Download or read book Mammals of South America Volume 2 written by Alfred L. Gardner and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 1363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The vast terrain between Panama and Tierra del Fuego contains some of the worlds richest mammalian fauna, but until now it has lacked a comprehensive systematic reference to the identification, distribution, and taxonomy of its mammals. The first such book of its kind, Mammals of South America both summarizes existing information and encourages further research of the mammals indigenous to the region. It includes identification keys and brief descriptions of each order, family, and genus. Species accounts include taxonomic descriptions, synonymies, keys to identification, distributions with maps and a gazetteer of marginal localities, lists of recognized subspecies, brief summaries of natural history information, and discussions of issues related to taxonomic interpretations.

Download or read book Wildlife in a Changing World written by Jean-Christophe Vié and published by IUCN. This book was released on 2009 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Wildlife in a Changing World" presents an analysis of the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Beginning with an explanation of the IUCN Red List as a key conservation tool, it goes on to discuss the state of the world s species and provides the latest information on the patterns of species facing extinction in some of the most important ecosystems in the world, highlighting the reasons behind their declining status. Areas of focus in the report include: freshwater biodiversity, the status of the world s marine species, species susceptibility to climate change impacts, the Mediterranean biodiversity hot spot, and broadening the coverage of biodiversity assessments."

Download or read book Vertebrate Biology written by Donald W. Linzey and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arranged logically to follow the most widely adopted course structure, this text will leave students with a full understanding of the unique structure, function, and living patterns of all vertebrates.

Download or read book Taxonomic revision of the olingos Bassaricyon with description of a new species the Olinguito written by Kristofer M. Helgen and published by PenSoft Publishers LTD. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper presents the first comprehensive taxonomic revision of the olingos, Bassaricyon, based on most available museum specimens, with data derived from anatomy, mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, fieldwork, and geographic range modeling. Olingos are forest-living, arboreal, nocturnal, frugivorous, and solitary, and have one young at a time. Four olingo species can be recognized, including a Central American species (B. gabbii) and lowland species with eastern, cis-Andean (B. alleni) and western, trans-Andean (B. medius) distributions. Surprisingly, the sister lineage to all previously described species of Bassaricyon is an Andean cloud forest species, which we call the Olinguito, that has never been previously described. Bassaricyon neblina sp. n., en-demic to Colombia and Ecuador, is the smallest living member of the family Procyonidae and the first new species of Carnivora named in the American continents in 35 years. We describe four subspecies of Olinguito across the Northern Andes.

Download or read book The National Union Catalogs 1963 written by and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Rocky Mountain Geology written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Mammal Collections in the Western Hemisphere written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Panoan Languages and Linguistics written by David William Fleck and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monographic study of the Panoan family will serve as an invaluable handbook for both Panoanists seeking a broader perspective and scholars who require an introduction to the family. A new classification encompassing all the extant and extinct Panoan languages and dialects, an evaluation of proposed relations to other language families, a detailed history of Panoan linguistics, a typological overview of the phonology and grammar, and a description of ethnolinguistic features in the family combine to provide a complete picture of Panoan languages and linguistics. An index with the synonyms and spelling variants of all the language names and ethnonyms that are or have been claimed to be Panoan will allow for obscure references in the literature to be quickly resolved.

Download or read book A History of Herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History written by Charles W. Myers and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Those who use and care for collections are subtly hindered if they lack understanding of the history of their collections. The present work provides a frame of reference for the American Museum's accumulations of Recent amphibians and reptiles for the department established to curate and use them. The herpetological holdings began in 1869 with purchase of the collection of Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied, and additional specimens began accumulating from other sources. But the signature and scope of the collection were most importantly determined by the explosion of expeditionary fever at the American Museum in early 20th century and by establishment of a department with curators charged with organizing and studying the incoming collections. A Department of Ichthyology and Herpetology was formalized in 1909 and later split in 1920. The original department had three ichthyologists and one herpetologist--Mary Cynthia Dickerson, who also served as editor of the American Museum Journal (= Natural History as of 1919) and as Curator of the old Department of Woods and Forestry. Despite an incredible workload, Dickerson threw herself into both herpetological exhibition work and collection building--two parts of a calculated tripartite effort at establishing a major herpetology department that could stand on its own with the older departments of the Museum. The third part of Dickerson's evolving program was a conscientious attempt at building a library and center for herpetological research. Frustrated in finding time for her own investigations, she deliberately sought young scholars who could independently conduct both field-work and collection-based research. She sent Emmett Reid Dunn on his first collecting trip and, by 1916-1917, Dickerson had attracted to her cause assistants Karl Patterson Schmidt, Gladwyn Kingsley Noble, and Charles Lewis Camp. In a few years, with interruption for military service, Dickerson's "triumvirate" was accomplishing work that would establish the department as the major research center that she had envisioned. Concurrent with her editorship of Natural History and her curatorship of Woods and Forestry, Dickerson established a robust program of herpetological exhibition and research in only a decade. Herpetology--her Department--was officially separated from Ichthyology in February 1920. But Dickerson had been losing a perilous grip on her sanity and, on Christmas Eve of that year, was committed to an asylum, where she died three years later at age 57. Assistant Curator G.K. Noble, age 27, was given formal charge of the Department beginning in 1921. Although K.P. Schmidt had resigned earlier, Noble arranged for Schmidt's return to help in a difficult transition, during which Noble completed his Ph.D. dissertation and Schmidt brought Dickerson's research to conclusion. Schmidt gave his final resignation in 1922, in order to take charge of the new Division of Reptiles and Amphibians at the Field Museum of Natural History. Noble inherited Dickerson's departmental philosophy and continued her emphasis on exhibition and on building the collection and bibliographic files, although his own research expanded dramatically. Noble never abandoned interest in fieldwork, anatomy, and collection-based systematics, but he combined those pursuits with increasing attention to laboratory-based, experimental investigations using techniques of endocrinology and neurology. In 1928, he received offers for positons at Cornell University and at Columbia University, the latter to replace geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan (who was later awarded a Nobel Prize for his work at Columbia). With support from President Henry Fairfield Osborn and trustee Douglas Burden, Noble's request for new facilities was approved and he stayed at the Museum. The Department was renamed the Department of Herpetology and Experimental Biology in 1928, with Experimental Biology being split off as a separate department in 1933. Although Herpetology came to suffer as a result, Noble remained Curator of both departments until his death in December 1940 at age 47. Noble's "abrasive personality" has given rise to legends that do not stand up under examination, in particular the published claims that he was responsible for firing Assistant Curator Clifford H. Pope in 1935--the year of publication of Pope's Reptiles of China. Over Noble's protest, Pope was dismissed by Director Roy Chapman Andrews, who had become antipathetic to Noble's operation (ostensibly for budgetary reasons) after Osborn's departure as President. Charles M. Bogart, hired in 1936, became "Assistant Curator (In Charge)" of the Department of Herpetology after Noble's unexpected death in 1940. A new Director, Albert Parr, introduced the departmental title "Chairman" in 1942. Parr at that time also dissolved the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology and appointed Edwin H. Colbert as Chair of a new Department of Amphibians and Reptiles that included dinosaurs as well as pickled newts, despite George Gaylord Simpson's protest that "paleoherpetology and paleomammalogy have much more in common than either one has with its corresponding neozoological specialty." This was only one of several departmental reorganizations to which Herpetology and other departments have been subjected by administrative fiat, usually with noticeable loss of efficiency. Another reorganization followed shortly, with Bogert installed as Chairman. James A. Oliver was hired as Assistant Curator in 1942, but, after interruption for military service, he resigned in 1948 owing to deteriorating Museum finances. With Bogert's encouragement, Oliver later returned to New York as Curator of Reptiles at the New York Zoological Society; he subsequently served as Director of the American Museum from 1959 to 1969. In replacing Parr as Director, Oliver brought a renewed commitment to systematics in the Museum. Bogert's career (see Myers and Zweifel, 1993) needs to be understood in the larger context of the history of the Department, which owes much to his dedication and stabilizing influence at a time when Parr was de-emphasizing collections. Except for a few war-interrupted years with Assistant Curator Oliver, Bogert was the only Curator in Herpetology from 1940 to 1954. He held the collection as a reasonably well-curated unit during a long period of economic stress and severe understaffing. Richard G. Zweifel was hired as Assistant Curator in 1954. His term of chairmanship (1968-1980) is taken as the beginning of a "modern" age in the Department, which has continued to expand its collections and improve on the quality of their care. The evolution of curatorial procedure and specimen cataloguing is discussed; the catalogue data were transferred to an electronic database during 1992-1995. One reason for establishing a new department in 1909 had to do with the Museum's expanding exhibition program. Dickerson and Noble considered exhibition work to be of equal importance to research. Dickerson developed the concept of herpetological "habitat groups" (dioramas) by skillfully employing a variety of preparation techniques-especially wax casting-to create lifelike models engaged in vital activities within complex settings. In 1927, Noble opened a "Hall of Reptile and Amphibian Life" that incorporated Dickerson's habitat groups and many other newer, less elaborate groups and mounts; he developed the technique of paraffin infiltration to use the animals themselves as exhibited models. Noble's hall celebrated diversity and focused on isolated biological themes. Bogert and Zweifel built on this rich history by conceiving a more integrated exhibit that would stress the biology of amphibians and reptiles in parallel displays, a concept that eventually resulted in the 1977 "Hall of the Biology of Reptiles and Amphibians." Newer casts could be done in plastic, the best of which, if well painted, equaled in beauty the best of the old wax models. The herpetological exhibits and most curatorial research were made possible by Museum collecting activities. Insight is provided on early departmental fieldwork--a time when night collecting was a "new" technique made feasible by the introduction of acetylene (carbide) and electric lamps. Also discussed are some of the Museum's multidisciplinary expeditions, several of which continued for years. The Museum's great expeditionary period lasted at the outside from 1910 to 1940. Despite the Great Depression, the number of expeditions peaked not in the 1920's (about 114 starts) but in the 1930s (141 starts), owing to increasing numbers of independently financed expeditions conducted under Museum auspices. Any revival of the Era of Great Expeditions after World War II was precluded by a complex of factors, including changing administrative and economic environments in the Museum, as well as the coming age of the airplane and automotive transport. Logistically complicated expeditions were largely replaced by field trips that could more readily be initiated by the curators. The few expeditions still being organized are nostalgic reminders of another time, when collections now irreplaceable were being gathered from around the globe.

Download or read book The Art and Science of Making the New Man in Early 20th Century Russia written by Yvonne Howell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-02 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea that morally, mentally, and physically superior 'new men' might replace the currently existing mankind has periodically seized the imagination of intellectuals, leaders, and reformers throughout history. This volume offers a multidisciplinary investigation into how the 'new man' was made in Russia and the early Soviet Union in the first third of the 20th century. The traditional narrative of the Soviet 'new man' as a creature forged by propaganda is challenged by the strikingly new and varied case studies presented here. The book focuses on the interplay between the rapidly developing experimental life sciences, such as biology, medicine, and psychology, and countless cultural products, ranging from film and fiction, dolls and museum exhibits to pedagogical projects, sculptures, and exemplary agricultural fairs. With contributions from scholars based in the United States, Canada, the UK, Germany and Russia, the picture that emerges is emphatically more complex, contradictory, and suggestive of strong parallels with other 'new man' visions in Europe and elsewhere. In contrast to previous interpretations that focused largely on the apparent disconnect between utopian 'new man' rhetoric and the harsh realities of everyday life in the Soviet Union, this volume brings to light the surprising historical trajectories of 'new man' visions, their often obscure origins, acclaimed and forgotten champions, unexpected and complicated results, and mutual interrelations. In short, the volume is a timely examination of a recurring theme in modern history, when dramatic advancements in science and technology conjoin with anxieties about the future to fuel dreams of a new and improved mankind.

Download or read book Early Miocene Paleobiology in Patagonia written by Sergio F. Vizcaíno and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-11 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coastal exposures of the Santa Cruz Formation in southern Patagonia have been a fertile ground for recovery of Early Miocene vertebrates for more than 100 years. This volume presents a comprehensive compilation of important mammalian groups which continue to thrive today. It includes the most recent fossil finds as well as important new interpretations based on ten years of fieldwork by the authors. A key focus is placed on the paleoclimate and paleoenvironment during the time of deposition in the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO) between twenty and fifteen million years ago. The authors present the first reconstruction of what climatic conditions were like and present important new evidence of the geochronological age, habits and community structures of fossil bird and mammal species. Academic researchers and graduate students in paleontology, paleobiology, paleoecology, stratigraphy, climatology and geochronology will find this a valuable source of information about this fascinating geological formation.

Download or read book Osteology of Deinonychus antirrhopus an Unusual Theropod from the Lower Cretaceous of Montana written by John H. Ostrom and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John H. Ostrom's expeditions to the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming and Montana in the 1960s resulted in discoveries and research that would change long-held concepts in paleontology. This fiftieth-anniversary edition of his now well-known description of the type specimen of Deinonychus antirrhopus revisits the work that redefined theropod dinosaurs as the intelligent, agile, and gregarious ancestors of modern birds and led in the late twentieth century to a renaissance in the study of dinosaurs and the evolution of flight.

Download or read book Vertebrate Paleontology in Utah written by David D. Gillette and published by Utah Geological Survey. This book was released on 1999 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 52 papers in this vary in content from summaries or state-of-knowledge treatments, to detailed contributions that describe new species. Although the distinction is subtle, the title (Vertebrate Paleontology in Utah) indicates the science of paleontology in the state of Utah, rather than the even more ambitious intent if it were given the title “Vertebrate Paleontology of Utah” which would promise an encyclopedic treatment of the subject. The science of vertebrate paleontology in Utah is robust and intense. It has grown prodigiously in the past decade, and promises to continue to grow indefinitely. This research benefits everyone in the state, through Utah’s muse ums and educational institutions, which are the direct beneficiaries.

Download or read book Rodents of Sub Saharan Africa written by Ara Monadjem and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 1102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive handbook covers all the rodents occurring in Southern, Central, East and West Africa, south of the Sahara. Genus and species accounts include diagnostic descriptions, systematics and taxonomy, biogeographical environment, fossil species, photographs of skull and mandible, illustrations of molar dentition, photographs of live animals, distribution maps and tables of standard museum measurements.

Download or read book Mammals of South America Volume 2 written by James L. Patton and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-03-09 with total page 1363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second installment in a planned three-volume series, this book provides the first substantive review of South American rodents published in over fifty years. Increases in the reach of field research and the variety of field survey methods, the introduction of bioinformatics, and the explosion of molecular-based genetic methodologies have all contributed to the revision of many phylogenetic relationships and to a doubling of the recognized diversity of South American rodents. The largest and most diverse mammalian order on Earth—and an increasingly threatened one—Rodentia is also of great ecological importance, and Rodents is both a timely and exhaustive reference on these ubiquitous creatures. From spiny mice and guinea pigs to the oversized capybara, this book covers all native rodents of South America, the continental islands of Trinidad and Tobago, and the Caribbean Netherlands off the Venezuelan coast. It includes identification keys and descriptions of all genera and species; comments on distribution; maps of localities; discussions of subspecies; and summaries of natural, taxonomic, and nomenclatural history. Rodents also contains a detailed list of cited literature and a separate gazetteer based on confirmed identifications from museum vouchers and the published literature.

Download or read book Techniques in Molecular Systematics and Evolution written by Rob DeSalle and published by Birkhäuser. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The amount of information that can be obtained by using molecular techniques in evolution, systematics and ecology has increased exponentially over the last ten years. The need for more rapid and efficient methods of data acquisition and analysis is growing accordingly. This manual presents some of the most important techniques for data acquisition developed over the last years. The choice and justification of data analysis techniques is also an important and critical aspect of modern phylogenetic and evolutionary analysis and so a considerable part of this volume addresses this important subject. The book is mainly written for students and researchers from evolutionary biology in search for methods to acquire data, but also from molecular biology who might be looking for information on how data are analyzed in an evolutionary context. To aid the user, information on web-located sites is included wherever possible. Approaches that will push the amount of information which systematics will gather in the

Download or read book Extinctions in Near Time written by Ross D.E. MacPhee and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-09 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Near time" -an interval that spans the last 100,000 years or so of earth history-qualifies as a remarkable period for many reasons. From an anthropocentric point of view, the out standing feature of near time is the fact that the evolution, cultural diversification, and glob al spread of Homo sapiens have all occurred within it. From a wider biological perspective, however, the hallmark of near time is better conceived of as being one of enduring, repeat ed loss. The point is important. Despite the sense of uniqueness implicit in phrases like "the biodiversity crisis," meant to convey the notion that the present bout of extinctions is by far the worst endured in recent times, substantial losses have occurred throughout near time. In the majority of cases, these losses occurred when, and only when, people began to ex pand across areas that had never before experienced their presence. Although the explana tion for these correlations in time and space may seem obvious, it is one thing to rhetori cally observe that there is a connection between humans and recent extinctions, and quite another to demonstrate it scientifically. How should this be done? Traditionally, the study of past extinctions has fallen largely to researchers steeped in such disciplines as paleontology, systematics, and paleoecology. The evaluation of future losses, by contrast, has lain almost exclusively within the domain of conservation biolo gists. Now, more than ever, there is opportunity for overlap and sharing of information.