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Using a cheap toy thermo paper printer camera in the effect mode.
After printing, I coated the back of the paper with Raps-oil to make it more transparent. Then used the print as negative on normal cyanotype coated paper.
This camera from Action is great, it has also a negative mode and the print is fine and dark black.
They also have a pack of the termic paper 5 for 3 Euro (25 meter enought for hundreds of pictures )
Termites build their mounds (nests) in trees so they don't get flooded out during the rainy season. They build a mud-like tunnel from the ground up to their nest. That's the dark line running up the trunk of the tree on the left.
Sonora (Passe Nati) -3x-
Olá, meninas!
Estou começando a me convencer q salmão não combina com meu tom de pele... mimimi... Sinceramente, no vidrinho é maravilhoso, mas não gostei em mim!
Não tive grandes problemas ao usá-lo. Manchou bem pouquinho e só algumas unhas, mas nada q a 3ª camada não resolvesse. Geralmente, esses tons pastel deixam o acabamento a desejar na região próxima às cutículas. O Sonora até q colaborou.
Assim como o Performance, ele não fica nem fosco, nem brilhoso. Mesmo com extra brilho, fica naquele meio termo q eu destesto. Nem lá, nem cá. Os brilhinhos q eu tanto gosto, não aparecem. Preciso desabafar: “Ah, Passe Nati, vc está me decepcionando!”
Um beijo e excelente domingo!
@gigischaack
Termal is a town and district of Yalova Province in the Marmara region of Turkey. It is renowned for its hot springs. Yalova Thermal Baths (Turkish: Termal) are located in Yalova, about 80 km away from Istanbul. The huge complex, lying on a land of about 1,6M square metres, is located 12 km away from Yalova. There are four hotels in the complex, one of which is an apart. There are also five baths which possess historical value.
Sheep (pl.: sheep) or domestic sheep (Ovis aries) are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term sheep can apply to other species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated sheep. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female is referred to as a ewe (/juː/ yoo), an intact male as a ram, occasionally a tup, a castrated male as a wether, and a young sheep as a lamb.
Sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia, with Iran being a geographic envelope of the domestication center. One of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleeces, meat (lamb, hogget or mutton) and milk. A sheep's wool is the most widely used animal fiber, and is usually harvested by shearing. In Commonwealth countries, ovine meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones; in the United States, meat from both older and younger animals is usually called lamb. Sheep continue to be important for wool and meat today, and are also occasionally raised for pelts, as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science.
Sheep husbandry is practised throughout the majority of the inhabited world, and has been fundamental to many civilizations. In the modern era, Australia, New Zealand, the southern and central South American nations, and the British Isles are most closely associated with sheep production.
There is a large lexicon of unique terms for sheep husbandry which vary considerably by region and dialect. Use of the word sheep began in Middle English as a derivation of the Old English word scēap. A group of sheep is called a flock. Many other specific terms for the various life stages of sheep exist, generally related to lambing, shearing, and age.
Being a key animal in the history of farming, sheep have a deeply entrenched place in human culture, and are represented in much modern language and symbolism. As livestock, sheep are most often associated with pastoral, Arcadian imagery. Sheep figure in many mythologies—such as the Golden Fleece—and major religions, especially the Abrahamic traditions. In both ancient and modern religious ritual, sheep are used as sacrificial animals.
History
Main article: History of the domestic sheep
The exact line of descent from wild ancestors to domestic sheep is unclear. The most common hypothesis states that Ovis aries is descended from the Asiatic (O. gmelini) species of mouflon; the European mouflon (Ovis aries musimon) is a direct descendant of this population. Sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated by humankind (although the domestication of dogs probably took place 10 to 20 thousand years earlier); the domestication date is estimated to fall between 11,000 and 9000 B.C in Mesopotamia and possibly around 7000 BC in Mehrgarh in the Indus Valley. The rearing of sheep for secondary products, and the resulting breed development, began in either southwest Asia or western Europe. Initially, sheep were kept solely for meat, milk and skins. Archaeological evidence from statuary found at sites in Iran suggests that selection for woolly sheep may have begun around 6000 BC, and the earliest woven wool garments have been dated to two to three thousand years later.
Sheep husbandry spread quickly in Europe. Excavations show that in about 6000 BC, during the Neolithic period of prehistory, the Castelnovien people, living around Châteauneuf-les-Martigues near present-day Marseille in the south of France, were among the first in Europe to keep domestic sheep. Practically from its inception, ancient Greek civilization relied on sheep as primary livestock, and were even said to name individual animals. Ancient Romans kept sheep on a wide scale, and were an important agent in the spread of sheep raising. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (Naturalis Historia), speaks at length about sheep and wool. European colonists spread the practice to the New World from 1493 onwards.
Characteristics
Domestic sheep are relatively small ruminants, usually with a crimped hair called wool and often with horns forming a lateral spiral. They differ from their wild relatives and ancestors in several respects, having become uniquely neotenic as a result of selective breeding by humans. A few primitive breeds of sheep retain some of the characteristics of their wild cousins, such as short tails. Depending on breed, domestic sheep may have no horns at all (i.e. polled), or horns in both sexes, or in males only. Most horned breeds have a single pair, but a few breeds may have several.
Sheep in Turkmenistan
Another trait unique to domestic sheep as compared to wild ovines is their wide variation in color. Wild sheep are largely variations of brown hues, and variation within species is extremely limited. Colors of domestic sheep range from pure white to dark chocolate brown, and even spotted or piebald. Sheep keepers also sometimes artificially paint "smit marks" onto their sheep in any pattern or color for identification. Selection for easily dyeable white fleeces began early in sheep domestication, and as white wool is a dominant trait it spread quickly. However, colored sheep do appear in many modern breeds, and may even appear as a recessive trait in white flocks. While white wool is desirable for large commercial markets, there is a niche market for colored fleeces, mostly for handspinning. The nature of the fleece varies widely among the breeds, from dense and highly crimped, to long and hairlike. There is variation of wool type and quality even among members of the same flock, so wool classing is a step in the commercial processing of the fibre.
Suffolks are a medium wool, black-faced breed of meat sheep that make up 60% of the sheep population in the U.S.
Depending on breed, sheep show a range of heights and weights. Their rate of growth and mature weight is a heritable trait that is often selected for in breeding. Ewes typically weigh between 45 and 100 kilograms (100 and 220 lb), and rams between 45 and 160 kilograms (100 and 350 lb). When all deciduous teeth have erupted, the sheep has 20 teeth. Mature sheep have 32 teeth. As with other ruminants, the front teeth in the lower jaw bite against a hard, toothless pad in the upper jaw. These are used to pick off vegetation, then the rear teeth grind it before it is swallowed. There are eight lower front teeth in ruminants, but there is some disagreement as to whether these are eight incisors, or six incisors and two incisor-shaped canines. This means that the dental formula for sheep is either
0.0.3.3
4.0.3.3
or
0.0.3.3
3.1.3.3
There is a large diastema between the incisors and the molars.
In the first few years of life one can calculate the age of sheep from their front teeth, as a pair of milk teeth is replaced by larger adult teeth each year, the full set of eight adult front teeth being complete at about four years of age. The front teeth are then gradually lost as sheep age, making it harder for them to feed and hindering the health and productivity of the animal. For this reason, domestic sheep on normal pasture begin to slowly decline from four years on, and the life expectancy of a sheep is 10 to 12 years, though some sheep may live as long as 20 years.
Skull
Sheep have good hearing, and are sensitive to noise when being handled. Sheep have horizontal slit-shaped pupils, with excellent peripheral vision; with visual fields of about 270° to 320°, sheep can see behind themselves without turning their heads. Many breeds have only short hair on the face, and some have facial wool (if any) confined to the poll and or the area of the mandibular angle; the wide angles of peripheral vision apply to these breeds. A few breeds tend to have considerable wool on the face; for some individuals of these breeds, peripheral vision may be greatly reduced by "wool blindness", unless recently shorn about the face. Sheep have poor depth perception; shadows and dips in the ground may cause sheep to baulk. In general, sheep have a tendency to move out of the dark and into well-lit areas, and prefer to move uphill when disturbed. Sheep also have an excellent sense of smell, and, like all species of their genus, have scent glands just in front of the eyes, and interdigitally on the feet. The purpose of these glands is uncertain, but those on the face may be used in breeding behaviors. The foot glands might also be related to reproduction, but alternative functions, such as secretion of a waste product or a scent marker to help lost sheep find their flock, have also been proposed.
Comparison with goats
Sheep and goats are closely related: both are in the subfamily Caprinae. However, they are separate species, so hybrids rarely occur and are always infertile. A hybrid of a ewe and a buck (a male goat) is called a sheep-goat hybrid, known as geep. Visual differences between sheep and goats include the beard of goats and divided upper lip of sheep. Sheep tails also hang down, even when short or docked, while the short tails of goats are held upwards. Also, sheep breeds are often naturally polled (either in both sexes or just in the female), while naturally polled goats are rare (though many are polled artificially). Males of the two species differ in that buck goats acquire a unique and strong odor during the rut, whereas rams do not.
Breeds
The domestic sheep is a multi-purpose animal, and the more than 200 breeds now in existence were created to serve these diverse purposes. Some sources give a count of a thousand or more breeds, but these numbers cannot be verified, according to some sources. However, several hundred breeds of sheep have been identified by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), with the estimated number varying somewhat from time to time: e.g. 863 breeds as of 1993, 1314 breeds as of 1995 and 1229 breeds as of 2006. (These numbers exclude extinct breeds, which are also tallied by the FAO.) For the purpose of such tallies, the FAO definition of a breed is "either a subspecific group of domestic livestock with definable and identifiable external characteristics that enable it to be separated by visual appraisal from other similarly defined groups within the same species or a group for which geographical and/or cultural separation from phenotypically similar groups has led to acceptance of its separate identity." Almost all sheep are classified as being best suited to furnishing a certain product: wool, meat, milk, hides, or a combination in a dual-purpose breed. Other features used when classifying sheep include face color (generally white or black), tail length, presence or lack of horns, and the topography for which the breed has been developed. This last point is especially stressed in the UK, where breeds are described as either upland (hill or mountain) or lowland breeds. A sheep may also be of a fat-tailed type, which is a dual-purpose sheep common in Africa and Asia with larger deposits of fat within and around its tail.
Breeds are often categorized by the type of their wool. Fine wool breeds are those that have wool of great crimp and density, which are preferred for textiles. Most of these were derived from Merino sheep, and the breed continues to dominate the world sheep industry. Downs breeds have wool between the extremes, and are typically fast-growing meat and ram breeds with dark faces. Some major medium wool breeds, such as the Corriedale, are dual-purpose crosses of long and fine-wooled breeds and were created for high-production commercial flocks. Long wool breeds are the largest of sheep, with long wool and a slow rate of growth. Long wool sheep are most valued for crossbreeding to improve the attributes of other sheep types. For example: the American Columbia breed was developed by crossing Lincoln rams (a long wool breed) with fine-wooled Rambouillet ewes.
Coarse or carpet wool sheep are those with a medium to long length wool of characteristic coarseness. Breeds traditionally used for carpet wool show great variability, but the chief requirement is a wool that will not break down under heavy use (as would that of the finer breeds). As the demand for carpet-quality wool declines, some breeders of this type of sheep are attempting to use a few of these traditional breeds for alternative purposes. Others have always been primarily meat-class sheep.
A minor class of sheep are the dairy breeds. Dual-purpose breeds that may primarily be meat or wool sheep are often used secondarily as milking animals, but there are a few breeds that are predominantly used for milking. These sheep produce a higher quantity of milk and have slightly longer lactation curves. In the quality of their milk, the fat and protein content percentages of dairy sheep vary from non-dairy breeds, but lactose content does not.
A last group of sheep breeds is that of fur or hair sheep, which do not grow wool at all. Hair sheep are similar to the early domesticated sheep kept before woolly breeds were developed, and are raised for meat and pelts. Some modern breeds of hair sheep, such as the Dorper, result from crosses between wool and hair breeds. For meat and hide producers, hair sheep are cheaper to keep, as they do not need shearing. Hair sheep are also more resistant to parasites and hot weather.
With the modern rise of corporate agribusiness and the decline of localized family farms, many breeds of sheep are in danger of extinction. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust of the UK lists 22 native breeds as having only 3,000 registered animals (each), and The Livestock Conservancy lists 14 as either "critical" or "threatened". Preferences for breeds with uniform characteristics and fast growth have pushed heritage (or heirloom) breeds to the margins of the sheep industry. Those that remain are maintained through the efforts of conservation organizations, breed registries, and individual farmers dedicated to their preservation.
Diet
Sheep are herbivorous mammals. Most breeds prefer to graze on grass and other short roughage, avoiding the taller woody parts of plants that goats readily consume. Both sheep and goats use their lips and tongues to select parts of the plant that are easier to digest or higher in nutrition. Sheep, however, graze well in monoculture pastures where most goats fare poorly.
Ruminant system of a sheep
Like all ruminants, sheep have a complex digestive system composed of four chambers, allowing them to break down cellulose from stems, leaves, and seed hulls into simpler carbohydrates. When sheep graze, vegetation is chewed into a mass called a bolus, which is then passed into the rumen, via the reticulum. The rumen is a 19- to 38-liter (5 to 10 gallon) organ in which feed is fermented. The fermenting organisms include bacteria, fungi, and protozoa. (Other important rumen organisms include some archaea, which produce methane from carbon dioxide.) The bolus is periodically regurgitated back to the mouth as cud for additional chewing and salivation. After fermentation in the rumen, feed passes into the reticulum and the omasum; special feeds such as grains may bypass the rumen altogether. After the first three chambers, food moves into the abomasum for final digestion before processing by the intestines. The abomasum is the only one of the four chambers analogous to the human stomach, and is sometimes called the "true stomach".
Other than forage, the other staple feed for sheep is hay, often during the winter months. The ability to thrive solely on pasture (even without hay) varies with breed, but all sheep can survive on this diet. Also included in some sheep's diets are minerals, either in a trace mix or in licks. Feed provided to sheep must be specially formulated, as most cattle, poultry, pig, and even some goat feeds contain levels of copper that are lethal to sheep. The same danger applies to mineral supplements such as salt licks.
Grazing behavior
Sheep follow a diurnal pattern of activity, feeding from dawn to dusk, stopping sporadically to rest and chew their cud. Ideal pasture for sheep is not lawnlike grass, but an array of grasses, legumes and forbs. Types of land where sheep are raised vary widely, from pastures that are seeded and improved intentionally to rough, native lands. Common plants toxic to sheep are present in most of the world, and include (but are not limited to) cherry, some oaks and acorns, tomato, yew, rhubarb, potato, and rhododendron.
Effects on pasture
Sheep are largely grazing herbivores, unlike browsing animals such as goats and deer that prefer taller foliage. With a much narrower face, sheep crop plants very close to the ground and can overgraze a pasture much faster than cattle. For this reason, many shepherds use managed intensive rotational grazing, where a flock is rotated through multiple pastures, giving plants time to recover. Paradoxically, sheep can both cause and solve the spread of invasive plant species. By disturbing the natural state of pasture, sheep and other livestock can pave the way for invasive plants. However, sheep also prefer to eat invasives such as cheatgrass, leafy spurge, kudzu and spotted knapweed over native species such as sagebrush, making grazing sheep effective for conservation grazing. Research conducted in Imperial County, California compared lamb grazing with herbicides for weed control in seedling alfalfa fields. Three trials demonstrated that grazing lambs were just as effective as herbicides in controlling winter weeds. Entomologists also compared grazing lambs to insecticides for insect control in winter alfalfa. In this trial, lambs provided insect control as effectively as insecticides.
Behavior
Sheep are flock animals and strongly gregarious; much sheep behavior can be understood on the basis of these tendencies. The dominance hierarchy of sheep and their natural inclination to follow a leader to new pastures were the pivotal factors in sheep being one of the first domesticated livestock species. Furthermore, in contrast to the red deer and gazelle (two other ungulates of primary importance to meat production in prehistoric times), sheep do not defend territories although they do form home ranges. All sheep have a tendency to congregate close to other members of a flock, although this behavior varies with breed, and sheep can become stressed when separated from their flock members. During flocking, sheep have a strong tendency to follow, and a leader may simply be the first individual to move. Relationships in flocks tend to be closest among related sheep: in mixed-breed flocks, subgroups of the same breed tend to form, and a ewe and her direct descendants often move as a unit within large flocks. Sheep can become hefted to one particular local pasture (heft) so they do not roam freely in unfenced landscapes. Lambs learn the heft from ewes and if whole flocks are culled it must be retaught to the replacement animals.
Flock behaviour in sheep is generally only exhibited in groups of four or more sheep; fewer sheep may not react as expected when alone or with few other sheep. Being a prey species, the primary defense mechanism of sheep is to flee from danger when their flight zone is entered. Cornered sheep may charge and butt, or threaten by hoof stamping and adopting an aggressive posture. This is particularly true for ewes with newborn lambs.
In regions where sheep have no natural predators, none of the native breeds of sheep exhibit a strong flocking behavior.
Herding
Farmers exploit flocking behavior to keep sheep together on unfenced pastures such as hill farming, and to move them more easily. For this purpose shepherds may use herding dogs in this effort, with a highly bred herding ability. Sheep are food-oriented, and association of humans with regular feeding often results in sheep soliciting people for food. Those who are moving sheep may exploit this behavior by leading sheep with buckets of feed.
Dominance hierarchy
Sheep establish a dominance hierarchy through fighting, threats and competitiveness. Dominant animals are inclined to be more aggressive with other sheep, and usually feed first at troughs. Primarily among rams, horn size is a factor in the flock hierarchy. Rams with different size horns may be less inclined to fight to establish the dominance order, while rams with similarly sized horns are more so. Merinos have an almost linear hierarchy whereas there is a less rigid structure in Border Leicesters when a competitive feeding situation arises.
In sheep, position in a moving flock is highly correlated with social dominance, but there is no definitive study to show consistent voluntary leadership by an individual sheep.
Intelligence and learning ability
Sheep are frequently thought of as unintelligent animals. Their flocking behavior and quickness to flee and panic can make shepherding a difficult endeavor for the uninitiated. Despite these perceptions, a University of Illinois monograph on sheep reported their intelligence to be just below that of pigs and on par with that of cattle. Sheep can recognize individual human and ovine faces and remember them for years; they can remember 50 other different sheep faces for over two years; they can recognize and are attracted to individual sheep and humans by their faces, as they possess similar specialized neural systems in the temporal and frontal lobes of their brains to humans and have a greater involvement of the right brain hemisphere. In addition to long-term facial recognition of individuals, sheep can also differentiate emotional states through facial characteristics.[68][69] If worked with patiently, sheep may learn their names, and many sheep are trained to be led by halter for showing and other purposes. Sheep have also responded well to clicker training. Sheep have been used as pack animals; Tibetan nomads distribute baggage equally throughout a flock as it is herded between living sites.
It has been reported that some sheep have apparently shown problem-solving abilities; a flock in West Yorkshire, England allegedly found a way to get over cattle grids by rolling on their backs, although documentation of this has relied on anecdotal accounts.
Vocalisations
Sounds made by domestic sheep include bleats, grunts, rumbles and snorts. Bleating ("baaing") is used mostly for contact communication, especially between dam and lambs, but also at times between other flock members. The bleats of individual sheep are distinctive, enabling the ewe and her lambs to recognize each other's vocalizations. Vocal communication between lambs and their dam declines to a very low level within several weeks after parturition. A variety of bleats may be heard, depending on sheep age and circumstances. Apart from contact communication, bleating may signal distress, frustration or impatience; however, sheep are usually silent when in pain. Isolation commonly prompts bleating by sheep. Pregnant ewes may grunt when in labor. Rumbling sounds are made by the ram during courting; somewhat similar rumbling sounds may be made by the ewe, especially when with her neonate lambs. A snort (explosive exhalation through the nostrils) may signal aggression or a warning, and is often elicited from startled sheep.
Lamb
In sheep breeds lacking facial wool, the visual field is wide. In 10 sheep (Cambridge, Lleyn and Welsh Mountain breeds, which lack facial wool), the visual field ranged from 298° to 325°, averaging 313.1°, with binocular overlap ranging from 44.5° to 74°, averaging 61.7°. In some breeds, unshorn facial wool can limit the visual field; in some individuals, this may be enough to cause "wool blindness". In 60 Merinos, visual fields ranged from 219.1° to 303.0°, averaging 269.9°, and the binocular field ranged from 8.9° to 77.7°, averaging 47.5°; 36% of the measurements were limited by wool, although photographs of the experiments indicate that only limited facial wool regrowth had occurred since shearing. In addition to facial wool (in some breeds), visual field limitations can include ears and (in some breeds) horns, so the visual field can be extended by tilting the head. Sheep eyes exhibit very low hyperopia and little astigmatism. Such visual characteristics are likely to produce a well-focused retinal image of objects in both the middle and long distance. Because sheep eyes have no accommodation, one might expect the image of very near objects to be blurred, but a rather clear near image could be provided by the tapetum and large retinal image of the sheep's eye, and adequate close vision may occur at muzzle length. Good depth perception, inferred from the sheep's sure-footedness, was confirmed in "visual cliff" experiments; behavioral responses indicating depth perception are seen in lambs at one day old. Sheep are thought to have colour vision, and can distinguish between a variety of colours: black, red, brown, green, yellow and white. Sight is a vital part of sheep communication, and when grazing, they maintain visual contact with each other. Each sheep lifts its head upwards to check the position of other sheep in the flock. This constant monitoring is probably what keeps the sheep in a flock as they move along grazing. Sheep become stressed when isolated; this stress is reduced if they are provided with a mirror, indicating that the sight of other sheep reduces stress.
Taste is the most important sense in sheep, establishing forage preferences, with sweet and sour plants being preferred and bitter plants being more commonly rejected. Touch and sight are also important in relation to specific plant characteristics, such as succulence and growth form.
The ram uses his vomeronasal organ (sometimes called the Jacobson's organ) to sense the pheromones of ewes and detect when they are in estrus. The ewe uses her vomeronasal organ for early recognition of her neonate lamb.
Reproduction
Sheep follow a similar reproductive strategy to other herd animals. A group of ewes is generally mated by a single ram, who has either been chosen by a breeder or (in feral populations) has established dominance through physical contest with other rams. Most sheep are seasonal breeders, although some are able to breed year-round. Ewes generally reach sexual maturity at six to eight months old, and rams generally at four to six months. However, there are exceptions. For example, Finnsheep ewe lambs may reach puberty as early as 3 to 4 months, and Merino ewes sometimes reach puberty at 18 to 20 months. Ewes have estrus cycles about every 17 days, during which they emit a scent and indicate readiness through physical displays towards rams.
In feral sheep, rams may fight during the rut to determine which individuals may mate with ewes. Rams, especially unfamiliar ones, will also fight outside the breeding period to establish dominance; rams can kill one another if allowed to mix freely. During the rut, even usually friendly rams may become aggressive towards humans due to increases in their hormone levels.
After mating, sheep have a gestation period of about five months, and normal labor takes one to three hours. Although some breeds regularly throw larger litters of lambs, most produce single or twin lambs. During or soon after labor, ewes and lambs may be confined to small lambing jugs, small pens designed to aid both careful observation of ewes and to cement the bond between them and their lambs.
A lamb's first steps
Ovine obstetrics can be problematic. By selectively breeding ewes that produce multiple offspring with higher birth weights for generations, sheep producers have inadvertently caused some domestic sheep to have difficulty lambing; balancing ease of lambing with high productivity is one of the dilemmas of sheep breeding. In the case of any such problems, those present at lambing may assist the ewe by extracting or repositioning lambs. After the birth, ewes ideally break the amniotic sac (if it is not broken during labor), and begin licking clean the lamb. Most lambs will begin standing within an hour of birth. In normal situations, lambs nurse after standing, receiving vital colostrum milk. Lambs that either fail to nurse or are rejected by the ewe require help to survive, such as bottle-feeding or fostering by another ewe.
Most lambs begin life being born outdoors. After lambs are several weeks old, lamb marking (ear tagging, docking, mulesing, and castrating) is carried out. Vaccinations are usually carried out at this point as well. Ear tags with numbers are attached, or ear marks are applied, for ease of later identification of sheep. Docking and castration are commonly done after 24 hours (to avoid interference with maternal bonding and consumption of colostrum) and are often done not later than one week after birth, to minimize pain, stress, recovery time and complications. The first course of vaccinations (commonly anti-clostridial) is commonly given at an age of about 10 to 12 weeks; i.e. when the concentration of maternal antibodies passively acquired via colostrum is expected to have fallen low enough to permit development of active immunity. Ewes are often revaccinated annually about 3 weeks before lambing, to provide high antibody concentrations in colostrum during the first several hours after lambing. Ram lambs that will either be slaughtered or separated from ewes before sexual maturity are not usually castrated. Objections to all these procedures have been raised by animal rights groups, but farmers defend them by saying they save money, and inflict only temporary pain.
Homosexuality
Sheep are the only species of mammal except for humans which exhibits exclusive homosexual behavior. About 10% of rams refuse to mate with ewes but readily mate with other rams, and thirty percent of all rams demonstrate at least some homosexual behavior. Additionally, a small number of females that were accompanied by a male fetus in utero (i.e. as fraternal twins) are freemartins (female animals that are behaviorally masculine and lack functioning ovaries).
Health
Sheep may fall victim to poisons, infectious diseases, and physical injuries. As a prey species, a sheep's system is adapted to hide the obvious signs of illness, to prevent being targeted by predators. However, some signs of ill health are obvious, with sick sheep eating little, vocalizing excessively, and being generally listless. Throughout history, much of the money and labor of sheep husbandry has aimed to prevent sheep ailments. Historically, shepherds often created remedies by experimentation on the farm. In some developed countries, including the United States, sheep lack the economic importance for drug companies to perform expensive clinical trials required to approve more than a relatively limited number of drugs for ovine use. However, extra-label drug use in sheep production is permitted in many jurisdictions, subject to certain restrictions. In the US, for example, regulations governing extra-label drug use in animals are found in 21 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Part 530. In the 20th and 21st centuries, a minority of sheep owners have turned to alternative treatments such as homeopathy, herbalism and even traditional Chinese medicine to treat sheep veterinary problems. Despite some favorable anecdotal evidence, the effectiveness of alternative veterinary medicine has been met with skepticism in scientific journals. The need for traditional anti-parasite drugs and antibiotics is widespread, and is the main impediment to certified organic farming with sheep.
Many breeders take a variety of preventive measures to ward off problems. The first is to ensure all sheep are healthy when purchased. Many buyers avoid outlets known to be clearing houses for animals culled from healthy flocks as either sick or simply inferior. This can also mean maintaining a closed flock, and quarantining new sheep for a month. Two fundamental preventive programs are maintaining good nutrition and reducing stress in the sheep. Restraint, isolation, loud noises, novel situations, pain, heat, extreme cold, fatigue and other stressors can lead to secretion of cortisol, a stress hormone, in amounts that may indicate welfare problems. Excessive stress can compromise the immune system. "Shipping fever" (pneumonic mannheimiosis, formerly called pasteurellosis) is a disease of particular concern, that can occur as a result of stress, notably during transport and (or) handling. Pain, fear and several other stressors can cause secretion of epinephrine (adrenaline). Considerable epinephrine secretion in the final days before slaughter can adversely affect meat quality (by causing glycogenolysis, removing the substrate for normal post-slaughter acidification of meat) and result in meat becoming more susceptible to colonization by spoilage bacteria. Because of such issues, low-stress handling is essential in sheep management. Avoiding poisoning is also important; common poisons are pesticide sprays, inorganic fertilizer, motor oil, as well as radiator coolant containing ethylene glycol.
Common forms of preventive medication for sheep are vaccinations and treatments for parasites. Both external and internal parasites are the most prevalent malady in sheep, and are either fatal, or reduce the productivity of flocks. Worms are the most common internal parasites. They are ingested during grazing, incubate within the sheep, and are expelled through the digestive system (beginning the cycle again). Oral anti-parasitic medicines, known as drenches, are given to a flock to treat worms, sometimes after worm eggs in the feces has been counted to assess infestation levels. Afterwards, sheep may be moved to a new pasture to avoid ingesting the same parasites. External sheep parasites include: lice (for different parts of the body), sheep keds, nose bots, sheep itch mites, and maggots. Keds are blood-sucking parasites that cause general malnutrition and decreased productivity, but are not fatal. Maggots are those of the bot fly and the blow-fly, commonly Lucilia sericata or its relative L. cuprina. Fly maggots cause the extremely destructive condition of flystrike. Flies lay their eggs in wounds or wet, manure-soiled wool; when the maggots hatch they burrow into a sheep's flesh, eventually causing death if untreated. In addition to other treatments, crutching (shearing wool from a sheep's rump) is a common preventive method. Some countries allow mulesing, a practice that involves stripping away the skin on the rump to prevent fly-strike, normally performed when the sheep is a lamb. Nose bots are fly larvae that inhabit a sheep's sinuses, causing breathing difficulties and discomfort. Common signs are a discharge from the nasal passage, sneezing, and frantic movement such as head shaking. External parasites may be controlled through the use of backliners, sprays or immersive sheep dips.
A wide array of bacterial and viral diseases affect sheep. Diseases of the hoof, such as foot rot and foot scald may occur, and are treated with footbaths and other remedies. Foot rot is present in over 97% of flocks in the UK. These painful conditions cause lameness and hinder feeding. Ovine Johne's disease is a wasting disease that affects young sheep. Bluetongue disease is an insect-borne illness causing fever and inflammation of the mucous membranes. Ovine rinderpest (or peste des petits ruminants) is a highly contagious and often fatal viral disease affecting sheep and goats. Sheep may also be affected by primary or secondary photosensitization. Tetanus can also afflict sheep through wounds from shearing, docking, castration, or vaccination. The organism also can be introduced into the reproductive tract by unsanitary humans who assist ewes during lambing.
A few sheep conditions are transmissible to humans. Orf (also known as scabby mouth, contagious ecthyma or soremouth) is a skin disease leaving lesions that is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact. Cutaneous anthrax is also called woolsorter's disease, as the spores can be transmitted in unwashed wool. More seriously, the organisms that can cause spontaneous enzootic abortion in sheep are easily transmitted to pregnant women. Also of concern are the prion disease scrapie and the virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), as both can devastate flocks. The latter poses a slight risk to humans. During the 2001 FMD pandemic in the UK, hundreds of sheep were culled and some rare British breeds were at risk of extinction due to this.
Of the 600,300 sheep lost to the US economy in 2004, 37.3% were lost to predators, while 26.5% were lost to some form of disease. Poisoning accounted for 1.7% of non-productive deaths.
Predators
A lamb being attacked by coyotes with a bite to the throat
Other than parasites and disease, predation is a threat to sheep and the profitability of sheep raising. Sheep have little ability to defend themselves, compared with other species kept as livestock. Even if sheep survive an attack, they may die from their injuries or simply from panic. However, the impact of predation varies dramatically with region. In Africa, Australia, the Americas, and parts of Europe and Asia predators are a serious problem. In the United States, for instance, over one third of sheep deaths in 2004 were caused by predation. In contrast, other nations are virtually devoid of sheep predators, particularly islands known for extensive sheep husbandry. Worldwide, canids—including the domestic dog—are responsible for most sheep deaths. Other animals that occasionally prey on sheep include: felines, bears, birds of prey, ravens and feral hogs.
Sheep producers have used a wide variety of measures to combat predation. Pre-modern shepherds used their own presence, livestock guardian dogs, and protective structures such as barns and fencing. Fencing (both regular and electric), penning sheep at night and lambing indoors all continue to be widely used. More modern shepherds used guns, traps, and poisons to kill predators, causing significant decreases in predator populations. In the wake of the environmental and conservation movements, the use of these methods now usually falls under the purview of specially designated government agencies in most developed countries.
The 1970s saw a resurgence in the use of livestock guardian dogs and the development of new methods of predator control by sheep producers, many of them non-lethal. Donkeys and guard llamas have been used since the 1980s in sheep operations, using the same basic principle as livestock guardian dogs. Interspecific pasturing, usually with larger livestock such as cattle or horses, may help to deter predators, even if such species do not actively guard sheep. In addition to animal guardians, contemporary sheep operations may use non-lethal predator deterrents such as motion-activated lights and noisy alarms.
Economic importance
Main article: Agricultural economics
Global sheep stock
in 2019
Number in millions
1. China163.5 (13.19%)
2. India74.3 (5.99%)
3. Australia65.8 (5.31%)
4. Nigeria46.9 (3.78%)
5. Iran41.3 (3.33%)
6. Sudan40.9 (3.3%)
7. Chad35.9 (2.9%)
8. Turkey35.2 (2.84%)
9. United Kingdom33.6 (2.71%)
10. Mongolia32.3 (2.61%)
World total1,239.8
Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization
Sheep are an important part of the global agricultural economy. However, their once vital status has been largely replaced by other livestock species, especially the pig, chicken, and cow. China, Australia, India, and Iran have the largest modern flocks, and serve both local and exportation needs for wool and mutton. Other countries such as New Zealand have smaller flocks but retain a large international economic impact due to their export of sheep products. Sheep also play a major role in many local economies, which may be niche markets focused on organic or sustainable agriculture and local food customers. Especially in developing countries, such flocks may be a part of subsistence agriculture rather than a system of trade. Sheep themselves may be a medium of trade in barter economies.
Domestic sheep provide a wide array of raw materials. Wool was one of the first textiles, although in the late 20th century wool prices began to fall dramatically as the result of the popularity and cheap prices for synthetic fabrics. For many sheep owners, the cost of shearing is greater than the possible profit from the fleece, making subsisting on wool production alone practically impossible without farm subsidies. Fleeces are used as material in making alternative products such as wool insulation. In the 21st century, the sale of meat is the most profitable enterprise in the sheep industry, even though far less sheep meat is consumed than chicken, pork or beef.
Sheepskin is likewise used for making clothes, footwear, rugs, and other products. Byproducts from the slaughter of sheep are also of value: sheep tallow can be used in candle and soap making, sheep bone and cartilage has been used to furnish carved items such as dice and buttons as well as rendered glue and gelatin. Sheep intestine can be formed into sausage casings, and lamb intestine has been formed into surgical sutures, as well as strings for musical instruments and tennis rackets. Sheep droppings, which are high in cellulose, have even been sterilized and mixed with traditional pulp materials to make paper. Of all sheep byproducts, perhaps the most valuable is lanolin: the waterproof, fatty substance found naturally in sheep's wool and used as a base for innumerable cosmetics and other products.
Some farmers who keep sheep also make a profit from live sheep. Providing lambs for youth programs such as 4-H and competition at agricultural shows is often a dependable avenue for the sale of sheep. Farmers may also choose to focus on a particular breed of sheep in order to sell registered purebred animals, as well as provide a ram rental service for breeding. A new option for deriving profit from live sheep is the rental of flocks for grazing; these "mowing services" are hired in order to keep unwanted vegetation down in public spaces and to lessen fire hazard.
Despite the falling demand and price for sheep products in many markets, sheep have distinct economic advantages when compared with other livestock. They do not require expensive housing, such as that used in the intensive farming of chickens or pigs. They are an efficient use of land; roughly six sheep can be kept on the amount that would suffice for a single cow or horse. Sheep can also consume plants, such as noxious weeds, that most other animals will not touch, and produce more young at a faster rate. Also, in contrast to most livestock species, the cost of raising sheep is not necessarily tied to the price of feed crops such as grain, soybeans and corn. Combined with the lower cost of quality sheep, all these factors combine to equal a lower overhead for sheep producers, thus entailing a higher profitability potential for the small farmer. Sheep are especially beneficial for independent producers, including family farms with limited resources, as the sheep industry is one of the few types of animal agriculture that has not been vertically integrated by agribusiness. However, small flocks, from 10 to 50 ewes, often are not profitable because they tend to be poorly managed. The primary reason is that mechanization is not feasible, so return per hour of labor is not maximized. Small farm flocks generally are used simply to control weeds on irrigation ditches or maintained as a hobby.
Shoulder of lamb
Sheep meat and milk were one of the earliest staple proteins consumed by human civilization after the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture. Sheep meat prepared for food is known as either mutton or lamb, and approximately 540 million sheep are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide. "Mutton" is derived from the Old French moton, which was the word for sheep used by the Anglo-Norman rulers of much of the British Isles in the Middle Ages. This became the name for sheep meat in English, while the Old English word sceap was kept for the live animal. Throughout modern history, "mutton" has been limited to the meat of mature sheep usually at least two years of age; "lamb" is used for that of immature sheep less than a year.
In the 21st century, the nations with the highest consumption of sheep meat are the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, New Zealand, Australia, Greece, Uruguay, the United Kingdom and Ireland. These countries eat 14–40 lbs (3–18 kg) of sheep meat per capita, per annum. Sheep meat is also popular in France, Africa (especially the Arab world), the Caribbean, the rest of the Middle East, India, and parts of China. This often reflects a history of sheep production. In these countries in particular, dishes comprising alternative cuts and offal may be popular or traditional. Sheep testicles—called animelles or lamb fries—are considered a delicacy in many parts of the world. Perhaps the most unusual dish of sheep meat is the Scottish haggis, composed of various sheep innards cooked along with oatmeal and chopped onions inside its stomach. In comparison, countries such as the U.S. consume only a pound or less (under 0.5 kg), with Americans eating 50 pounds (22 kg) of pork and 65 pounds (29 kg) of beef. In addition, such countries rarely eat mutton, and may favor the more expensive cuts of lamb: mostly lamb chops and leg of lamb.
Though sheep's milk may be drunk rarely in fresh form, today it is used predominantly in cheese and yogurt making. Sheep have only two teats, and produce a far smaller volume of milk than cows. However, as sheep's milk contains far more fat, solids, and minerals than cow's milk, it is ideal for the cheese-making process. It also resists contamination during cooling better because of its much higher calcium content. Well-known cheeses made from sheep milk include the feta of Bulgaria and Greece, Roquefort of France, Manchego from Spain, the pecorino romano (the Italian word for "sheep" is pecore) and ricotta of Italy. Yogurts, especially some forms of strained yogurt, may also be made from sheep milk. Many of these products are now often made with cow's milk, especially when produced outside their country of origin. Sheep milk contains 4.8% lactose, which may affect those who are intolerant.
As with other domestic animals, the meat of uncastrated males is inferior in quality, especially as they grow. A "bucky" lamb is a lamb which was not castrated early enough, or which was castrated improperly (resulting in one testicle being retained). These lambs are worth less at market.
In science
Sheep are generally too large and reproduce too slowly to make ideal research subjects, and thus are not a common model organism. They have, however, played an influential role in some fields of science. In particular, the Roslin Institute of Edinburgh, Scotland used sheep for genetics research that produced groundbreaking results. In 1995, two ewes named Megan and Morag were the first mammals cloned from differentiated cells, also referred to as gynomerogony. A year later, a Finnish Dorset sheep named Dolly, dubbed "the world's most famous sheep" in Scientific American, was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell. Following this, Polly and Molly were the first mammals to be simultaneously cloned and transgenic.
As of 2008, the sheep genome has not been fully sequenced, although a detailed genetic map has been published, and a draft version of the complete genome produced by assembling sheep DNA sequences using information given by the genomes of other mammals. In 2012, a transgenic sheep named "Peng Peng" was cloned by Chinese scientists, who spliced his genes with that of a roundworm (C. elegans) in order to increase production of fats healthier for human consumption.
In the study of natural selection, the population of Soay sheep that remain on the island of Hirta have been used to explore the relation of body size and coloration to reproductive success. Soay sheep come in several colors, and researchers investigated why the larger, darker sheep were in decline; this occurrence contradicted the rule of thumb that larger members of a population tend to be more successful reproductively. The feral Soays on Hirta are especially useful subjects because they are isolated.
Domestic sheep are sometimes used in medical research, particularly for researching cardiovascular physiology, in areas such as hypertension and heart failure. Pregnant sheep are also a useful model for human pregnancy, and have been used to investigate the effects on fetal development of malnutrition and hypoxia. In behavioral sciences, sheep have been used in isolated cases for the study of facial recognition, as their mental process of recognition is qualitatively similar to humans.
Cultural impact
Sheep have had a strong presence in many cultures, especially in areas where they form the most common type of livestock. In the English language, to call someone a sheep or ovine may allude that they are timid and easily led. In contradiction to this image, male sheep are often used as symbols of virility and power; the logos of the Los Angeles Rams football team and the Dodge Ram pickup truck allude to males of the bighorn sheep, Ovis canadensis.
Counting sheep is popularly said to be an aid to sleep, and some ancient systems of counting sheep persist today. Sheep also enter in colloquial sayings and idiom frequently with such phrases as "black sheep". To call an individual a black sheep implies that they are an odd or disreputable member of a group. This usage derives from the recessive trait that causes an occasional black lamb to be born into an entirely white flock. These black sheep were considered undesirable by shepherds, as black wool is not as commercially viable as white wool. Citizens who accept overbearing governments have been referred to by the Portmanteau neologism of sheeple. Somewhat differently, the adjective "sheepish" is also used to describe embarrassment.
In heraldry
In British heraldry, sheep appear in the form of rams, sheep proper and lambs. These are distinguished by the ram being depicted with horns and a tail, the sheep with neither and the lamb with its tail only. A further variant of the lamb, termed the Paschal lamb, is depicted as carrying a Christian cross and with a halo over its head. Rams' heads, portrayed without a neck and facing the viewer, are also found in British armories. The fleece, depicted as an entire sheepskin carried by a ring around its midsection, originally became known through its use in the arms of the Order of the Golden Fleece and was later adopted by towns and individuals with connections to the wool industry. A sheep on a blue field is depicted on the greater/royal arms of the king of Denmark to represent the Faroe Islands. In 2004 a modernized arms has been adopted by the Faroe Islands, which based on a 15th century coat of arms.
Religion and folklore
In antiquity, symbolism involving sheep cropped up in religions in the ancient Near East, the Mideast, and the Mediterranean area: Çatalhöyük, ancient Egyptian religion, the Cana'anite and Phoenician tradition, Judaism, Greek religion, and others. Religious symbolism and ritual involving sheep began with some of the first known faiths: Skulls of rams (along with bulls) occupied central placement in shrines at the Çatalhöyük settlement in 8,000 BCE. In Ancient Egyptian religion, the ram was the symbol of several gods: Khnum, Heryshaf and Amun (in his incarnation as a god of fertility). Other deities occasionally shown with ram features include the goddess Ishtar, the Phoenician god Baal-Hamon, and the Babylonian god Ea-Oannes. In Madagascar, sheep were not eaten as they were believed to be incarnations of the souls of ancestors.
There are many ancient Greek references to sheep: that of Chrysomallos, the golden-fleeced ram, continuing to be told through into the modern era. Astrologically, Aries, the ram, is the first sign of the classical Greek zodiac, and the sheep is the eighth of the twelve animals associated with the 12-year cycle of in the Chinese zodiac, related to the Chinese calendar. It is said in Chinese traditions that Hou ji sacrificed sheep. Mongolia, shagai are an ancient form of dice made from the cuboid bones of sheep that are often used for fortunetelling purposes.
Sheep play an important role in all the Abrahamic faiths; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and King David were all shepherds. According to the Biblical story of the Binding of Isaac, a ram is sacrificed as a substitute for Isaac after an angel stays Abraham's hand (in the Islamic tradition, Abraham was about to sacrifice Ishmael). Eid al-Adha is a major annual festival in Islam in which sheep (or other animals) are sacrificed in remembrance of this act. Sheep are occasionally sacrificed to commemorate important secular events in Islamic cultures. Greeks and Romans sacrificed sheep regularly in religious practice, and Judaism once sacrificed sheep as a Korban (sacrifice), such as the Passover lamb. Ovine symbols—such as the ceremonial blowing of a shofar—still find a presence in modern Judaic traditions.
Collectively, followers of Christianity are often referred to as a flock, with Christ as the Good Shepherd, and sheep are an element in the Christian iconography of the birth of Jesus. Some Christian saints are considered patrons of shepherds, and even of sheep themselves. Christ is also portrayed as the Sacrificial lamb of God (Agnus Dei) and Easter celebrations in Greece and Romania traditionally feature a meal of Paschal lamb. A church leader is often called the pastor, which is derived from the Latin word for shepherd. In many western Christian traditions bishops carry a staff, which also serves as a symbol of the episcopal office, known as a crosier, which is modeled on the shepherd's crook.
Sheep are key symbols in fables and nursery rhymes like The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Little Bo Peep, Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, and Mary Had a Little Lamb; novels such as George Orwell's Animal Farm and Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase; songs such as Bach's Sheep may safely graze (Schafe können sicher weiden) and Pink Floyd's "Sheep", and poems like William Blake's "The Lamb".
Hamburg
The Hamburg flak towers are two large, concrete, steel-reinforced air defense and air defense structures in the Hamburg districts of St. Pauli and Wilhelmsburg. Originally, four towers were built during the Second World War, more precisely in the years from 1942 to 1944, two of which were designed as bunkers with mounted anti-aircraft guns and two as smaller control centers. The towers could only partially meet the military requirements for a combat position; But they were all the more successful as a shelter for the population and in terms of propaganda because they were designed as almost indestructible fortresses. Because of their self-sufficient construction, they might have had a long-term defense against attacking ground troops. Of the four built towers, the two battle towers have been preserved.
In response to the Allied air raids on Berlin, the “Führer order to erect flak towers in Berlin” was issued on September 9, 1940, which was extended to the cities of Vienna and Hamburg by the end of 1942 in order to protect them from bombing raids. During the Second World War, Hamburg became the target of Allied air raids, among other things because several large shipyards such as Blohm & Voss, Howaldtswerke, Deutsche Werft and H.C. Stülcken's son who produced many of the German submarines. The flak towers were designed by the architect Friedrich Tamms under the direction of Albert Speer, General Building Inspector for the Reich capital, and realized by the Todt Organization, also with the use of thousands of foreign and forced laborers.
The Flakturm IV in St. Pauli belongs to type 1. The high-rise bunker on Feldstrasse was built in 1942 by 1,000 forced laborers in 300 days. He was armed with four 10.5 cm anti-aircraft guns, which were replaced by four 12.8 cm Flakzwilling 40 in August 1942. The Flakturm IV is one of the largest bunkers ever built. The base measures 75 meters by 75 meters and is 38 meters high. The wall thickness is 3.5 meters; the ceiling is five meters thick. Windows were built in and sealed with concrete seals. Although the capacity was limited to 18,000 people, up to 25,000 people sought refuge in the bunker during the heavy air raids on Hamburg in the summer of 1943. There was a special pram entrance for women with children. In the bunker there was a spiral staircase to the top, which initially had no handrail and was life-threatening in crowded conditions.
The bunker Feldstrasse was used by civilian tenants after the war, as there was a great shortage of living space in Hamburg at that time. That is why the tower was prevented from being blown up in July 1947, and the required explosive force would probably have affected large parts of the city center. Corresponding experience was gained from comparable systems in Berlin. During the Cold War, the intact combat tower was reactivated as an air raid shelter.
In 1990 the building was sold for around 1.6 million DM and converted into a media center, which today houses the Uebel & Dangerous disco and a large branch of the musical instrument dealer JustMusic. In 1993 the investor Thomas Matzen acquired the heritable building right for the bunker until 2053 for 6 million DM at that time. In the meantime, this heritable building right has been transferred to Matzen Immobilien GmbH. Together with a group of investors, the company applied to add five floors to the listed building with a height of around 20 meters. A hotel, a fitness club, restaurants, an event and sports hall are to be built. The investment also includes planting on the roof. The estimated investment costs of around 30 million euros are to be offset by the commercial uses. After approval by the district office in Mitte, on July 12, 2017, the citizens also approved the building plans and the extension of the long-term lease with the votes of the SPD and the Greens.
The first of five floors to be added was concreted in June 2020. A lawsuit against the increase was dismissed in July 2020.
Increase and greening
In advance of these decisions, there was criticism of the plans presented. At the beginning of June 2017, construction plans were published according to which the often advertised green increase can only be realized in a significantly reduced manner due to fire protection requirements. The Left criticized the agreed conditions that instead of the actual land value of around 1,500 euros per square meter, only a value of just under 980 euros was calculated, plus a discount of 30 percent. In addition, a parking space fee of 744,000 euros was waived.
In May 2019 it became known that tenants in the bunker would suffer disadvantages due to the addition work.
My longer term Flickr friends may recall that I had a serious accident back in the summer of 2015. The injury caused permanent restrictions in the movement of my right arm and it's only just recovered enough for me to develop black and white films. This film was taken in 2017 it is Ilford FP4 Plus developed in Rodinal. I used a Leica M3 Double Stroke. These are all of Chesterfield Market.
Having illustrated a couple of 10m Bova Futuras on my stream I thought it was time to show my model of such a vehicle. This OOC model was shortened by a friend for his Handy Bus fleet and I bought it from him in 2004, re-registering it from PF51 BTL to TGJ 337 before it entered service. As a 45-seater it fills an important gap in the fleet and is a useful size for private hire.
Ushaw College (formally St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw), is a former Catholic seminary near the village of Ushaw Moor, County Durham, England, which is now a heritage and cultural tourist attraction. The college is known for its Georgian and Victorian Gothic architecture and listed nineteenth-century chapels. The college now hosts a programme of art exhibitions, music and theatre events, alongside tearooms and a café.
It was founded in 1808 by scholars from the English College, Douai, who had fled France after the French Revolution. Ushaw College was affiliated with Durham University from 1968 and was the principal Roman Catholic seminary for the training of Catholic priests in the north of England.
In 2011, the seminary closed, due to the shortage of vocations. It reopened as a visitor attraction, marketed as Ushaw: Historic House, Chapels & Gardens in late 2014 and, as of 2019, receives around 50,000 visitors a year. The County Durham Music Service and Durham University Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring are based at the college and buildings at the college are also used by Durham University Business School.
The English College, Douai was founded in 1568 but was forced to leave France in 1795 following the French Revolution. Part of the college settled temporarily at Crook Hall near Lanchester, northwest of Durham. In 1804 Bishop William Gibson began to build at Ushaw Moor, four miles west of Durham. These buildings, designed by James Taylor, were opened as St Cuthbert's College in 1808. There was a steady expansion during the nineteenth century with new buildings put up to cater for the expanding number of clerical and secular students. In 1847, the newly built chapel, designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was opened. This was followed by the Big Library and Exhibition Hall designed by Joseph Hansom, 1849–1851. The Junior House, designed by Peter Paul Pugin, was added in 1859. St Cuthbert's Chapel, designed by Dunn and Hansom, was opened in 1884, replacing AWN Pugin's 1847 chapel which the seminary had outgrown. The Refectory was designed and built by E. W. Pugin. The final development came in the early 1960s with the opening of a new East wing, providing additional classrooms and single bedrooms for 75 students. The main college buildings are Grade II listed, the College Chapel is Grade II* and the Chapel of St Michael is Grade I.
Although independent, Ushaw College had a close working relationship with Durham University. The college became a Licensed Hall of Residence of the University of Durham in 1968. It was independent of the university but offered courses validated by the university, and both Church and lay students studied at the college. The Junior House closed in 1972, its younger students being transferred to St Joseph's College, Up Holland in Lancashire.
In 2002, the college rejected a report from the Roman Catholic hierarchy that it should merge with St Mary's College, Oscott, near Birmingham. However, in October 2010 it was announced that the college would close in 2011 due to the shortage of vocations in the Roman Catholic Church, and that the site might be sold. Following a detailed feasibility study by the college's Trustees and Durham University, and with support from Durham County Council and English Heritage, it was announced in January 2012 that Durham Business School would temporarily relocate to the college during rebuilding of the school's buildings in Durham. This was seen as the first step in a long-term education-based vision for the site.
The university also agreed to catalogue and archive the Ushaw library and inventory the other collections to ensure their preservation and specialist conservation, with a view to creating a proposed Ushaw Centre for Catholic Scholarship and Heritage. In March 2019, an uncatalogued early charter of King John was found in the library manuscript collection.
In 2017, Durham University announced plans to develop an international residential research library at Ushaw College, with the aim of attracting scholars from around the world to work on the collections of Ushaw, Durham University and Durham Cathedral. The university has also confirmed that it has extended the agreement to lease the east wing of the college (used by the Business School) to 2027. The college is also used for numerous musical events and for the Ushaw Lecture Series, organised by the university's Centre for Catholic Studies.
In 2018, Durham University's Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) moved into the east wing of the college, previously used by the Business School.
The college armorial bearings are "Per pale dexter Argent a Cross Gules on a Canton Azure a Cross of St Cuthbert proper sinister impaling Allen Argent three Rabbits couchant in pale Sable."
Various emblems on shield represent the college's history and foundation, for example:-
Three coneys are from the family coat of arms of William Allen, the founder of English College, Douai. See Three hares.
The small cross of St Cuthbert represents the college's patron saint (it is modelled on St Cuthbert's own pectoral cross, which is kept in the Treasury at Durham Cathedral).
The large cross of St George honours the English Roman Catholic Martyrs.
Alumni
Clergy
Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman – first Archbishop of Westminster
Francis Cardinal Bourne – Archbishop of Westminster
Arthur Cardinal Hinsley – Archbishop of Westminster
William Cardinal Godfrey – Archbishop of Westminster
John Carmel Cardinal Heenan – Archbishop of Westminster
Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val y Zulueta – Cardinal Secretary of State
Charles Petre Eyre – Archbishop of Glasgow.
Louis Charles Casartelli – 4th Bishop of Salford
Hugh Lindsay – 10th Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle
James Chadwick – 2nd Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle
Alexander Goss – Bishop of Liverpool
Thomas Grant – Bishop of Southwark
Mark Davies, Bishop of Shrewsbury
John Lingard – author of The History Of England, From the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of Henry VIII
Bernard Łubieński - Redemptorist missionary priest
John Furniss – English Roman Catholic priest, known for his mission to children
James Nugent – Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Liverpool
Nicholas Rigby – English Roman Catholic priest and author of The Real Doctrine of the Church on Scripture
Constantine Scollen – Irish Roman Catholic missionary priest and outstanding linguist in Canada in the mid- to late 19th century and author of Thirty Years among the Indians of the Northwest
Paul Swarbrick - Bishop of Lancaster
Philip Moger - Auxiliary Bishop of Southwark
Lay
George Goldie – nineteenth-century ecclesiastical architect
Edward Goldie – nineteenth- and twentieth-century ecclesiastical architect
Alexander Martin Sullivan – Irish lawyer and defence counsel in the trial of Roger Casement
Charles Napier Hemy – artist and Royal Academician
Francis Thompson – English poet
Joseph Gillow – author of Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Roman Catholics
William Shee – first Roman Catholic to sit as a judge in England and Wales since the Reformation
Francis Joseph Sloane (aka Francesco Giuseppe Sloane) - born 1794, died October 23, 1871, tutor at Ushaw and lifelong friend of Nicolas (later Cardinal) Wiseman, responsible for reviving the Montecatini Val di Cecina copper mine, which was the largest in Europe
Paul Goggins – Labour Member of Parliament for Wythenshawe and Sale East and junior minister in the Northern Ireland Office.
Joseph Scott – attorney in Los Angeles, founder of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, vice-president of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915)
A.J. Hartley bestselling novelist and Shakespeare scholar
Lafcadio Hearn (also known as Koizumi Yakumo) – author, best known for his books about Japan
Francis Petre - prominent New Zealand-born architect designed the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Christchurch
Peter Paul Pugin – English architect
James Joseph Foy – Ontario Attorney General and political figure
Myles William Patrick O'Reilly – Roman Catholic soldier and politician
Archibald Matthias Dunn – Roman Catholic ecclesiastical architect
Joe Tasker - Himalayan climber
Charles Bruzon – Gibraltarian government minister and curate
List of presidents
1794–1810 Thomas Eyre
1811–1828 John Gillow
1828–1833 Thomas Youens
1833–1836 John Briggs
1836–1837 Thomas Youens
1837–1863 Charles Newsham
1863–1876 Robert Tate
1876–1877 Francis Wilkinson
1877–1878 James Chadwick
1878–1885 William Wrennall
1885–1886 William Dunderdale
1886–1890 James Lennon
1890–1909 Thomas Wilkinson
1909–1910 Joseph Corbishley
1910–1934 William Brown
1934–1950 Charles Corbishley
1950–1967 Paul Grant
1967–1977 Philip Loftus
1977–1984 Peter Cookson
1984–1991 Peter Walton
1991–1997 Richard Atherton
1997–2003 James O’Keefe
2003–2008 Terence Drainey
2008–2011 John Marsland
Dennis Trident 4450 has gained somewhat of a celebrity status since being withdrawn from Coventry.
First been sent to Walsall to eek out its final days it then got sent to Wolverhampton for the reminder of it's time left in service. That's about 3 week's give or take. Splendid bus to drive..
Summer Term students arrive safely and meet their fellow classmates and students. For their first morning exercise they snorkel off of boys dorm beach and get introduced to B
ahamian marine life.
Fish, any of approximately 34,000 species of vertebrate animals (phylum Chordata) found in the fresh and salt waters of the world. Living species range from the primitive jawless lampreys and hagfishes through the cartilaginous sharks, skates, and rays to the abundant and diverse bony fishes. Most fish species are cold-blooded; however, one species, the opah (Lampris guttatus), is warm-blooded.
The term fish is applied to a variety of vertebrates of several evolutionary lines. It describes a life-form rather than a taxonomic group. As members of the phylum Chordata, fish share certain features with other vertebrates. These features are gill slits at some point in the life cycle, a notochord, or skeletal supporting rod, a dorsal hollow nerve cord, and a tail. Living fishes represent some five classes, which are as distinct from one another as are the four classes of familiar air-breathing animals—amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. For example, the jawless fishes (Agnatha) have gills in pouches and lack limb girdles. Extant agnathans are the lampreys and the hagfishes. As the name implies, the skeletons of fishes of the class Chondrichthyes (from chondr, “cartilage,” and ichthyes, “fish”) are made entirely of cartilage. Modern fish of this class lack a swim bladder, and their scales and teeth are made up of the same placoid material. Sharks, skates, and rays are examples of cartilaginous fishes. The bony fishes are by far the largest class. Examples range from the tiny seahorse to the 450-kg (1,000-pound) blue marlin, from the flattened soles and flounders to the boxy puffers and ocean sunfishes. Unlike the scales of the cartilaginous fishes, those of bony fishes, when present, grow throughout life and are made up of thin overlapping plates of bone. Bony fishes also have an operculum that covers the gill slits.
The study of fishes, the science of ichthyology, is of broad importance. Fishes are of interest to humans for many reasons, the most important being their relationship with and dependence on the environment. A more obvious reason for interest in fishes is their role as a moderate but important part of the world’s food supply. This resource, once thought unlimited, is now realized to be finite and in delicate balance with the biological, chemical, and physical factors of the aquatic environment. Overfishing, pollution, and alteration of the environment are the chief enemies of proper fisheries management, both in fresh waters and in the ocean. (For a detailed discussion of the technology and economics of fisheries, see commercial fishing.) Another practical reason for studying fishes is their use in disease control. As predators on mosquito larvae, they help curb malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.
Fishes are valuable laboratory animals in many aspects of medical and biological research. For example, the readiness of many fishes to acclimate to captivity has allowed biologists to study behaviour, physiology, and even ecology under relatively natural conditions. Fishes have been especially important in the study of animal behaviour, where research on fishes has provided a broad base for the understanding of the more flexible behaviour of the higher vertebrates. The zebra fish is used as a model in studies of gene expression.
There are aesthetic and recreational reasons for an interest in fishes. Millions of people keep live fishes in home aquariums for the simple pleasure of observing the beauty and behaviour of animals otherwise unfamiliar to them. Aquarium fishes provide a personal challenge to many aquarists, allowing them to test their ability to keep a small section of the natural environment in their homes. Sportfishing is another way of enjoying the natural environment, also indulged in by millions of people every year. Interest in aquarium fishes and sportfishing supports multimillion-dollar industries throughout the world.
Fishes have been in existence for more than 450 million years, during which time they have evolved repeatedly to fit into almost every conceivable type of aquatic habitat. In a sense, land vertebrates are simply highly modified fishes: when fishes colonized the land habitat, they became tetrapod (four-legged) land vertebrates. The popular conception of a fish as a slippery, streamlined aquatic animal that possesses fins and breathes by gills applies to many fishes, but far more fishes deviate from that conception than conform to it. For example, the body is elongate in many forms and greatly shortened in others; the body is flattened in some (principally in bottom-dwelling fishes) and laterally compressed in many others; the fins may be elaborately extended, forming intricate shapes, or they may be reduced or even lost; and the positions of the mouth, eyes, nostrils, and gill openings vary widely. Air breathers have appeared in several evolutionary lines.
Many fishes are cryptically coloured and shaped, closely matching their respective environments; others are among the most brilliantly coloured of all organisms, with a wide range of hues, often of striking intensity, on a single individual. The brilliance of pigments may be enhanced by the surface structure of the fish, so that it almost seems to glow. A number of unrelated fishes have actual light-producing organs. Many fishes are able to alter their coloration—some for the purpose of camouflage, others for the enhancement of behavioral signals.
Fishes range in adult length from less than 10 mm (0.4 inch) to more than 20 metres (60 feet) and in weight from about 1.5 grams (less than 0.06 ounce) to many thousands of kilograms. Some live in shallow thermal springs at temperatures slightly above 42 °C (100 °F), others in cold Arctic seas a few degrees below 0 °C (32 °F) or in cold deep waters more than 4,000 metres (13,100 feet) beneath the ocean surface. The structural and, especially, the physiological adaptations for life at such extremes are relatively poorly known and provide the scientifically curious with great incentive for study.
Almost all natural bodies of water bear fish life, the exceptions being very hot thermal ponds and extremely salt-alkaline lakes, such as the Dead Sea in Asia and the Great Salt Lake in North America. The present distribution of fishes is a result of the geological history and development of Earth as well as the ability of fishes to undergo evolutionary change and to adapt to the available habitats. Fishes may be seen to be distributed according to habitat and according to geographical area. Major habitat differences are marine and freshwater. For the most part, the fishes in a marine habitat differ from those in a freshwater habitat, even in adjacent areas, but some, such as the salmon, migrate from one to the other. The freshwater habitats may be seen to be of many kinds. Fishes found in mountain torrents, Arctic lakes, tropical lakes, temperate streams, and tropical rivers will all differ from each other, both in obvious gross structure and in physiological attributes. Even in closely adjacent habitats where, for example, a tropical mountain torrent enters a lowland stream, the fish fauna will differ. The marine habitats can be divided into deep ocean floors (benthic), mid-water oceanic (bathypelagic), surface oceanic (pelagic), rocky coast, sandy coast, muddy shores, bays, estuaries, and others. Also, for example, rocky coastal shores in tropical and temperate regions will have different fish faunas, even when such habitats occur along the same coastline.
Although much is known about the present geographical distribution of fishes, far less is known about how that distribution came about. Many parts of the fish fauna of the fresh waters of North America and Eurasia are related and undoubtedly have a common origin. The faunas of Africa and South America are related, extremely old, and probably an expression of the drifting apart of the two continents. The fauna of southern Asia is related to that of Central Asia, and some of it appears to have entered Africa. The extremely large shore-fish faunas of the Indian and tropical Pacific oceans comprise a related complex, but the tropical shore fauna of the Atlantic, although containing Indo-Pacific components, is relatively limited and probably younger. The Arctic and Antarctic marine faunas are quite different from each other. The shore fauna of the North Pacific is quite distinct, and that of the North Atlantic more limited and probably younger. Pelagic oceanic fishes, especially those in deep waters, are similar the world over, showing little geographical isolation in terms of family groups. The deep oceanic habitat is very much the same throughout the world, but species differences do exist, showing geographical areas determined by oceanic currents and water masses.
All aspects of the life of a fish are closely correlated with adaptation to the total environment, physical, chemical, and biological. In studies, all the interdependent aspects of fish, such as behaviour, locomotion, reproduction, and physical and physiological characteristics, must be taken into account.
Correlated with their adaptation to an extremely wide variety of habitats is the extremely wide variety of life cycles that fishes display. The great majority hatch from relatively small eggs a few days to several weeks or more after the eggs are scattered in the water. Newly hatched young are still partially undeveloped and are called larvae until body structures such as fins, skeleton, and some organs are fully formed. Larval life is often very short, usually less than a few weeks, but it can be very long, some lampreys continuing as larvae for at least five years. Young and larval fishes, before reaching sexual maturity, must grow considerably, and their small size and other factors often dictate that they live in a habitat different than that of the adults. For example, most tropical marine shore fishes have pelagic larvae. Larval food also is different, and larval fishes often live in shallow waters, where they may be less exposed to predators.
After a fish reaches adult size, the length of its life is subject to many factors, such as innate rates of aging, predation pressure, and the nature of the local climate. The longevity of a species in the protected environment of an aquarium may have nothing to do with how long members of that species live in the wild. Many small fishes live only one to three years at the most. In some species, however, individuals may live as long as 10 or 20 or even 100 years.
Fish behaviour is a complicated and varied subject. As in almost all animals with a central nervous system, the nature of a response of an individual fish to stimuli from its environment depends upon the inherited characteristics of its nervous system, on what it has learned from past experience, and on the nature of the stimuli. Compared with the variety of human responses, however, that of a fish is stereotyped, not subject to much modification by “thought” or learning, and investigators must guard against anthropomorphic interpretations of fish behaviour.
Fishes perceive the world around them by the usual senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste and by special lateral line water-current detectors. In the few fishes that generate electric fields, a process that might best be called electrolocation aids in perception. One or another of these senses often is emphasized at the expense of others, depending upon the fish’s other adaptations. In fishes with large eyes, the sense of smell may be reduced; others, with small eyes, hunt and feed primarily by smell (such as some eels).
Specialized behaviour is primarily concerned with the three most important activities in the fish’s life: feeding, reproduction, and escape from enemies. Schooling behaviour of sardines on the high seas, for instance, is largely a protective device to avoid enemies, but it is also associated with and modified by their breeding and feeding requirements. Predatory fishes are often solitary, lying in wait to dart suddenly after their prey, a kind of locomotion impossible for beaked parrot fishes, which feed on coral, swimming in small groups from one coral head to the next. In addition, some predatory fishes that inhabit pelagic environments, such as tunas, often school.
Sleep in fishes, all of which lack true eyelids, consists of a seemingly listless state in which the fish maintains its balance but moves slowly. If attacked or disturbed, most can dart away. A few kinds of fishes lie on the bottom to sleep. Most catfishes, some loaches, and some eels and electric fishes are strictly nocturnal, being active and hunting for food during the night and retiring during the day to holes, thick vegetation, or other protective parts of the environment.
Communication between members of a species or between members of two or more species often is extremely important, especially in breeding behaviour (see below Reproduction). The mode of communication may be visual, as between the small so-called cleaner fish and a large fish of a very different species. The larger fish often allows the cleaner to enter its mouth to remove gill parasites. The cleaner is recognized by its distinctive colour and actions and therefore is not eaten, even if the larger fish is normally a predator. Communication is often chemical, signals being sent by specific chemicals called pheromones.
Many fishes have a streamlined body and swim freely in open water. Fish locomotion is closely correlated with habitat and ecological niche (the general position of the animal to its environment).
Many fishes in both marine and fresh waters swim at the surface and have mouths adapted to feed best (and sometimes only) at the surface. Often such fishes are long and slender, able to dart at surface insects or at other surface fishes and in turn to dart away from predators; needlefishes, halfbeaks, and topminnows (such as killifish and mosquito fish) are good examples. Oceanic flying fishes escape their predators by gathering speed above the water surface, with the lower lobe of the tail providing thrust in the water. They then glide hundreds of yards on enlarged, winglike pectoral and pelvic fins. South American freshwater flying fishes escape their enemies by jumping and propelling their strongly keeled bodies out of the water.
So-called mid-water swimmers, the most common type of fish, are of many kinds and live in many habitats. The powerful fusiform tunas and the trouts, for example, are adapted for strong, fast swimming, the tunas to capture prey speedily in the open ocean and the trouts to cope with the swift currents of streams and rivers. The trout body form is well adapted to many habitats. Fishes that live in relatively quiet waters such as bays or lake shores or slow rivers usually are not strong, fast swimmers but are capable of short, quick bursts of speed to escape a predator. Many of these fishes have their sides flattened, examples being the sunfish and the freshwater angelfish of aquarists. Fish associated with the bottom or substrate usually are slow swimmers. Open-water plankton-feeding fishes almost always remain fusiform and are capable of rapid, strong movement (for example, sardines and herrings of the open ocean and also many small minnows of streams and lakes).
Bottom-living fishes are of many kinds and have undergone many types of modification of their body shape and swimming habits. Rays, which evolved from strong-swimming mid-water sharks, usually stay close to the bottom and move by undulating their large pectoral fins. Flounders live in a similar habitat and move over the bottom by undulating the entire body. Many bottom fishes dart from place to place, resting on the bottom between movements, a motion common in gobies. One goby relative, the mudskipper, has taken to living at the edge of pools along the shore of muddy mangrove swamps. It escapes its enemies by flipping rapidly over the mud, out of the water. Some catfishes, synbranchid eels, the so-called climbing perch, and a few other fishes venture out over damp ground to find more promising waters than those that they left. They move by wriggling their bodies, sometimes using strong pectoral fins; most have accessory air-breathing organs. Many bottom-dwelling fishes live in mud holes or rocky crevices. Marine eels and gobies commonly are found in such habitats and for the most part venture far beyond their cavelike homes. Some bottom dwellers, such as the clingfishes (Gobiesocidae), have developed powerful adhesive disks that enable them to remain in place on the substrate in areas such as rocky coasts, where the action of the waves is great.
The methods of reproduction in fishes are varied, but most fishes lay a large number of small eggs, fertilized and scattered outside of the body. The eggs of pelagic fishes usually remain suspended in the open water. Many shore and freshwater fishes lay eggs on the bottom or among plants. Some have adhesive eggs. The mortality of the young and especially of the eggs is very high, and often only a few individuals grow to maturity out of hundreds, thousands, and in some cases millions of eggs laid.
Males produce sperm, usually as a milky white substance called milt, in two (sometimes one) testes within the body cavity. In bony fishes a sperm duct leads from each testis to a urogenital opening behind the vent or anus. In sharks and rays and in cyclostomes the duct leads to a cloaca. Sometimes the pelvic fins are modified to help transmit the milt to the eggs at the female’s vent or on the substrate where the female has placed them. Sometimes accessory organs are used to fertilize females internally—for example, the claspers of many sharks and rays.
In the females the eggs are formed in two ovaries (sometimes only one) and pass through the ovaries to the urogenital opening and to the outside. In some fishes the eggs are fertilized internally but are shed before development takes place. Members of about a dozen families each of bony fishes (teleosts) and sharks bear live young. Many skates and rays also bear live young. In some bony fishes the eggs simply develop within the female, the young emerging when the eggs hatch (ovoviviparous). Others develop within the ovary and are nourished by ovarian tissues after hatching (viviparous). There are also other methods utilized by fishes to nourish young within the female. In all live-bearers the young are born at a relatively large size and are few in number. In one family of primarily marine fishes, the surfperches from the Pacific coast of North America, Japan, and Korea, the males of at least one species are born sexually mature, although they are not fully grown.
Some fishes are hermaphroditic—an individual producing both sperm and eggs, usually at different stages of its life. Self-fertilization, however, is probably rare.
Successful reproduction and, in many cases, defense of the eggs and the young are assured by rather stereotypical but often elaborate courtship and parental behaviour, either by the male or the female or both. Some fishes prepare nests by hollowing out depressions in the sand bottom (cichlids, for example), build nests with plant materials and sticky threads excreted by the kidneys (sticklebacks), or blow a cluster of mucus-covered bubbles at the water surface (gouramis). The eggs are laid in these structures. Some varieties of cichlids and catfishes incubate eggs in their mouths.
Some fishes, such as salmon, undergo long migrations from the ocean and up large rivers to spawn in the gravel beds where they themselves hatched (anadromous fishes). Some, such as the freshwater eels (family Anguillidae), live and grow to maturity in fresh water and migrate to the sea to spawn (catadromous fishes). Other fishes undertake shorter migrations from lakes into streams, within the ocean, or enter spawning habitats that they do not ordinarily occupy in other ways.
The basic structure and function of the fish body are similar to those of all other vertebrates. The usual four types of tissues are present: surface or epithelial, connective (bone, cartilage, and fibrous tissues, as well as their derivative, blood), nerve, and muscle tissues. In addition, the fish’s organs and organ systems parallel those of other vertebrates.
The typical fish body is streamlined and spindle-shaped, with an anterior head, a gill apparatus, and a heart, the latter lying in the midline just below the gill chamber. The body cavity, containing the vital organs, is situated behind the head in the lower anterior part of the body. The anus usually marks the posterior termination of the body cavity and most often occurs just in front of the base of the anal fin. The spinal cord and vertebral column continue from the posterior part of the head to the base of the tail fin, passing dorsal to the body cavity and through the caudal (tail) region behind the body cavity. Most of the body is of muscular tissue, a high proportion of which is necessitated by swimming. In the course of evolution this basic body plan has been modified repeatedly into the many varieties of fish shapes that exist today.
The skeleton forms an integral part of the fish’s locomotion system, as well as serving to protect vital parts. The internal skeleton consists of the skull bones (except for the roofing bones of the head, which are really part of the external skeleton), the vertebral column, and the fin supports (fin rays). The fin supports are derived from the external skeleton but will be treated here because of their close functional relationship to the internal skeleton. The internal skeleton of cyclostomes, sharks, and rays is of cartilage; that of many fossil groups and some primitive living fishes is mostly of cartilage but may include some bone. In place of the vertebral column, the earliest vertebrates had a fully developed notochord, a flexible stiff rod of viscous cells surrounded by a strong fibrous sheath. During the evolution of modern fishes the rod was replaced in part by cartilage and then by ossified cartilage. Sharks and rays retain a cartilaginous vertebral column; bony fishes have spool-shaped vertebrae that in the more primitive living forms only partially replace the notochord. The skull, including the gill arches and jaws of bony fishes, is fully, or at least partially, ossified. That of sharks and rays remains cartilaginous, at times partially replaced by calcium deposits but never by true bone.
The supportive elements of the fins (basal or radial bones or both) have changed greatly during fish evolution. Some of these changes are described in the section below (Evolution and paleontology). Most fishes possess a single dorsal fin on the midline of the back. Many have two and a few have three dorsal fins. The other fins are the single tail and anal fins and paired pelvic and pectoral fins. A small fin, the adipose fin, with hairlike fin rays, occurs in many of the relatively primitive teleosts (such as trout) on the back near the base of the caudal fin.
The skin of a fish must serve many functions. It aids in maintaining the osmotic balance, provides physical protection for the body, is the site of coloration, contains sensory receptors, and, in some fishes, functions in respiration. Mucous glands, which aid in maintaining the water balance and offer protection from bacteria, are extremely numerous in fish skin, especially in cyclostomes and teleosts. Since mucous glands are present in the modern lampreys, it is reasonable to assume that they were present in primitive fishes, such as the ancient Silurian and Devonian agnathans. Protection from abrasion and predation is another function of the fish skin, and dermal (skin) bone arose early in fish evolution in response to this need. It is thought that bone first evolved in skin and only later invaded the cartilaginous areas of the fish’s body, to provide additional support and protection. There is some argument as to which came first, cartilage or bone, and fossil evidence does not settle the question. In any event, dermal bone has played an important part in fish evolution and has different characteristics in different groups of fishes. Several groups are characterized at least in part by the kind of bony scales they possess.
Scales have played an important part in the evolution of fishes. Primitive fishes usually had thick bony plates or thick scales in several layers of bone, enamel, and related substances. Modern teleost fishes have scales of bone, which, while still protective, allow much more freedom of motion in the body. A few modern teleosts (some catfishes, sticklebacks, and others) have secondarily acquired bony plates in the skin. Modern and early sharks possessed placoid scales, a relatively primitive type of scale with a toothlike structure, consisting of an outside layer of enamel-like substance (vitrodentine), an inner layer of dentine, and a pulp cavity containing nerves and blood vessels. Primitive bony fishes had thick scales of either the ganoid or the cosmoid type. Cosmoid scales have a hard, enamel-like outer layer, an inner layer of cosmine (a form of dentine), and then a layer of vascular bone (isopedine). In ganoid scales the hard outer layer is different chemically and is called ganoin. Under this is a cosminelike layer and then a vascular bony layer. The thin, translucent bony scales of modern fishes, called cycloid and ctenoid (the latter distinguished by serrations at the edges), lack enameloid and dentine layers.
Skin has several other functions in fishes. It is well supplied with nerve endings and presumably receives tactile, thermal, and pain stimuli. Skin is also well supplied with blood vessels. Some fishes breathe in part through the skin, by the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the surrounding water and numerous small blood vessels near the skin surface.
Skin serves as protection through the control of coloration. Fishes exhibit an almost limitless range of colours. The colours often blend closely with the surroundings, effectively hiding the animal. Many fishes use bright colours for territorial advertisement or as recognition marks for other members of their own species, or sometimes for members of other species. Many fishes can change their colour to a greater or lesser degree, by movement of pigment within the pigment cells (chromatophores). Black pigment cells (melanophores), of almost universal occurrence in fishes, are often juxtaposed with other pigment cells. When placed beneath iridocytes or leucophores (bearing the silvery or white pigment guanine), melanophores produce structural colours of blue and green. These colours are often extremely intense, because they are formed by refraction of light through the needlelike crystals of guanine. The blue and green refracted colours are often relatively pure, lacking the red and yellow rays, which have been absorbed by the black pigment (melanin) of the melanophores. Yellow, orange, and red colours are produced by erythrophores, cells containing the appropriate carotenoid pigments. Other colours are produced by combinations of melanophores, erythrophores, and iridocytes.
The major portion of the body of most fishes consists of muscles. Most of the mass is trunk musculature, the fin muscles usually being relatively small. The caudal fin is usually the most powerful fin, being moved by the trunk musculature. The body musculature is usually arranged in rows of chevron-shaped segments on each side. Contractions of these segments, each attached to adjacent vertebrae and vertebral processes, bends the body on the vertebral joint, producing successive undulations of the body, passing from the head to the tail, and producing driving strokes of the tail. It is the latter that provides the strong forward movement for most fishes.
The digestive system, in a functional sense, starts at the mouth, with the teeth used to capture prey or collect plant foods. Mouth shape and tooth structure vary greatly in fishes, depending on the kind of food normally eaten. Most fishes are predacious, feeding on small invertebrates or other fishes and have simple conical teeth on the jaws, on at least some of the bones of the roof of the mouth, and on special gill arch structures just in front of the esophagus. The latter are throat teeth. Most predacious fishes swallow their prey whole, and the teeth are used for grasping and holding prey, for orienting prey to be swallowed (head first) and for working the prey toward the esophagus. There are a variety of tooth types in fishes. Some fishes, such as sharks and piranhas, have cutting teeth for biting chunks out of their victims. A shark’s tooth, although superficially like that of a piranha, appears in many respects to be a modified scale, while that of the piranha is like that of other bony fishes, consisting of dentine and enamel. Parrot fishes have beaklike mouths with short incisor-like teeth for breaking off coral and have heavy pavementlike throat teeth for crushing the coral. Some catfishes have small brushlike teeth, arranged in rows on the jaws, for scraping plant and animal growth from rocks. Many fishes (such as the Cyprinidae or minnows) have no jaw teeth at all but have very strong throat teeth.
Some fishes gather planktonic food by straining it from their gill cavities with numerous elongate stiff rods (gill rakers) anchored by one end to the gill bars. The food collected on these rods is passed to the throat, where it is swallowed. Most fishes have only short gill rakers that help keep food particles from escaping out the mouth cavity into the gill chamber.
Once reaching the throat, food enters a short, often greatly distensible esophagus, a simple tube with a muscular wall leading into a stomach. The stomach varies greatly in fishes, depending upon the diet. In most predacious fishes it is a simple straight or curved tube or pouch with a muscular wall and a glandular lining. Food is largely digested there and leaves the stomach in liquid form.
Between the stomach and the intestine, ducts enter the digestive tube from the liver and pancreas. The liver is a large, clearly defined organ. The pancreas may be embedded in it, diffused through it, or broken into small parts spread along some of the intestine. The junction between the stomach and the intestine is marked by a muscular valve. Pyloric ceca (blind sacs) occur in some fishes at this junction and have a digestive or absorptive function or both.
The intestine itself is quite variable in length, depending upon the fish’s diet. It is short in predacious forms, sometimes no longer than the body cavity, but long in herbivorous forms, being coiled and several times longer than the entire length of the fish in some species of South American catfishes. The intestine is primarily an organ for absorbing nutrients into the bloodstream. The larger its internal surface, the greater its absorptive efficiency, and a spiral valve is one method of increasing its absorption surface.
Sharks, rays, chimaeras, lungfishes, surviving chondrosteans, holosteans, and even a few of the more primitive teleosts have a spiral valve or at least traces of it in the intestine. Most modern teleosts have increased the area of the intestinal walls by having numerous folds and villi (fingerlike projections) somewhat like those in humans. Undigested substances are passed to the exterior through the anus in most teleost fishes. In lungfishes, sharks, and rays, it is first passed through the cloaca, a common cavity receiving the intestinal opening and the ducts from the urogenital system.
Oxygen and carbon dioxide dissolve in water, and most fishes exchange dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide in water by means of the gills. The gills lie behind and to the side of the mouth cavity and consist of fleshy filaments supported by the gill arches and filled with blood vessels, which give gills a bright red colour. Water taken in continuously through the mouth passes backward between the gill bars and over the gill filaments, where the exchange of gases takes place. The gills are protected by a gill cover in teleosts and many other fishes but by flaps of skin in sharks, rays, and some of the older fossil fish groups. The blood capillaries in the gill filaments are close to the gill surface to take up oxygen from the water and to give up excess carbon dioxide to the water.
Most modern fishes have a hydrostatic (ballast) organ, called the swim bladder, that lies in the body cavity just below the kidney and above the stomach and intestine. It originated as a diverticulum of the digestive canal. In advanced teleosts, especially the acanthopterygians, the bladder has lost its connection with the digestive tract, a condition called physoclistic. The connection has been retained (physostomous) by many relatively primitive teleosts. In several unrelated lines of fishes, the bladder has become specialized as a lung or, at least, as a highly vascularized accessory breathing organ. Some fishes with such accessory organs are obligate air breathers and will drown if denied access to the surface, even in well-oxygenated water. Fishes with a hydrostatic form of swim bladder can control their depth by regulating the amount of gas in the bladder. The gas, mostly oxygen, is secreted into the bladder by special glands, rendering the fish more buoyant; the gas is absorbed into the bloodstream by another special organ, reducing the overall buoyancy and allowing the fish to sink. Some deep-sea fishes may have oils, rather than gas, in the bladder. Other deep-sea and some bottom-living forms have much-reduced swim bladders or have lost the organ entirely.
The swim bladder of fishes follows the same developmental pattern as the lungs of land vertebrates. There is no doubt that the two structures have the same historical origin in primitive fishes. More or less intermediate forms still survive among the more primitive types of fishes, such as the lungfishes Lepidosiren and Protopterus.
The circulatory, or blood vascular, system consists of the heart, the arteries, the capillaries, and the veins. It is in the capillaries that the interchange of oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients, and other substances such as hormones and waste products takes place. The capillaries lead to the veins, which return the venous blood with its waste products to the heart, kidneys, and gills. There are two kinds of capillary beds: those in the gills and those in the rest of the body. The heart, a folded continuous muscular tube with three or four saclike enlargements, undergoes rhythmic contractions and receives venous blood in a sinus venosus. It passes the blood to an auricle and then into a thick muscular pump, the ventricle. From the ventricle the blood goes to a bulbous structure at the base of a ventral aorta just below the gills. The blood passes to the afferent (receiving) arteries of the gill arches and then to the gill capillaries. There waste gases are given off to the environment, and oxygen is absorbed. The oxygenated blood enters efferent (exuant) arteries of the gill arches and then flows into the dorsal aorta. From there blood is distributed to the tissues and organs of the body. One-way valves prevent backflow. The circulation of fishes thus differs from that of the reptiles, birds, and mammals in that oxygenated blood is not returned to the heart prior to distribution to the other parts of the body.
The primary excretory organ in fishes, as in other vertebrates, is the kidney. In fishes some excretion also takes place in the digestive tract, skin, and especially the gills (where ammonia is given off). Compared with land vertebrates, fishes have a special problem in maintaining their internal environment at a constant concentration of water and dissolved substances, such as salts. Proper balance of the internal environment (homeostasis) of a fish is in a great part maintained by the excretory system, especially the kidney.
The kidney, gills, and skin play an important role in maintaining a fish’s internal environment and checking the effects of osmosis. Marine fishes live in an environment in which the water around them has a greater concentration of salts than they can have inside their body and still maintain life. Freshwater fishes, on the other hand, live in water with a much lower concentration of salts than they require inside their bodies. Osmosis tends to promote the loss of water from the body of a marine fish and absorption of water by that of a freshwater fish. Mucus in the skin tends to slow the process but is not a sufficient barrier to prevent the movement of fluids through the permeable skin. When solutions on two sides of a permeable membrane have different concentrations of dissolved substances, water will pass through the membrane into the more concentrated solution, while the dissolved chemicals move into the area of lower concentration (diffusion).
The kidney of freshwater fishes is often larger in relation to body weight than that of marine fishes. In both groups the kidney excretes wastes from the body, but the kidney of freshwater fishes also excretes large amounts of water, counteracting the water absorbed through the skin. Freshwater fishes tend to lose salt to the environment and must replace it. They get some salt from their food, but the gills and skin inside the mouth actively absorb salt from water passed through the mouth. This absorption is performed by special cells capable of moving salts against the diffusion gradient. Freshwater fishes drink very little water and take in little water with their food.
Marine fishes must conserve water, and therefore their kidneys excrete little water. To maintain their water balance, marine fishes drink large quantities of seawater, retaining most of the water and excreting the salt. Most nitrogenous waste in marine fishes appears to be secreted by the gills as ammonia. Marine fishes can excrete salt by clusters of special cells (chloride cells) in the gills.
There are several teleosts—for example, the salmon—that travel between fresh water and seawater and must adjust to the reversal of osmotic gradients. They adjust their physiological processes by spending time (often surprisingly little time) in the intermediate brackish environment.
Marine hagfishes, sharks, and rays have osmotic concentrations in their blood about equal to that of seawater and so do not have to drink water nor perform much physiological work to maintain their osmotic balance. In sharks and rays the osmotic concentration is kept high by retention of urea in the blood. Freshwater sharks have a lowered concentration of urea in the blood.
Endocrine glands secrete their products into the bloodstream and body tissues and, along with the central nervous system, control and regulate many kinds of body functions. Cyclostomes have a well-developed endocrine system, and presumably it was well developed in the early Agnatha, ancestral to modern fishes. Although the endocrine system in fishes is similar to that of higher vertebrates, there are numerous differences in detail. The pituitary, the thyroid, the suprarenals, the adrenals, the pancreatic islets, the sex glands (ovaries and testes), the inner wall of the intestine, and the bodies of the ultimobranchial gland make up the endocrine system in fishes. There are some others whose function is not well understood. These organs regulate sexual activity and reproduction, growth, osmotic pressure, general metabolic activities such as the storage of fat and the utilization of foodstuffs, blood pressure, and certain aspects of skin colour. Many of these activities are also controlled in part by the central nervous system, which works with the endocrine system in maintaining the life of a fish. Some parts of the endocrine system are developmentally, and undoubtedly evolutionarily, derived from the nervous system.
As in all vertebrates, the nervous system of fishes is the primary mechanism coordinating body activities, as well as integrating these activities in the appropriate manner with stimuli from the environment. The central nervous system, consisting of the brain and spinal cord, is the primary integrating mechanism. The peripheral nervous system, consisting of nerves that connect the brain and spinal cord to various body organs, carries sensory information from special receptor organs such as the eyes, internal ears, nares (sense of smell), taste glands, and others to the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system also carries information via different nerve cells from the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. This coded information is carried to the various organs and body systems, such as the skeletal muscular system, for appropriate action in response to the original external or internal stimulus. Another branch of the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, helps to coordinate the activities of many glands and organs and is itself closely connected to the integrating centres of the brain.
The brain of the fish is divided into several anatomical and functional parts, all closely interconnected but each serving as the primary centre of integrating particular kinds of responses and activities. Several of these centres or parts are primarily associated with one type of sensory perception, such as sight, hearing, or smell (olfaction).
The sense of smell is important in almost all fishes. Certain eels with tiny eyes depend mostly on smell for location of food. The olfactory, or nasal, organ of fishes is located on the dorsal surface of the snout. The lining of the nasal organ has special sensory cells that perceive chemicals dissolved in the water, such as substances from food material, and send sensory information to the brain by way of the first cranial nerve. Odour also serves as an alarm system. Many fishes, especially various species of freshwater minnows, react with alarm to a chemical released from the skin of an injured member of their own species.
Many fishes have a well-developed sense of taste, and tiny pitlike taste buds or organs are located not only within their mouth cavities but also over their heads and parts of their body. Catfishes, which often have poor vision, have barbels (“whiskers”) that serve as supplementary taste organs, those around the mouth being actively used to search out food on the bottom. Some species of naturally blind cave fishes are especially well supplied with taste buds, which often cover most of their body surface.
Sight is extremely important in most fishes. The eye of a fish is basically like that of all other vertebrates, but the eyes of fishes are extremely varied in structure and adaptation. In general, fishes living in dark and dim water habitats have large eyes, unless they have specialized in some compensatory way so that another sense (such as smell) is dominant, in which case the eyes will often be reduced. Fishes living in brightly lighted shallow waters often will have relatively small but efficient eyes. Cyclostomes have somewhat less elaborate eyes than other fishes, with skin stretched over the eyeball perhaps making their vision somewhat less effective. Most fishes have a spherical lens and accommodate their vision to far or near subjects by moving the lens within the eyeball. A few sharks accommodate by changing the shape of the lens, as in land vertebrates. Those fishes that are heavily dependent upon the eyes have especially strong muscles for accommodation. Most fishes see well, despite the restrictions imposed by frequent turbidity of the water and by light refraction.
Fossil evidence suggests that colour vision evolved in fishes more than 300 million years ago, but not all living fishes have retained this ability. Experimental evidence indicates that many shallow-water fishes, if not all, have colour vision and see some colours especially well, but some bottom-dwelling shore fishes live in areas where the water is sufficiently deep to filter out most if not all colours, and these fishes apparently never see colours. When tested in shallow water, they apparently are unable to respond to colour differences.
Sound perception and balance are intimately associated senses in a fish. The organs of hearing are entirely internal, located within the skull, on each side of the brain and somewhat behind the eyes. Sound waves, especially those of low frequencies, travel readily through water and impinge directly upon the bones and fluids of the head and body, to be transmitted to the hearing organs. Fishes readily respond to sound; for example, a trout conditioned to escape by the approach of fishermen will take flight upon perceiving footsteps on a stream bank even if it cannot see a fisherman. Compared with humans, however, the range of sound frequencies heard by fishes is greatly restricted. Many fishes communicate with each other by producing sounds in their swim bladders, in their throats by rasping their teeth, and in other ways.
A fish or other vertebrate seldom has to rely on a single type of sensory information to determine the nature of the environment around it. A catfish uses taste and touch when examining a food object with its oral barbels. Like most other animals, fishes have many touch receptors over their body surface. Pain and temperature receptors also are present in fishes and presumably produce the same kind of information to a fish as to humans. Fishes react in a negative fashion to stimuli that would be painful to human beings, suggesting that they feel a sensation of pain.
An important sensory system in fishes that is absent in other vertebrates (except some amphibians) is the lateral line system. This consists of a series of heavily innervated small canals located in the skin and bone around the eyes, along the lower jaw, over the head, and down the mid-side of the body, where it is associated with the scales. Intermittently along these canals are located tiny sensory organs (pit organs) that apparently detect changes in pressure. The system allows a fish to sense changes in water currents and pressure, thereby helping the fish to orient itself to the various changes that occur in the physical environment.
Taken with Contax Aria & Carl Zeiss 50mm f/1.7 with yellow filter.
Film used was Foma Fomapan Classic 100 shot @ 100 ASA.
Developed with Bostick & Sullivan 510 Pyro for 7 minutes @ 20/68F.
Fixed with Photographers Formulary TF-4 for 7 Minutes.
Summer Term students arrive safely and meet their fellow classmates and students. For their first morning exercise they snorkel off of boys dorm beach and get introduced to B
ahamian marine life.
photographed from our running bus.
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It is nearly impossible to describe the beauty you will encounter while travelling across Rocky Mountain in Colorado during early October! Thick aspens (Populus tremuloides) in patches with their golden leaves stand against lush green mountains. Ice peaks over 12,000 feet rising through the forest truly enhance the beauty of its landscapes.
Rocky Mountain
Rocky Mountain National Park in northern Colorado is one of the most distinctive of America's alpine area parks. It is home to a vast collection of 72 peaks that scrape the skies at over 12,000 feet and offers diverse geography that encompasses barren alpine tundra and thick, lush forests. While summer crowds help to make the park one of the top 10 most visited in the national park system, autumn provides a quieter time to enjoy the vibrant colors of the changing seasons. September and October typically experience dry, moderate weather, making for ideal visits.
Trees
The park's fall colors are most defined by the legions of white-barked aspen trees that line the valleys and mountains. Starting in late August, aspens in the highest reaches of the park begin their annual quaking, a term to describe the aspens unique leaves changing a golden-yellow hue. As the quaking progresses the park's high country becomes striped with color, appearing on fire from a distance. These trees become yellow in mid-September and provide crisp shades of gold and red into October. The colors contrast with the deep greens of the evergreen trees that make up the majority of tree species in the park. The peak season for fall colors comes in late-September and the changing colors generally last four to five weeks. Hundreds of elk migrate down from the high country to find a mate for the winter.
Intensity of Fall Colors
Aspen (Populus tremuloides) are among the most colorful and wide-spread color-changing trees in Rocky Mountain National Park. Experience suggests to us that aspen produce more or less colorful leaves from year to year, and that these differences seem to relate to weather patterns, soil fertility, and the amount of moisture they received during the growing season.
Ecological mysteries of fall colors-
Recently scientists put forward an intriguing alternative explanation for intense fall colors in some trees (Ecol. Lett. 6, 807, 2003). Mountain birches in Norway may use intense fall colors to signal leaf-chewing insects not to infest them. The intensity of color seems to be an indicator of how much chemical defense compound the tree can produce. In the case of the mountain birches, an inchworm (geometrid) moth lays eggs on the trees in the fall. The following spring the eggs hatch, and the moth caterpillars eat the trees' leaves. Trees that can produce larger amounts of chemical defenses to make their leaves unpalatable receive less damage. The trees with the most intense leaf colors in the fall also have the least damage the following spring, suggesting a direct relationship between chemical defenses and intense colors. Over time, perhaps the moths have learned to avoid laying eggs on trees with the most highly colored leaves!
Its not know whether the same thing happens in Rocky Mountain National Park's aspen or other trees. We do know there are many different representatives of the inchworm or geometrid moth family in the park. However, whether you enjoy fall colors because they are beautiful or because they may reveal scientific secrets, Rocky Mountain National Park offers an excellent opportunity to experience a glorious autumn.
The colors of the Rockies are truly singular
The colors of the Rockies are truly singular, that is, they are all yellow. Gorgeous expanses of yellow aspen (Populus tremuloides) color the mountain sides, contrasting firmly with the dark green spruces and firs. The orange, red, and purples of the east seem absent.
The autumn colors in leaves are produced by an interestingly subtractive process. In summer, green chlorophyll masks the colors of several other pigments that exist in leaves, pigments that, like chlorophyll, assist with photosynthesis. These yellow, red, and purple pigments - carotene, xanthophyll, and anthocyanins - produce the bright fall colors, but only after the chlorophyll wanes as temperatures cool and days shorten. As autumn proceeds, even these hardier pigments ebb, and leaves become brown, gray, or black.
Sources:
traveltips.usatoday.com/fall-colors-rocky-mountain-nation...
www.myrockymountainpark.com/park/fall-in-rocky-mountain-park
The votes are coming in…in the USA the Mid-Term Elections yesterday are revealing that The Democrats have won a record number of seats in the House of Representatives, giving them overall control for the first time in 8 years.
Hillary Clinton who won the popular vote by 3MM votes in 2016 remains a devoted Democrat, encouraging US citizens to get out and vote. Seen here are details from a portrait tribute painted by British expressionist artist Stephen B. Whatley that year. The portrait was published in online Election 2016 news coverage in The Guardian newspaper.
The artist has a great affection for the United States - and his portrait of Barack Obama was published in TIME in 2008.
The work of Stephen B. Whatley is showcased through a permanent art exhibit in London: his series of 30 paintings vibrantly charting the history of the Tower of London was commissioned in 2000 - and is reproduced throughout Tower Hill Underpass (outside Tower Hill Station, close to the Tower) - where Americans, amongst them many of his collectors, discover his work.
Você sabe como Deus governa tudo?Como suprir o ambiente de vida das pessoas?Deus Todo-Poderoso diz: “As coisas todas não podem ser separadas do governo de Deus e nem uma pessoa sequer pode se separar de Seu governo. Perder o Seu governo e perder as Suas provisões significaria que a vida das pessoas, a vida das pessoas na carne, desapareceria. Essa é a importância de Deus estabelecer ambientes para a sobrevivência para a humanidade.”Leia a Palavra de Deus para entender a obra de Deus.
💭💭 pt.godfootsteps.org/videos/God-the-unique-ix-2-word.html
Fonte da imagem：de Igreja de Deus Todo-Poderoso
Aviso Legal e Termos de Uso： pt.godfootsteps.org/disclaimer.html
Armand Jean du Plessis, 1st Duke of Richelieu; 9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French statesman and prelate of the Catholic Church. He became known as l'Éminence rouge, or "the Red Eminence", a term derived from the title "Eminence" applied to cardinals and from the red robes that they customarily wear.
Consecrated a bishop in 1607, Richelieu was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1616. He continued to rise through the hierarchy of both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a cardinal in 1622 and chief minister to King Louis XIII of France in 1624. He retained that office until his death in 1642, when he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, whose career he had fostered. Richelieu became engaged in a bitter dispute with Marie de Médici, the king's mother, and formerly his close ally.
Richelieu sought to consolidate royal power and restrained the power of the nobility in order to transform France into a strong centralized state. In foreign policy, his primary objectives were to check the power of the Habsburg dynasty (reigning notably in Spain and Austria) and to ensure French dominance in the Thirty Years' War of 1618–1648 after that conflict engulfed Europe. Despite suppressing the Huguenot rebellions of the 1620s, he made alliances with Protestant states like the Kingdom of England and the Dutch Republic to help him achieve his goals. However, although he was a powerful political figure in his own right, events such as the Day of the Dupes (French: Journée des Dupes) in 1630 showed that Richelieu's power still depended on the king's confidence.
An alumnus of the University of Paris and headmaster of the College of Sorbonne, Richelieu renovated and extended the institution. He became famous for his patronage of the arts and founded the Académie Française, the learned society responsible for matters pertaining to the French language. As an advocate for Samuel de Champlain and New France, he founded (1627) the Compagnie des Cent-Associés; he also negotiated the 1632 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye under which Quebec City returned to French rule after English privateers took it in 1629. He was created Duke of Richelieu in 1629.
Richelieu is known as the inventor of the table knife. Annoyed by the bad manners that were commonly displayed at the dining table by users of sharp knives (who would often use them to pick their teeth),[6] in 1637 Richelieu ordered that all of the knives on his dining table have their blades dulled and their tips rounded. The design quickly became popular throughout France and later spread to other countries.
Richelieu has frequently been depicted in popular fiction, notably as the lead villain in Alexandre Dumas's 1844 novel The Three Musketeers and its numerous film adaptations.
Early life
Born in Paris on 9 September 1585, Armand du Plessis was the fourth of five children and the last of three sons: he was delicate from childhood and suffered frequent bouts of ill-health throughout his life. His family belonged to the lesser nobility of Poitou: his father, François du Plessis, seigneur de Richelieu, was a soldier and courtier who served as the Grand Provost of France, and his mother, Susanne de La Porte, was the daughter of a famous jurist.
When he was five years old, Richelieu's father died of fever in the French Wars of Religion, leaving the family in debt; with the aid of royal grants, however, the family was able to avoid financial difficulties. At the age of 9, young Richelieu was sent to the College of Navarre in Paris to study philosophy. Thereafter, he began to train for a military career. His private life seems to have been typical for a young officer of the era; in 1605, aged twenty, he was treated by Théodore de Mayerne for gonorrhea.
Henry III had rewarded Richelieu's father for his participation in the Wars of Religion by granting his family the Bishopric of Luçon. The family appropriated most of the revenues of the bishopric for private use; they were, however, challenged by clergymen who desired the funds for ecclesiastical purposes. To protect the important source of revenue, Richelieu's mother proposed to make her second son, Alphonse, the bishop of Luçon. Alphonse, who had no desire to become a bishop, became instead a Carthusian monk. Thus, it became necessary that the younger Richelieu join the clergy. He had strong academic interests and threw himself into studying for his new post.
In 1606, Henry IV nominated Richelieu to become Bishop of Luçon. As Richelieu had not yet reached the canonical minimum age, it was necessary that he journey to Rome for a special dispensation from Pope Paul V. This secured, Richelieu was consecrated bishop in April 1607. Soon after he returned to his diocese in 1608, Richelieu was heralded as a reformer. He became the first bishop in France to implement the institutional reforms prescribed by the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563.
At about this time, Richelieu became a friend of François Leclerc du Tremblay (better known as "Père Joseph" or "Father Joseph"), a Capuchin friar, who would later become a close confidant. Because of his closeness to Richelieu, and the grey colour of his robes, Father Joseph was also nicknamed L'éminence grise (lit. 'the Grey Eminence'). Later, Richelieu often used him as an agent during diplomatic negotiations.
Rise to power
In 1614, the clergymen of Poitou asked Richelieu to be one of their representatives to the Estates-General. There, he was a vigorous advocate of the Catholic Church, arguing that it should be exempt from taxes and that bishops should have more political power. He was the most prominent clergyman to support the adoption of the decrees of the Council of Trent throughout France; the Third Estate (commoners) was his chief opponent in this endeavour. At the end of the assembly, the First Estate (the clergy) chose him to deliver the address enumerating its petitions and decisions. Soon after the dissolution of the Estates-General, Richelieu entered the service of King Louis XIII's wife, Anne of Austria, as her almoner.
Richelieu advanced politically by faithfully serving the queen-mother's favourite, Concino Concini, the most powerful minister in the kingdom. In 1616, Richelieu was made Secretary of State, and was given responsibility for foreign affairs. Like Concini, the Bishop was one of the closest advisors of Louis XIII's mother, Marie de Médicis. The queen had become Regent of France when the nine-year-old Louis ascended the throne; although her son reached the legal age of majority in 1614, she remained the effective ruler of the realm. However, her policies, and those of Concini, proved unpopular with many in France. As a result, both Marie and Concini became the targets of intrigues at court; their most powerful enemy was Charles de Luynes. In April 1617, in a plot arranged by Luynes, Louis XIII ordered that Concini be arrested, and killed should he resist; Concini was consequently assassinated, and Marie de Médicis overthrown. His patron having died, Richelieu also lost power; he was dismissed as Secretary of State, and was removed from the court. In 1618, the king, still suspicious of the Bishop of Luçon, banished him to Avignon. There, Richelieu spent most of his time writing; he composed a catechism titled L'Instruction du chrétien.
In 1619, Marie de Médicis escaped from her confinement in the Château de Blois, becoming the titular leader of an aristocratic rebellion. The king and the duc de Luynes recalled Richelieu, believing that he would be able to reason with the queen. Richelieu was successful in this endeavour, mediating between her and her son. Complex negotiations bore fruit when the Treaty of Angoulême was ratified; Marie de Médicis was given complete freedom, but would remain at peace with the king. The queen-mother was restored to the royal council.
After the death of the king's favourite, the duc de Luynes, in 1621, Richelieu rose to power quickly. The year after, the king nominated Richelieu for a cardinalate, which Pope Gregory XV accordingly granted in September 1622. Crises in France, including a rebellion of the Huguenots, rendered Richelieu a nearly indispensable advisor to the king. After he was appointed to the royal council of ministers on 29 April 1624, he intrigued against the chief minister Charles, duc de La Vieuville. On 12 August of the same year, La Vieuville was arrested on charges of corruption, and Cardinal Richelieu took his place as the king's principal minister the following day, but the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld nominally remained president of the council (Richelieu was officially appointed president in November 1629).
Amboise is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France. Today a small market town, it was once home of the French royal court.
Amboise lies on the banks of the river Loire, 27 kilometres (17 mi) east of Tours. It is also about 18 kilometres (11 mi) away from the historic Château de Chenonceau, situated on the river Cher near the small village of Chenonceaux. Amboise station, on the north bank of the Loire, has rail connections to Orléans, Blois and Tours.
Clovis I (c. 466 – 511) and the Visigoths signed a peace treaty of alliance with the Arvernians in 503, which assisted him in his defeat of the Visigothic kingdom in the Battle of Vouillé in 507.
Joan of Arc passed through in 1429 on her way to Orleans to the Battle of Patay.
Château du Clos Lucé was the residence of Leonardo da Vinci between 1516 and his death in 1519. Da Vinci died in the arms of King Francis I, and he was buried in a crypt near the Château d'Amboise. The house has lost some of its original parts, but it still stands today containing a museum of da Vinci's work and inventions, and overlooks the river Loire.
The Amboise conspiracy was the conspiracy of Condé and the Huguenots in 1560 against Francis II, Catherine de' Medici and the Guises.
The Château at Amboise was home to Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots, for much of her early life, being raised there at the French court of Henry II. She arrived in France from Scotland in 1548, aged six, via the French king's favourite palace at Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris, and remained in France until 1561, when she returned to her homeland—sailing up the Firth of Forth to Edinburgh on 15 August that year.
The Edict of Amboise (1563) conceded the free exercise of worship to the Protestants.
Here was born in 1743 Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, French philosopher, known as Le Philosophe Inconnu (d. 1803).
Abd el Kader Ibn Mouhi Ad-Din (c. 1807 – 1883) was imprisoned at the Château d'Amboise.
In 2019, the 500th anniversary of da Vinci's death, Amboise held many events celebrating the master's life and his work completed in the town. The number of visitors to Château du Clos Lucé, for example, was estimated as 500,000 in 2019, a 30% increase over the typical annual number.
The city is known for the Clos Lucé manor house where Leonardo da Vinci lived (and ultimately died) at the invitation of King Francis I of France, whose Château d'Amboise, which dominates the town, is located just 500 m (1,640 feet) away. The narrow streets contain some good examples of timbered housing.
Just outside the city is the Pagode de Chanteloup, a 44-metre-tall (144 ft) Chinese pagoda built in 1775 by the Duke of Choiseul. The pagoda is seven levels high, with each level slightly smaller than the last one. An interior staircase to reach all levels is open to the public.
The Musée de la Poste (in the Hôtel Joyeuse) is a museum tracing the history of the postal delivery service.
A 20th-century fountain by Max Ernst stands in front of the market place.
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In the night between 9 and 10 July 1943, the Allies landed in Sicily, an event that marked a decisive chapter for the fate of the Second World War: the operation was intended to open a front in continental Europe, invade and defeat Italy, was called in code "Operation Husky". The Anglo-American army, with its ships and landing craft (totally 2800 units), with its 150 thousand men, with its 600 tanks, with its 1,000 cannons, appeared in front of the Sicilian coasts during the night: it consisted of two units, the US 7th Army commanded by General Patton, and the British 8th Army commanded by General Montgomery. The British sector landed on the eastern coast, between Noto, Pachino, Portopalo, while the American sector landed between Licata and Scoglitti, a coastal belt comprising the Gulf of Gela.
This premise to describe the places of my photographs, made between Gela and Licata, partly on those same beaches that saw the formidable landing of men and vehicles during the Second World War (not without bloodshed), often thinking of how places so beautiful they were the scene of tragic events about 77 years ago. A little regret of mine I was not being able to photograph a large American landing craft underwater, sunk about 500 meters from the coast, no more than 6-7 meters deep: it is about 20 years that I "go to find it" with free diving, and every time I see it I always feel a great emotion (sooner or later I will have to decide to get with me an underwater camera). I revisited (every time it is always a great emotion) the bunkers and casemates present on the whole stretch (and beyond) Licata-Gela, in some of them I entered inside, while in others the presence of earth made exploration impossible internal. In the town of Licata I always feel strong emotions going around, especially in the oldest part of the country in its historical center: I saw the Black Christ, pierced in the past by arrows from the Saracens (one arrow is present just above the left eye, the original arrow was removed by the Maltese colonists and replaced with a silver arrow). My next photos, divided into groups, will have as their theme the town of Licata, and its beaches.
Most of the photos are confused-blurry-blurred-imprecise-indecisive ... the Anglo-Saxon term that encompasses with a single word this photographic genre is "blur", these photos were made in the shooting phase, deliberately lengthening the exposure, and not as an effect created subsequently, in retrospect, in the post-production phase.
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Nella notte tra il 9 e il 10 luglio 1943, avvenne lo sbarco degli Alleati in Sicilia, evento che segnò un capitolo determinante per le sorti della Seconda guerra mondiale: l’operazione aveva lo scopo di aprire un fronte nell’Europa continentale, invadere e sconfiggere l’Italia, venne chiamata in codice “Operazione Husky”. L'armata anglo-americana, con le sue navi e mezzi da sbarco (in toto 2800 unità), con i suoi 150 mila uomini, con i suoi 600 carri armati, con i suoi 1.000 cannoni, si presentò davanti alle coste siciliane durante la notte: essa era composta da due unità, la 7a Armata statunitense comandata dal generale Patton, e l’8° Armata britannica comandata dal generale Montgomery. Il settore britannico sbarcò sulla fascia costiera più ad oriente, tra Noto, Pachino, Portopalo, mentre il settore statunitense sbarcò tra Licata e Scoglitti, fascia costiera comprendente il golfo di Gela.
Questa premessa per descrivere i luoghi delle mie fotografie, realizzate tra Gela e Licata, in parte su quelle stesse spiagge che hanno visto il formidabile sbarco di uomini e mezzi durante la seconda guerra mondiale (non senza spargimento di sangue), ripensando spesso a come luoghi così belli siano stati scenario di eventi tragici circa 77 anni addietro. Un mio piccolo rammarico è stato il non poter fotografare sott’acqua un grosso mezzo navale da sbarco americano, affondato a circa 500 metri dalla costa, a non più di 6-7 metri di profondità: sono circa 20 anni che “lo vado ritrovare” con immersioni in apnea, ed ogni volta che lo vedo provo sempre una grande emozione (dovrò decidermi prima o poi a procurarmi una macchina fotografica subacquea). Ho rivisitato (ogni volta è sempre una grande emozione) i bunker e le casamatte presenti su tutto il tratto (ed oltre) Licata-Gela, in alcuni di essi sono entrato dentro, mentre in altri la presenza di terra ha reso impossibile l’esplorazione interna. Nel paese di Licata provo sempre forti emozioni andando a zonzo, soprattutto nella parte più antica del paese nel suo centro storico: ho rivisto il Cristo Nero, trafitto anticamente dalle frecce dai saraceni (una freccia è presente poco sopra l’occhio sinistro, la freccia originale fu tolta dai coloni Maltesi e sostituita con una freccia d’argento). Le mie prossime foto, divise in gruppi, avranno come tema il paese di Licata, e le sue spiagge.
La maggior parte delle foto sono confuse-mosse-sfocate-imprecise-indecise...il termine anglosassone che racchiude con una sola parola questo genere fotografico è "blur", queste foto sono state così realizzate in fase di scatto allungando volutamente i tempi di esposizione, e non come un effetto creato successivamente, a posteriori, in fase di post-produzione.