where they are rare but increasing in availability. A noisy species, the female has the deep "quack" stereotypically associated with ducks. Male mallards make a sound phonetically similar to that of the female, a typical "quack", but it is a


title: Mallard content: deep and raspy and can also sound like "breeeeze". When incubating a nest, or when offspring are present, females vocalise differently, making a call that sounds like a truncated version of the usual quack. They hiss if the nest or offspring are threatened or interfered with. When taking off, the wings of a mallard produce a characteristic faint whistling noise. The mallard is a rare example of both Allen's Rule and Bergmann's Rule in birds. Bergmann's Rule, which states that polar forms tend to be larger than related ones from warmer climates, has numerous examples in birds, as in case


title: Mallard content: of the Greenland mallard which is larger than the mallards further south. Allen's Rule says that appendages like ears tend to be smaller in polar forms to minimise heat loss, and larger in tropical and desert equivalents to facilitate heat diffusion, and that the polar taxa are stockier overall. Examples of this rule in birds are rare as they lack external ears, but the bill of ducks is supplied with a few blood vessels to prevent heat loss, and, as in the Greenland mallard, the bill is smaller than that of birds farther south, illustrating the rule. Due to the


title: Mallard content: variability of the mallard's genetic code, which gives it its vast interbreeding capability, mutations in the genes that decide plumage colour are very common and have resulted in a wide variety of hybrids such as Brewer's duck (mallard × gadwall, "Anas strepera"). The mallard is widely distributed across the Northern and Southern Hemispheres; in North America its range extends from southern and central Alaska to Mexico, the Hawaiian Islands, across Eurasia, from Iceland and southern Greenland and parts of Morocco (North Africa) in the west, Scandinavia and Britain to the north, and to Siberia, Japan, and South Korea, in the


title: Mallard content: east, south-eastern and south-western Australia and New Zealand in the Southern hemisphere. It is strongly migratory in the northern parts of its breeding range, and winters farther south. For example, in North America, it winters south to the southern United States and northern Mexico, but also regularly strays into Central America and the Caribbean between September and May. The mallard inhabits a wide range of habitats and climates, from Arctic tundra to subtropical regions. It is found in both fresh- and salt-water wetlands, including parks, small ponds, rivers, lakes and estuaries, as well as shallow inlets and open sea within


title: Mallard content: sight of the coastline. Water depths of less than are preferred, with birds avoiding areas more than a few metres deep. They are attracted to bodies of water with aquatic vegetation. The mallard is omnivorous and very flexible in its choice of food. Its diet may vary based on several factors, including the stage of the breeding cycle, short-term variations in available food, nutrient availability, and interspecific and intraspecific competition. The majority of the mallard's diet seems to be made up of gastropods, invertebrates (including beetles, flies, lepidopterans, dragonflies, and caddisflies), crustaceans, worms, many varieties of seeds and plant matter,


title: Mallard content: and roots and tubers. During the breeding season, male birds were recorded to have eaten 37.6% animal matter and 62.4% plant matter, most notably "Echinochloa crus-galli", and nonlaying females ate 37.0% animal matter and 63.0% plant matter, while laying females ate 71.9% animal matter and only 28.1% plant matter. Plants generally make up the larger part of a bird's diet, especially during autumn migration and in the winter. The mallard usually feeds by dabbling for plant food or grazing; there are reports of it eating frogs. However, in 2017 a flock of mallards in Romania were observed hunting small migratory


title: Mallard content: birds, including grey wagtail and black redstart, the first documented occasion they had been seen attacking and consuming large vertebrates. It usually nests on a river bank, but not always near water. It is highly gregarious outside of the breeding season and forms large flocks, which are known as "sords". Mallards usually form pairs (in October and November in the Northern Hemisphere) until the female lays eggs at the start of the nesting season, which is around the beginning of spring. At this time she is left by the male who joins up with other males to await the moulting


title: Mallard content: period, which begins in June (in the Northern Hemisphere). During the brief time before this, however, the males are still sexually potent and some of them either remain on standby to sire replacement clutches (for female mallards that have lost or abandoned their previous clutch) or forcibly mate with females that appear to be isolated or unattached regardless of their species and whether or not they have a brood of ducklings. Egg clutches number 8–13 creamy white to greenish-buff eggs free of speckles. They measure about in length and in width. The eggs are laid on alternate days, and incubation


title: Mallard content: begins when the clutch is almost complete. Incubation takes 27–28days and fledging takes 50–60days. The ducklings are precocial and fully capable of swimming as soon as they hatch. However, filial imprinting compels them to instinctively stay near the mother, not only for warmth and protection but also to learn about and remember their habitat as well as how and where to forage for food. When ducklings mature into flight-capable juveniles, they learn about and remember their traditional migratory routes (unless they are born and raised in captivity). During the breeding season, both male and female mallards can become aggressive, driving


title: Mallard content: off competitors to themselves or their mate by charging at them. Males tend to fight more than females, and attack each other by repeatedly pecking at their rival's chest, ripping out feathers and even skin on rare occasions. The drakes that end up being left out after the others have paired off with mating partners sometimes target an isolated female duck, even one of a different species, and proceed to chase and peck at her until she weakens, at which point the males take turns copulating with the female. Lebret (1961) calls this behaviour "Attempted Rape Flight", and Stanley Cramp


title: Mallard content: and K.E.L. Simmons (1977) speak of "rape-intent flights". Male mallards also occasionally chase other male ducks of a different species, and even each other, in the same way. In one documented case of "homosexual necrophilia", a male mallard copulated with another male he was chasing after the chased male died upon flying into a glass window. This paper was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2003. Mallards are opportunistically targeted by brood parasites, occasionally having eggs laid in their nests by redheads, ruddy ducks, lesser scaup, gadwalls, northern shovelers, northern pintails, cinnamon teal, common goldeneyes, and other mallards. These eggs


title: Mallard content: are generally accepted when they resemble the eggs of the host mallard, but the hen may attempt to eject them or even abandon the nest if parasitism occurs during egg laying. Mallards of all ages (but especially young ones) and in all locations must contend with a wide diversity of predators including raptors, mustelids, corvids, snakes, raccoons, opossums, skunks, turtles, large fish, felids, and canids, including domesticated ones. The most prolific natural predators of adult mallards are red foxes (which most often pick off brooding females) and the faster or larger birds of prey, e.g. peregrine falcons, "Aquila" eagles, or


title: Mallard content: "Haliaeetus" eagles. In North America, adult mallards face no fewer than 15 species of birds of prey, from northern harriers and short-eared owls (both smaller than a mallard) to huge bald and golden eagles, and about a dozen species of mammalian predator, not counting several more avian and mammalian predators who threaten eggs and nestlings. Mallards are also preyed upon by other waterside apex predators, such as the grey heron, European herring gull, the wels catfish, and the northern pike. Crows ("Corvus") are also known to kill ducklings and adults on occasion. Also, mallards may be attacked by larger anseriformes


title: Mallard content: such as swans ("Cygnus") and geese during the breeding season, and are frequently driven off by these birds over territorial disputes. Mute swans ("Cygnus olor") have been known to attack or even kill mallards if they feel that the ducks pose a threat to their offspring. The predation-avoidance behavior of sleeping with one eye open, allowing one brain hemisphere to remain aware while the other half sleeps, was first demonstrated in mallards, although it is believed to be widespread among birds in general. Since 1998, the mallard has been rated as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red


title: Mallard content: List of Endangered Species. This is because it has a large range–more than 20,000,000 km (7,700,000 mi)–and because its population is increasing, rather than declining by 30% over ten years or three generations and thus is not warranted a vulnerable rating. Also, the population size of the mallard is very large. Unlike many waterfowl, mallards have benefited from human alterations to the worldso much so that they are now considered an invasive species in some regions. They are a common sight in urban parks, lakes, ponds, and other man-made water features in the regions they inhabit, and are often tolerated


title: Mallard content: or encouraged in human habitat due to their placid nature towards humans and their beautiful and iridescent colours. While most are not domesticated, mallards are so successful at coexisting in human regions that the main conservation risk they pose comes from the loss of genetic diversity among a region's traditional ducks once humans and mallards colonise an area. Mallards are very adaptable, being able to live and even thrive in urban areas which may have supported more localised, sensitive species of waterfowl before development. The release of feral mallards in areas where they are not native sometimes creates problems through


title: Mallard content: interbreeding with indigenous waterfowl. These non-migratory mallards interbreed with indigenous wild ducks from local populations of closely related species through genetic pollution by producing fertile offspring. Complete hybridisation of various species of wild duck gene pools could result in the extinction of many indigenous waterfowl. The wild mallard itself is the ancestor of most domestic ducks, and its naturally evolved wild gene pool gets genetically polluted in turn by the domesticated and feral populations. Over time, a continuum of hybrids ranging between almost typical examples of either species develop; the speciation process is beginning to reverse itself. This has created


title: Mallard content: conservation concerns for relatives of the mallard, such as the Hawaiian duck, the New Zealand grey duck ("A.s. superciliosa)" subspecies of the Pacific black duck, the American black duck, the mottled duck, Meller's duck, the yellow-billed duck, and the Mexican duck, in the latter case even leading to a dispute as to whether these birds should be considered a species (and thus entitled to more conservation research and funding) or included in the mallard species. Ecological changes and hunting have also led to a decline of local species; for example, the New Zealand grey duck population declined drastically due to


title: Mallard content: overhunting in the mid-20th century. Hybrid offspring of Hawaiian ducks seem to be less well adapted to native habitat, and using them in re-introduction projects apparently reduces success. In summary, the problems of mallards "hybridising away" relatives is more a consequence of local ducks declining than of mallards spreading; allopatric speciation and isolating behaviour have produced today's diversity of mallard-like ducks despite the fact that, in most, if not all, of these populations, hybridisation must have occurred to some extent. Mallards are causing severe "genetic pollution" to South Africa's biodiversity by breeding with endemic ducks even though the "Agreement on


title: Mallard content: the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds – "an agreement to protect the local waterfowl populations – applies to the mallard as well as other ducks. The hybrids of mallards and the yellow-billed duck are fertile, capable of producing hybrid offspring. If this continues, only hybrids occur and in the long term result in the extinction of various indigenous waterfowl. The mallard duck can cross breed with 63 other species, posing a severe threat to indigenous waterfowl's genetic integrity. Mallards and their hybrids compete with indigenous birds for resources, including nest sites, roosting sites, and food. Availability of mallards, mallard ducklings,


title: Mallard content: and fertilised mallard eggs for public sale and private ownership, either as poultry or as pets, is currently legal in the United States except for the state of Florida, which has currently banned domestic ownership of mallards. This is to prevent hybridisation with the native mottled duck. The mallard is considered an invasive species in New Zealand, where it competes with the local New Zealand grey duck, which was overhunted in the past. There, and elsewhere, mallards are spreading with increasing urbanisation and hybridising with local relatives. The Eastern or Chinese spot-billed duck is currently introgressing into the mallard populations


title: Mallard content: of the Primorsky Krai, possibly due to habitat changes from global warming. The Mariana mallard was a resident allopatric population – in most respects a good species – apparently initially derived from mallard-Pacific black duck hybrids; unfortunately, it became extinct in the late 20thcentury. The Laysan duck is an insular relative of the mallard, with a very small and fluctuating population. Mallards sometimes arrive on its island home during migration, and can be expected to occasionally have remained and hybridised with Laysan ducks as long as these species have existed. However, these hybrids are less well adapted to the peculiar


title: Mallard content: ecological conditions of Laysan Island than the local ducks, and thus have lower fitness. Laysan ducks were found throughout the Hawaiian archipelago before 400CE, after which they suffered a rapid decline during the Polynesian colonisation. Now, their range includes only Laysan Island. It is one of the successfully translocated birds, after having become nearly extinct in the early 20thcentury. Mallards have often been ubiquitous in their regions among the ponds, rivers, and streams of human parks, farms, and other man-made waterwayseven to the point of visiting water features in human courtyards. Mallards have had a long relationship with humans. Almost


title: Mallard content: all domestic duck breeds derive from the mallard, with the exception of a few Muscovy breeds. Mallards are generally monogamous while domestic ducks are mostly polygamous. Domestic ducks have no territorial behaviour and are less aggressive than mallards. Domestic ducks are mostly kept for meat, as their eggs have a strong flavor. They were first domesticated in Southeast Asia at least 4,000 years ago, during the Neolithic Age, and were also farmed by the Romans in Europe, and the Malays in Asia. It is common for mallards to mate with domestic ducks and produce hybrid offspring that are fully fertile.


title: Mallard content: Because of this, mallards have been found to be contaminated with the genes of the domestic duck. Mallards are one of the most common varieties of ducks hunted as a sport. The ideal location for hunting mallards is considered to be where the water level is somewhat shallow. Hunting mallards might cause the population to decline in some places, at some times, and with some populations. In certain countries, the mallard may be legally shot but is protected under national acts and policies. For example, in the United Kingdom, the mallard is protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981,


title: Mallard content: which restricts certain hunting methods or taking or killing mallards. Since ancient times, the mallard has been eaten as food. The wild mallard was eaten in Neolithic Greece. Usually, only the breast and thigh meat is eaten. It does not need to be hung before preparation, and is often braised or roasted, sometimes flavoured with bitter orange or with port. Mallard The mallard ( or ) ("Anas platyrhynchos") is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, the Falkland


title: "Predator (film)" content: body away. Dutch organizes a manhunt, during which Blain is killed by the creature's plasma weapon. Enraged, Mac initiates a firefight in which the creature is wounded, revealing luminescent green blood. The unit regroups and realizes that something in the jungle is stalking them. Dillon believes more guerrillas are responsible, but Billy is adamant that the perpetrator is not human, an assertion that is met with skepticism. The team makes camp for the night, setting traps in all directions. That night the traps are set off, and Mac kills a wild pig, mistaking it for the creature. In the confusion,


title: "Commando (1985 film)" content: to the BBFC, it would be passed uncut under the BBFC's new, more liberal rules. This has proven to be the case as the BBFC's website indicates that both versions of the film (the U.S. theatrical cut and the unrated edition) for the DVD were passed on June 11, 2007. With the unrated edition released, the film is available in its entirety, a first for the UK. On June 5, 2007, 20th Century Fox officially announced that a completely unedited and unrated director's cut of the film would be released on region 1 DVD on September 18, 2007. Through seamless


title: "Poincaré group" content: kilometres to the west, or turned 60 degrees to the right, you would also see no change in the interval. It turns out that the proper length of an object is also unaffected by such a shift. A time or space reversal (a reflection) is also an isometry of this group. In Minkowski space (i.e. ignoring the effects of gravity), there are ten degrees of freedom of the isometries, which may be thought of as translation through time or space (four degrees, one per dimension); reflection through a plane (three degrees, the freedom in orientation of this plane); or a


title: Carriage content: Carriage A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters (palanquins) and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use, though some are also used to transport goods. A public passenger vehicle would not usually be called a carriage – terms for such include stagecoach, charabanc and omnibus. It may be light, smart and fast or heavy, large and comfortable or luxurious. Carriages normally have suspension using leaf springs, elliptical springs (in the 19th century) or leather strapping. Working vehicles such as the (four-wheeled) wagon and (two-wheeled) cart


title: Carriage content: share important parts of the history of the carriage, as does too the fast (two-wheeled) chariot. The word "carriage" (abbreviated "carr" or "cge") is from Old Northern French "cariage", to carry in a vehicle. The word "car", then meaning a kind of two-wheeled cart for goods, also came from Old Northern French about the beginning of the 14th century (probably derived from the Late Latin "carro", a car); it was also used for railway carriages, and was extended to cover "automobile" around the end of the nineteenth century, when early models were called "horseless carriages". A carriage is sometimes called


title: Carriage content: a "team", as in "horse and team". A carriage with its horse is a "rig". An elegant horse-drawn carriage with its retinue of servants is an "equipage". A carriage together with the horses, harness and attendants is a "turnout" or "setout". A procession of carriages is a "cavalcade". Some horsecarts found in Celtic graves show hints that their platforms were suspended elastically. Four-wheeled wagons were used in prehistoric Europe, and their form known from excavations suggests that the basic construction techniques of wheel and undercarriage (that survived until the age of the motor car) were established then. The earliest recorded


title: Carriage content: sort of carriage was the chariot, reaching Mesopotamia as early as 1900 BC. Used typically for warfare by Egyptians, the near Easterners and Europeans, it was essentially a two-wheeled light basin carrying one or two passengers, drawn by one to two horses. The chariot was revolutionary and effective because it delivered fresh warriors to crucial areas of battle with swiftness. First century BC Romans used sprung wagons for overland journeys. It is likely that Roman carriages employed some form of suspension on chains or leather straps, as indicated by carriage parts found in excavations. In the kingdom of the Zhou


title: Carriage content: Dynasty the Warring States were also known to have used carriages as transportation. With the decline of these civilizations these techniques almost disappeared. The medieval carriage was typically a four-wheeled wagon type, with a rounded top ('tilt') similar in appearance to the Conestoga Wagon familiar from the United States. Sharing the traditional form of wheels and undercarriage known since the Bronze Age, it very likely also employed the pivoting fore-axle in continuity from the ancient world. Suspension (on chains) is recorded in visual images and written accounts from the 14th century ('chars branlant' or rocking carriages), and was in widespread


title: Carriage content: use by the 15th century. Carriages were largely used by royalty, aristocrats (and especially by women), and could be elaborately decorated and gilded. These carriages were on four wheels often and were pulled by two to four horses depending on how they were decorated (elaborate decoration with gold lining made the carriage heavier). Wood and iron were the primary requirements needed to build a carriage and carriages that were used by non-royalty were covered by plain leather. Another form of carriage was the pageant wagon of the 14th century. Historians debate on the structure and size of pageant wagons; however,


title: Carriage content: they are generally miniature house-like structures that rest on four to six wheels depending on the size of the wagon. The pageant wagon is significant because up until the 14th century most carriages were on two or 3 wheels; the chariot, rocking carriage, and baby carriage are two examples of carriages which pre-date the pageant wagon. Historians also debate whether or not pageant wagons were built with pivotal axle systems, which allowed the wheels to turn. Whether it was a four- or six-wheel pageant wagon, most historians maintain that pivotal axle systems were implemented on pageant wagons because many roads


title: Carriage content: were often winding with some sharp turns. Six wheel pageant wagons also represent another innovation in carriages; they were one of the first carriages to use multiple pivotal axles. Pivotal axles were used on the front set of wheels and the middle set of wheels. This allowed the horse to move freely and steer the carriage in accordance with the road or path. One of the great innovations of the carriage was the invention of the suspended carriage or the "chariot branlant" (though whether this was a Roman or medieval innovation remains uncertain). The 'chariot branlant' of medieval illustrations was


title: Carriage content: suspended by chains rather than leather straps as had been believed. Chains provided a smoother ride in the chariot branlant because the compartment no longer rested on the turning axles. In the 15th century, carriages were made lighter and needed only one horse to haul the carriage. This carriage was designed and innovated in Hungary. Both innovations appeared around the same time and historians believe that people began comparing the chariot branlant and the Hungarian light coach. However, the earliest illustrations of the Hungarian 'Kochi-wagon' do not indicate any suspension, and often the use of three horses in harness. Under


title: Carriage content: King Mathias Corvinus (1458–90), who enjoyed fast travel, the Hungarians developed fast road transport, and the town of Kocs between Budapest and Vienna became an important post-town, and gave its name to the new vehicle type. The Hungarian coach was highly praised because it was capable of holding 8 men, used light wheels, could be towed by only one horse (it may have been suspended by leather straps, but this is a topic of debate). Ultimately it was the Hungarian coach that generated a greater buzz of conversation than the chariot branlant of France because it was a much smoother


title: Carriage content: ride. Henceforth, the Hungarian coach spread across Europe rather quickly, in part due to Ippolito d'Este of Ferrara (1479–1529), nephew of Mathias' queen Beatrix of Aragon, who as a very junior Archbishopric of Esztergom developed a liking of Hungarian riding and took his carriage and driver back to Italy. Around 1550 the 'coach' made its appearance throughout the major cities of Europe, and the new word entered the vocabulary of all their languages. However, the new 'coach' seems to have been a concept (fast road travel for men) as much as any particular type of vehicle, and there is no


title: Carriage content: obvious change that accompanied the innovation. As it moved throughout Europe in the late 16th century, the coach’s body structure was ultimately changed, from a round-top to the 'four-poster' carriages that became standard by c.1600. The coach had doors in the side, with an iron step protected by leather that became the "boot" in which servants might ride. The driver sat on a seat at the front, and the most important occupant sat in the back facing forwards. The earliest coaches can be seen at Veste Coburg, Lisbon, and the Moscow Kremlin, and they become a commonplace in European art.


title: Carriage content: It was not until the 17th century that further innovations with steel springs and glazing took place, and only in the 18th century, with better road surfaces, was there a major innovation with the introduction of the steel C-spring. It was not until the 18th century that steering systems were truly improved. Erasmus Darwin was a young English doctor who was driving a carriage about 10,000 miles a year to visit patients all over England. Darwin found two essential problems or shortcomings of the commonly used light carriage or Hungarian carriage. First, the front wheels were turned by a pivoting


title: Carriage content: front axle, which had been used for years, but these wheels were often quite small and hence the rider, carriage and horse felt the brunt of every bump on the road. Secondly, he recognized the danger of overturning. A pivoting front axle changes a carriage’s base from a rectangle to a triangle because the wheel on the inside of the turn is able to turn more sharply than the outside front wheel. Darwin proposed to fix these insufficiencies by proposing a principle in which the two front wheels turn about a centre that lies on the extended line of the


title: Carriage content: back axle. This idea was later patented as Ackerman Steering. Darwin argued that carriages would then be easier to pull and less likely to overturn. Carriage use in North America came with the establishment of European settlers. Early colonial horse tracks quickly grew into roads especially as the colonists extended their territories southwest. Colonists began using carts as these roads and trading increased between the north and south. Eventually, carriages or coaches were sought to transport goods as well as people. As in Europe, chariots, coaches and/or carriages were a mark of status. The tobacco planters of the South were


title: Carriage content: some of the first Americans to use the carriage as a form of human transportation. As the tobacco farming industry grew in the southern colonies so did the frequency of carriages, coaches and wagons. Upon the turn of the 18th century wheeled vehicle use in the colonies was at an all-time high. Carriages, coaches and wagons were being taxed based on the number of wheels they had. These taxes were implemented in the South primarily as the South had superior numbers of horses and wheeled vehicles when compared to the North. Europe, however, still used carriage transportation far more often


title: Carriage content: and on a much larger scale than anywhere else in the world. Carriages and coaches began to disappear as use of steam propulsion began to generate more and more interest and research. Steam power quickly won the battle against animal power as is evident by a newspaper article written in England in 1895 entitled "Horseflesh vs. Steam". The article highlights the death of the carriage as the means of transportation. Nowadays, carriages are still used for day-to-day transport in the United States by some minority groups such as the Amish. They are also still used in the tourism as vehicles


title: Carriage content: for sightseeing in cities such as Bruges, Vienna, New Orleans, and Little Rock, Arkansas. The most complete working collection of carriages can be seen at the Royal Mews in London where a large selection of vehicles is in regular use. These are supported by a staff of liveried coachmen, footmen and postillions. The horses earn their keep by supporting the work of the Royal Household, particularly during ceremonial events. Horses pulling a large carriage known as a "covered brake" collect the Yeoman of the Guard in their distinctive red uniforms from St James's Palace for Investitures at Buckingham Palace; High


title: Carriage content: Commissioners or Ambassadors are driven to their audiences with The Queen in landaus; visiting heads of state are transported to and from official arrival ceremonies and members of the Royal Family are driven in Royal Mews coaches during Trooping the Colour, the Order of the Garter service at Windsor Castle and carriage processions at the beginning of each day of Royal Ascot. Carriages may be enclosed or open, depending on the type. The top cover for the body of a carriage, called the "head" or "hood", is often flexible and designed to be folded back when desired. Such a folding


title: Carriage content: top is called a "bellows top" or "calash". A "hoopstick" forms a light framing member for this kind of hood. The top, roof or second-story compartment of a closed carriage, especially a diligence, was called an "imperial". A closed carriage may have side windows called "quarter lights" (British) as well as windows in the doors, hence a "glass coach". On the forepart of an open carriage, a screen of wood or leather called a "dashboard" intercepts water, mud or snow thrown up by the heels of the horses. The dashboard or carriage top sometimes has a projecting sidepiece called a


title: Carriage content: "wing" (British). A "foot iron" or "footplate" may serve as a carriage step. A carriage driver sits on a "box" or "perch", usually elevated and small. When at the front it is known as a "dickey box", a term also used for a seat at the back for servants. A footman might use a small platform at the rear called a "footboard" or a seat called a "rumble" behind the body. Some carriages have a moveable seat called a "jump seat". Some seats had an attached backrest called a "lazyback". The shafts of a carriage were called "limbers" in English


title: Carriage content: dialect. "Lancewood", a tough elastic wood of various trees, was often used especially for carriage shafts. A "holdback", consisting of an iron catch on the shaft with a looped strap, enables a horse to back or hold back the vehicle. The end of the tongue of a carriage is suspended from the collars of the harness by a bar called the "yoke". At the end of a trace, a loop called a "cockeye" attaches to the carriage. In some carriage types the body is suspended from several leather straps called "braces" or "thoroughbraces", attached to or serving as springs. Beneath


title: Carriage content: the carriage body is the "undergear" or "undercarriage" (or simply "carriage"), consisting of the running gear and chassis. The wheels and axles, in distinction from the body, are the "running gear". The wheels revolve upon bearings or a spindle at the ends of a bar or beam called an "axle" or "axletree". Most carriages have either one or two axles. On a four-wheeled vehicle, the forward part of the running gear, or "forecarriage", is arranged to permit the front axle to turn independently of the fixed rear axle. In some carriages a 'dropped axle', bent twice at a right angle


title: Carriage content: near the ends, allows a low body with large wheels. A guard called a "dirtboard" keeps dirt from the axle arm. Several structural members form parts of the chassis supporting the carriage body. The fore axletree and the splinter bar above it (supporting the springs) are united by a piece of wood or metal called a "futchel", which forms a socket for the pole that extends from the front axle. For strength and support, a rod called the "backstay" may extend from either end of the rear axle to the reach, the pole or rod joining the hind axle to


title: Carriage content: the forward bolster above the front axle. A skid called a "drag", "dragshoe", "shoe" or "skidpan" retards the motion of the wheels. A London patent of 1841 describes one such apparatus: An iron-shod beam, slightly longer than the radius of the wheel, is hinged under the axle so that when it is released to strike the ground the forward momentum of the vehicle wedges it against the axle. The original feature of this modification was that, instead of the usual practice of having to stop the carriage to retract the beam and so lose useful momentum, the chain holding it


title: Carriage content: in place is released (from the driver's position) so that it is allowed to rotate further in its backwards direction, releasing the axle. A system of "pendant-levers" and straps then allows the beam to return to its first position and be ready for further use. A catch or block called a "trigger" may be used to hold a wheel on a declivity. A horizontal wheel or segment of a wheel called a "fifth wheel" sometimes forms an extended support to prevent the carriage from tipping; it consists of two parts rotating on each other about the kingbolt above the fore


title: Carriage content: axle and beneath the body. A block of wood called a "headblock" might be placed between the fifth wheel and the forward spring. Many of these fittings were carried over to horseless carriages and evolved into the modern elements of automobiles. During the Brass Era they were often the same parts on either type of carriage (i.e., horse-drawn or horseless). A trap, pony trap or horse trap is a light, often sporty, two-wheeled or sometimes four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage, accommodating usually two to four persons in various seating arrangements, such as face-to-face or back-to-back. A tanga (Hindi: टाँगा, Urdu: ٹانگہ, Bengali:


title: Carriage content: টাঙ্গা) or Tonga is a light horse-drawn carriage used for transportation in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Tangas are a popular mode of transportation because they are fun to ride in, and are usually cheaper to hire than a taxi or rickshaw. However, in many cities, tangas are not allowed to use highways because of their slow pace. In Pakistan, tangas are mainly found in the older parts of cities and towns, and are becoming less popular for utilitarian travel and more popular for pleasure. Tangas have become a traditional feature of weddings and other social functions in Pakistan, as well


title: Carriage content: as in other nations. They are usually pulled by two horses, though some require only one. Others are designed for farm work. The room under the seats is sometimes used by the coachman (locally called "coach-waan") to keep his horse's food and sometimes to keep luggage if required. Tangas are used for economic activity, mainly to carry heavy goods within the city limits. Tangas were the most common means of transport in urban India and Pakistan until the early 1980s. Although autorickshaws have overtaken them in popularity, tangas are still common today in many cities and villages. A volante is


title: Carriage content: a two-wheeled, one- or two-passenger Spanish carriage formerly much used in Cuba. The axle was behind an open, hooded body. The carriage was driven by a rider on the horse. An araba (from Arabic: عربة, "araba" or ) (also arba or aroba) is a carriage (such as a cabriolet or coach), wagon or cart drawn by horses or oxen, used in Turkey and neighboring Middle Eastern countries. It is usually heavy and without springs, and often covered. The names of many of these have now passed into obscurity but some have been adopted to describe automotive car body styles: "coupé,"


title: Carriage content: "victoria," "brougham," "landau" and "landaulet", "cabriolet" (giving us our "cab"), "phaeton," and "limousine" – all these once denoted particular types of carriages. A person whose business was to drive a carriage was a "coachman". A servant in livery called a "footman" or "piquer" formerly served in attendance upon a rider or was required to run before his master's carriage to clear the way. An attendant on horseback called an "outrider" often rode ahead of or next to a carriage. A "carriage starter" directed the flow of vehicles taking on passengers at the curbside. A "hackneyman" hired out horses and carriages.


title: Carriage content: When hawking wares, a "hawker" was often assisted by a carriage. Upper-class people of wealth and social position, those wealthy enough to keep carriages, were referred to as "carriage folk" or "carriage trade". Carriage passengers often used a "lap robe" as a blanket or similar covering for their legs, lap and feet. A "buffalo robe", made from the hide of an American bison dressed with the hair on, was sometimes used as a carriage robe; it was commonly trimmed to rectangular shape and lined on the skin side with fabric. A "carriage boot", fur-trimmed for winter wear, was made usually


title: Carriage content: of fabric with a fur or felt lining. A "knee boot" protected the knees from rain or splatter. A horse especially bred for carriage use by appearance and stylish action is called a "carriage horse"; one for use on a road is a "road horse". One such breed is the "Cleveland Bay", uniformly bay in color, of good conformation and strong constitution. Horses were broken in using a bodiless carriage frame called a "break" or "brake". A "carriage dog" or "coach dog" is bred for running beside a carriage. A roofed structure that extends from the entrance of a building


title: Carriage content: over an adjacent driveway and that shelters callers as they get in or out of their vehicles is known as a "carriage porch" or "porte cochere". An outbuilding for a carriage is a "coach house", which was often combined with accommodation for a groom or other servants. A "livery stable" kept horses and usually carriages for hire. A range of stables, usually with "carriage houses" ("remises") and living quarters built around a yard, court or street, is called a "mews". A kind of dynamometer called a "peirameter" indicates the power necessary to haul a carriage over a road or track.


title: Carriage content: In most European and English-speaking countries, driving is a competitive equestrian sport. Many horse shows host driving competitions for a particular style of driving, breed of horse, or type of vehicle. Show vehicles are usually carriages, carts, or buggies and, occasionally, sulkies or wagons. Modern high-technology carriages are made purely for competition by companies such as Bennington Carriages. in England. Terminology varies: the simple, lightweight two- or four-wheeled show vehicle common in many nations is called a "cart" in the USA, but a "carriage" in Australia. Internationally, there is intense competition in the all-round test of driving: combined driving, also


title: Carriage content: known as "horse-driving trials", an equestrian discipline regulated by the Fédération Équestre Internationale (International Equestrian Federation) with national organizations representing each member country. World championships are conducted in alternate years, including single-horse, horse pairs and four-in-hand championships. The World Equestrian Games, held at four-year intervals, also includes a four-in-hand competition. For pony drivers, the World Combined Pony Championships are held every two years and include singles, pairs and four-in-hand events. An almost bewildering variety of horse-drawn carriages existed. Arthur Ingram's "Horse Drawn Vehicles since 1760 in Colour" lists 325 types with a short description of each. By the early 19th


title: Carriage content: century one's choice of carriage was only in part based on practicality and performance; it was also a status statement and subject to changing fashions. The types of carriage included the following: Carriage A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters (palanquins) and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use, though some are also used to transport goods. A public passenger vehicle would not usually be called a carriage – terms for such include stagecoach, charabanc and omnibus. It may be light, smart and fast or


title: "Tupolev Tu-134" content: Tupolev Tu-134 The Tupolev Tu-134 (NATO reporting name: Crusty) is a twin-engined, narrow-body, jet airliner built in the Soviet Union from 1966 to 1989. The original version featured a glazed-nose design and, like certain other Russian airliners (including its sister model the Tu-154), it can operate from unpaved airfields. One of the most widely used aircraft in former Comecon countries, the number in active service is decreasing because of political intention and noise restrictions. The model has seen long-term service with some 42 countries, with some European airlines having scheduled as many as 12 daily takeoffs and landings per plane.


title: "Tupolev Tu-134" content: In addition to regular passenger service, it has also been used in various air force, army and navy support roles; for pilot and navigator training; and for aviation research and test projects. In recent years, a number of Tu-134s have been converted for use as VIP transports and business jets. A total of 854 Tu-134s were built of all versions (including test bed examples) with Aeroflot as the largest user; by 1995, the Tu-134 had carried 360 million passengers for that airline. Following the introduction of engines mounted on pylons on the rear fuselage by the French Sud Aviation Caravelle,


title: "Tupolev Tu-134" content: airliner manufacturers around the world rushed to adopt the new layout. Its advantages included clean wing airflow without disruption by nacelles or pylons and decreased cabin noise. At the same time, placing heavy engines that far back created challenges with the location of the centre of gravity in relation to the centre of lift, which was at the wings. To make room for the engines, the tailplanes had to be relocated to the tail fin, which had to be stronger and therefore heavier, further compounding the tail-heavy arrangement. During a 1960 visit to France, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was so


title: "Tupolev Tu-134" content: impressed by the quiet cabin of the Caravelle, that on 1 August 1960 the Tupolev OKB received an official directive to create the Tu-124A with a similar engine arrangement. The requirement was also driven by the need to replace slow, aging piston-engined Il-14s on domestic routes. In 1961, the Soviet state airline, Aeroflot, updated its requirement specifications to include greater payload and passenger capacity. The first Tu-124A prototype, SSSR-45075, first flew on 29 July 1963. On 22 October 1963, the prototype British BAC One-Eleven, which had a similar layout, crashed with the loss of all crew while testing its stalling


title: "Tupolev Tu-134" content: properties. The aircraft had entered pitch-up: the high-mounted tailplane became trapped in the turbulent wake produced by the wings (deep stall), which prevented recovery from the stall. As a result, the tailplane on Tu-124A was enlarged by 30% for greater control authority. Since Aeroflot's requirements dictated a larger aircraft than initially planned, the Soloviev Design Bureau developed the more powerful D-30 low-bypass turbofan engines. On 20 November 1963, the new airliner was designated Tu-134. Design curiosities of the Tu-134 included a sharp wing sweepback of 35 degrees, compared to 25–28 degrees in its counterparts. The engines on early production Tu-134s


title: "Tupolev Tu-134" content: lacked thrust reversers, which made the aircraft one of the few airliners to use a brake parachute for landing. The majority of onboard electronics operated on direct current. The lineage of early Soviet airliners could be traced directly to the Tupolev Tu-16 strategic bomber, and the Tu-134 carried over the glass nose for the navigator and the landing gear fitted with low-pressure tires to permit operation from unpaved airfields. Serial production began in 1966 at the Kharkov Aviation Production Association, and production of the Tu-124 was discontinued. The Tu-134 was designed for short-haul lines with low passenger traffic. Originally the


title: "Tupolev Tu-134" content: aircraft had 56 seats in a single class configuration, or 50 seats in a two-class configuration. In 1968, Tupolev began work on an improved Tu-134 variant with a 72-seat capacity. The fuselage received a plug for greater passenger capacity and an auxiliary power unit in the tail. As a result, the maximum range was reduced from 3,100 kilometers to 2,770 kilometers. The upgraded D-30 engines now featured thrust reversers, replacing the parachute. The first Tu-134A, converted from a production Tu-134, flew on 22 April 1969. The first airline flight was on 9 November 1970. An upgraded version, the Tu-134B began


title: "Tupolev Tu-134" content: production in 1980, with the navigator position abandoned, and seating capacity increased to 96 seats. Efforts subsequently began to develop a Tu-134D with increased engine thrust, but the project was cancelled. In September 1967, the Tu-134 made its first scheduled flight from Moscow to Adler. The Tu-134 was the first Soviet airliner to receive international certification from the International Civil Aviation Organization, which permitted it to be used on international routes. Due to this certification, Aeroflot used most of its Tu-134s on international routes. In 1968, the first export customers, Interflug of East Germany and LOT Polish Airlines purchased the


title: "Tupolev Tu-134" content: Tu-134. In 1969, the Tu-134 was displayed at the Paris Air Show. From 1972, Aeroflot began placing the Tu-134 in domestic service to Baku, Yerevan, Kiev, Kishinev, Krasnodar, Leningrad, Omsk, Riga, and Sochi from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. In its early years, the Tu-134 developed a reputation for reliability and efficiency, especially when compared with previous Soviet designs. After the establishment of tougher noise standards in the ICAO regulations in 2002, the Tu-134 was banned from most western European airports for its high noise levels. In early 2006, 245 Tu-134s were still in operation, 162 of which were in


title: "Tupolev Tu-134" content: Russia. After a fatal accident in March 2007, and at the instigation of Russian Minister of Transportation Igor Levitin, Aeroflot announced that it would be retiring its fleet, and the last Tu-134 was removed from service on 1 January 2008. Some are still in operations with Aeroflot subsidiaries on local routes within Russia. The Tu-134 also found a new life as a business jet with many having an expensive business interior installed. High fuel and maintenance costs are increasingly limiting the number used today. In June 2011, as a response to RusAir Flight 9605 which resulted in 47 fatalities, Russian


title: "Tupolev Tu-134" content: president Dmitry Medvedev ordered preparations for taking the Tu-134 out of use by 2012. Many Tu-134s have been preserved as memorials at airports throughout the former Soviet Union. As of July 2018, six Tupolev Tu-134s remain in airline service. Operators are: Some 69 Tu-134 have been destroyed in accidents and wars, of which 35 were non-fatal incidents (in one of the remaining 34 fatal incidents no one on the plane died). Source: Aircraft Accident Database Tupolev Tu-134 The Tupolev Tu-134 (NATO reporting name: Crusty) is a twin-engined, narrow-body, jet airliner built in the Soviet Union from 1966 to 1989. The


title: "Ilyushin Il-10" content: invasion of Manchuria, from 9 August 1945, one Il-10 unit, the 26th Assault Aviation Regiment of the Pacific Navy Aviation, was used in combat in the Korean Peninsula, attacking Japanese ships in Rasin and rail transports. After the war, until the early 1950s, the Il-10 was a basic Soviet ground attack aircraft. It was withdrawn from service in 1956. At the same time, work on new jet-powered dedicated armoured ground attack planes (like the Il-40) was canceled, and the Soviets turned to multipurpose fighter-bomber aviation. The Il-10 and its licensed variant, the Avia B-33, became a basic ground attack plane


title: Detasheet content: C, the last and most common version produced, was made up of 63% PETN, 8% nitrocellulose, and 29% acetyl tributyl citrate (ATBC), an organic plasticizer. DuPont ceased manufacturing explosives in the 1990s and the trademark is now owned by Ensign-Bickford Aerospace and Defense Company, which now sells a very similar explosive sheet called Primasheet. A military variant of Detasheet, called Deta Flex, was manufactured in a single thickness (0.25 inch (6.25 mm)) and olive green colored. Deta Flex contains a higher percentage of PETN (70%). A version of Deta Flex is manufactured for Department of Energy research purposes, colored blue


title: Stator content: Placing the field coils on the rotor allows for an inexpensive slip ring mechanism to transfer high-voltage, low current power to the rotating field coil. It consists of a steel frame enclosing a hollow cylindrical core (made up of laminations of silicon steel). The laminations are to reduce hysteresis and eddy current losses. In a turbine, the stator element contains blades or ports used to redirect the flow of fluid. Such devices include the steam turbine and the torque converter. In a mechanical siren, the stator contains one or more rows of holes that admit air into the rotor; by


title: "Artistic gymnastics" content: medals (parallel bars and high bar) at the 2016 Olympics. China has developed strong, successful programs in both WAG and MAG over the past 25 years, earning both team and individual medals. The Chinese men's team won the team gold at the 2000 Olympics, 2008 Olympics, and every team world championship since 1994, except in 2001, when they placed fifth. They have produced such individual gymnasts as Olympic (and world) all-around champions Li Xiaoshuang (1996) and Yang Wei (2008). The Chinese women's team won the team gold medal at the 2006 World Championships and the 2008 Olympics, and has produced


title: "Beluga whale" content: Beluga whale The beluga whale () or white whale ("Delphinapterus leucas") is an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean. It is 1 of 2 members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal, and the only member of the genus "Delphinapterus". This marine mammal is commonly referred to as the beluga or sea canary due to its high-pitched twitter. It is some times also called a melonhead, though that more commonly refers to the melon-headed whale, which is an oceanic dolphin. It is adapted to life in the Arctic, so has anatomical and physiological characteristics that differentiate it from other cetaceans. Amongst


title: "Beluga whale" content: these are its all-white color and the absence of a dorsal fin. It possesses a distinctive protuberance at the front of its head which houses an echolocation organ called the melon, which in this species is large and deformable. The beluga's body size is between that of a dolphin's and a true whale's, with males growing up to long and weighing up to . This whale has a stocky body. A large percentage of its weight is blubber, as is true of many cetaceans. Its sense of hearing is highly developed and its echolocation allows it to move about and


title: "Beluga whale" content: find blowholes under sheet ice. Belugas are gregarious and form groups of up to 10 animals on average, although during the summer, they can gather in the hundreds or even thousands in estuaries and shallow coastal areas. They are slow swimmers, but can dive to below the surface. They are opportunistic feeders and their diets vary according to their locations and the season. The majority of belugas live in the Arctic Ocean and the seas and coasts around North America, Russia and Greenland; their worldwide population is thought to number around 150,000. They are migratory and the majority of groups


title: "Beluga whale" content: spend the winter around the Arctic ice cap; when the sea ice melts in summer, they move to warmer river estuaries and coastal areas. Some populations are sedentary and do not migrate over great distances during the year. The native peoples of North America and Russia have hunted belugas for many centuries. They were also hunted by non-natives during the 19th century and part of the 20th century. Hunting of belugas is not controlled by the International Whaling Commission, and each country has developed its own regulations in different years. Currently some Inuit in Canada and Greenland, Alaska Native groups,


title: "Beluga whale" content: and Russians are allowed to hunt belugas to consume and sell. The numbers have dropped substantially in Russia and Greenland, but not in Alaska and Canada. Other threats include natural predators (polar bears and killer whales), contamination of rivers (as with PCBs which bioaccumulate up the food chain), and infectious diseases. From a conservation perspective, the beluga was placed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List in 2008 as being "near threatened"; the subpopulation from the Cook Inlet in Alaska, however, is considered critically endangered and is under the protection of the United States' Endangered Species Act.


title: "Beluga whale" content: Of seven Canadian beluga populations, those inhabiting eastern Hudson Bay, Ungava Bay, and the St. Lawrence River are listed as endangered. Belugas are one of the most commonly kept cetaceans in captivity and are housed in aquariums, dolphinariums, and wildlife parks in North America, Europe, and Asia. They are popular with the public due to their colour and expression. The beluga was first described in 1776 by Peter Simon Pallas. It is a member of the Monodontidae family, which is in turn part of the parvorder Odontoceti (toothed whales). The Irrawaddy dolphin was once placed in the same family; recent


title: "Beluga whale" content: genetic evidence suggests these dolphins belong to the family Delphinidae. The narwhal is the only other species within the Monodontidae besides the beluga. A skull has been discovered with intermediate characteristics supporting the hypothesis that hybridization is possible between these two families. The name of the genus, "Delphinapterus", means "dolphin without fin" (from the Greek δελφίν ("delphin"), dolphin and απτερος ("apteros"), without fin) and the species name "leucas" means "white" (from the Greek λευκας ("leukas"), white). The Red List of Threatened Species gives both beluga and white whale as common names, though the former is now more popular. The English


title: "Beluga whale" content: name comes from the Russian белуха ("belukha"), which derives from the word белый ("bélyj"), meaning "white". The name "beluga" in Russian refers to an unrelated species, a fish, beluga sturgeon. The whale is also colloquially known as the sea canary on account of its high-pitched squeaks, squeals, clucks, and whistles. A Japanese researcher says he taught a beluga to "talk" by using these sounds to identify three different objects, offering hope that humans may one day be able to communicate effectively with sea mammals. A similar observation has been made by Canadian researchers, where a beluga which died in 2007


title: "Beluga whale" content: "talked" when he was still a subadult. Another example is NOC, a beluga whale that could mimic the rhythm and tone of human language. Beluga whales in the wild have been reported to imitate human voices. Mitochondrial DNA studies have shown modern cetaceans last shared a common ancestor between 30 and 34 million years ago. The family Monodontidae separated relatively early from the other odontoceti; it split from the Delphinoidea between 11 and 15 million years ago, and from the Phocoenidae, its closest relatives in evolutionary terms, more recently still. In 2017 the genome of a beluga whale was sequenced,


title: "Beluga whale" content: comprising 2.327 Gbp of assembled genomic sequence that encoded 29,581 predicted genes. The authors estimated that the genome-wide sequence similarity between beluga whales and killer whales to be 97.87% ± 2.4 × 10% (mean ± standard deviation). The beluga's earliest known ancestor is the prehistoric "Denebola brachycephala" from the late Miocene period (9–10 million years ago). A single fossil from the Baja California Peninsula indicates the family once inhabited warmer waters. The fossil record also indicates, in comparatively recent times, the beluga's range varied with that of the polar ice packs expanding during ice ages and contracting when the ice


title: "Beluga whale" content: retreated. The remains were found to be preserved in the sediments of the Champlain Sea, an extension of the Atlantic Ocean within the continent resulting from the rise in sea level at the end of the ice ages some 12,000 years ago. Today, the Charlotte whale is the official Vermont State Fossil (making Vermont the only state whose official fossil is that of a still extant animal). Its body is round, particularly when well fed, and tapers less smoothly to the head than the tail. The sudden tapering to the base of its neck gives it the appearance of shoulders,


title: "Beluga whale" content: unique among cetaceans. The tailfin grows and becomes increasingly and ornately curved as the animal ages. The flippers are broad and short—making them almost square-shaped. Preliminary investigations suggested a beluga's life expectancy was rarely more than 30 years. The method used to calculate the age of a beluga is based on counting the layers of dentin and dental cement in a specimen's teeth, which were originally thought to be deposited once or twice a year. The layers can be readily identified as one layer consists of opaque dense material and the other is transparent and less dense. It is therefore


title: "Beluga whale" content: possible to estimate the age of the individual by extrapolating the number of layers identified and the estimated frequency with which the deposits are laid down. A 2006 study using radiocarbon dating of the dentine layers showed the deposit of this material occurs with a lesser frequency (once per year) than was previously thought. The study therefore estimated belugas can live for 70 or 80 years. The species presents a moderate degree of sexual dimorphism, as the males are 25% longer than the females and are sturdier. Adult male belugas can range from , while the females measure . Males


title: "Beluga whale" content: weigh between , occasionally up to while females weigh between . They rank as mid-sized species among toothed whales. Individuals of both sexes reach their maximum size by the time they are 10 years old. The beluga's body shape is stocky and fusiform (cone-shaped with the point facing backwards), and they frequently have folds of fat, particularly along the ventral surface. Between 40% and 50% of their body weight is fat, which is a higher proportion than for cetaceans that do not inhabit the Arctic, where fat only represents 30% of body weight. The fat forms a layer that covers


title: "Beluga whale" content: all of the body except the head, and it can be up to thick. It acts as insulation in waters with temperatures between 0 and 18 °C, as well as being an important reserve during periods without food. The adult beluga is rarely mistaken for any other species, because it is completely white or whitish-grey in colour. Calves are usually born grey, and by the time they are a month old, have turned dark grey or blue grey. They then start to progressively lose their pigmentation until they attain their distinctive white colouration, at the age of seven years in


title: "Beluga whale" content: females and 9 in males. The white colouration of the skin is an adaptation to life in the Arctic that allows belugas to camouflage themselves in the polar ice caps as protection against their main predators, polar bears and killer whales. Unlike other cetaceans, the belugas seasonally shed their skin. During the winter, the epidermis thickens and the skin can become yellowish, mainly on the back and fins. When they migrate to the estuaries during the summer, they rub themselves on the gravel of the riverbeds to remove the cutaneous covering. Like most toothed whales, it has a compartment found


title: "Beluga whale" content: at the centre of the forehead that contains an organ used for echolocation called a melon, which contains fatty tissue. The shape of the beluga's head is unlike that of any other cetacean, as the melon is extremely bulbous, lobed, and visible as a large frontal prominence. Another distinctive characteristic it possesses is the melon is malleable; its shape is changed during the emission of sounds. The beluga is able to change the shape of its head by blowing air around its sinuses to focus the emitted sounds. This organ contains fatty acids, mainly isovaleric acid (60.1%) and long-chain branched


title: "Beluga whale" content: acids (16.9%), a very different composition from its body fat, and which could play a role in its echolocation system. Unlike many dolphins and whales, the seven vertebrae in the neck are not fused together, allowing the animal to turn its head laterally without needing to rotate its body. This gives the head a lateral manoeuvrability that allows an improved field of view and movement and helps in catching prey and evading predators in deep water. The rostrum has about eight to 10 small, blunt, and slightly curved teeth on each side of the jaw and a total of 36


title: "Beluga whale" content: to 40 teeth. Belugas do not use their teeth to chew, but for catching hold of their prey; they then tear them up and swallow them nearly whole. Belugas only have a single spiracle, which is located on the top of the head behind the melon, and has a muscular covering, allowing it to be completely sealed. Under normal conditions, the spiracle is closed and an animal must contract the muscular covering to open the spiracle. A beluga's thyroid gland is larger than that of terrestrial mammals – weighing three times more than that of a horse – which helps


title: "Beluga whale" content: it to maintain a greater metabolism during the summer when it lives in river estuaries. It is the marine cetacean that most frequently develops hyperplastic and neoplastic lesions of the thyroid. The fins retain the bony vestiges of the beluga's mammalian ancestors, and are firmly bound together by connective tissue. The fins are small in relation to the size of the body, rounded and oar-shaped, and slightly curled at the tips. These versatile extremities are mainly used as a rudder to control direction, to work in synchrony with the tailfin and for agile movement in shallow waters up to deep.


title: "Beluga whale" content: The fins also contain a mechanism for regulating body temperature, as the arteries feeding the fin's muscles are surrounded by veins that dilate or contract to gain or lose heat. The tailfin is flat with two oar-like lobes, it does not have any bones, and is made up of hard, dense, fibrous connective tissue. The tailfin has a distinctive curvature along the lower edge. The longitudinal muscles of the back provide the ascending and descending movement of the tailfin, which has a similar thermoregulation mechanism to the pectoral fins. Belugas have a dorsal ridge, rather than a dorsal fin. The


title: "Beluga whale" content: absence of the dorsal fin is reflected in the genus name of the species—"apterus" the Greek word for "wingless". The evolutionary preference for a dorsal ridge rather than a fin is believed to be an adaptation to under-ice conditions, or possibly as a way of preserving heat. The crest is hard and, along with the head, can be used to open holes in ice up to thick. The beluga has a very specialized sense of hearing and its auditory cortex is highly developed. It can hear sounds within the range of 1.2 to 120 kHz, with the greatest sensitivity between


title: "Beluga whale" content: 10 and 75 kHz, where the average hearing range for humans is 0.02 to 20 kHz. The majority of sounds are most probably received by the lower jaw and transmitted towards the middle ear. In the toothed whales, the lower jawbone is broad with a cavity at its base, which projects towards the place where it joins the cranium. A fatty deposit inside this small cavity connects to the middle ear. Toothed whales also possess a small external auditory hole a few centimetres behind their eyes; each hole communicates with an external auditory conduit and an eardrum. It is not


title: "Beluga whale" content: known if these organs are functional or simply vestigial. Belugas are able to see within and outside of water, but their vision is relatively poor when compared to dolphins. Their eyes are especially adapted to seeing under water, although when they come into contact with the air, the crystalline lens and the cornea adjust to overcome the associated myopia (the range of vision under water is short). A beluga's retina has cones and rods, which also suggests they can see in low light. The presence of cone cells indicates they can see colours, although this suggestion has not been confirmed.


title: "Beluga whale" content: Glands located in the medial corner of their eyes secrete an oily, gelatinous substance that lubricates the eye and helps flush out foreign bodies. This substance forms a film that protects the cornea and the conjunctiva from pathogenic organisms. Studies on captive animals show they seek frequent physical contact with other belugas. Areas in the mouth have been found that could act as chemoreceptors for different tastes, and they can detect the presence of blood in water, which causes them to react immediately by displaying typical alarm behaviour. Like the other toothed whales, their brains lack olfactory bulbs and olfactory


title: "Beluga whale" content: nerves, which suggests they do not have a sense of smell. These cetaceans are highly sociable and they regularly form small groups, or pods, that may contain between two and 25 individuals, with an average of 10 members. Pods tend to be unstable, meaning individuals tend to move from pod to pod. Radio tracking has even shown belugas can start out in one pod and within a few days be hundreds of miles away from that pod. These pods contain animals of both sexes, and are led by a dominant male. Many hundreds and even thousands of individuals can be


title: "Beluga whale" content: present when the pods join together in river estuaries during the summer. This can represent a significant proportion of the total population and is when they are most vulnerable to being hunted. They are cooperative animals and frequently hunt in coordinated groups. The animals in a pod are very sociable and often chase each other as if they are playing or fighting, and they often rub against each other. In captivity, they can be seen to be constantly playing, vocalizing, and swimming around each other. They show a great deal of curiosity towards humans and frequently approach the windows in


title: "Beluga whale" content: the tanks to observe them. Belugas may also playfully spit at humans or other whales. It is not unusual for an aquarium handler to be drenched by one of his charges. Some researchers believe spitting originated with blowing sand away from crustaceans at the sea bottom. Belugas also show a great degree of curiosity towards humans in the wild, and frequently swim alongside boats. They also play with objects they find in the water; in the wild, they do this with wood, plants, dead fish, and bubbles they have created. During the breeding season, adults have been observed carrying objects


title: "Beluga whale" content: such as plants, nets, and even the skeleton of a dead reindeer on their heads and backs. Captive females have also been observed displaying this behaviour, carrying items such as floats and buoys, after they have lost a calf; experts consider this interaction with the objects could be acting as a substitute behaviour. Belugas are slower swimmers than the other toothed whales, such as the killer whale and the common bottlenose dolphin, because they are less hydrodynamic and have limited movement of their tailfins, which produce the greatest thrust. They frequently swim at between , although they are able to


title: "Beluga whale" content: maintain a speed of 22 km/h for up to 15 min. Unlike most cetaceans, they are capable of swimming backwards. Belugas swim on the surface between 5% and 10% of the time, while for the rest of the time they swim at a depth sufficient to cover their bodies. They do not jump out of the water like dolphins or killer whales. These animals usually only dive to depths to , although they are capable of diving to greater depths. Individual captive animals have been recorded at depths between 400 and 647 m below sea level, while animals in the


title: "Beluga whale" content: wild have been recorded as diving to a depth of more than 700 m, with the greatest recorded depth being 872 m. A dive normally lasts 3 to 5 min, but can last up to 18 min. In the shallower water of the estuaries, a diving session may last around two minutes; the sequence consists of five or six rapid, shallow dives followed by a deeper dive lasting up to one minute. The average number of dives per day varies between 31 and 51. All cetaceans, including belugas, have physiological adaptations designed to conserve oxygen while they are under water.


title: "Beluga whale" content: During a dive, these animals will reduce their heart rate from 100 beats a minute to between 12 and 20. Blood flow is diverted away from certain tissues and organs and towards the brain, heart and lungs, which require a constant oxygen supply. The amount of oxygen dissolved in the blood is 5.5%, which is greater than that found in land-based mammals and is similar to that of Weddell seals (a diving marine mammal). One study found a female beluga had 16.5 l of oxygen dissolved in her blood. Lastly, the beluga's muscles contain high levels of the protein myoglobin,


title: "Beluga whale" content: which stores oxygen in muscle. Myoglobin concentrations are several times greater than for terrestrial mammals, which help prevent oxygen deficiency during dives. Beluga whales often accompany bowhead whales, for curiosity and to secure polynya feasible to breathe as bowheads are capable of breaking through ice from underwater by headbutting. Belugas play an important role in the structure and function of marine resources in the Arctic Ocean, as they are the most abundant toothed whales in the region. They are opportunistic feeders; their feeding habits depend on their locations and the season. For example, when they are in the Beaufort Sea,