Tower of Hope, Richard and Dion Neutra, completed 1968 for Robert Schuller, in Garden Grove, California, USA

Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

 

The common starling (Sturnus vulgaris), also known as the European starling, or in the British Isles just the starling, is a medium-sized passerine bird in the starling family, Sturnidae. It is about 20 cm (8 in) long and has glossy black plumage with a metallic sheen, which is speckled with white at some times of year. The legs are pink and the bill is black in winter and yellow in summer; young birds have browner plumage than the adults. It is a noisy bird, especially in communal roosts and other gregarious situations, with an unmusical but varied song. Its gift for mimicry has been noted in literature including the Mabinogion and the works of Pliny the Elder and William Shakespeare.

 

The common starling has about a dozen subspecies breeding in open habitats across its native range in temperate Europe and western Asia, and it has been introduced to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, the Falkland Islands, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, South Africa and Fiji. This bird is resident in southern and western Europe and southwestern Asia, while northeastern populations migrate south and west in winter within the breeding range and also further south to Iberia and North Africa. The common starling builds an untidy nest in a natural or artificial cavity in which four or five glossy, pale blue eggs are laid. These take two weeks to hatch and the young remain in the nest for another three weeks. There are normally one or two breeding attempts each year. This species is omnivorous, taking a wide range of invertebrates, as well as seeds and fruit. It is hunted by various mammals and birds of prey, and is host to a range of external and internal parasites.

 

Large flocks typical of this species can be beneficial to agriculture by controlling invertebrate pests; however, starlings can also be pests themselves when they feed on fruit and sprouting crops. Common starlings may also be a nuisance through the noise and mess caused by their large urban roosts. Introduced populations in particular have been subjected to a range of controls, including culling, but these have had limited success except in preventing the colonisation of Western Australia.

 

The species has declined in numbers in parts of northern and western Europe since the 1980s due to fewer grassland invertebrates being available as food for growing chicks. Despite this, its huge global population is not thought to be declining significantly, so the common starling is classified as being of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

  

Taxonomy and systematics

 

The common starling was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae in 1758 under its current binomial name. Sturnus and vulgaris are derived from the Latin for "starling" and "common" respectively. The Old English staer, later stare, and the Latin sturnus are both derived from an unknown Indo-European root dating back to the second millennium BC. "Starling" was first recorded in the 11th century, when it referred to the juvenile of the species, but by the 16th century it had already largely supplanted "stare" to refer to birds of all ages. The older name is referenced in William Butler Yeats' poem "The Stare's Nest by My Window". The International Ornithological Congress' preferred English vernacular name is common starling.

 

The starling family, Sturnidae, is an entirely Old World group apart from introductions elsewhere, with the greatest numbers of species in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The genus Sturnus is polyphyletic and relationships between its members are not fully resolved. The closest relation of the common starling is the spotless starling. The non-migratory spotless starling may be descended from a population of ancestral S. vulgaris that survived in an Iberian refugium during an ice age retreat, and mitochondrial gene studies suggest that it could be considered as a subspecies of the common starling. There is more genetic variation between common starling populations than between the nominate common starling and the spotless starling. Although common starling remains are known from the Middle Pleistocene, part of the problem in resolving relationships in the Sturnidae is the paucity of the fossil record for the family as a whole.

  

Subspecies

 

There are several subspecies of the common starling, which vary clinally in size and the colour tone of the adult plumage. The gradual variation over geographic range and extensive intergradation means that acceptance of the various subspecies varies between authorities.

 

Birds from Fair Isle, St Kilda and the Outer Hebrides are intermediate in size between S. v. zetlandicus and the nominate form, and their subspecies placement varies according to the authority. The dark juveniles typical of these island forms are occasionally found in mainland Scotland and elsewhere, indicating some gene flow from faroensis or zetlandicus, subspecies formerly considered to be isolated.

 

Several other subspecies have been named, but are generally no longer considered valid. Most are intergrades that occur where the ranges of various subspecies meet. These include: S. v. ruthenus Menzbier, 1891 and S. v. jitkowi Buturlin, 1904, which are intergrades between vulgaris and poltaratskyi from western Russia; S. v. graecus Tschusi, 1905 and S. v. balcanicus Buturlin and Harms, 1909, intergrades between vulgaris and tauricus from the southern Balkans to central Ukraine and throughout Greece to the Bosporus; and S. v. heinrichi Stresemann, 1928, an intergrade between caucasicus and nobilior in northern Iran. S. v. persepolis Ticehurst, 1928 from southern Iran's (Fars Province) is very similar to S. v. vulgaris, and it is not clear whether it is a distinct resident population or simply migrants from southeastern Europe.

  

Description

 

The common starling is 19–23 cm (7.5–9.1 in) long, with a wingspan of 31–44 cm (12–17 in) and a weight of 58–101 g (2.0–3.6 oz).[15] Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 11.8 to 13.8 cm (4.6 to 5.4 in), the tail is 5.8 to 6.8 cm (2.3 to 2.7 in), the culmen is 2.5 to 3.2 cm (0.98 to 1.26 in) and the tarsus is 2.7 to 3.2 cm (1.1 to 1.3 in).

 

The plumage is iridescent black, glossed purple or green, and spangled with white, especially in winter. The underparts of adult male common starlings are less spotted than those of adult females at a given time of year. The throat feathers of males are long and loose and are used in display while those of females are smaller and more pointed. The legs are stout and pinkish- or greyish-red. The bill is narrow and conical with a sharp tip; in the winter it is brownish-black but in summer, females have lemon yellow beaks while males have yellow bills with blue-grey bases. Moulting occurs once a year- in late summer after the breeding season has finished; the fresh feathers are prominently tipped white (breast feathers) or buff (wing and back feathers), which gives the bird a speckled appearance. The reduction in the spotting in the breeding season is achieved through the white feather tips largely wearing off. Juveniles are grey-brown and by their first winter resemble adults though often retaining some brown juvenile feathering, especially on the head. They can usually be sexed by the colour of the irises, rich brown in males, mouse-brown or grey in females. Estimating the contrast between an iris and the central always-dark pupil is 97% accurate in determining sex, rising to 98% if the length of the throat feathers is also considered.

 

The common starling is mid-sized by both starling standards and passerine standards. It is readily distinguished from other mid-sized passerines, such as thrushes, icterids or small corvids, by its relatively short tail, sharp, blade-like bill, round-bellied shape and strong, sizeable (and rufous-coloured) legs. In flight, its strongly pointed wings and dark colouration are distinctive, while on the ground its strange, somewhat waddling gait is also characteristic. The colouring and build usually distinguish this bird from other starlings, although the closely related spotless starling may be physically distinguished by the lack of iridescent spots in adult breeding plumage.

 

Like most terrestrial starlings the common starling moves by walking or running, rather than hopping. Their flight is quite strong and direct; their triangular-shaped wings beat very rapidly, and periodically the birds glide for a short way without losing much height before resuming powered flight. When in a flock, the birds take off almost simultaneously, wheel and turn in unison, form a compact mass or trail off into a wispy stream, bunch up again and land in a coordinated fashion. Common starling on migration can fly at 60–80 km/h (37–50 mph) and cover up to 1,000–1,500 km (620–930 mi).

 

Several terrestrial starlings, including those in the genus Sturnus, have adaptations of the skull and muscles that help with feeding by probing. This adaptation is most strongly developed in the common starling (along with the spotless and white-cheeked starlings), where the protractor muscles responsible for opening the jaw are enlarged and the skull is narrow, allowing the eye to be moved forward to peer down the length of the bill. This technique involves inserting the bill into the ground and opening it as a way of searching for hidden food items. Common starlings have the physical traits that enable them to use this feeding technique, which has undoubtedly helped the species spread far and wide.

 

In Iberia, the western Mediterranean and northwest Africa, the common starling may be confused with the closely related spotless starling, the plumage of which, as its name implies, has a more uniform colour. At close range it can be seen that the latter has longer throat feathers, a fact particularly noticeable when it sings.

  

Vocalization

 

The common starling is a noisy bird. Its song consists of a wide variety of both melodic and mechanical-sounding noises as part of a ritual succession of sounds. The male is the main songster and engages in bouts of song lasting for a minute or more. Each of these typically includes four varieties of song type, which follow each other in a regular order without pause. The bout starts with a series of pure-tone whistles and these are followed by the main part of the song, a number of variable sequences that often incorporate snatches of song mimicked from other species of bird and various naturally occurring or man-made noises. The structure and simplicity of the sound mimicked is of greater importance than the frequency with which it occurs. In some instances, a wild starling has been observed to mimic a sound it has heard only once. Each sound clip is repeated several times before the bird moves on to the next. After this variable section comes a number of types of repeated clicks followed by a final burst of high-frequency song, again formed of several types. Each bird has its own repertoire with more proficient birds having a range of up to 35 variable song types and as many as 14 types of clicks.

 

Males sing constantly as the breeding period approaches and perform less often once pairs have bonded. In the presence of a female, a male sometimes flies to his nest and sings from the entrance, apparently attempting to entice the female in. Older birds tend to have a wider repertoire than younger ones. Those males that engage in longer bouts of singing and that have wider repertoires attract mates earlier and have greater reproductive success than others. Females appear to prefer mates with more complex songs, perhaps because this indicates greater experience or longevity. Having a complex song is also useful in defending a territory and deterring less experienced males from encroaching.

 

Singing also occurs outside the breeding season, taking place throughout the year apart from the moulting period. The songsters are more commonly male although females also sing on occasion. The function of such out-of-season song is poorly understood. Eleven other types of call have been described including a flock call, threat call, attack call, snarl call and copulation call.[29] The alarm call is a harsh scream, and while foraging together common starlings squabble incessantly. They chatter while roosting and bathing, making a great deal of noise that can cause irritation to people living nearby. When a flock of common starlings is flying together, the synchronised movements of the birds' wings make a distinctive whooshing sound that can be heard hundreds of metres (yards) away.

  

Behaviour and ecology

 

The common starling is a highly gregarious species, especially in autumn and winter. Although flock size is highly variable, huge, noisy flocks - murmurations - may form near roosts. These dense concentrations of birds are thought to be a defence against attacks by birds of prey such as peregrine falcons or Eurasian sparrowhawks. Flocks form a tight sphere-like formation in flight, frequently expanding and contracting and changing shape, seemingly without any sort of leader. Each common starling changes its course and speed as a result of the movement of its closest neighbours.

 

Very large roosts, exceptionally up to 1.5 million birds, can form in city centres, woodlands or reedbeds, causing problems with their droppings. These may accumulate up to 30 cm (12 in) deep, killing trees by their concentration of chemicals. In smaller amounts, the droppings act as a fertiliser, and therefore woodland managers may try to move roosts from one area of a wood to another to benefit from the soil enhancement and avoid large toxic deposits.

 

Huge flocks of more than a million common starlings may be observed just before sunset in spring in southwestern Jutland, Denmark over the seaward marshlands of Tønder and Esbjerg municipalities between Tønder and Ribe. They gather in March until northern Scandinavian birds leave for their breeding ranges by mid-April. Their swarm behaviour creates complex shapes silhouetted against the sky, a phenomenon known locally as sort sol ("black sun"). Flocks of anything from five to fifty thousand common starlings form in areas of the UK just before sundown during mid-winter. These flocks are commonly called murmurations.

 

Feeding

 

The common starling is largely insectivorous and feeds on both pest and other arthropods. The food range includes spiders, crane flies, moths, mayflies, dragonflies, damsel flies, grasshoppers, earwigs, lacewings, caddisflies, flies, beetles, sawflies, bees, wasps and ants. Prey are consumed in both adult and larvae stages of development, and common starlings will also feed on earthworms, snails, small amphibians and lizards. While the consumption of invertebrates is necessary for successful breeding, common starlings are omnivorous and can also eat grains, seeds, fruits, nectar and food waste if the opportunity arises. The Sturnidae differ from most birds in that they cannot easily metabolise foods containing high levels of sucrose, although they can cope with other fruits such as grapes and cherries. The isolated Azores subspecies of the common starling eats the eggs of the endangered roseate tern. Measures are being introduced to reduce common starling populations by culling before the terns return to their breeding colonies in spring.

 

There are several methods by which common starlings obtain their food but for the most part, they forage close to the ground, taking insects from the surface or just underneath. Generally, common starlings prefer foraging amongst short-cropped grasses and are often found among grazing animals or perched on their backs, where they will also feed on the mammal's external parasites. Large flocks may engage in a practice known as "roller-feeding", where the birds at the back of the flock continually fly to the front where the feeding opportunities are best. The larger the flock, the nearer individuals are to one another while foraging. Flocks often feed in one place for some time, and return to previous successfully foraged sites.

 

There are three types of foraging behaviour observed in the common starling. "Probing" involves the bird plunging its beak into the ground randomly and repetitively until an insect has been found, and is often accompanied by bill gaping where the bird opens its beak in the soil to enlarge a hole. This behaviour, first described by Konrad Lorenz and given the German term zirkeln, is also used to create and widen holes in plastic garbage bags. It takes time for young common starlings to perfect this technique, and because of this the diet of young birds will often contain fewer insects. "Hawking" is the capture of flying insects directly from the air, and "lunging" is the less common technique of striking forward to catch a moving invertebrate on the ground. Earthworms are caught by pulling from soil. Common starlings that have periods without access to food, or have a reduction in the hours of light available for feeding, compensate by increasing their body mass by the deposition of fat.

 

Nesting

 

Unpaired males find a suitable cavity and begin to build nests in order to attract single females, often decorating the nest with ornaments such as flowers and fresh green material, which the female later disassembles upon accepting him as a mate. The amount of green material is not important, as long as some is present, but the presence of herbs in the decorative material appears to be significant in attracting a mate. The scent of plants such as yarrow acts as an olfactory attractant to females.

 

The males sing throughout much of the construction and even more so when a female approaches his nest. Following copulation, the male and female continue to build the nest. Nests may be in any type of hole, common locations include inside hollowed trees, buildings, tree stumps and man-made nest-boxes. S. v. zetlandicus typically breeds in crevices and holes in cliffs, a habitat only rarely used by the nominate form. Nests are typically made out of straw, dry grass and twigs with an inner lining made up of feathers, wool and soft leaves. Construction usually takes four or five days and may continue through incubation.

 

Common starlings are both monogamous and polygamous; although broods are generally brought up by one male and one female, occasionally the pair may have an extra helper. Pairs may be part of a colony, in which case several other nests may occupy the same or nearby trees. Males may mate with a second female while the first is still on the nest. The reproductive success of the bird is poorer in the second nest than it is in the primary nest and is better when the male remains monogamous.

 

Breeding

 

Breeding takes place during the spring and summer. Following copulation, the female lays eggs on a daily basis over a period of several days. If an egg is lost during this time, she will lay another to replace it. There are normally four or five eggs that are ovoid in shape and pale blue or occasionally white, and they commonly have a glossy appearance. The colour of the eggs seems to have evolved through the relatively good visibility of blue at low light levels. The egg size is 26.5–34.5 mm (1.04–1.36 in) in length and 20.0–22.5 mm (0.79–0.89 in) in maximum diameter.

 

Incubation lasts thirteen days, although the last egg laid may take 24 hours longer than the first to hatch. Both parents share the responsibility of brooding the eggs, but the female spends more time incubating them than does the male, and is the only parent to do so at night when the male returns to the communal roost. The young are born blind and naked. They develop light fluffy down within seven days of hatching and can see within nine days. Once the chicks are able to regulate their body temperature, about six days after hatching, the adults largely cease removing droppings from the nest. Prior to that, the fouling would wet both the chicks' plumage and the nest material, thereby reducing their effectiveness as insulation and increasing the risk of chilling the hatchlings. Nestlings remain in the nest for three weeks, where they are fed continuously by both parents. Fledglings continue to be fed by their parents for another one or two weeks. A pair can raise up to three broods per year, frequently reusing and relining the same nest, although two broods is typical, or just one north of 48°N. Within two months, most juveniles will have moulted and gained their first basic plumage. They acquire their adult plumage the following year. As with other passerines, the nest is kept clean and the chicks' faecal sacs are removed by the adults.

 

Intraspecific brood parasites are common in common starling nests. Female "floaters" (unpaired females during the breeding season) present in colonies often lay eggs in another pair's nest. Fledglings have also been reported to invade their own or neighbouring nests and evict a new brood.[29] Common starling nests have a 48% to 79% rate of successful fledging, although only 20% of nestlings survive to breeding age; the adult survival rate is closer to 60%. The average life span is about 2–3 years, with a longevity record of 22 yr 11 m.

 

Predators and parasites

 

A majority of starling predators are avian. The typical response of starling groups is to take flight, with a common sight being undulating flocks of starling flying high in quick and agile patterns. Their abilities in flight are seldom matched by birds of prey. Adult common starlings are hunted by hawks such as the northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) and Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), and falcons including the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), Eurasian hobby (Falco subbuteo) and common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus). Slower raptors like black and red kites (Milvus migrans & milvus), eastern imperial eagle (Aquila heliaca), common buzzard (Buteo buteo) and Australasian harrier (Circus approximans) tend to take the more easily caught fledglings or juveniles. While perched in groups by night, they can be vulnerable to owls, including the little owl (Athene noctua), long-eared owl (Asio otus), short-eared owl (Asio flammeus), barn owl (Tyto alba), tawny owl (Strix aluco) and Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo).

 

More than twenty species of hawk, owl and falcon are known to occasionally predate feral starlings in North America, though the most regular predators of adults are likely to be urban-living peregrine falcons or merlins (Falco columbarius). Common mynas (Acridotheres tristis) sometimes evict eggs, nestlings and adult common starlings from their nests, and the lesser honeyguide (Indicator minor), a brood parasite, uses the common starling as a host. Starlings are more commonly the culprits rather than victims of nest eviction however, especially towards other starlings and woodpeckers. Nests can be raided by mammals capable of climbing to them, such as stoats (Mustela erminea), raccoons (Procyon lotor) and squirrels (Sciurus spp.), and cats may catch the unwary.

 

Common starlings are hosts to a wide range of parasites. A survey of three hundred common starlings from six US states found that all had at least one type of parasite; 99% had external fleas, mites or ticks, and 95% carried internal parasites, mostly various types of worm. Blood-sucking species leave their host when it dies, but other external parasites stay on the corpse. A bird with a deformed bill was heavily infested with Mallophaga lice, presumably due to its inability to remove vermin.

 

The hen flea (Ceratophyllus gallinae) is the most common flea in their nests. The small, pale house-sparrow flea C. fringillae, is also occasionally found there and probably arises from the habit of its main host of taking over the nests of other species. This flea does not occur in the US, even on house sparrows. Lice include Menacanthus eurystemus, Brueelia nebulosa and Stumidoecus sturni. Other arthropod parasites include Ixodes ticks and mites such as Analgopsis passerinus, Boydaia stumi, Dermanyssus gallinae, Ornithonyssus bursa, O. sylviarum, Proctophyllodes species, Pteronyssoides truncatus and Trouessartia rosteri. The hen mite D. gallinae is itself preyed upon by the predatory mite Androlaelaps casalis. The presence of this control on numbers of the parasitic species may explain why birds are prepared to reuse old nests.

 

Flying insects that parasitise common starlings include the louse-fly Omithomya nigricornis and the saprophagous fly Camus hemapterus. The latter species breaks off the feathers of its host and lives on the fats produced by growing plumage. Larvae of the moth Hofmannophila pseudospretella are nest scavengers, which feed on animal material such as faeces or dead nestlings. Protozoan blood parasites of the genus Haemoproteus have been found in common starlings, but a better known pest is the brilliant scarlet nematode Syngamus trachea. This worm moves from the lungs to the trachea and may cause its host to suffocate. In Britain, the rook and the common starling are the most infested wild birds. Other recorded internal parasites include the spiny-headed worm Prosthorhynchus transverses.

 

Common starlings may contract avian tuberculosis, avian malaria and retrovirus-induced lymphomas. Captive starlings often accumulate excess iron in the liver, a condition that can be prevented by adding black tea-leaves to the food.

  

Distribution and habitat

 

The global population of common starlings was estimated to be 310 million individuals in 2004, occupying a total area of 8,870,000 km2 (3,420,000 sq mi). Widespread throughout the Northern Hemisphere, the bird is native to Eurasia and is found throughout Europe, northern Africa (from Morocco to Egypt), India (mainly in the north but regularly extending further south and extending into the Maldives) Nepal, the Middle East including Syria, Iran, and Iraq and north-western China.

 

Common starlings in the south and west of Europe and south of latitude 40°N are mainly resident, although other populations migrate from regions where the winter is harsh, the ground frozen and food scarce. Large numbers of birds from northern Europe, Russia and Ukraine migrate south westwards or south eastwards. In the autumn, when immigrants are arriving from eastern Europe, many of Britain's common starlings are setting off for Iberia and North Africa. Other groups of birds are in passage across the country and the pathways of these different streams of bird may cross. Of the 15,000 birds ringed as nestlings in Merseyside, England, individuals have been recovered at various times of year as far afield as Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany and the Low Countries. Small numbers of common starling have sporadically been observed in Japan and Hong Kong but it is unclear from where these birds originated. In North America, northern populations have developed a migration pattern, vacating much of Canada in winter. Birds in the east of the country move southwards, and those from further west winter in the southwest of the US.

 

Common starlings prefer urban or suburban areas where artificial structures and trees provide adequate nesting and roosting sites. Reedbeds are also favoured for roosting and the birds commonly feed in grassy areas such as farmland, grazing pastures, playing fields, golf courses and airfields where short grass makes foraging easy. They occasionally inhabit open forests and woodlands and are sometimes found in shrubby areas such as Australian heathland. Common starlings rarely inhabit dense, wet forests (i.e. rainforests or wet sclerophyll forests) but are found in coastal areas, where they nest and roost on cliffs and forage amongst seaweed. Their ability to adapt to a large variety of habitats has allowed them to disperse and establish themselves in diverse locations around the world resulting in a habitat range from coastal wetlands to alpine forests, from sea cliffs to mountain ranges 1,900 m (6,200 ft) above sea level.

 

Introduced populations

 

The common starling has been introduced to and has successfully established itself in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, North America, Fiji and several Caribbean islands. As a result, it has also been able to migrate to Thailand, Southeast Asia and New Guinea.

 

South America

 

Five individuals conveyed on a ship from England alighted near Lago de Maracaibo in Venezuela in November 1949, but subsequently vanished. In 1987, a small population of common starlings was observed nesting in gardens in the city of Buenos Aires. Since then, despite some initial attempts at eradication, the bird has been expanding its breeding range at an average rate of 7.5 km (4.7 mi) per year, keeping within 30 km (19 mi) of the Atlantic coast. In Argentina, the species makes use of a variety of natural and man-made nesting sites, particularly woodpecker holes.

 

Australia

 

The common starling was introduced to Australia to consume insect pests of farm crops. Early settlers looked forward to their arrival, believing that common starlings were also important for the pollination of flax, a major agricultural product. Nest-boxes for the newly released birds were placed on farms and near crops. The common starling was introduced to Melbourne in 1857 and Sydney two decades later. By the 1880s, established populations were present in the southeast of the country thanks to the work of acclimatisation committees. By the 1920s, common starlings were widespread throughout Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales, but by then they were considered to be pests. Although common starlings were first sighted in Albany, Western Australia in 1917, they have been largely prevented from spreading to the state. The wide and arid Nullarbor Plain provides a natural barrier and control measures have been adopted that have killed 55,000 birds over three decades. The common starling has also colonised Kangaroo Island, Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island and Tasmania.

 

New Zealand

 

The early settlers in New Zealand cleared the bush and found their newly planted crops were invaded by hordes of caterpillars and other insects deprived of their previous food sources. Native birds were not habituated to living in close proximity to man so the common starling was introduced from Europe along with the House Sparrow to control the pests. It was first brought over in 1862 by the Nelson Acclimatisation Society and other introductions followed. The birds soon became established and are now found all over the country including the subtropical Kermadec Islands to the north and the equally distant Macquarie Island far to the south.

 

North America

 

After two failed attempts, about 60 common starlings were released in 1890 into New York's Central Park by Eugene Schieffelin. He was president of the American Acclimatization Society, which reportedly tried to introduce every bird species mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare into North America, although this has been disputed. About the same date, the Portland Song Bird Club released 35 pairs of common starlings in Portland, Oregon. These birds became established but disappeared around 1902. Common starlings reappeared in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-1940s and these birds were probably descendants of the 1890 Central Park introduction. The original 60 birds have since swelled in number to 150 million, occupying an area extending from southern Canada and Alaska to Central America.

 

Polynesia

 

The common starling appears to have arrived in Fiji in 1925 on Ono-i-lau and Vatoa islands. It may have colonised from New Zealand via Raoul in the Kermadec Islands where it is abundant, that group being roughly equidistant between New Zealand and Fiji. Its spread in Fiji has been limited, and there are doubts about the population's viability. Tonga was colonised at about the same date and the birds there have been slowly spreading north through the group.

 

South Africa

 

In South Africa, the common starling was introduced in 1897 by Cecil Rhodes. It spread slowly, and by 1954, had reached Clanwilliam and Port Elizabeth. It is now common in the southern Cape region, thinning out northwards to the Johannesburg area. It is present in the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape and the Free State provinces of South Africa and lowland Lesotho, with occasional sightings in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and around the town of Oranjemund in Namibia. In Southern Africa populations appear to be resident and the bird is strongly associated with man and anthropogenic habitats. It favours irrigated land and is absent from regions where the ground is baked so dry that it cannot probe for insects. It may compete with native birds for crevice nesting sites but the indigenous species are probably more disadvantaged by destruction of their natural habitat than they are by inter-specific competition. It breeds from September to December and outside the breeding season may congregate in large flocks, often roosting in reedbeds. It is the most common bird species in urban and agricultural areas.

 

West Indies

 

The inhabitants of Saint Kitts petitioned the Colonial Secretary for a ″ ... government grant of starlings to exterminate ... ″ an outbreak of grasshoppers with was causing enormous damage to their crops in 1901. The common starling was introduced to Jamaica in 1903, and the Bahamas and Cuba were colonised naturally from the US. This bird is fairly common but local in Jamaica, Grand Bahama and Bimini, and is rare in the rest of the Bahamas, eastern Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico and St. Croix.

  

Status

 

The global population of the common starling is estimated to be more than 310 million individuals and its numbers are not thought to be declining significantly, so the bird is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being of least concern. It had shown a marked increase in numbers throughout Europe from the 19th century to around the 1950s and 60s. In about 1830, S. v. vulgaris expanded its range in the British Isles, spreading into Ireland and areas of Scotland where it had formerly been absent, although S. v. zetlandicus was already present in Shetland and the Outer Hebrides. The common starling has bred in northern Sweden from 1850 and in Iceland from 1935. The breeding range spread through southern France to northeastern Spain, and there were other range expansions particularly in Italy, Austria and Finland. It started breeding in Iberia in 1960, while the spotless starling's range had been expanding northward since the 1950s. The low rate of advance, about 4.7 km (2.9 mi) per year for both species, is due to the suboptimal mountain and woodland terrain. Expansion has since slowed even further due to direct competition between the two similar species where they overlap in southwestern France and northwestern Spain.

 

Major declines in populations have been observed from 1980 onward in Sweden, Finland, northern Russia (Karelia) and the Baltic States, and smaller declines in much of the rest of northern and central Europe. The bird has been adversely affected in these areas by intensive agriculture, and in several countries it has been red-listed due to population declines of more than 50%. Numbers dwindled in the United Kingdom by more than 80% between 1966 and 2004; although populations in some areas such as Northern Ireland were stable or even increased, those in other areas, mainly England, declined even more sharply. The overall decline seems to be due to the low survival rate of young birds, which may be caused by changes in agricultural practices. The intensive farming methods used in northern Europe mean there is less pasture and meadow habitat available, and the supply of grassland invertebrates needed for the nestlings to thrive is correspondingly reduced.

  

Relationship with humans

 

Benefits and problems

 

Since common starlings eat insect pests such as wireworms, they are considered beneficial in northern Eurasia, and this was one of the reasons given for introducing the birds elsewhere. Around 25 million nest boxes were erected for this species in the former Soviet Union, and common starlings were found to be effective in controlling the grass grub Costelytra zelandica in New Zealand. The original Australian introduction was facilitated by the provision of nest boxes to help this mainly insectivorous bird to breed successfully, and even in the US, where this is a pest species, the Department of Agriculture acknowledges that vast numbers of insects are consumed by common starlings.

 

Common starlings introduced to areas such as Australia or North America, where other members of the genus are absent, may affect native species through competition for nest holes. In North America, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, purple martins and other swallows may be affected. In Australia, competitors for nesting sites include the crimson and eastern rosellas. For its role in the decline of local native species and the damages to agriculture, the common starling has been included in the IUCN List of the world's 100 worst invasive species.

 

Common starlings can eat and damage fruit in orchards such as grapes, peaches, olives, currants and tomatoes or dig up newly sown grain and sprouting crops. They may also eat animal feed and distribute seeds through their droppings. In eastern Australia, weeds like bridal creeper, blackberry and boneseed are thought to have been spread by common starlings. Agricultural damage in the US is estimated as costing about US$800 million annually. This bird is not considered to be as damaging to agriculture in South Africa as it is in the United States.

 

The large size of flocks can also cause problems. Common starlings may be sucked into aircraft jet engines, one of the worst instances of this being an incident in Boston in 1960, when sixty-two people died after a turboprop airliner flew into a flock and plummeted into the sea at Winthrop Harbor.

 

Starlings' droppings can contain the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum, the cause of histoplasmosis in humans. At roosting sites this fungus can thrive in accumulated droppings. There are a number of other infectious diseases that can potentially be transmitted by common starlings to humans, although the potential for the birds to spread infections may have been exaggerated.

 

Control

 

Because of the damage they do, there have been attempts to control the numbers of both native and introduced populations of common starlings. Within the natural breeding range, this may be affected by legislation. For example, in Spain, this is a species hunted commercially as a food item, and has a closed season, whereas in France, it is classed as a pest, and the season in which it may be killed covers the greater part of the year. In Great Britain, Starlings are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which makes it "illegal to intentionally kill, injure or take a starling, or to take, damage or destroy an active nest or its contents". The Wildlife Order in Northern Ireland allows, with a general licence, "an authorised person to control starlings to prevent serious damage to agriculture or preserve public health and safety". This species is migratory, so birds involved in control measures may have come from a wide area and breeding populations may not be greatly affected. In Europe, the varying legislation and mobile populations mean that control attempts may have limited long-term results. Non-lethal techniques such as scaring with visual or auditory devices have only a temporary effect in any case.

 

Huge urban roosts in cities can create problems due to the noise and mess made and the smell of the droppings. In 1949, so many birds landed on the clock hands of London's Big Ben that it stopped, leading to unsuccessful attempts to disrupt the roosts with netting, repellent chemical on the ledges and broadcasts of common starling alarm calls. An entire episode of The Goon Show in 1954 was a parody of the futile efforts to disrupt the large common starling roosts in central London.

 

Where it is introduced, the common starling is unprotected by legislation, and extensive control plans may be initiated. Common starlings can be prevented from using nest boxes by ensuring that the access holes are smaller than the 1.5 in (38 mm) diameter they need, and the removal of perches discourages them from visiting bird feeders.

 

Western Australia banned the import of common starlings in 1895. New flocks arriving from the east are routinely shot, while the less cautious juveniles are trapped and netted. New methods are being developed, such as tagging one bird and tracking it back to establish where other members of the flock roost. Another technique is to analyse the DNA of Australian common starling populations to track where the migration from eastern to western Australia is occurring so that better preventive strategies can be used. By 2009, only 300 common starlings were left in Western Australia, and the state committed a further A$400,000 in that year to continue the eradication programme.

 

In the United States, common starlings are exempt from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which prohibits the taking or killing of migratory birds. No permit is required to remove nests and eggs or kill juveniles or adults. Research was undertaken in 1966 to identify a suitable avicide that would both kill common starlings and would readily be eaten by them. It also needed to be of low toxicity to mammals and not likely to cause the death of pets that ate dead birds. The chemical that best fitted these criteria was DRC-1339, now marketed as Starlicide. In 2008, the United States government poisoned, shot or trapped 1.7 million birds, the largest number of any nuisance species to be destroyed. In 2005, the population in the United States was estimated at 140 million birds, around 45% of the global total of 310 million.

  

In science and culture

 

Common starlings may be kept as pets or as laboratory animals. Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz wrote of them in his book King Solomon's Ring as "the poor man's dog" and "something to love", because nestlings are easily obtained from the wild and after careful hand rearing they are straightforward to look after. They adapt well to captivity, and thrive on a diet of standard bird feed and mealworms. Several birds may be kept in the same cage, and their inquisitiveness makes them easy to train or study. The only disadvantages are their messy and indiscriminate defecation habits and the need to take precautions against diseases that may be transmitted to humans. As a laboratory bird, the common starling is second in numbers only to the domestic pigeon.

 

The common starling's gift for mimicry has long been recognised. In the medieval Welsh Mabinogion, Branwen tamed a common starling, "taught it words", and sent it across the Irish Sea with a message to her brothers, Bran and Manawydan, who then sailed from Wales to Ireland to rescue her. Pliny the Elder claimed that these birds could be taught to speak whole sentences in Latin and Greek, and in Henry IV, William Shakespeare had Hotspur declare "The king forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer. But I will find him when he is asleep, and in his ear I'll holler 'Mortimer!' Nay I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but Mortimer, and give it to him to keep his anger still in motion."

 

Mozart had a pet common starling which could sing part of his Piano Concerto in G Major (KV. 453). He had bought it from a shop after hearing it sing a phrase from a work he wrote six weeks previously, which had not yet been performed in public. He became very attached to the bird and arranged an elaborate funeral for it when it died three years later. It has been suggested that his A Musical Joke (K. 522) might be written in the comical, inconsequential style of a starling's vocalisation.[35] Other people who have owned common starlings report how adept they are at picking up phrases and expressions. The words have no meaning for the starling, so they often mix them up or use them on what to humans are inappropriate occasions in their songs. Their ability at mimicry is so great that strangers have looked in vain for the human they think they have just heard speak.

 

Common starlings are trapped for food in some Mediterranean countries. The meat is tough and of low quality, so it is casseroled or made into pâté. One recipe said it should be stewed "until tender, however long that may be". Even when correctly prepared, it may still be seen as an acquired taste.

 

The introduction of European starlings to the United States in 1890 by New York pharmaceutical manufacturer Eugene Schieffelin was featured in the plotline of the Netflix original series, Ozark in season 1, episode 7, "Nest Box."

  

[Credit: en.wikipedia.org/]

External

The Sony ILCE7R A7r rocks! New Sony A7R Test Photos (with Sony HVL-F60M External Flash) of Tall, Thin, Fit Bikini Swimsuit Model Goddess! Long legs and then some! Shot with the Carl Zeiss Sony Sonnar T* FE 35mm f/2.8 ZA Lens finished in Lightroom 5.3 ! Was using the B W 49mm Kaesemann Circular Polarizer MRC Filter on partly cloudy day with some intermittent sun, but mostly cloudy. Check out the low glare off the rocks and water and dramatic, polarizwer-enhanced sky! Super sharp images and crystal-clear pictures!

 

Was testing the Sony HVL-F60M External Flash on the Sony A7r. You can see it going off in some of the photos (check the exif if in doubt)--worked great, but it overheated a bit sooner than my Nikon flash on the D800E. But it's all good!

 

Here's some epic goddess video shot at the same time as stills using my 45surfer method/philosophy:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUbE0ay7UeI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC-M9fVwk9k

 

Join Johnny Ranger McCoy's youtube channel for goddess video shot @ the same time as the stills with the Sony A7 !

 

www.youtube.com/user/bikiniswimsuitmodels

 

Beautiful swimsuit bikini model goddess on a beautiful December Malibu afternoon! Shot it yesterday. :) Love, love, love the new Sony A7 R!

 

Was a fun test shoot. Many, many more to come!

 

All the best on your Epic Hero's Journey from Johnny Ranger McCoy!

 

Join my facebook!

www.facebook.com/45surfHerosJourneyMythology

Follow me on facebook www.facebook.com/elliot.mcgucken !

Haddon Hall, Derbyshire.

instagram.com/maryam_arif

“STAGING POINT: Illustrated in this concept is a space shuttle in two parts, both reflyable. The lower vehicle, the booster, has carried the orbiter, above, with its external hydrogen tanks, to this staging point in space high enough for it to reach orbit under its own power. The booster will fly back to earth, the orbiter will carry on to complete its mission. The reusable shuttle is the great hope of the next decade. NASA is at present trying to cut costs to enable one to log its first mission in 1978, instead of 1980 or 1981.”

 

Per the official NASA caption:

 

“Grumman space shuttle orbiter with external hydrogen tanks on reusable booster.”

 

8” x 11”.

 

Thanks to the wonderful “Grumman Plane News” repository of the Grumman Retiree Club, the artist is Bud Parke. The variant, permitting the identification, at:

 

www.grummanretireeclub.org/wp-content/pdf/grumman-plane-n...

 

1971 Grumman/Boeing?, Boeing/Grumman? artist's concept of the proposed H-33 Space Shuttle with fuselage-attached drop-tanks. Apparently after flyback booster engine cut-off, but prior to orbiter main? engine start?

That’s a lot of engines on that flyback booster.

 

Note "BOEING" written along the bottom of the flyback booster's tail/vertical stabilizer and "GRUMMAN" along the bottom of the orbiter's tail/vertical stabilizer. Interesting to see the two normally competing manufacturer's names, in such close proximity, on ‘one’ vehicle, stack, that is. The beauty of altruistic “collaboration". They didn’t get the contract.

 

Per the excellent PMView Pro website:

 

“H-33” booster/orbiter separation. The huge wing tanks (which carried 54,011 kg of LH₂) had the effect of increasing the orbiter's “propellant fraction”, i.e. the shuttle's empty weight would be less despite carrying more propellant at liftoff. Not only did this produce a smaller and less expensive orbiter, it also enabled Boeing to simplify the booster as well. The system would now stage at a lower velocity (2123 meters/sec.) than the fully reusable Phase-B design's 3000 m/s. As a result, the booster would have to carry less rocket propellant for ascent and 50% less jet fuel for its flight back to the launch site. The lower staging velocity also meant the booster's thermal protection system could be simplified and Boeing settled for a simple aircraft-like “heat sink” design much like the old X-15's. The total gross liftoff weight was reduced by 590 t compared with the Phase-B baseline shuttle, and it was expected that the marginal cost per flight would stay the same since the additional cost of the fuel tanks would be offset by the reduction in complexity & size (e.g. smaller engines to refurbish between flights). The Grumman orbiter version depicted here has three small engines unlike the NAR & McDAC Phase-B designs. Grumman decided that three 1,845.75-kilonewton thrust engines rather than two 2.45 KN-thrust motors would act as a safeguard against engine failure. The Phase-B design had no such problems since it would stage at a higher velocity and still could make it to orbit despite the failure of a single engine."

 

At:

 

www.pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/spacelvs/sld033.htm

Credit: PMView Pro website

 

Awesome. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND perusing Garrett's website. He's single-handedly bringing order & structure to chaos, while posting absolutely amazing images. Seriously:

 

e05.code.blog/category/nasa-programs/shuttle-program/phas...

 

Specifically. I mean, DAMN:

 

e05code.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/0307_012821_01.jpg?w=...

Credit: Garrett O'Donoghue/numbers station website

 

See also. Possibly by the same unknown artist:

 

archive.org/details/S71-38215

Credit: Internet Archive website

 

And:

 

airandspace.si.edu/object/nasm_A19740732000

Credit: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum website

© 2020 DBoz Photography

Ricoh GR

External Decorations are up !

#Selfie - Taken with outdoor flash kit and external shutter

The Abu Simbel temples are two massive rock temples at Abu Simbel (أبو سمبل in Arabic), a village in Nubia, southern Egypt, near the border with Sudan. They are situated on the western bank of Lake Nasser, about 230 km southwest of Aswan (about 300 km by road). The complex is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the "Nubian Monuments," which run from Abu Simbel downriver to Philae (near Aswan). The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 13th century BC, as a lasting monument to himself and his queen Nefertari, to commemorate his victory at the Battle of Kadesh. Their huge external rock relief figures have become iconic.

 

The complex was relocated in its entirety in 1968, on an artificial hill made from a domed structure, high above the Aswan High Dam reservoir. The relocation of the temples was necessary to prevent them from being submerged during the creation of Lake Nasser, the massive artificial water reservoir formed after the building of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River.

External defensive walls of the town

Photos for participants and USLA. Tag waterbloggged! Others: DON'T PUT ON EXTERNAL SITES WITHOUT PERMISSION.

A yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger (Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered and insulated with skins or felt and traditionally used as a dwelling by several distinct nomadic groups in the steppes and mountains of Inner Asia. The structure consists of a flexible angled assembly or latticework of wood or bamboo for walls, a door frame, ribs (poles, rafters), and a wheel (crown, compression ring) possibly steam-bent as a roof. The roof structure is sometimes self-supporting, but large yurts may have interior posts supporting the crown. The top of the wall of self-supporting yurts is prevented from spreading by means of a tension band which opposes the force of the roof ribs. Yurts take between 30 minutes and 3 hours to set up or take down, and are generally used by between five and 15 people. Nomadic farming with yurts as housing has been the primary life style in Central Asia, particularly Mongolia, for thousands of years.

 

Modern yurts may be permanently built on a wooden or concrete platform; they may use modern materials such as metal framing, plastics, plexiglass dome, or radiant insulation.

 

Etymology and translations

Old Turkic yurt "tent, dwelling, abode, range" may have been derived from the Old Turkic word ur - verb with the suffix +Ut. In modern Turkish and Uzbek, the word "yurt" is used as the synonym of "homeland" or a "dormitory", while in modern Azerbaijani, "yurd" mainly signifies "homeland" or "motherland". In Russian, the structure is called "yurta" (юрта), whence the word came into English.

 

Translations

alaçıq/alaçık/alasıq – in use in Azerbaijani, Turkish and Bashkir languages.

гэр (transliterated: ger, [ˈɡɛr]) – in Mongolian simply means "cover, shell and home".

тирмә (transliterated: tirmä) is the Bashkir term for yurt.

киіз үй (transliterated: kiız üi, [kɪjɪz ʏj]) – the Kazakh word, and means "felt house".

боз үй (transliterated: boz üy, [bɔz yj]) – the Kyrgyz term meaning "grey house", because of the color of the felt.

ak öý ([ɑq œj], "white house") and gara öý ([ʁɑˈɾɑ œj], "black house") – in the Turkmen language, which term is used depends on its luxury and elegance.

qara u'y (IPA: [qɑrɑ́ ʉj]) and otaw ([uʊtɑ́w]) – in Karakalpak the first term means "black house", while the second means "a newborn family" and is used only to name a young family's yurt.

In Hungarian yurt is called "jurta". Besides the more scientific modern-era word "jurta", Hungarians in everyday life still use "sátor" for all tent-like dwellings, which could be the original word Hungarians used for yurts in historic times.

In Bulgarian yurt is called "юрта" (yurta).

"Kherga"/"Jirga" – Afghans call them.

"Khema" (خیمه /ख़ेमा) in Hindustani is the word for a yurt or a tent-like dwelling in India and Pakistan, from the Arabic: خَيْمَة

In Persian yurt is called چادر (châdor)

In Tajik the names are "yurt", "khona-i siyoh", "khayma" (юрт, хонаи сиёҳ, хайма).

өг (ög, Tuvan pronunciation: [œɣ]) is the Tuvan word for yurt.

кереге (kerege, /keɾeɣe/) is the Southern Altai word for a yurt made from felt.

A Yaranga is a tent-like traditional mobile home of some nomadic Northern indigenous peoples of Russia, such as Chukchi and Siberian Yupik.

 

History

Yurts have been a distinctive feature of life in Central Asia for at least two and a half thousand years. The first written description of a yurt used as a dwelling was recorded by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. He described yurt-like tents as the dwelling place of the Scythians, a horse riding-nomadic nation who lived in the northern Black Sea and Central Asian region from around 600 BC to AD 300.

 

Yurts beyond Central Asia

As popularity grew, it extended beyond Central Asia. In the 13th century, during the height of the Mongol Empire, yurts were introduced to parts of Europe and the Middle East. Marco Polo's writings even mentioned the use of yurts in the court of Kublai Khan. In more recent history, yurts have gained attention in the West for their unique aesthetics and practicality.

 

Construction

Traditional yurts consist of an expanding wooden circular frame carrying a felt cover. The felt is made from the wool of the flocks of sheep that accompany the pastoralists. The timber to make the external structure is not to be found on the treeless steppes, and must be obtained by trade in the valleys below.

 

The frame consists of one or more expanding lattice wall-sections, a door frame, bent roof poles, and a crown. The Mongolian ger has one or more columns to support the crown and straight roof poles. The (self-supporting) wood frame is covered with pieces of felt. Depending on availability, felt is additionally covered with canvas and/or sun covers. The frame is held together with one or more ropes or ribbons. The structure is kept under compression by the weight of the covers, sometimes supplemented by a heavy weight hung from the center of the roof. They vary in size and relative weight. They provide a large amount of insulation and protection from the outside cold of winters, and they are easily changed to keep the yurts cool for summertime.

 

A yurt is designed to be dismantled and the parts are carried compactly on camels or yaks to be rebuilt on another site. Complete construction takes around 2 hours

 

Insulation and decoration, symbolism

The traditional insulation and decoration within a yurt primarily consists of pattern-based woollen felted rugs. These patterns are generally not according to taste, but are derived from sacred ornaments with certain symbolism. Symbols representing strength are, for instance, the temdeg or khas (swastika), the four powerful beasts (lion, tiger, garuda – a kind of avian, and dragon), as well as stylized representations of the four elements (fire, water, earth, and air), considered to be the fundamental, unchanging elements of the cosmos. Such patterns are commonly used in the home with the belief that they will bring strength and offer protection.

 

Repeating geometric patterns are also widely used, like the continuous hammer or walking pattern (alkhan khee). Commonly used as a border decoration, it represents unending strength and constant movement. Another common pattern is the ulzii, a symbol of long life and happiness. The khamar ugalz (nose pattern) and ever ugalz (horn pattern) are derived from the shape of the animal's nose and horns, and are the oldest traditional patterns. All patterns can be found among not only the yurts themselves, but also on embroidery, furniture, books, clothing, doors, and other objects.

 

In Kyrgyz felted rug manufacturing the most common patterns are the Ala kiyiz and Shyrdak. Ornaments are visualising good wishes or blessings of the makers to a daughter who gets married, to children, or grandchildren.

 

The shangyrak or wooden crown of the yurt (Mongolian: тооно, [tɔːn]; Kazakh: шаңырақ, romanized: Shañıraq [ɕɑɴəɾɑ́q]; Kyrgyz: түндүк [tyndýk]; Turkmen: tüýnük) is itself emblematic in many Central Asian cultures. In old Kazakh communities, the yurt itself would often be repaired and rebuilt, but the shangyrak would remain intact, passed from father to son upon the father's death. A family's length of heritage could be measured by the accumulation of stains on the shangyrak from decades of smoke passing through it. A stylized version of the crown is in the center of the coat of arms of Kazakhstan, and forms the main image on the flag of Kyrgyzstan.

 

Today a yurt is seen as a national symbol among many Central Asian groups, and as such, yurts may be used as cafés (especially those specializing in traditional food), museums (especially those relating to national culture), and souvenir shops. In celebration of the city of Mary's year as Cultural Capital of the Turkic World, the government of Turkmenistan constructed a yurt-shaped structure, called Ak Öýi (White Building) and described as "The World's Largest Yurt", of concrete, granite, aluminum, and glass. Established on November 27, 2015, the structure is 35 meters high and 70 meters in diameter. According to the Turkmenistan state news agency, "A white yurt is a symbol of an age-old, distinctive historical-cultural legacy, a sign of preservation of our roots and origins." This three-story structure includes a café, offices, and VIP apartments ,as well as a large auditorium with 3,000 seats.

 

Buddhism in Mongolia

The design of the Mongolian ger developed from its ancient simple forms to actively integrate with Buddhist culture. The crown—toono adopted the shape of Dharmachakra. The earlier style of toono, nowadays more readily found in Central Asian yurts, is called in Mongolia "sarkhinag toono," while the toono representing Buddhist dharmachakra is called "khorlo" (Tibetan འཀོར་ལོ།) toono. Also the shapes, colors, and ornaments of the wooden elements—toono, pillars, and poles of the Mongolian yurt—are in accord with the artistic style found in Buddhist monasteries in Mongolia. Such yurts are called "uyangiin ger", literally meaning "home of lyrics" or "home of melodies".

 

Westernization

Enthusiasts in other countries have adapted the visual idea of the yurt, a round, semi-permanent tent. Although those structures may be copied to some extent from the originals found in Central Asia, they often have some different features in their design to adapt them to different climate and uses.

 

In Canada and the United States, yurts are often made using hi-tech materials. They can be highly engineered and built for extreme weather conditions. In addition, erecting one can take days and it may not be intended to be frequently moved. Such North American yurts are better thought of as yurt derivations, as they are no longer round felt homes that are easy to mount, dismount, and transport. North American yurts and yurt derivations were pioneered by William Coperthwaite in the 1960s, after he was inspired to build them by a National Geographic article about Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas's visit to Mongolia.

 

In 1978, American company Pacific Yurts became the first to manufacture yurts using architectural fabrics and structural engineering, paving the way for yurts to become popular attractions at ski resorts and campgrounds. Yurts are also popular in Northern Canada. In 1993, Oregon became the first state to incorporate yurts into its Parks Department as year-round camping facilities. Since then, at least 17 other US States have introduced yurt camping into their own parks departments.

 

In Europe, a closer approximation to the Mongolian and Central Asian yurt is in production in several countries. These tents use local hardwood, and often are made for a wetter climate with steeper roof profiles and waterproof canvas. In essence they are yurts, but some lack the felt cover and ornate features across the exterior that is present in traditional yurt. There are UK-made yurts that feature a metal frame in use in at least two glamping sites in Somerset and Dorset.

 

The palloza is a traditional building found in the Serra dos Ancares in Galicia (NW Spain). Pallozas have stone walls and a conical roof made of stalks of rye.

 

Different groups and individuals use yurts for a variety of purposes, from full-time housing to school rooms. In some provincial parks in Canada, and state parks in several US states, permanent yurts are available for camping.

 

Since the late 1920s the German youth and Scouting movements have adapted a variant of the yurt and the Sami Lavvu (Kohte), calling them Schwarzzelt (black tent), a term mainly used for tents from North Africa.

 

Ergaki Nature Park (Russian: Природный парк Ергаки, also referred to as Irgaki) is located in located in the Ergaki mountain range in southern Siberia, Russia. The park was established in 2005 and it is referred to as the "Russian Yosemite".

 

Background

On April 4, 2005, Ergaki Nature Park was established as a protected area of Siberia. The purpose of the nature park designation was to protect and preserve the area and resources while also developing tourism. The Western Sayan Mountains are in the park and they were thought to be an area which would attract recreational tourism. The park covers an area of over 217,000 ha (540,000 acres).

 

History

The park is in the in Krasnoyarsk Krai and it is a popular tourist area. It is known for its recreational uses and there is a hiking trail which is 35 km (22 mi) long. The trail was started in 2005 and it takes tourists through the park passing glacial lakes, mountains, canyons and rivers with waterfall features. It is recommended that hikers allow themselves three to five days to complete the trail. The trail ends at Lake Raduzhnoe, which is below a natural feature and attraction known as the Hanging Stone. One quarter of the park is off limits to visitors so that the areas are not disturbed. Threats to the park include tourism, poaching, and logging. The park is monitored by the Natural Park Protection Service.

 

Features

The park also has a rock ridge known as 'Sleeping Sayan". The ridge appears to be a silhouette of a man lying on his back. Authorities say that the park was visited by 120 thousand tourists per year. Many of the peaks have been given names, like Mirror, Bird, Star, Dragon's Tooth and Cone.

 

The highest point found in the park is found in the Aradansky mountain range: it is 2,466 m (8,091 ft). The second highest is found in the middle of the Ergaki mountains (Zvezdny peak) 2,265 m (7,431 ft). Also within the park is a natural feature called the Hanging Stone. It is large stone which seems to teeter on the cliff face perched high above Lake Raduzhnoyeke.

 

Flora

There park has hundreds of different mosses, liverworts, lichens and fungi. The park is estimated to have 1,500 different species of vascular plants. There are more than fifty species of the Asteraceae flowering plants. There are Ergakov mushrooms which have not been the subject of studies.

 

Siberia is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its various predecessor states since the centuries-long conquest of Siberia, which began with the fall of the Khanate of Sibir in the late 16th century and concluded with the annexation of Chukotka in 1778. Siberia is vast and sparsely populated, covering an area of over 13.1 million square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), but home to roughly a quarter of Russia's population. Novosibirsk and Omsk are the largest cities in the area.

 

Because Siberia is a geographic and historic concept and not a political entity, there is no single precise definition of its territorial borders. Traditionally, Siberia spans the entire expanse of land from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, with the Ural River usually forming the southernmost portion of its western boundary, and includes most of the drainage basin of the Arctic Ocean. It is further defined as stretching from the territories within the Arctic Circle in the north to the northern borders of Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China in the south, although the hills of north-central Kazakhstan are also commonly included. The Russian government divides the region into three federal districts (groupings of Russian federal subjects), of which only the central one is officially referred to as "Siberian"; the other two are the Ural and Far Eastern federal districts, named for the Ural and Russian Far East regions that correspond respectively to the western and eastern thirds of Siberia in the broader sense.

 

Siberia is known for its long, harsh winters, with a January average of −25 °C (−13 °F). Although it is geographically in Asia, Russian sovereignty and colonization since the 16th century have rendered the region culturally and ethnically European. Over 85% of its population are of European descent, chiefly Russian (comprising the Siberian sub-ethnic group), and Eastern Slavic cultural influences predominate throughout the region.[7] Nevertheless, there exist sizable ethnic minorities of Asian lineage, including various Turkic communities—many of which, such as the Yakuts, Tuvans, Altai, and Khakas, are Indigenous—along with the Mongolic Buryats, ethnic Koreans, and smaller groups of Samoyedic and Tungusic peoples (several of whom are classified as Indigenous small-numbered peoples by the Russian government), among many others.

 

The early history of Siberia was greatly influenced by the sophisticated nomadic civilizations of the Scythians (Pazyryk) on the west of the Ural Mountains and Xiongnu (Noin-Ula) on the east of the Urals, both flourishing before the common era. The steppes of Siberia were occupied by a succession of nomadic peoples, including the Khitan people,[citation needed] various Turkic peoples, and the Mongol Empire. In the Late Middle Ages, Tibetan Buddhism spread into the areas south of Lake Baikal.

 

During the Russian Empire, Siberia was chiefly developed as an agricultural province. The government also used it as a place of exile, sending Avvakum, Dostoevsky, and the Decemberists, among others, to work camps in the region. During the 19th century, the Trans-Siberian Railway was constructed, supporting industrialization. This was also aided by discovery and exploitation of vast reserves of Siberian mineral resources.

 

Prehistory and antiquity

According to the field of genetic genealogy, people first resided in Siberia by 45,000 BCE and spread out east and west to populate Europe and the Americas, including the prehistoric Jomon people of Japan, who are the ancestors of the modern Ainu.

 

According to Vasily Radlov, among the Paleo-Siberian inhabitants of Central Siberia were the Yeniseians, who spoke a language different from the later Uralic and Turkic people. The Kets are considered the last remainder of this early migration. Migrants are estimated to have crossed the Bering Land Bridge into North America more than 20,000 years ago.

 

The shores of all Siberian lakes, which filled the depressions during the Lacustrine period, abound in remains dating from the Neolithic age. Countless kurgans (tumuli), furnaces, and other archaeological artifacts bear witness to a dense population. Some of the earliest artifacts found in Central Asia derive from Siberia.

 

The Yeniseians were followed by the Uralic Samoyeds, who came from the northern Ural region. Some descendant cultures, such as the Selkup, remain in the Sayan region. Iron was unknown to them, but they excelled in bronze, silver, and gold work. Their bronze ornaments and implements, often polished, evince considerable artistic taste. They developed and managed irrigation to support their agriculture in wide areas of the fertile tracts.

 

Indo-Iranian influences in southwestern Siberia can be dated to the 2300–1000 BCE Andronovo culture. Between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE, the Indo-Iranian Scythians flourished in the Altai region (Pazyryk culture). They were a major influence on all later steppe empires.

 

As early as the first millennium BCE, trade was underway over the Silk Road. Silk goods were imported and traded in Siberia.

 

The establishment of the Xiongnu empire in the 3rd century BCE started a series of population movements. Many people were probably driven to the northern borders of the great Central Siberian Plateau. Turkic people such as the Yenisei Kirghiz had already been present in the Sayan region. Various Turkic tribes such as the Khaka and Uyghur migrated northwestwards from their former seats and subdued the Ugric people.

 

These new invaders likewise left numerous traces of their stay, and two different periods may be easily distinguished from their remains. They were acquainted with iron, and learned from their subjects the art of bronze casting, which they used for decorative purposes only. They refined the artistry of this work. Their pottery is more artistic and of a higher quality than that of the Bronze Age. Their ornaments are included among the collections at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

 

Middle Ages

The Mongols had long maintained relations with the people of the Siberian forest (taiga). They called them oin irged ("people of the forest"). Many of them, such as the Barga and Uriankhai, were little different from the Mongols. While the tribes around Lake Baikal were Mongol-speaking, those to the west spoke Turkic, Samoyedic, or Yeniseian languages.

 

By 1206, Genghis Khan had united all Mongol and Turkic tribes on the Mongolian Plateau and southern Siberia. In 1207 his eldest son Jochi subjugated the Siberian forest people, the Uriankhai, the Oirats, Barga, Khakas, Buryats, Tuvans, Khori-Tumed, and Kyrgyz. He then organized the Siberians into three tumens. Genghis Khan gave the Telengit and Tolos along the Irtysh River to an old companion, Qorchi. While the Barga, Tumed, Buriats, Khori, Keshmiti, and Bashkirs were organized in separate thousands, the Telengit, Tolos, Oirats and Yenisei Kirghiz were numbered as tumens. Genghis created a settlement of ethnic Han craftsmen and farmers at Kem-kemchik after the first phase of the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty. The Great Khans favored gyrfalcons, furs, women and Kyrgyz horses for tribute.

 

Western Siberia came under the Golden Horde.[9] The descendants of Orda Khan, the eldest son of Jochi, directly ruled the area. In the swamps of western Siberia, dog sled Yam stations were set up to facilitate collection of tribute.

 

In 1270, Kublai Khan sent an ethnic Han official, with a new batch of settlers, to serve as the judge of the Kyrgyz and Tuvan basin areas (益蘭州 and 謙州). Ögedei's grandson Kaidu occupied portions of Central Siberia from 1275 on. The Yuan dynasty army under Kublai's Kipchak general Tutugh reoccupied the Kyrgyz lands in 1293. From then on the Yuan dynasty controlled large portions of Central and Eastern Siberia.

 

The Yenisei area had a community of weavers of ethnic Han origin. Samarkand and Outer Mongolia both had artisans of Han origin.

 

Novgorod and Muscovy

As early as the 11th century the Novgorodians had occasionally penetrated into Siberia.[4] In the 14th century the Novgorodians explored the Kara Sea and the West Siberian river Ob (1364). After the fall of the Novgorod Republic its communications between Northern Russia and Siberia were inherited by the Grand Duchy of Moscow. On May 9, 1483, the Moscow troops of Princes Feodor Kurbski-Cherny and Ivan Saltyk-Travin moved to West Siberia. The troops moved on the rivers Tavda, Tura, Irtysh, up to the River Ob. In 1499 Muscovites and Novgorodians skied to West Siberia, up to the river Ob, and conquered some local tribes.

 

Khanate of Sibir

With the breakup of the Golden Horde late in the 15th century, the Khanate of Sibir was founded with its center at Tyumen. The non-Borjigin Taybughid dynasty vied for rule with the descendants of Shiban, a son of Jochi.

 

In the beginning of the 16th century Tatar fugitives from Turkestan subdued the loosely associated tribes inhabiting the lowlands to the east of the Ural Mountains. Agriculturists, tanners, merchants, and mullahs (Muslim clerics) were brought from Turkestan, and small principalities sprang up on the Irtysh and the Ob. These were united by Khan Yadegar Mokhammad of Kazan. Conflicts with the Russians, who were then colonising the Urals, brought him into collision with Muscovy. Khan Yadegar's envoys came to Moscow in 1555 and consented to a yearly tribute of a thousand sables.

 

Yermak and the Cossacks

In the mid-16th century, the Tsardom of Russia conquered the Tatar khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan, thus annexing the entire Volga Region and making the way to the Ural Mountains open. The colonisation of the new easternmost lands of Russia and further onslaught eastward was led by the rich merchants Stroganovs. Tsar Ivan IV granted large estates near the Urals as well as tax privileges to Anikey Stroganov, who organized large scale migration to these lands. Stroganovs developed farming, hunting, saltworks, fishing, and ore mining on the Urals and established trade with Siberian tribes.

 

In the 1570s, the entrepreneur Semyon Stroganov and other sons of Anikey Stroganov enlisted many cossacks for protection of the Ural settlements against attacks by the Tatars of the Siberian Khanate, led by Khan Kuchum. Stroganov suggested to their chief Yermak, hired in 1577, to conquer the Khanate of Sibir, promising to help him with supplies of food and arms.

 

In 1581, Yermak began his voyage into the depths of Siberia with a band of 1,636 men, following the Tagil and Tura Rivers. The following year they were on the Tobol, and 500 men successfully laid siege to Qashliq, the residence of Khan Kuchum, near what is now Tobolsk. After a few victories over the khan's army, Yermak's people defeated the main forces of Kuchum on Irtysh River after a 3-day battle of Chuvash Cape in 1582. The remains of the khan's army retreated to the steppes, abandoning his domains to Yermak, who, according to tradition, by presenting Siberia to tsar Ivan IV achieved his own restoration to favour.

 

Kuchum was still strong and suddenly attacked Yermak in 1585 in the dead of night, killing most of his people. Yermak was wounded and tried to swim across the Wagay River (Irtysh's tributary), but drowned under the weight of his own chain mail. Yermak's Cossacks had to withdraw from Siberia completely, but every year new bands of hunters and adventurers, supported by Moscow, poured into the country. Thanks to Yermak's having explored all the main river routes in West Siberia, Russians successfully reclaimed all of Yermak's conquests just several years later.

 

Russian exploration and settlement

Siberian river routes were of primary importance in the process of Russian exploration and conquest of Siberia.

In the early 17th century, the eastward movement of Russian people was slowed by the internal problems in the country during the Time of Troubles. However, very soon the exploration and colonization of the huge territories of Siberia was resumed, led mostly by Cossacks hunting for valuable furs and ivory. While Cossacks came from the Southern Urals, another wave of Russian people came by the Arctic Ocean. These were Pomors from the Russian North, who had already been making fur trade with Mangazeya in the north of the Western Siberia for quite a long time. In 1607 the settlement of Turukhansk was founded on the northern Yenisey River, near the mouth of the Lower Tunguska, and in 1619 Yeniseysky ostrog was founded on the mid-Yenisey at the mouth of the Upper Tunguska.

 

In 1620, a group of fur hunters led by the semi-legendary Demid Pyanda started out from Turukhansk on what would become a very protracted journey. According to folk tales related a century after the fact, in the three and a half years from 1620 to 1624 Pyanda allegedly traversed the total of 4,950 miles (7,970 km) of hitherto unknown large Siberian rivers. He explored some 1,430 miles (2,300 km) of the Lower Tunguska (Nizhnyaya Tunguska in Russian) and, having reached the upper part of the Tunguska, he came upon the great Siberian river Lena and explored some 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of its length. By doing this, he may have become the first Russian to reach Yakutia and meet Yakuts. He returned up the Lena until it became too rocky and shallow, and by land reached Angara. In this way, Pyanda may have become the first Russian to meet Buryats. He built new boats and explored some 870 miles (1,400 km) of the Angara, finally reaching Yeniseysk and discovering that the Angara (a Buryat name) and Upper Tunguska (Verkhnyaya Tunguska, as initially known by the Russian people) were one and the same river.

 

In 1627, Pyotr Beketov was appointed Yenisey voevoda in Siberia. He successfully carried out the voyage to collect taxes from Zabaykalye Buryats, becoming the first Russian to enter Buryatia. There he founded the first Russian settlement, Rybinsky ostrog. Beketov was sent to the Lena River in 1631, where in 1632 he founded Yakutsk and sent his Cossacks to explore the Aldan and further down the Lena, to found new fortresses, and to collect taxes.

 

Yakutsk soon turned into a major base for further Russian expeditions eastward, southward and northward. Maksim Perfilyev, who earlier had been one of the founders of Yeniseysk, founded Bratsky ostrog in 1631, and in 1638 he became the first Russian to enter Transbaikalia. In 1639 a group led by Ivan Moskvitin became the first Russian to reach the Pacific Ocean and to discover the Sea of Okhotsk, having built a winter camp on its shore at the Ulya River mouth. The Cossacks learned from the locals about the proximity of the Amur River. In 1640 they apparently sailed south, explored the south-eastern shores of the Okhotsk Sea, maybe even reaching the mouth of the Amur River and discovering the Shantar Islands on their return voyage. Based on Moskvitin's account, Kurbat Ivanov draw the first Russian map of the Far East in 1642. He led a group of Cossacks himself in 1643 to the south of the Baikal Mountains and discovered Lake Baikal, visiting its Olkhon Island. Subsequently, Ivanov made the first chart and description of Baikal.

 

In 1643, Vasily Poyarkov crossed the Stanovoy Range and reached the upper Zeya River in the country of the Daurs, who were paying tribute to Manchu Chinese. After wintering, in 1644 Poyarkov pushed down the Zeya and became the first Russian to reach the Amur River. He sailed down the Amur and finally discovered the mouth of that great river from land. Since his Cossacks provoked the enmity of the locals behind, Poyarkov chose a different way back. They built boats and in 1645 sailed along the Sea of Okhotsk coast to the Ulya River and spent the next winter in the huts that had been built by Ivan Moskvitin six years earlier. In 1646 they returned to Yakutsk.

 

In 1644, Mikhail Stadukhin discovered the Kolyma River and founded Srednekolymsk. A merchant named Fedot Alekseyev Popov organized a further expedition eastward, and Dezhnyov became a captain of one of the kochi. In 1648 they sailed from Srednekolymsk down to the Arctic and after some time they rounded Cape Dezhnyov, thus becoming the first explorers to pass through Bering Strait and to discover Chukotka and the Bering Sea. All their kochi and most of their men (including Popov) were lost in storms and clashes with the natives. A small group led by Dezhnyov reached the mouth of the Anadyr River and sailed up it in 1649, having built new boats out of the wreckage. They founded Anadyrsk and were stranded there, until Stadukhin found them, coming from Kolyma by land. Later Stadukhin set off to the south in 1651 and discovered Penzhin Bay on the northern side of the Okhotsk Sea. He also may have explored the western shores of Kamchatka as early as the 1650s.

 

In 1649–50, Yerofey Khabarov became the second Russian to explore the Amur River. Through the Olyokma, Tungur and Shilka Rivers he reached the Amur (Dauria), returned to Yakutsk and then went back to the Amur with a larger force in 1650–53. This time he was met with armed resistance. He built winter quarters at Albazin, then sailed down the Amur and found Achansk, which preceded the present-day Khabarovsk, defeating or evading large armies of Daurian Manchu Chinese and Koreans on his way. He charted the Amur in his Draft of the Amur river.

 

In 1659–65, Kurbat Ivanov was the next head of Anadyrsky ostrog after Semyon Dezhnyov. In 1660, he sailed from Anadyr Bay to Cape Dezhnyov. Atop his earlier pioneering charts, he is credited with creation of the early map of Chukotka and Bering Strait, which was the first to show on paper (very schematically) the yet undiscovered Wrangel Island, both Diomede Islands and Alaska.

 

So, by the mid-17th century, the Russian people had established the borders of their country close to the modern ones, and explored almost the whole of Siberia, except eastern Kamchatka and some regions north of the Arctic Circle. The conquest of Kamchatka would be completed later, in the early 18th century by Vladimir Atlasov, while the discovery of the Arctic coastline and Alaska would be nearly completed by the Great Northern Expedition in 1733–1743. The expedition allowed cartographers to create a map of most of the northern coastline of Russia, thanks to the results brought by a series of voyages led by Fyodor Minin, Dmitry Ovtsyn, Vasili Pronchishchev, Semyon Chelyuskin, Dmitry Laptev and Khariton Laptev. At the same time, some of the members of the newly founded Russian Academy of Sciences traveled extensively through Siberia, forming the so-called Academic Squad of the Expedition. They were Johann Georg Gmelin, Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt and others, who became the first scientific explorers of Siberia.

 

Russian people and Siberian natives

The main treasure to attract Cossacks to Siberia was the fur of sables, foxes, and ermines. Explorers brought back many furs from their expeditions. Local people, submitting to the Russian Empire, received defense from the southern nomads. In exchange they were obliged to pay yasak (tribute) in the form of furs. There was a set of yasachnaya roads, used to transport yasak to Moscow.

 

A number of peoples showed open resistance to Russian people. Others submitted and even requested to be subordinated, though sometimes they later refused to pay yasak, or not admitted to the Russian authority.

 

There is evidence of collaboration and assimilation of Russian people with the local peoples in Siberia. Though the more Russian people advanced to the East, the less developed the local people were, and the more resistance they offered. In 1607–1610, the Tungus fought strenuously for their independence, but were subdued around 1623. The Buryats also offered some opposition, but were swiftly pacified. The most resistance was offered by the Koryak (on the Kamchatka Peninsula) and Chukchi (on the Chukchi Peninsula), the latter still being at the Stone Age level of development. Resistance by local people may have been the result of forced unfair terms, that recorders would have benefitted from omitting.

 

The Manchu resistance, however, obliged the Russian Cossacks to quit Albazin, and by the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) Russia abandoned her advance into the basin of the river, instead concentrating on the colonisation of the vast expanses of Siberia and trading with China via the Siberian trakt. In 1852, a Russian military expedition under Nikolay Muravyov explored the Amur, and by 1857 a chain of Russian Cossacks and peasants were settled along the whole course of the river. The accomplished fact was recognised by China in 1860 by the Treaty of Aigun.

 

The scientific exploration of Siberia, commenced in the period of 1720 to 1742 by Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt, Johann Georg Gmelin, and Louis de l'Isle de la Croyère, was followed up by Gerhard Friedrich Müller, Johann Eberhard Fischer, and Johann Gottlieb Georgi. Peter Simon Pallas, with several Russian students, laid the first foundation of a thorough exploration of the topography, fauna, flora, and inhabitants of the country. The journeys of Christopher Hansteen and Georg Adolf Erman were the most important step in the exploration of the territory. Alexander von Humboldt, Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, and Gustav Rose also paid short visits to Siberia, which gave a new impulse to the accumulation of scientific knowledge; while Carl Ritter elaborated in his Asien (1832–1859) the foundations of a sound knowledge of the structure of Siberia. Aleksandr Fyodorovich Middendorf's journey (1843–1845) to north-eastern Siberia — contemporaneous with Matthias Castrén's journeys for the special study of the Ural-Altaic languages — directed attention to the far north and awakened interest in the Amur, the basin of which soon became the scene of the expeditions of Akhte and Schwarz (1852), and later on of the Siberian expedition, advanced knowledge of East Siberia.

 

The Siberian branch of the Russian Geographical Society was founded at the same time in Irkutsk, and afterwards became a permanent centre for the exploration of Siberia; while the opening of the Amur and Sakhalin attracted Richard Maack, Schmidt, Glehn, Gustav Radde, and Leopold von Schrenck, who created works on the flora, fauna, and inhabitants of Siberia.

 

Russian settlement

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Russian people that migrated into Siberia were hunters, and those who had escaped from Central Russia: fugitive peasants in search for life free of serfdom, fugitive convicts, and Old Believers. The new settlements of Russian people and the existing local peoples required defence from nomads, for which forts were founded. This way forts of Tomsk and Berdsk were founded.

 

In the beginning of the 18th century, the threat of the nomads' attacks weakened; thus the region became more and more populated; normal civic life was established in the cities.

 

In the 18th century in Siberia, a new administrative guberniya was formed with Irkutsk, then in the 19th century the territory was several times re-divided with creation of new guberniyas: Tomsk (with center in Tomsk) and Yenisei (Yeniseysk, later Krasnoyarsk).

 

In 1730, the first large industrial project — the metallurgical production found by Demidov family — gave birth to the city of Barnaul. Later, the enterprise organized social institutions like library, club, theatre. Pyotr Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, who stayed in Barnaul in 1856–1857, wrote: "The richness of mining engineers of Barnaul expressed not merely in their households and clothes, but more in their educational level, knowledge of science and literature. Barnaul was undoubtedly the most cultured place in Siberia, and I've called it Siberian Athenes, leaving Sparta for Omsk".

 

The same events took place in other cities; public libraries, museums of local lore, colleges, theatres were being built, although the first university in Siberia was opened as late as 1880 in Tomsk.

 

Siberian peasants more than those in European Russia relied on their own force and abilities. They had to fight against the harder climate without outside help. Absence of serfdom and landlords also contributed to their independent character. Unlike peasants in European Russia, Siberians had no problems with land availability; the low population density gave them the ability to intensively cultivate a plot for several years in a row, then to leave it fallow for a long time and cultivate other plots. Siberian peasants had an abundance of food, while Central Russian peasantry had to moderate their families' appetites. Leonid Blummer noted that the culture of alcohol consumption differed significantly; Siberian peasants drank frequently but moderately: "For a Siberian vodka isn't a wonder, unlike for a Russian peasant, which, having reached it after all this time, is ready to drink a sea." The houses, according to travellers' notes, were unlike the typical Russian izbas: the houses were big, often two-floored, the ceilings were high, the walls were covered with boards and painted with oil-paint.

 

Russian Empire

The Siberia Governorate was established in 1708 as part of the administrative reforms of Peter I. In 1719, the governorate was divided into three provinces, Vyatka, Solikamsk and Tobolsk. In 1762, it was renamed to Tsardom of Siberia (Сибирское царство). In 1782, under the impression of Pugachev's Rebellion, the Siberian kingdom was divided into three separate viceregencies (наместничество), centered at Tobolsk, Irkutsk and Kolyvan. These viceregencies were downgraded to the status of governorate in 1796 (Tobolsk Governorate, Irkutsk Governorate, Vyatka Governorate). Tomsk Governorate was split off Tobolsk governorate in 1804. Yakutsk Oblast was split off Irkutsk Governorate in 1805. In 1822, the subdivision of Siberia was reformed again. It was divided into two governorates general, West Siberia and East Siberia. West Siberia comprised the Tobolsk and Tomsk governorates, and East Siberia comprised Irkutsk Governorate, and the newly formed Yeniseysk Governorate.

 

Decembrists and other exiles

Siberia was deemed a good place to exile for political reasons, as it was far from any foreign country. A St. Petersburg citizen would not wish to escape in the vast Siberian countryside as the peasants and criminals did. Even the larger cities such as Irkutsk, Omsk, and Krasnoyarsk, lacked that intensive social life and luxurious high life of the capital.

 

About eighty people involved in the Decembrist revolt were sentenced to obligatory work in Siberia and perpetual settlement here. Eleven wives followed them and settled near the labour camps. In their memoirs, they noted benevolence and prosperity of rural Siberians and severe treatment by the soldiers and officers.

 

"Travelling through Siberia, I was wondered and fascinated at every step by the cordiality and hospitality I met everywhere. I was fascinated by the richness and the abundance, with which the people live until today (1861), but that time there was even more expanse in everything. The hospitality was especially developed in Siberia. Everywhere we were received like being in friendly countries, everywhere we were fed well, and when I asked how much I owed them, they didn't want to take anything, saying "Put a candle to the God"."

"...Siberia is an extremely rich country, the land is unusually fruitful, and little work is needed to get a plentiful harvest."

Polina Annenkova, Notes of a Decembrist's Wife

 

A number of Decembrists died of diseases, some suffered psychological shock and even went out of their mind.

 

After completing the term of obligatory work, they were sentenced to settle in specific small towns and villages. There, some started doing business, which was well permitted. Only several years later, in the 1840s, they were allowed to move to big cities or to settle anywhere in Siberia. Only in 1856, 31 years after the revolt, Alexander II pardoned and restituted the Decembrists in honour of his coronation.

 

Living in the cities of Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Irkutsk, the Decembrists contributed extensively to the social life and culture. In Irkutsk, their houses are now museums. In many places, memorial plaques with their names have been installed.

 

Yet, there were exceptions: Vladimir Raevskiy was arrested for participation in Decembrists' circles in 1822, and in 1828 was exiled to Olonki village near Irkutsk. There he married and had nine children, traded with bread, and founded a school for children and adults to teach arithmetics and grammar. Being pardoned by Alexander II, he visited his native town, but returned to Olonki.

 

Despite the wishes of the central authorities, the exiled revolutioners unlikely felt outcast in Siberia. Quite the contrary, Siberians having lived all the time on their own, "didn't feel tenderness" to the authorities. In many cases, the exiled were cordially received and got paid positions.

 

Fyodor Dostoevsky was exiled to katorga near Omsk and to military service in Semipalatinsk. In the service he also had to make trips for Barnaul and Kuznetsk, where he married.

 

Anton Chekhov was not exiled, but in 1890 made a trip on his own to Sakhalin through Siberia and visited a katorga there. In his trip, he visited Tomsk, speaking disapprovingly about it, then Krasnoyarsk, which he called "the most beautiful Siberian city". He noted that despite being more a place of criminal rather than political exile, the moral atmosphere was much better: he did not face any case of theft. Blummer suggested to prepare a gun, but his attendant replied: What for?! We are not in Italy, you know. Chekhov observed that besides of the evident prosperity, there was an urgent demand for cultural development.

 

Many Poles were also exiled to Siberia (see Sybirak). In 1866 they incited rebellion in Siberia.

 

Trans-Siberian Railway

The development of Siberia was hampered by poor transportation links within the region as well as between Siberia and the rest of the country. Aside from the Sibirsky trakt, good roads suitable for wheeled transport were few and far apart. For about five months of the year, rivers were the main means of transportation; during the cold half of the year, cargo and passengers travelled by horse-drawn sleds over the winter roads, many of which were the same rivers, now ice-covered.

 

The first steamboat on the Ob, Nikita Myasnikov's Osnova, was launched in 1844; but the early starts were difficult, and it was not until 1857 that steamboat shipping started developing in the Ob system in the serious way. Steamboats started operating on the Yenisei in 1863, on the Lena and Amur in the 1870s.

 

While the comparably flat Western Siberia was at least fairly well served by the gigantic Ob–Irtysh–Tobol–Chulym river system, the mighty rivers of Eastern Siberia – Yenisei, Upper Angara (Angara below Bratsk was not easily navigable because of the rapids), Lena — were mostly navigable only in the north–south direction. An attempt to somewhat remedy the situation by building the Ob–Yenisei Canal were not particularly successful. Only a railroad could be a real solution to the region's transportation problems.

 

The first projects of railroads in Siberia emerged since the creation of the Moscow–St. Petersburg railroad. One of the first was Irkutsk–Chita project, intended to connect the former to the Amur river and, consequently, to the Pacific Ocean.

 

Prior to 1880 the central government seldom responded to such projects, due to weakness of Siberian enterprises, fear of Siberian territories' integration with the Pacific region rather than with Russia, and thus falling under the influence of the United States and Great Britain. The heavy and clumsy bureaucracy and the fear of financial risks also contributed to the inaction: the financial system always underestimated the effects of the railway, assuming that it would take only the existing traffic.

 

Mainly the fear of losing Siberia convinced Alexander II in 1880 to make a decision to build the railway. Construction started in 1891.

 

Trans-Siberian Railroad gave a great boost to Siberian agriculture, allowing for increased exports to Central Russia and European countries. It pushed not only the territories closest to the railway, but also those connected with meridional rivers, such as the Ob (Altai) and the Yenisei (Minusinsk and Abakan regions).

 

Siberian agriculture exported a lot of cheap grain to the West. The agriculture in Central Russia was still under pressure of serfdom, formally abandoned in 1861. Another profitable industry is the fur trade, which contributed greatly to the national revenue on top of covering administrative costs in Siberia.

 

Thus, to defend it and to prevent possible social destabilization, in 1896 (when the eastern and western parts of the Trans-Siberian did not close up yet), the government introduced Chelyabinsk tariff break (Челябинский тарифный перелом)—a tariff barrier for grain in Chelyabinsk, and a similar barrier in Manchuria. This measure changed the form of cereal product export: mills emerged in Altai, Novosibirsk, and Tomsk; many farms switched to butter production. From 1896 to 1913 Siberia on average exported 30.6 million poods (~500,000 tonnes) of cereal products (grain, flour) annually.

 

Stolypin's resettlement programme

One early significant settlement campaign was carried out under Nicholas II by Prime Minister Stolypin in 1906–1911.

 

The rural areas of Central Russia were overcrowded, while the East was still lightly populated despite having fertile lands. On May 10, 1906, by the decree of the Tsar, agriculturalists were granted the right to transfer, without any restrictions, to the Asian territories of Russia, and to obtain cheap or free land. A large advertising campaign was conducted: six million copies of brochures and banners entitled What the resettlement gives to peasants, and How the peasants in Siberia live were printed and distributed in rural areas. Special propaganda trains were sent throughout the countryside, and transport trains were provided for the migrants. The State gave loans to the settlers for farm construction.

 

Not all the settlers decided to stay; 17.8% migrated back. All in all, more than three million people officially resettled to Siberia, and 750,000 came as foot-messengers. From 1897 to 1914 Siberian population increased 73%, and the area of land under cultivation doubled.

 

Tunguska event

The Tunguska Event, or Tunguska explosion, was a powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya (Lower Stony) Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai of Russia, at around 7:14 a.m.[34] (0:14 UT, 7:02 a.m. local solar time[35]) on June 30, 1908 (June 17 in the Julian calendar, in use locally at the time).

 

The cause of the explosion is controversial, and still much disputed to this day. Although the cause of the explosion is the subject of debate, it is commonly believed to have been caused by a meteor air burst: the atmospheric explosion of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 5–10 kilometres (3.1–6.2 miles) above the Earth's surface. Different studies have yielded varying estimates of the object's size, with general agreement that it was a few tens of metres across.

 

Although the Tunguska event is believed to be the largest impact event on land in Earth's recent history, impacts of similar size in remote ocean areas would have gone unnoticed before the advent of global satellite monitoring in the 1960s and 1970s. Because the event occurred in a remote area, there was little damage to human life or property, and it was in fact some years until it was properly investigated.

 

The first recorded expedition arrived at the scene more than a decade after the event. In 1921, the Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik, visiting the Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin as part of a survey for the Soviet Academy of Sciences, deduced from local accounts that the explosion had been caused by a giant meteorite impact. He persuaded the Soviet government to fund an expedition to the Tunguska region, based on the prospect of meteoric iron that could be salvaged to aid Soviet industry.

 

Kulik's party reached the site in 1927. To their surprise, no crater was to be found. There was instead a region of scorched trees about 50 kilometres (31 mi) across. A few near ground zero were still strangely standing upright, their branches and bark stripped off. Those farther away had been knocked down in a direction away from the center.

 

Russian Civil War

By the time of the revolution Siberia was an agricultural region of Russia, with weak entrepreneur and industrial classes. The intelligentsia had vague political ideas. Only 13% of the region's population lived in the cities and possessed some political knowledge. The lack of strong social differences and scarcity of urban population and intellectuals led to the uniting of formally different political parties under ideas of regionalism.

 

The anti-Bolshevik forces failed to offer a united resistance. While Kolchak fought against the Bolsheviks intending to eliminate them in the capital of the Empire, the local Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks tried to sign a peace treaty with the Bolsheviks, on terms of independence. Foreign allies, though being able to make a decisive effort, preferred to stay neutral, although Kolchak himself rejected the offer of help from Japan.

 

After a series of defeats in Central Russia, Kolchak's forces retreated to Siberia. Amid resistance of Socialist-Revolutionaries and waning support from the allies, the Whites had to evacuate from Omsk to Irkutsk, and finally Kolchak resigned under pressure of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who soon submitted to the Bolsheviks.

 

Soviet era

1920s and 1930s

By the 1920s the agriculture in Siberia was in decline. With the large number of immigrants, land was used very intensively, which led to exhaustion of the land and frequent bad harvests. Agriculture wasn't destroyed by the civil war, but the disorganization of the exports destroyed the food industry and reduced the peasants' incomes. Furthermore, prodrazvyorstka and then the natural food tax contributed to growing discontent. In 1920–1924 there was a number of anti-communistic riots in rural areas, with up to 40,000 people involved. Both old Whites (Cossacks) and old "Reds" partisans, who earlier fought against Kolchak, the marginals, who were the major force of the Communists, took part in the riots. According to a survey of 1927 in Irkutsk Oblast, the peasants openly said they would participate in anti-Soviet rebellion and hoped for foreign help.[45] In 1929, one such anti-Soviet rebellion took place in Buryatia, the rebellion was put down will the deaths of 35,000 Buryats. It should also be noticed that the KVZhD builders and workers were declared enemies of the people by a special order of the Soviet authorities.

 

The youth, that had socialized in the age of war, was highly militarized, and the Soviet government pushed the further military propaganda by Komsomol. There are many documented evidences of "red banditism", especially in the countryside, such as desecration of churches and Christian graves, and even murders of priests and believers. Also in many cases a Komsomol activist or an authority representative, speaking with a person opposed to the Soviets, got angry and killed him/her and anybody else. The Party faintly counteracted this.

 

In the 1930s, the Party started the collectivization, which automatically put the "kulak" label on the well-off families living in Siberia for a long time. Naturally, raskulachivanie applied to everyone who protested. From the Central Russia many families were exiled to low-populated, forest or swampy areas of Siberia, but those who lived here, had either to escape anywhere, or to be exiled in the Northern regions (such as Evenk and Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrugs and the northern parts of Tomsk Oblast). Collectivization destroyed the traditional and most effective stratum of the peasants in Siberia and the natural ways of development, and its consequences are still persisting.

 

In the cities, during the New Economic Policy and later, the new authorities, driven by the romantic socialistic ideas made attempts to build new socialistic cities, according to the fashionable constructivism movement, but after all have left only numbers of square houses. For example, the Novosibirsk theatre was initially designed in pure constructivistic style. It was an ambitious project of exiled architects. In the mid-1930s with introduction of new classicism, it was significantly redesigned.

 

After the Trans-Siberian was built, Omsk soon became the largest Siberian city, but in 1930s Soviets favoured Novosibirsk. In the 1930s the first heavy industrialization took place in the Kuznetsk Basin (coal mining and ferrous metallurgy) and at Norilsk (nickel and rare-earth metals). The Northern Sea Route saw industrial application. At the same time, with growing number of prisoners, Gulag established a large network of labour camps in Siberia.

 

World War II

In 1941, many enterprises and people were evacuated into Siberian cities by the railroads. In urgent need of ammunition and military equipment, they started working almost immediately after their materials and equipment were unloaded.

 

Most of the evacuated enterprises remained at their new sites after the war. They increased industrial production in Siberia to a great extent, and became constitutive for many cities, like Rubtsovsk. The easternmost city to receive them was Ulan-Ude, since Chita was considered dangerously close to China and Japan.

 

On August 28, 1941, the Supreme Soviet stated an order "About the Resettlement of the Germans of Volga region", by which many of them were deported into different rural areas of Kazakhstan and Siberia.

 

By the end of war, thousands of captive soldiers and officers of German and Japanese armies were sentenced to several years of work in labour camps in all the regions of Siberia. These camps were directed by a different administration than Gulag. Although Soviet camps hadn't the purpose to lead prisoners to death, the death rate was significant, especially in winters. The range of works differed from vegetable farming to construction of the Baikal Amur Mainline.

 

Industrial expansion

In the second half of the 20th century, the exploration of mineral and hydroenergetic resources continued. Many of these projects were planned, but were delayed due to wars and the ever-changing opinions of Soviet politicians.

 

The most famous project is the Baikal Amur Mainline. It was planned simultaneously with Trans-Siberian, but the construction began just before World War II, was put on hold during the war and restarted after. After Joseph Stalin's death, it was again suspended for years to be continued under Leonid Brezhnev.

 

A cascade of hydroelectric powerplants was built in the 1960s–1970s on the Angara River, a project similar to Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States. The powerplants allowed creation and support of large production facilities, such as the aluminium plant in Bratsk, Ust-Ilimsk, rare-earth mining in Angara basin, and those associated with the timber industry. The price of electricity in Angara basin is the lowest in Russia. But the Angara cascade is not fully finished yet: the Boguchany power plant waits to be finished, and a series of enterprises are planned to be set up.

 

The downside of this development is ecological damage due to low standards of production and excessive sizes of dams (the bigger projects were favoured by industrial authorities and received more funding), the increased humidity sharpened the already hard climate. Another powerplant project on Katun River in Altai mountains in the 1980s, which was widely protested publicly, was cancelled.

 

There are a number of military-oriented centers like the NPO Vektor and closed cities like Seversk. By the end of the 1980s a large portion of the industrial production of Omsk and Novosibirsk (up to 40%) was composed of military and aviation output. The collapse of state-funded military orders began an economic crisis.

 

The Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences unites a lot of research institutes in the biggest cities, the biggest being the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Akademgorodok (a scientific town) near Novosibirsk. Other scientific towns or just districts composed by research institutes, also named "Akademgorodok", are in the cities of Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk. These sites are the centers of the newly developed IT industry, especially in that of Novosibirsk, nicknamed "Silicon Taiga", and in Tomsk.

 

A number of Siberian-based companies extended their businesses of various consumer products to meta-regional and an All-Russian level. Various Siberian artists and industries, have created communities that are not centralized in Moscow anymore, like the Idea (annual low-budged ads festival), Golden Capital (annual prize in architecture).

 

Recent history

Until completion of the Chita–Khabarovsk highway, the Transbaikalia was a dead end for automobile transport. While this recently constructed through road will at first benefit mostly the transit travel to and from the Pacific provinces, it will also boost settlement and industrial expansion in the sparsely populated regions of Zabaykalsky Krai and Amur Oblast.

 

Expansion of transportation networks will continue to define the directions of Siberian regional development. The next project to be carried out is the completion of the railroad branch to Yakutsk. Another large project, proposed already in the 19th century as a northern option for the Transsiberian railroad, is the Northern-Siberian Railroad between Nizhnevartovsk, Belyi Yar, Lesosibirsk and Ust-Ilimsk. The Russian Railroads instead suggest an ambitious project of a railway to Magadan, Chukchi Peninsula and then the supposed Bering Strait Tunnel to Alaska.

 

While the Russians continue to migrate from the Siberian and Far Eastern Federal Districts to Western Russia, the Siberian cities attract labour (legal or illegal) from the Central Asian republics and from China. While the natives are aware of the situation, in Western Russia myths about thousands and millions of Chinese living in the Transbaikalia and the Far East are widespread.

1: oral tentacle. 2: channel linking cerata. 3: buccal mass. 4: stomach. 5: ovotestis. 6: anal tract. 7: tip of foot.

Internal organs can sometimes be seen in gastropods with semi-transparent bodies.

 

Anatomy of marine gastropods without dissection. Ian F. Smith

Revision (2016) of article in Mollusc World 28: 13 to 15, March 2012, Conch. Soc. GB & Ireland.

PDF version available for download at www.researchgate.net/publication/310467378_Anatomy_of_mar...

Glossary below

 

Much anatomy can be observed on molluscs lacking external shells 1GA flic.kr/p/PgD7i7 , and internal organs can sometimes be seen in those with semi-transparent bodies 2GA flic.kr/p/P7dYNq .

But the shell of a sea snail usually conceals most of the soft body, and only parts of the foot, head and siphon are seen when the animal is active 3GA flic.kr/p/P9HhqF .

Improved views of the sole of the foot and underside of the head can be obtained when small snails crawl on the undersurface of the water 4GA flic.kr/p/P7dWMS . Others can be observed by placing them in a submerged plastic petri dish with holes drilled near the edge. When they have a grip, invert the petri dish, letting any air escape from the holes 5GA flic.kr/p/P7dWMb . A small weight may be needed to hold the dish down. Alternatively, use a microscope slide or, for larger specimens, a submerged sheet of glass held up on supports. Species adapted to crawling on sand, such as Tritia reticulata, often have a weak grip when on inverted glass, and adults of large species, such as Buccinum undatum may be unable to support their weight. In such cases, try smaller specimens.

Much more of a snail can be observed if it is induced to extend fully. The simplest method is to place the shell in water with its aperture facing up. A brief glimpse of behind the head, where the penis is usually located on males, may be had as the snail stretches out to grip the substrate and turn the shell 6GA flic.kr/p/PgD3U3 . The form of the penis is often important in differentiating species, but the exposure may be too brief for the necessary detail to be studied. For longer examination, or photography, the turning of the snail needs to be prolonged. This can be sometimes done by holding the spire with forceps, but success varies between species and individuals. For example, Peringia ulvae may extend quickly, Littorina littorea is often slow to emerge and retreats at the slightest movement of the forceps, and Nucella lapillus may stay withdrawn for days if it has fed recently.

Other methods of restraint are needed for reluctant extenders. Small species, like P. ulvae, can be held for longer by pushing the spire into a prepared hole in the edge of a small piece of plasticine about 5mm thick. This leaves both hands free for operation of equipment, and allows one to do something else while waiting for the animal to extend. The effort exerted by the animal against the restraint produces an exposure of much more of the body than during a normal turn 7GA flic.kr/p/PjNi3M . Many can shift a piece of plasticine many times their own size, so weigh it down with a piece of lead. Often, after a few minutes, the snail manages to pull itself free, so check frequently for movement. For photography, avoid brightly coloured plasticine as it may reflect unwanted colour onto the specimen.

Larger species, especially those with short spires, cannot be held by plasticine. Instead, they can be gripped in all-plastic clothes pegs (metal parts rust). To prevent the peg from floating and the snail from moving it, place a piece of lead on it 8GA flic.kr/p/PjNhVc . For photography, paint coloured pegs with black bituminous paint to avoid colour reflections. As individuals of the same species often vary in their willingness to extend, it is advisable to restrain several simultaneously to increase the chance of seeing an example of each sex. Collecting eight mature specimens in the breeding season will make it virtually certain that you have males and females if the sexes are equally frequent.

With patience, well directed lighting and luck, good views or macro-photographs will be had of the head, tentacles and, within the mantle cavity, the ctenidium, anus, and penis or oviduct opening and ovipositor. When the epithelium is thin and translucent, some internal organs may also be discerned, such as the radular sac and odontophore. 9GA flic.kr/p/PjNg5P . 10GA flic.kr/p/P7dU4q . 11GA flic.kr/p/PgD19U . 12GA flic.kr/p/P9Hc4i .

The above techniques will assist examination under a dissecting microscope or hand magnifier, but vibration or shadow movement may cause timid species to withdraw. Best results are often obtained by photographing the extended animal with a digital SLR camera and well directed flash, and subsequently viewing the magnified images on the screen of a computer.

Live examination cannot replace skilled detailed dissection of internal anatomy, but for those who lack the skill, equipment or inclination to dissect, it can provide much interest and information. For studying external anatomy, live examination sometimes has the advantage as the positions of organs on a dissected animal depend on the way the mantle cavity is opened, and they may be collapsed or contracted, even when the animal was narcotised and relaxed before killing. On live animals the organs are in more predictable positions and more likely to be expanded . Graham, (1988), writing of Nucella lapillus, states, “The head is a flat transverse ridge...Each tentacle has an eye about one third of its length up from the base”. This description may be based on collapsed dead material as all live specimens that I have examined had the eye about two thirds of the way up the fully expanded tentacle, and the head was not flat 13GA flic.kr/p/P9HbaV .

 

References

Alder, J. & Hancock, A. 1845-1855. A monograph of the British nudibranchiate mollusca. Ray Society, London.

Fretter, V. and Graham, A. 1962. British prosobranch molluscs: their functional anatomy and ecology. Ray Society, London. (Has index of species.)

Fretter, V. and Graham, A. 1994. British prosobranch molluscs: their functional anatomy and ecology. Revised edition. Ray Society, London. (Much new material but lacks index of species.)

Graham, A. 1988. Molluscs: prosobranch and pyramidellid gastropods: keys and notes for the identification of the species. Brill & Backhuys, for Linn. Soc. Lond. & Estuarine and Brackish-water Sciences Assoc. Synopses of the British Fauna (New Series) no.2. Edition 2 (662pages). Leiden. (Edition 1 of series, 1971, 112 pages, is no substitute.)

Thompson, T.E. 1976. Biology of opisthobranch molluscs 1. Ray Society, London.

Equipment Source

Ecoforce clothes pegs; use search on Ebay www.ebay.co.uk/

 

Glossary, including abbreviations

1GA, 2GA etc = numbers of images in Gastropod Anatomy Album.

aperture = mouth of gastropod shell; outlet for head and foot.

buccal mass = anterior of digestive system including an odontophore that supports anterior of radula, and a complex of muscles to operate them and other mouthparts. Often red or pink from myoglobin.

 

chemoreception = sensing of chemicals; “smell / taste”.

chitin = semitransparent flexible horny protein.

chitinous = (adj.) made of chitin.

ctenidium (pl. ctenidia) = comb-like molluscan gill; usually an axis with a row of filaments either side.

 

hypobranchial gland = thickened, sometimes puckered, tissue on roof of mantle cavity of many gastropods. Secretes mucous to trap and consolidate particles from inhalent water before expulsion in exhalent current. Often other biologically active compounds produced. Gland occurs also in some bivalves and cephalopods (ink sac).

 

mantle = sheet of tissue covering visceral mass of molluscs. Secretes shell of shelled species, and forms part or all of dorsal body surface (notum) of those without shells.

 

mantle skirt = extension on gastropods of mantle proper as a flap roofing a cavity containing gills, genital and renal openings, anus etc.

 

myoglobin = red oxygen-binding protein in muscle tissue; often in buccal-mass muscles of gastropods. Similar to red haemoglobin in vertebrate blood, but green haemocyanin is usual oxygen-carrier in mollusc blood. See www.researchgate.net/publication/251227038_Radular_myoglo...

 

odontophore = firm, approximately ellipsoid, structure of cartilage supporting radula. Protruded like a tongue to operate radula. Usually reddish from myoglobin, and medially grooved.

 

opercular disc = part of foot that growing operculum rests on.

opercular lobe = extension of opercular disc beyond edge of operculum.

operculum = plate of horny conchiolin, rarely calcareous, used to close shell aperture.

ovotestis = hermaphrodite organ serving as both ovary and testis.

oviduct = internal tube to carry ova from ovary to the exterior.

ovipositor = structure used in depositing spawn.

radula = ribbon of chitin bearing chitinous teeth (sometimes mineralized) that is extruded on a tongue-like odontophore of cartilage to rasp food. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radula

 

radular sac = tube, ending in a caecum, where radula is created and stored.

rhinophore = chemo-receptor tentacle; nudibranch sea slugs have a pair on top of head.

siphon = extension of mantle to form a channel for respiratory water current.

siphonal canal = grooved or tubular extension of outer lip of the shell aperture on some snails, to support the siphon.

veil = flat anterior extension of head.

Photo Copyright 2012, dynamo.photography.

All rights reserved, no use without license

 

+++ from wikipedia ++++++++

Maulbronn Monastery (German: Kloster Maulbronn) is a former Roman Catholic Cistercian Abbey and Protestant seminary located at Maulbronn in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.[3] The 850 year old, mostly Romanesque monastery complex, one of the best preserved examples of its kind in Europe,[4] is one of the very first buildings in Germany to use the Gothic style.[5] In 1993, the abbey was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[6]

 

The complex, surrounded by turreted walls and a tower gate, today houses the Maulbronn town hall and other administrative offices, a police station, and several restaurants. The monastery itself contains an Evangelical seminary in the Württemberger tradition.

 

Contents

 

1 History

1.1 Founding

2 Notes

2.1 Footnotes

2.2 Citations

3 References

4 External links

 

History

Founding

 

Under the auspices of the Saint Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, the Cistercians began major expansion into southern Germany. A knight named Walter von Lomersheim became interested in this, and donated some of his land to the Cistercian order. In 1147, the monastery was founded by 12 monks who traveled from Alsace.[3] The main church, built in a style transitional from Romanesque to Gothic, was consecrated in 1178 by Arnold, Bishop of Speyer. A number of other buildings — infirmary, refectory, cellar, auditorium, porch, south cloister, hall, another refectory, forge, inn, cooperage, mill, and chapel — followed in the course of the 13th century. The west, east and north cloisters date back to the 14th century, as do most fortifications and the fountain house or lavatorium.

 

After the Reformation began in the year 1517, Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg, seized the monastery in 1504,[dubious – discuss] later building his hunting lodge and stables there. The monastery was pillaged repeatedly: first by the knights under Franz von Sickingen in 1519, then again during the German Peasants' War six years later. In 1534, Duke Ulrich secularised the monastery, but the Cistercians regained control — and Imperial recognition — under Charles V's Augsburg Interim. In 1556, Christoph, Duke of Württemberg, built a Protestant seminary, with Valentin Vannius becoming the first abbot two years later, odd, because the Reformation banned religious orders and abbots; Johannes Kepler studied there 1586–89.

 

In 1630, the abbey was returned to the Cistercians by force of arms, with Christoph Schaller von Sennheim becoming abbot. This restoration was short-lived, however, as Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden forced the monks to leave again two years later, with a Protestant abbot returning in 1633; the seminary reopened the following year, however the Cistercians under Schaller also returned in 1634. Under the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648, the confession of the monastery was settled in favour of Protestantism; with abbot Buchinger withdrawing in process. A Protestant abbacy was re-established in 1651, with the seminary reopening five years later. In 1692, the seminarians were removed to safety when Ezéchiel du Mas, Comte de Mélac, torched the school, which remained closed for a decade.

 

The monastery was secularised by Frederick I, King of Württemberg, in the course of the German Mediatisation in 1807, forever removing its political quasi-independence; the seminary merged with that of Bebenhausen the following year, now known as the Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren.

 

The monastery, which features prominently in Hermann Hesse's novel Beneath the Wheel, was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1993. The justification for the inscription was as follows: "The Maulbronn complex is the most complete survival of a Cistercian monastic establishment in Europe, in particular because of the survival of its extensive water-management system of reservoirs and channels". Hesse himself attended the seminary before fleeing in 1891 after a suicide attempt, and a failed attempt to save Hesse from his personal religious crisis by a well-known theologian and faith healer.[7]

 

To represent Baden-Württemberg, an image of the Abbey appears on the obverse of the German 2013 €2 commemorative coin.[8]

 

Das Kloster Maulbronn ist eine ehemalige Zisterzienserabtei in der Ortsmitte von Maulbronn. Kleinstadt und Kloster liegen am Südwestrand des Strombergs, der sich im südlich des Odenwalds und nördlich des Schwarzwalds gelegenen Kraichgau erhebt. Die nächste Großstadt ist das baden-württem-bergische Pforzheim. Maulbronn gilt als die am besten erhaltene mittelalterliche Klosteranlage nördlich der Alpen. Hier sind alle Stilrichtungen und Entwicklungsstufen von der Romanik bis zur Spätgotik vertreten.

 

Die Anlage, die von einer Mauer umschlossen ist, beherbergt heute unter anderem mehrere Restaurants, die Polizei, das Rathaus von Maulbronn und andere Verwaltungsämter. In den Klostergebäuden befindet sich auch ein evangelisches Gymnasium mit Internat (Evangelische Seminare Maulbronn und Blaubeuren).

 

Das Kloster Maulbronn ist seit Dezember 1993 Weltkulturerbe der UNESCO.

 

Inhaltsverzeichnis

 

1 Geschichte

1.1 Gründung

1.2 Weitere Entwicklung

2 Vertreibung des Konvents im Zuge der Reformation

3 Wirtschafts- und Besitzgeschichte

4 Klosterterritorium und Klosteramt Maulbronn

5 Klosterschule

6 Filialklöster

7 Chronologische Eckdaten

8 Heutige Bedeutung des Klosters

9 Architektur

9.1 Klostertor

9.2 Klosterhof

9.3 Paradies

9.4 Der Meister des Maulbronner Paradieses

9.5 Klosterkirche

9.6 Weitere Räume im inneren Bereich

9.7 Orgeln

10 Sondermarken und Sondermünzen

11 Legenden

12 Einzelnachweise

13 Literatur

14 Weblinks

 

Geschichte

Gründung

 

Unter der Ägide des Abtes Bernhard von Clairvaux erhielt der Zisterzienserorden auch im heutigen Deutschland großen Zulauf. In Südwest-deutsch-land ließ sich der Edelfreie Walter von Lomersheim von der Begeisterung anstecken. Er stiftete sein Erbgut Eckenweiher zwischen Mühlacker und Lienzingen zur Gründung eines Zisterzienserklosters, in das er selbst als Laienbruder einzutreten gedachte. Zu diesem Zweck entsandte das Kloster Neuburg im Elsass einen Abt und zwölf Mönche – wie es heißt nach der Zahl der Apostel.

 

Mit der Neugründung dieses Klosters betraute man Abt Dieter von der Primarabtei Morimond, der am 24. März 1138 eintraf. Die Lage der gestifteten Ländereien scheint jedoch der Klostergründung wenig förderlich gewesen zu sein. Unter anderem scheint es an Wasser gefehlt zu haben.

 

Um 1146 nahm sich der zuständige Bischof von Speyer Günther von Henneberg persönlich der Sache an. Er erklärte den Ort für untauglich und schenkte dem Kloster das Bischofslehen zu Mulenbrunnen in einem abgeschiedenen Waldtal. Vermutlich im Sommer des Jahres 1147 wurde es dorthin verlegt.

Weitere Entwicklung

 

Die Anlage entwickelte sich schnell zu einem wirtschaftlichen, gesellschaftlichen und politischen Zentrum der Region.

 

Das Kloster stand ab 1156 unter kaiserlicher Schirmvogtei. Im Jahr 1232 wurde die kaiserliche Vogtei bestätigt. Der Konvent wählte dann jedoch den Bischof von Speyer zum Beschützer der Abtei. Dieser scheint die Vogtei als Untervogtei seinem Ministerialen Heinrich von Enzberg verliehen zu haben, der ab 1236 als Schirmer der Abtei urkundlich fassbar wird. Über die folgenden Jahrzehnte kam es dann immer wieder zu teilweise gewaltsamen Streitigkeiten mit den Herren von Enzberg, die versuchten, ihre Vogtei über das Kloster zum Ausbau der eigenen Position zu nutzen. Ab 1325 wurden die Pfalzgrafen bei Rhein mit der Schirmvogtei betraut.

 

Während des bayerisch-pfälzischen Erbfolgekrieges belagerte im Jahr 1504 Herzog Ulrich von Württemberg das Kloster, das nach siebentägiger Belagerung fiel.

 

Im Deutschen Bauernkrieg 1525 wurde das Kloster von aufständischen Bauern geplündert. Der Böckinger Bauernführer Jäcklein Rohrbach hielt sich damals in Maulbronn auf und beklagte sich bei Hans Wunderer über die Unordnung unter den Aufständischen, die sich nicht darauf einigen konnten, ob das Kloster verbrannt, abgerissen oder verkauft werden solle. Der Einmischung Rohrbachs ist es zu verdanken, dass die Gebäude letztlich erhalten blieben.

 

Innenhof der Klosteranlage

 

Plan der Klausur

 

Ansicht von Osten (Rekonstruktionszeichnung von 1891)

 

Marstall (heute Rathaus der Stadt Maulbronn), links die Klosterschmiede

 

Pfisterei

 

Briefmarke von 1998

 

Klosterkirche (Innenansicht)

 

Herrenrefektorium, Speisesaal der Mönche

 

Laienrefektorium, Speisesaal der Laienbrüder, Konzertstätte

 

Vertreibung des Konvents im Zuge der Reformation

 

Da das Herzogtum Württemberg protestantisch wurde, wurden die Mönche des Klosters von der politischen Autorität im Lande nicht geduldet. Das Kloster war zunächst als Sammelkloster für renitente Mönche aus allen Männerklöstern Württembergs vorgesehen. Abt und Konvent übersiedelten 1537 in ihr Priorat Pairis ins Elsass, der Abt starb 1547 in Einsiedeln. Nach der Niederlage im Schmalkaldischen Krieg musste der Herzog das Kloster im Jahr 1546/47 dem Konvent zurückgeben.

 

Der 1555 beschlossene Augsburger Religionsfrieden gab dem Herzog das Recht, das Bekenntnis seiner Untertanen zu bestimmen. Im Jahr 1556 erließ er die Klosterordnung, die den Grundstein für ein geregeltes Schulwesen in allen verbliebenen Männerklöstern Württembergs legen sollte. Die Umwandlung des Klosters in eine Schule blieb vom juristischen Standpunkt noch lange umstritten. Es gab zwei Versuche des Kaisers, die Entwicklung in Maulbronn rückgängig zu machen. Während des Interims in den Jahren 1548 bis 1555 und von 1630 bis 1649 aufgrund des kaiserlichen Restitutionsedikts konnten Mönche aufgrund der zeitweilig gegebenen Machtverhältnisse wieder in das Kloster einziehen.

Wirtschafts- und Besitzgeschichte

 

Der Besitz des Klosters wuchs anfangs insbesondere durch fromme Schenkungen und Stiftungen des edelfreien Adels und der Ministerialität. Im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert erfolgte eine planmäßige Arrondierung und Verdichtung des Besitzes durch Güterkäufe. Am Ende der Entwicklung stand ein geschlossenes Klosterterritorium mit über zwanzig Dörfern, den sogenannten „Klosterflecken“ (siehe nächstes Kapitel).

 

Neben der Eigenbewirtschaftung der unmittelbar um das Kloster gelegenen Güter mit dem Elfinger Hof gab es Eigenbetriebe auch in Illingen, Knittlingen und Unteröwisheim. Außerdem wurden insgesamt etwa 2500 Hektar klösterlichen Waldes, verteilt auf etwa 25 Ortschaften, bewirtschaftet.

 

Im Übrigen wurden Güter und Privilegien verpachtet, was dem Kloster gemeinsam mit den Zehnteinnahmen erhebliche Einkünfte brachte. Darüber gibt die Größe des erhaltenen klösterlichen Fruchtkastens ein beredtes Zeugnis. Zur Verwaltung der Einkünfte aus den Klostergütern richtete der Konvent mehrere sogenannte Klosterpflegen ein. Insgesamt besaß das Kloster sieben Pfleghöfe, und zwar in Illingen, Kirchheim am Neckar, Knittlingen, Ötisheim, Speyer, Unteröwisheim und Wiernsheim.

Klosterterritorium und Klosteramt Maulbronn

 

Das zwischen dem 12. und 15. Jahrhundert entstehende Herrschaftsgebiet des Klosters Maulbronn kam im 14. Jahrhundert unter pfälzische Schutzherrschaft und 1504 unter württembergische Hoheit. Dies und das Folgende gilt für das geschlossene maulbronnische Kernterritorium, nicht für die eine Sonderrolle spielende, etwa 15 km nordwestlich des Kernterritoriums liegende Exklave Unteröwisheim (siehe unten). Im Gefolge der Säkularisation des Klosters 1535 wurde sein Gebiet 1557 in das württembergische Klosteramt Maulbronn umgewandelt. Es hatte eine maximale Nord-Süd-Ausdehnung von etwa 25 km (Knittlingen im Norden und Flacht im Süden) und eine maximale West-Ost-Ausdehnung von etwa 15 km (Ötisheim im Westen und Gündelbach im Osten).

 

Die Enz teilte das Territorium in eine Nord- und eine Südhälfte. Maulbronn lag im Zentrum der Nordhälfte, die geographische Mitte der Südhälfte wird in etwa von Wiernsheim eingenommen. Einzige Enklave war Mühlhausen an der Enz, welches ein eigenständiges württembergisches Kammerschreibereiamt bildete. Beinahe-Enklaven bildeten die Gemarkungen von Mönsheim (württembergisches Oberamt Leonberg) und Obermönsheim (baden-durlachischer landsässiger Adel). Über die Gemarkungen Freudenstein und Diefenbach hatte Maulbronn nicht die volle Ortsherrschaft erworben – das ebenfalls württembergische Klosteramt Herrenalb besaß jeweils 3/8 dieser beiden Orte.

 

Nachbarterritorien waren insbesondere: im Osten und Süden die württembergischen Ämter Güglingen, Vaihingen, Leonberg, Heimsheim und Hirsau, im Westen das badische Amt Pforzheim und das pfälzische Amt Bretten sowie im Norden das Stabsamt Derdingen des württembergischen Klosteramts Herrenalb.

 

Aufgrund seiner Größe sowie seiner besonderen geopolitischen und geographischen Lage am Übergang vom Neckarbecken zum Kraichgau und an der wichtigen Reichsstraße von Ulm nach Speyer stellte das Klosteramt Maulbronn eine strategisch äußerst bedeutende Bastion Württembergs nach Westen und in Richtung der dort liegenden oberrheinischen Staaten (Pfalz, Baden, Fürstbistum Speyer) dar. Bereits zu pfälzischer Zeit, als das Klosterterritorium Maulbronn die südöstliche Speerspitze der Pfalz bildete, wurden Maulbronn und viele Klosterorte befestigt, wovon dann später auch Württemberg profitierte.

 

Im Folgenden eine Liste der 25 Altgemarkungen des Klosteramts Maulbronn. Davon bilden 24 Gemarkungen das geschlossene Kernterritorium. Viele der in Klammern genannten Teilorte sind Waldenserorte, die erst 1699 hinzukamen, und deren Neugemarkungen – sofern welche gebildet wurden – oft aus mehreren Altgemarkungen zusammengesetzt wurden – zugeordnet sind sie im Folgenden derjenigen Gemeinde, auf deren Gemarkung sie hauptsächlich zu liegen kamen.

 

Knittlingen (mit dem Südteil von Großvillars), maulbronnisch seit dem 12./13. Jh.

Freudenstein (mit Hohenklingen), seit 13./14. Jh. maulbronnisch (5/8) und herrenalbisch (3/8)

Diefenbach (mit Füllmenbacher Hof und Burrainhof), seit 14. Jh. maulbronnisch (5/8) und herrenalbisch (3/8)

Ruit, seit 14./15. Jh. maulbronnisch, 1810 badisch

Ölbronn (mit Kleinvillars), seit 1270/85 maulbronnisch

Maulbronn (1147 war das 1138 gegründete Kloster von Eckenweiher – heute Teil von Mühlacker – nach Maulbronn verlegt worden)

Zaisersweiher, seit 14. Jh. maulbronnisch

Schützingen, seit 14./15. Jh. maulbronnisch, nach dem 30-jährigen Krieg von österreichischen Protestanten neubesiedelt

Gündelbach (mit Steinbachhof), seit 13./14. Jh. maulbronnisch

Schmie, seit 14. Jh. maulbronnisch

Lienzingen, seit 14. Jh. maulbronnisch

Illingen, seit 14./15. Jh. maulbronnisch

Roßwag, seit 1394 maulbronnisch

Lomersheim, seit 14./15. Jh. maulbronnisch

Dürrmenz (mit Eckenweiher, heute Mühlacker), seit 14./15. Jh. maulbronnisch

Ötisheim (mit Corres, Erlenbach und Schönenberg), seit 12. Jh. maulbronnisch

Großglattbach, wohl seit 13./14. Jh. maulbronnisch

Öschelbronn, seit 14. Jh. maulbronnisch, 1810 badisch

Wiernsheim (mit Pinache und Serres), seit 12./13. Jh. maulbronnisch

Iptingen, seit 1194 maulbronnisch

Wurmberg (mit Neubärental), seit 12./13. Jh. maulbronnisch

Wimsheim, seit 1232 maulbronnisch

Weissach, seit 12. Jh. maulbronnisch

Flacht, seit 13./14. Jh. maulbronnisch

Unteröwisheim, seit 13./15. Jh. maulbronnisch, seit 16. Jh. württembergische Ortsherrschaft, seit 1747 württembergische Landeshoheit

 

Naturräumlich können vier landschaftliche Schwerpunkte ausgemacht werden:

 

Die Nordhälfte wird vom relativ stark bewaldeten, durch den Keuper gezeichneten Hügelland zwischen Stromberg und Enz dominiert, wobei westliche und nordwestliche Randbereiche bereits leicht in den fruchtbaren Kraichgau hineinreichen.

Die Südhälfte hingegen wird dominiert von den offenen Landschaften des hochgelegenen Heckengäus.

Dazwischen bildet das hier oft tief eingeschnittene Enztal eine eigenständige, vom Weinbau geprägte Landschaft.

Die Exklave Unteröwisheim liegt am Westrand des Kraichgaus, nur etwa vier Kilometer vom Beginn der Oberrheinebene entfernt.

 

1806 wurde das württembergische Klosteramt Maulbronn in das württembergische Oberamt Maulbronn umgewandelt. Öschelbronn und Ruit wurden 1810 von Württemberg an Baden abgetreten. Das Oberamt Maulbronn wurde 1936 Teil des Landkreises Vaihingen, und 1972 kamen die meisten Gemeinden zum Enzkreis.

Klosterschule

 

Im Januar 1556 nahm Abt Heinrich wie die anderen Prälaten des Landes die neue Klosterordnung an. Außer Maulbronn wurden gemäß dieser Regelungen noch zwölf weitere Männerkloster im württembergischen Herrschaftsbereich in evangelische Klosterschulen umgewandelt, um dort den Nachwuchs an evangelischen Pfarrern heranzubilden.[1] In Maulbronn existiert die Schule bis heute; mehrere bekannte Absolventen sind aus ihr hervorgegangen, unter ihnen Johannes Kepler, Friedrich Hölderlin und Hermann Hesse. Maulbronn ist eines der wenigen Seminare, das bis heute erhalten blieb. 1807 wurde die Schule in ein evangelisch-theologisches Seminar umgewandelt. Das Seminar ist heute ein staatliches Gymnasium mit Internat ab der 9. Klasse bis zum Abitur in Klasse 12. Circa 100 Schülerinnen und Schüler sind dort.

Filialklöster

 

Kloster Bronnbach, um 1150

Kloster Schöntal, 1157

 

Chronologische Eckdaten

Panorama Innenhof

 

1138 Klosterbau zu Eckenweiher durch Abt Dieter und 12 Mönche aus dem Zisterzienserkloster Neuburg im Elsass

1146 Hl. Bernhard von Clairvaux in Speyer

1147 Bischof Günther von Speyer übergibt sein Lehen „Mulenbrunnen“ dem Abt Dieter, der das Kloster nach Maulbronn verlegt

1148 Papst Eugen III. verleiht dem neuen Kloster einen Schutzbrief

1153 Graf Ludwig von Württemberg schenkt dem Kloster das Dorf Elfingen

1156 Kaiser Barbarossa nimmt das Kloster in den Schutz des Reichs

1178 Erzbischof Arnold von Trier weiht die Klosterkirche

1201 Bau der Klosterfront (Keller und Laienrefektorium)

Um 1210 Bau der Vorhalle (Paradies)

Um 1215 Bau der Südhalle des Kreuzgangs

Um 1225 Bau des Herrenrefektoriums und des Kapitelsaals

Um 1300 Bau der Westhalle des Kreuzgangs

Um 1350 Bau der Nordhalle des Kreuzgangs mit Brunnenkapelle, der Osthalle mit Kapitelsaal und Johanneskapelle

1361 Johann I. von Rottweil wird Abt und ummauert das Kloster

1424 gotischer Umbau der Kirche

1430 Bau des Pfrundhauses

1441 Pfalzgraf als Schirmvogt befestigt das Kloster mit Mauern, Türmen und Zinnen

1479 Bau der Vorhalle des Klosters

1493 Bau des Parlatoriums

1495 Vollendung des Oratoriums

1501 Errichtung des Steinbaldachins im Mittelschiff der Laienkirche

1504 Herzog Ulrich von Württemberg besetzt das Kloster

1512 Johannes VIII. Entenfuß von Unteröwisheim wird Abt und entwickelt rege Bautätigkeit

1516 Johann Georg Faust soll vom Abt Entenfuß zum Goldmachen berufen worden sein

1517 Umbau des Herrenhauses mit der Wendeltreppe beendet

1518 Abt Entenfuß abgesetzt

1519 Ritter Franz von Sickingen brandschatzt das Kloster

1521 Pfisterei erbaut

1525 aufständische Bauern plündern das Kloster

1534 Herzog Ulrich von Württemberg säkularisiert das Kloster

1537 Abt Johann IX. verlegt nach seiner Flucht nach Speyer die Abtei nach Kloster Pairis im Elsass

1547 Durch das Augsburger Interim Kaiser Karls V. kommt das Kloster vorübergehend wieder in den Besitz der Zisterzienser. Abt Heinrich III. führt die katholische Religion und Ordensregel wieder ein und erlangt erneut die Anerkennung der Reichsunmittelbarkeit.

1550 Bau des Gesindehauses

1556 Herzog Christoph von Württemberg errichtet eine evangelische Klosterschule

1558 Valentin Vannius wird erster evangelischer Abt

1580 Erweiterung des Fruchtkastens

1586–1589 Johannes Kepler von Weil der Stadt wird Schüler im Kloster

1588 Bau des Herzoglichen Jagdschlosses

Um 1600 Bau des Hörsaals über der Brunnenkapelle

1630 Rückgabe des Klosters mit Waffengewalt an die Zisterzienser – Christoph Schaller von Sennheim wird Abt

1632 Infolge der Siege des Schwedenkönigs Gustav Adolf verlassen die Mönche das Kloster wieder

1633 Neueinsetzung eines evangelischen Abts

1634 Wiederherstellung der evangelischen Klosterschule – Rückkehr von Abt Schaller mit den Zisterziensern

1648 Im Westfälischen Frieden wird Maulbronn dem Protestantismus zugesprochen

1649 Abt Buchinger zieht unter Protest ab

1651 Wiedereinsetzung eines evangelischen Abts

1656 Wiederherstellung der evangelischen Klosterschule

1692 Klosterschüler werden vor dem Mordbrenner Ezéchiel de Mélac in Sicherheit gebracht

1702 Wiedereröffnung der Klosterschule

1751 Abbruch des Abtshauses

1786–1788 Friedrich Hölderlin Schüler in der Maulbronn Klosterschule

1806 König Friedrich I. von Württemberg säkularisiert das Kloster

1807 Zusammenlegung der Klosterschule Maulbronn mit Bebenhausen

1818 Maulbronn wird „Evangelisch-theologisches Seminar“

1823 Verlegung der Generalsuperintendenz von Maulbronn nach Ludwigsburg

1892 Brand des Pfrundhauses

1893–1899 Abbruch des Professorhauses vor der Klosterfront und des so genannten Schlösschens (Famulus-Wohnung)

1928 Evangelisch-theologisches Seminar Maulbronn geht in den Besitz der Evangelischen Seminarstiftung über

1941 Beschlagnahme des Klosters und Schließung der Seminarschule durch nationalsozialistische Regierung

1945 Wiedereröffnung des Evangelisch-theologischen Seminars

 

Heutige Bedeutung des Klosters

 

Die Klosteranlage ist heute fast ausschließlich im Besitz des Landes Baden-Württemberg und wird von der Einrichtung Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Baden-Württemberg betreut. Die Stadt Maulbronn nutzt den ehemaligen Marstall als Rathaus. Durch die Aufnahme in die UNESCO-Liste Weltkulturerbe zieht die Bauanlage Besucher aus aller Welt an.

 

Regelmäßig werden Klosterkonzerte veranstaltet, die die Akustik der Klosterbauten zur Geltung bringen.[2]

Architektur

Klostertor

 

Vor dem Haupteingang befand sich früher der Klostergraben, über den an Stelle der festen Steinbrücke ursprünglich eine hölzerne Zugbrücke führte. An der Westfront des Torturms sind noch die Öffnungen zu sehen, durch welche die Ketten zum Aufziehen der Brücke liefen.

 

In einer Zelle neben dem Klostereingang lebte der Pförtner, der Fremde in seiner Zelle Platz nehmen ließ und sie dann dem Abt meldete. Ordensbrüder durfte er sofort einlassen, Frauen überhaupt nicht. Gegen Männer war Gastfreundschaft heilige Pflicht: Arme und Kranke sollten empfangen werden, als ob Christus selbst käme.

Frühmesserhaus (heute Klostermuseum)

Klosterhof

 

Der Klosterhof zeichnet sich durch sein geschlossenes Bild aus. Gleich hinter dem Tor, an der Stelle der Apotheke, befand sich die Klosterherberge. An die Apotheke schließt sich das Frühmesserhaus an, die Wohnung der Ordensgeistlichen, die in der gegenüber liegenden Kapelle die Messe zu lesen hatten. Diese Torkapelle hatte den Zweck, Frauen, die keinen Zutritt zum Kloster hatten, die Beteiligung am Gottesdienst zu ermöglichen.

 

Vor dem Renaissance-Rathaus steht eine alte Linde. Hinter der Klosterküferei ragt der Klosterspeicher, der so genannte Fruchtkasten, auf, der auf alten Fundamenten im Jahr 1580 in seiner jetzigen Größe errichtet wurde. Das Fachwerkhaus in der Mitte des Platzes ist die alte Klosterverwaltung. Ursprünglich war der Klosterhof entweder kleiner oder durch eine Mauer in einen äußeren und inneren Teil geschieden. Er wird heute im Osten von der Front des Klosters begrenzt.

Paradies

Vorhalle von Dijon (Notre-Dame) und Maulbronn im Vergleich

 

Die Vorhalle der Klosterkirche hat ihren Namen „Paradies“ von der Sitte, den Vorraum der Kirche mit der Geschichte des Sündenfalls auszumalen. Die letzte Bemalung stammt aus dem Jahr 1522, ist aber bis auf geringe Reste abgefallen.

 

Das Paradies des Klosters Maulbronn markiert – wie viele Teile der dortigen Architektur – die Übergangszeit von der Romanik zur Gotik und zeigt burgundische Einflüsse. In der Kombination sind hohe, lichte Fenster und weite Gewölbe bereits deutlich gotisch, wohingegen noch keine Spitzbögen, sondern romanische Rundbögen die Fenster zieren. Teilweise werden auch Spitz- und Rundbögen miteinander arrangiert. Diese Form der Kombination ist in Deutschland einzigartig. Der Baumeister ist nicht namentlich bekannt, er wird daher nach dem Maulbronner Paradies Paradies-Baumeister genannt.

Der Meister des Maulbronner Paradieses

 

Ein in der Frühgotik Nordfrankreichs, z. B. in der Bauhütte von Laon, 1160/70 geschulter Meister erhielt den Auftrag, die Vorkirche, den neuen Kreuzgang und den Speisesaal der Herrenmönche zu bauen. Dieser Baumeister kam über Burgund, das Ursprungsland der Zisterzienserbewegung, nach Maulbronn. Zunächst versah er den Speisesaal der Konversen mit Doppelstützen, um den Raum, wie nach Ausweis der Wandspuren schon von seinem Vorgänger vorgesehen, mit Kreuzrippen zu wölben. Dann errichtete er vor der Westseite der Kirche das sogenannte „Paradies“ (daher sein Name) und den Kreuzgang-Südflügel sowie das Herrenrefektorium mit dem für den spätromanisch-frühgotischen Übergangsstil bezeichnenden sechsteiligen Kreuzrippengewölbe. Er begann auch den West- und den Ostflügel des Kreuzgangs mit jeweils dem ersten Joch von Süden und legte damit die Breiten- und Höhenmaße des im übrigen hochgotischen Kreuzgangs fest. Er zerlegte statische Funktionen in Einzelglieder. Typisch für seine Arbeit sind die Summierung der röhrenförmigen, verschieden hohen Dienste und die „Lochform“ der Fenster (Vorformen des Maßwerkes der Hochgotik). Alle Rippen des Gewölbes folgen dem Halbkreis.

 

Der „Maulbronner Paradiesmeister“ hat später in Magdeburg am Bischofsgang des Domchores und in Halberstadt gewirkt.

 

Bemerkenswert sind auch die Portale, die das Paradies mit dem Kirchenschiff verbinden. Die Türblätter stammen aus dem 12. Jahrhundert und sind original erhalten. Selbst der ehemalige Lederbezug (siehe Detail-Bild) ist noch gut sichtbar.

 

Portal der Klosterkirche vom Paradies aus gesehen.

 

Detail: Lederbezug des Kirchenportals. (12. Jahrhundert)

 

Blick vom Paradies nach draußen

 

Paradies, Innenansicht

 

Klosterfront

Klosterkirche (Innenansicht)

Klosterkirche

 

Am Deckengewölbe konnte Joseph Victor von Scheffel noch die Buchstaben „A. v. k. l. W. h.“ (= All voll, keiner leer (oder – wahrscheinlicher – Kanne leer), Wein her!) lesen. Dies inspirierte ihn zu seiner Maulbronner Fuge[3]:

 

Im Winterrefektorium zu Maulbronn in dem Kloster,

Da geht was um den Tisch herum, klingt nicht wie Paternoster.

Die Martinsgans hat wohlgethan, Eilfinger blinkt im Kruge,

Nun hebt die nasse Andacht an, und alles singt die Fuge:

All Voll, Keiner Leer, Wein Her! Complete pocula!

…

 

Die Kirche ist eine dreischiffige Basilika, die in den Jahren 1147 bis 1178 zunächst in romanischem Stil erbaut wurde. Sie ist ungewöhnlich lang, da das Langschiff zwei Kirchen, die Laien- und die Mönchskirche, vereinigt. Ein romanischer Lettner trennt die Laienkirche, den so genannten Bruderchor, von der Mönchskirche, dem so genannten Herrenchor. Eine Besonderheit ist dabei das Kruzifix: Das Kruzifix und der Körper des Heilands sind aus einem einzigen Steinblock herausgemeißelt. Es ist dabei exakt so ausgerichtet, dass an den längsten Tagen im Jahr nach zehn Uhr die Sonnenstrahlen die Dornenkrone Christi aufleuchten lassen.

Weitere Räume im inneren Bereich

 

Ab etwa 1200 wurde, beginnend mit dem Westtrakt, innerhalb von 10 bis 20 Jahren die Klausur um den Kreuzgang nördlich der Kirche errichtet.

 

Das Laienrefektorium (erb. um 1201) ist nach der Kirche der umfangreichste überwölbte Raum im Kloster.

 

Die Tür gegenüber der Brunnenkapelle führt ins Herrenrefektorium (erb. um 1220–1225), dem Speiseraum für die Mönche.

 

Im Kapitelsaal (13. Jh.) wurden in täglicher Versammlung allen Mönchen Kapitel aus der Ordensregel vorgelesen und eingeschärft. Diesem Zweck dienend war der Saal an allen vier Seiten mit Steinbänken versehen.

 

Die Brunnenkapelle aus dem 14. Jahrhundert springt südwärts ins Kreuzgärtchen vor. Der Waschraum im Kreuzgang ist von der Ordensregel vorgeschrieben. Die unterste Brunnenschale ist so alt wie die gotische Kapelle. Die beiden oberen Schalen wurden erst in neuerer Zeit hierher gesetzt.

 

Das Calefactorium ist ein backofenartiges Gewölbe, dessen Steine noch Spuren von Feuer tragen. Es ist der Raum, von dem aus die darüber liegende Wärmestube der Mönche geheizt wurde, der, abgesehen von der Klosterküche, einzige heizbare Raum im ganzen Kloster.

 

Das Parlatorium (um 1493), der Sprechsaal des Klosters, war der Ort, wo die Mönche untereinander und mit den Oberen des Ordens die nötigsten Worte wechseln durften.

 

Erwähnenswert ist die Einzeigeruhr.

 

In der Parkanlage südöstlich außerhalb der Klostermauern wurde 2012 eine Stauferstele eingeweiht, die u.a. daran erinnert, dass Friedrich I. Barbarossa das Kloster ab 1156 als kaiserliche Schirmvogtei unter seinen Schutz gestellt hat.[4]

 

Blick vom Kreuzgang auf das Brunnenhaus mit Fachwerkaufsatz

 

Pfisterei (Klosterbäckerei), links

 

Klostermühle (heute Internatsgebäude des Evang. Seminars), rechts

 

Wachhaus

 

Stauferstele (2012 eingeweiht) mit Faustturm im Hintergrund

 

Faustturm

 

Orgeln

Grenzing-Orgel in der Klosterkirche

 

Im Kloster Maulbronn befinden sich zwei Orgeln. Bis zum Jahre 1972 befand sich in der Klosterkirche eine Orgel des Orgelbauers Eberhard Friedrich Walcker aus dem Jahre 1849. Das Kegelladen-Instrument hatte 21 Register auf zwei Manualen und Pedal. Die Trakturen waren mechanisch. Im Jahre 1972 wurde diese Orgel durch ein neues Instrument der Fa. Walcker (Ludwigsburg) ersetzt, welches 38 Register auf drei Manualen und Pedal hatte. Das Instrument erwies sich bald als derart anfällig, dass bereits im Jahre 2002 mit den Vorüberlegungen für einen Neubau begonnen wurde. Im Jahre 2010 wurde die Walcker-Orgel abgebaut.[5]

 

Die heutige Hauptorgel der Klosterkirche wurde 2013 von dem Orgelbauer Gerhard Grenzing (Barcelona) erbaut. Das Schleifladen-Instrument hat 35 Register auf drei Manualen und Pedal.[6]

I Hauptwerk C–a3

1. Principal 16′

2. Viola di Gamba 8′

3. Principal 8′

4. Rohrflöte 8′

5. Octave 4′

6. Spitzflöte 4′

7. Superoctave 2′

8. Cornett III 2 2⁄3′

9. Mixtur maior IV-V 2′

10. Trompete 8′

 

II Positiv C–a3

11. Lieblich Gedackt 8′

12. Salicional 8′

13. Rohrflöte 4′

14. Principal 4′

15. Quinte 2 2⁄3′

16. Doublette 2′

17. Terz 1 3⁄5′

18. Mixtur minor III 1 1⁄3′

19. Klarinette 8′

Tremulant

 

III Schwellwerk C–a3

20. Lieblich Gedackt 16′

21. Flöte 8′

22. Viola 8′

23. Schwebung 8′

24. Fugara 4′

25. Traversflöte 4′

26. Flageolet 2′

27. Oboe 8′

28. Trompette harmonique 8′

Tremulant

 

Pedal C–f1

29. Principalbass 16′

30. Subbass 16′

31. Octavbass 8′

32. Violoncello 8′

33. Choralbass 4′

34. Posaune 16′

35. Trompete 8′

 

Koppeln: II/I, III/I, III/II, III/III (Suboktavkoppel); I/P, II/P, III/P (Normal- und Superoktavkoppel)

 

Im heizbaren Winterspeisesaal, der auch als „Winterkirche“ bezeichnet wird, befindet sich eine Orgel der Orgelbaufirma Claudius Winterhalter (Oberharmersbach) aus dem Jahr 2000. Das Instrument hat 20 Register auf zwei Manualen und Pedal.[7]

I Hauptwerk C–a3

1. Principal 8′

2. Holzflöte 8′

3. Oktave 4′

4. Spitzflöte 4′

5. Doublette 2′

6. Quinte 1 1⁄3′

7. Mixtur III-V 1 1⁄3′

 

II Nebenwerk C–a3

8. Salicional 8′

9. Gedeckt 8′

10. Fugara 4′

11. Rohrflöte 4′

12. Quinte 2 2⁄3′

13. Terz 1 3⁄5′

14. Principal 2′

15. Quinte 1 1⁄3′

16. Oboe 8′

Tremulant

 

Pedalwerk C–f1

17. Subbass 16′

18. Octavbass 8′

19. Bassoctave 4′

20. Fagott 16′

 

Koppeln: II/I (auch als Suboktavkoppel); I/P, II/P (auch als Superoktavkoppel)

 

Sondermarken und Sondermünzen

Deutschland 2013

 

Zur Erhebung des Klosters Maulbronn zum UNESCO-Kultur- und -Naturerbe der Menschheit erschien am 22. Januar 1998 eine Sondermarke der Deutschen Bundespost, auf dem die Klosterkirche und der Grundriss des Klosters gezeigt werden.

 

Ab 2013 ist das Kloster auf der Rückseite einer 2-Euro-Gedenkmünze zu sehen (Bundesländer-Serie) [8]. Das Motiv wurde vom Pforzheimer Flachgraveur Eugen Ruhl (Kürzel er) entworfen und zeigt die Vorhalle der Klosterkirche Maulbronn (Paradies) von 1220 und den dreischaligen Waschbrunnen.[9]

Legenden

Darstellung der Gründungslegende im Gewölbe des Brunnenhauses

 

Ein Maultier findet den Ort für die Klostergründung

 

Ein Wappen an der Quellennische zeigt die Gründungslegende, in der es heißt, dass die Mönche unentschlossen waren, wo sie das Kloster bauen sollten. Sie beluden deshalb ein Maultier mit den Klosterschätzen und ließen es laufen. Das Maultier blieb an der Stelle des heutigen Brunnens (= Bronn) stehen, warf den Klosterschatz ab und scharrte mit dem Huf. Dort schoss sogleich eine Wasserfontäne empor, die die Mönche im Brunnen und später im Brunnenhaus fassten. So habe das Kloster Standort und den Namen Maulbronn erhalten.

 

Erfindung der Maultasche durch die Maulbronner Mönche

 

Eine von mehreren Theorien, wie die schwäbische Maultasche erfunden wurde, verweist auf das Kloster Maulbronn. Eine Legende erzählt, dass gewitzte Ordensbrüder des Klosters Maulbronn – als diese in der Fastenzeit Fleisch geschenkt bekommen hatten – dieses als gute Schwaben nicht verkommen lassen wollten. Um das Verbot zu umgehen, freitags und in der Fastenzeit Fleisch zu essen, hackten sie das Fleisch ganz klein und vermengten es mit Kräutern. So sah es nach Gemüsebrei aus. Zudem wurde es noch in Taschen aus Nudelteig versteckt, damit es der Herrgott vom Himmel nicht sehen könnte. Der „liebe Gott“ soll dabei augenzwinkernd zugesehen haben. Im Volksmund wurde dieses Gericht nach dem Klosternamen als "Maul"tasche bezeichnet und wird auch scherzhaft „Herrgottsbscheißerle“ genannt.

Einzelnachweise

Martin Ehlers: Ortsgeschichte im Überblick, in: Maulbronn Heimatbuch. Maulbronn 2012, ISBN 978-3-933486-75-2, S. 77

Internetseite der „Klosterkonzerte Maulbronn“, abgerufen am 20. Dezember 2015

de.wikisource.org/wiki/Allgemeines_Deutsches_Kommersbuch:318

Stauferstele Kloster Maulbronn auf stauferstelen.net. Abgerufen am 22. März 2014.

Umfassende Informationen zu den Orgeln der Klosterkirche

Informationen zur Grenzing-Orgel

Nähere Informationen zur Orgel der Winterkirche

Bundesbank Übersicht 2-Euro-Gedenkmünzen

 

Susanne Roth: Maulbronn-Motiv mit Auflage von 30 Millionen. Zeitungsartikel von ca. 2013

 

Literatur

 

Marga Anstett-Janßen: Kloster Maulbronn, Deutscher Kunstverlag München/Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-422-03084-0

Friedl Brunckhorst: Maulbronn: Zisterzienserabtei – Klosterschule – Kulturdenkmal, Schimper-Verlag Schwetzingen 2002, ISBN 3-87742-171-7

Karl Klunzinger: Urkundliche Geschichte der vormaligen Cisterzienser-Abtei Maulbronn. Stuttgart 1854.

Ulrich Knapp: Das Kloster Maulbronn. Geschichte und Baugeschichte. Stuttgart 1997.

Katinka Krug, Peter Knoch, Matthias Untermann: Giebelarchitekturen: Neue Beobachtungen zur frühen Baugeschichte der Zisterzienserkirchen in Maulbronn und Bronnbach. In: INSITU. Zeitschrift für Architekturgeschichte 3 (2/2011), S. 161–172.

Peter Rückert / Dieter Planck (Hrsg.): Anfänge der Zisterzienser in Südwestdeutschland. Politik, Kunst und Liturgie im Umfeld des Klosters Maulbronn. Oberrheinische Studien 16, Stuttgart 1999.

Maulbronn: Zur 850jährigen Geschichte des Zisterzienserklosters. Herausgegeben vom Landesdenkmalamt Baden-Württemberg. Stuttgart 1997. ISBN 3-8062-1283-X

Kloster Maulbronn 1178–1978. Ausstellungskatalog. Maulbronn 1978.

Carla Mueller / Karin Stober: Kloster Maulbronn., Hrsg.: Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Baden-Württemberg in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Staatsanzeiger-Verlag, Stuttgart, Schriftenreihe: Führer Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Baden-Württemberg, Deutscher Kunstverlag München/Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-422-02053-5

Eduard Paulus: Die Cisterzienser-Abtei Maulbronn. Herausgegeben vom Württembergischen Alterthums-Verein, 2. Auflage, Bonz, Stuttgart 1882 (Digitalisat HAAB Weimar); 3., erweiterte Auflage 1889

Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg (Hrsg.): UNESCO-Welterbe. Kloster Maulbronn in Baden-Württemberg. Esslingen am Neckar, 2013.

   

It was, for me, the perfect moment to get isolated from the external world's noise.. i was looking to the moving clouds dancing on the 41th Mozart's symphony (the one i used to love).. i was washing my eyes with the warm blue sky.. smiling and breathing all at once.. and more than that, i let my soul go far away chilling with the dancing clouds.. at this real moment i knew that this is the world to which i truly belong!.. -- Widad

Intel Core i5-12400F

Alder Lake-S (6P+0E Config)

 

(Polysilicon | 5x | External light source)

(15,471 x 10,196 [157,742mm²] | 22030 dpi)

A text In English:

The Swallow-tailed Hummingbird, so called from its forked tail, is one of the largest hummingbirds in cities and gardens, but it also occurs in gallery forests, bushy pastures and edges of woods or coppices. It is green, except for the blue head and upper breast, turning to iridescent purple according to the direction of light; it has dark wings and a heavy black bill. The tail is dark blue with the external feathers longer than central ones. It is very aggressive and attacks other hummingbirds that dare to visit flowers in certain trees. Where the flowers are available for many months, the individual is fiercely territorial, but generally needs to search soon for other flowering plants. It flies to catch small insets on or under leaves in the gallery forests or woodlands. The female builds a small cup-shaped nest saddled on a branch, not far from the main trunk in the shade of leaves. Perched on favorite branches, the male can utter long but low chirps. Once in a while, it interrupts these singing sessions to feed, and flies back for more song or to clean the plumage. They occur from the Guianas and Amazon River to Paraguay and southeastern Peru. They can get along with partially deforested zones, but may disappear with intensive agriculture and with the development of treeless cities.

 

Um texto em Português:

Beija-flor Tesoura (Eupetomena macroura), fotografado em Brasília-DF, Brasil.

Eupetomena macroura (Gmelin, 1788): tesoura; swallow-tailed hummingbird c.

Destaca-se das espécies estudadas pelo maior porte e pela cauda comprida e bifurcada, o que lhe valeu o nome popular. Como é comum entre os beija-flores, é uma espécie agressiva que disputa com outras o seu território e fontes de alimento.

Nidificação: o ninho, em forma de tigela, é assentado numa forquilha de arbusto ou árvores, a cerca de 2 a 3 m do solo. O material utilizado na construção é composto por fibras vegetais incluindo painas, musgos e liquens, aderidos externamente com teias de aranhas.

Hábitat: capoeiras, cerrados, borda de matas e jardins.

Tamanho: 17,0 cm

A SEGUIR UM TEXTO ENCONTRADO E REPRODUZIDO DO ENDEREÇO nationalgeographic.abril.uol.com.br/ng/edicoes/83/reporta... DA NATIONAL GEOGRAFIC:

 

Prodígios da micro-engenharia, os beija-flores são os campeões dos pesos-leves entre as aves

Uma faísca safira, um frêmito de asas, e o minúsculo pássaro - ou seria um inseto? - some como miragem fugaz. Reaparece instantes depois, agora num ângulo melhor. É pássaro mesmo, um dervixe do tamanho do meu polegar com asas que batem 80 vertiginosas vezes por segundo, produzindo um zumbido quase inaudível. As penas da cauda, à guisa de leme, delicadamente direcionam o vôo em três direções. Ele fita a trombeta de uma vistosa flor alaranjada e do bico fino como agulha projeta uma língua delgada feito linha. Um raio de Sol ricocheteia de suas penas iridescentes. A cor refletida deslumbra como uma pedra preciosa contra uma janela ensolarada. Não admira que os beija-flores sejam tão queridos e que tanta gente já tenha tropeçado ao tentar descrevê-los. Nem mesmo circunspectos cientistas resistem a termos como "belo", "magnífico", "exótico".

Surpresa maior é o fato de o aparentemente frágil beija-flor ser uma das mais resistentes criaturas do reino animal. Cerca de 330 espécies prosperam em ambientes diversos, muitos deles brutais: do Alasca à Argentina, do deserto do Arizona à costa de Nova Scotia, da Amazônia à linha nevada acima dos 4,5 mil metros nos Andes (misteriosamente, essas aves só são encontradas no Novo Mundo).

"Eles vivem no limite do que é possível aos vertebrados, e com maestria", diz Karl Schuchmann, ornitólogo do Instituto Zoológico Alexander Koenig e do Fundo Brehm, na Alemanha. Schuchmann ouviu falar de um beija-flor que viveu 17 anos em cativeiro. "Imagine a resistência de um organismo de 5 ou 6 gramas para viver tanto tempo!", diz ele espantado. Em média, o minúsculo coração de um beija-flor bate cerca de 500 vezes por minuto (em repouso!). Assim, o desse pequeno cativo teria batido meio bilhão de vezes, quase o dobro do total de uma pessoa de 70 anos.

Mas esses passarinhos são duráveis apenas em vida. Quando morrem, seus ossos delicados e ocos quase nunca se fossilizam. Daí o assombro causado pela recente descoberta de um amontoado de fósseis de aves que talvez inclua um beija-flor ancestral de 30 milhões de anos. Como os beija-flores modernos, os espécimes fósseis tinham o bico longo e fino e os ossos superiores das asas mais curtos, terminando em uma saliência arredondada que talvez lhes permitisse fazer a rotação na articulação do ombro e parar no ar.

A outra surpresa foi o local do achado: no sul da Alemanha, longe do território dos beija-flores atuais. Para alguns cientistas, essa descoberta mostra que já existiram beija-flores fora das Américas, mas se extinguiram. Ou quem sabe os fósseis não fossem de beija-flor. Os céticos, entre eles Schuchmann, afirmam que muitas vezes, ao longo da evolução, outros grupos de aves adquiriram características semelhantes às do beija-flor. Os verdadeiros beija-flores, diz Schuchmann, evoluíram nas florestas do leste do Brasil, onde competiam com insetos pelo néctar das flores.

"O Brasil foi o laboratório do protótipo", diz o ornitólogo. "E o modelo funcionou." O beija-flor tornou-se a obra-prima da microengenharia da natureza. Aperfeiçoou sua habilidade de parar no ar há dezenas de milhões de anos para competir por parte das flores do Novo Mundo.

"Eles são uma ponte entre o mundo das aves e o dos insetos", diz Doug Altshuler, da Universidade da Califórnia em Riverside. Altshuler, que estuda o vôo dos beija-flores, examinou os movimentos das asas do pássaro. Observou que, nele, os impulsos elétricos propulsores dos músculos das asas lembram mais os dos insetos que os das aves. Talvez por isso o beija-flor produza tanta energia por batida de asas: mais, por unidade de massa, que qualquer outro vertebrado. Altshuler também analisou os trajetos neurais do beija-flor, que funcionam com a mesma vertiginosa velocidade encontrada nas aves mais ágeis, como seu primo mais próximo, o andorinhão. "São incríveis; uns pequenos Frankesteins", compara.

Certamente eles sabem intimidar: grama por grama, talvez sejam os maiores confrontadores da natureza. "O vocabulário do beija-flor deve ser 100% composto de palavrões", graceja Sheri Williamson, naturalista do Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory. A agressão do beija-flor nasce de ferozes instintos territoriais moldados à necessidade de sugar néctar a cada poucos minutos. Os beija-flores competem desafiando e ameaçando uns aos outros. Postam-se face a face no ar, rodopiam, mergulham na direção da grama e voam de ré, em danças de dominância que terminam tão subitamente quanto começam.

O melhor lugar para vermos tais batalhas é nas montanhas, especialmente no Equador, em que ricos ecossistemas se apresentam em suas várias altitudes. Sheri supõe que o sentido norte-sul das cordilheiras americanas também crie rotas favoráveis à migração para onde haja constante suprimento de flores. O que contrasta, diz ela, com as barreiras naturais que se estendem de leste a oeste na África, como o Saara e o Mediterrâneo.

Algumas espécies de beija-flor, porém, adaptaram-se a atravessar vastidões planas, onde o alimento é escasso. Antes de sua intrépida migração da primavera para os Estados Unidos e o Canadá, os beija-flores-de-garganta-vermelha reúnem-se no México e empanturram-se de insetos e néctar. Armazenam gordura e duplicam de peso em uma semana. Em seguida, atravessam o golfo do México, voando 800 quilômetros sem escalas por 20 horas, até a costa distante.

A região próxima à linha do equador é um reino de beija-flores. Quem sai do aeroporto de Quito, no Equador, pode ser logo saudado por um cintilante beija-flor-violeta, com pintura de guerra de manchas púrpura iridescentes nos lados da face. A leste da cidade, nas cabeceiras da bacia Amazônica, o beija-flor-bico-de-espada esvoaça na mata portando o bico mais longo de todas as aves em proporção a seu tamanho: mais de metade do comprimento total do animal. Nas encostas do Cotopaxi, um vulcão ao sul de Quito, o beija-flor-do-chimborazo foi avistado acima dos 4,5 mil metros. Ali ele passa a noite entorpecido em cavernas, pois desacelera seu ritmo metabólico o suficiente para não morrer de fome antes de amanhecer. Mais tarde, aquecido pelo Sol, ele recomeça a se alimentar.

"Quem estuda beija-flores fica irremediavelmente enfeitiçado", diz Sheri Williamson. "São criaturinhas sedutoras. Tentei resistir, mas agora tenho sangue de beija-flor correndo nas veias."

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT

www.flickr.com/map/?&fLat=-15.827534&fLon=-47.928...

6 Train.

Choreography, Valerie Gonzalez

 

Music, Meditation Drums and Japanese Temple, by Columbia Nature Sound Project,

 

Talking Drums, Bikram Ghosh

 

Costumes, Kim Instenes

 

Light Design, William Newcomb

 

Performers

Alexandrou, Libby Nelson, Kristin Orban, Megan Smith, Kelly West, Emily Wild,

Jenny Wild

Driving towards Rodeo Drive - Hollywood - Spotted a pink mini with the registration plate "MR DIVA". Just then spotted a guy with pink hair exiting a restaurant and before I could say "Bet that's his car", Ellie started shouting "O My God - It's Jeffree Star".

 

I wasn't sure who the hell Jeffree Star was, but judging by her reaction he must've been famous. So we pulled over and I jumped out followed by Abbi. He was already in the car ready to pull off and I guess that I kind of blocked his exit. He wound the window down a little and after he was half satisfied that I was nothing more than a mad Irish guy with a camera he said "Oh I look terrible, I have no make-up on". "Just cover your face a bit with your hands then" I said - He obliged.

 

Still wasn't sure exactly who he was - but here's the wiki.

 

Jeffree Star

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Jeffree Star

 

Background information

Birth nameJeffrey Lynn Steininger

Also known asJeffree Star

OriginOrange County, California, United States

GenresPop, synthpop, electronic

OccupationsSinger-songwriter,[1][2]

make-up artist,[3]

fashion designer,[4]

model

Years active2006–present

LabelsKon Live

Associated actsAkon, Nicki Minaj, T. Mills

WebsiteOfficial website

Jeffree Star (born Jeffrey Lynn Steininger) is an American model, fashion designer, make-up artist, DJ, and singer-songwriter residing in the Beverly Hills area.[5][6] He started his music career from being known for his popularity on MySpace with over 100 million plays on his self released music, as well as his fashion line and from his transgressive, gender-bending appearance and persona while calling himself "Queen of the Internet" and "Cunt".[3][7][8][9][10] Star has leveraged his fame as an androgynous model and aesthetic talents to launch his own clothing line and forays into acting and DJing.

Contents [hide]

1 Biography

1.1 1988–2005: Childhood and youth

1.2 2006–2007: Internet popularity and Plastic Surgery Slumber Party

1.3 2008–2010: Cupcakes Taste Like Violence and Beauty Killer

2 Other work

2.1 Make-up, modeling and internet fame

2.2 Merchandise

3 Filmography

4 Discography

5 References

6 External links

Biography

 

1988–2005: Childhood and youth

Jeffree Star was born in Orange County, California. His father died when he was 6 years old; subsequently, he was raised solely by his alcoholic mother, a model who frequently went on assignments. As a child, Star regularly began experimenting with his mother's makeup, leading to an obsessive compulsive interest,[11] and convinced her to let him wear make-up to school when he was in junior high.[8]

At the age of fifteen, Star became a make-up artist. During this time, he wore makeup, dyed his hair with day-glo colors and began cross dressing which in turn led to receiving large amounts of attention and popularity from both fellow students and strangers.[3][8][8][11] Right after his graduation from high school, Star moved to Los Angeles and began supporting himself with various make-up, modeling, and music jobs.[12][13]

He later recalled spending his time on weekends "using a fake ID to attend Hollywood clubs dressed in mini dresses and nine inch high heels where celebrities would contract [Star] for make-up work at their homes", or "hiring [Star] as a model."[11] Star reports that his weekend socializing at clubs and the make-up advice he offered eventually led to his modeling career.[11]

2006–2007: Internet popularity and Plastic Surgery Slumber Party

Jeffree Star used popular social networking website MySpace to further both his music as well as fashion design career. Star also used MySpace for blogging about his life while making social commentary on "self-image and confidence",[4] fame, beauty and life. Star had built up a fan base on several websites but convinced many to join him on MySpace, giving his MySpace profile a large number of "friends" from the beginning.[8] His MySpace photo shoots would frequently get over 50,000 comments when posted,[8] and by November 2006, he was recognized as MySpace's most connected profile personality.[14]

Star also gained fame as one of the most popular unsigned artists with the daily rankings placing him in the top tier[7] on MySpace.

On March 28, 2007 at Project Runway's Jeffrey Sebelia fashion show Star was a front row "celebutante" where he revealed details of Buzznet.com’s “Queen Needs a Princess Contest” which had "a day of femme-licious fun with Star" as the grand prize.[15] The social-networking, music-news site specializes in new-media (integrated photoblog and videoblog capabilities) which Star has capitalized on to dovetail his modeling and music interests.[15] Stars' social trendsetting participation at Buzznet and his success at growing online fan-base was noted in Buzznet's six million financing in May 2007.[16] Star regularly uploads video-blog segments including music reviews, event reports as well as posting news about his upcoming music release.

Star's music career as an electronica and hip-hop vocalist began when he befriended Peaches' drummer who encouraged him to make music.[8] Star was then asked by Deuce of Hollywood Undead to rap on their song "Turn off the Lights" for their debut album.[17] However, the track did not make it onto the disc. Deuce was recently evicted from Hollywood Undead and has produced a mixtape ("Break Them Wallz") with Jeffree and another song titled "Freaky Now" (alongside friend "Truth"), in which Jeffree raps extremely explicit lyrics.

His first two solo tracks "We Want Cunt", named in tribute to his former screen name Cunt: Queen of the Beautifuls, and "Straight Boys" were co-written with Hole and one time Mötley Crüe drummer, Samantha Maloney and singer Jessicka from Scarling..[10] Star asked MySpace co-founder Tom to convert his MySpace profile into a music page so he could showcase his music.[8]

On November 1, 2006 Star performed on the same bill as Los Angeles' Dirty Sanchez at the LA bar Key Club’s post-Halloween show.[18] Star has toured with electro musician Peaches,[3][19] as well as Cyndi Lauper,[8] Metro Station,[20] Breathe Carolina,[21] Dr. Manhattan, Schoolyard Heroes,[22] and Ultraviolet Sound.

On the 13 March 2007, Star released his debut extended play Plastic Surgery Slumber Party which was produced by Ultraviolet Sound.[23] The record topped at number one on the iTunes’s dance charts and "has consistently topped the iTunes dance charts at #1, hovering high above household names such as Justin Timberlake and Cascada."[4][8] Separately, Star's MySpace page has 25 million listens to Plastic Surgery Slumber Party as of July 2007.[24]

During the summer of 2007, Star was advertised as a part of the True Colors Tour 2007,[25] which traveled through 15 cities in the United States and Canada.[26] The tour, sponsored by the LGBT Logo channel, began on June 8, 2007 to coincide with Pride month.[27] Profits from the tour benefited the Human Rights Campaign as well as PFLAG and The Matthew Shepard Foundation. Though he was advertised as a special guest to perform on several West Coast dates, Star did not appear.[citation needed]

Star's song "Plastic Surgery Slumber Party" appeared on the August 2007 Tommy Boy release of Cyndi Lauper's True Colors tour compilation. Featuring ten tracks from ten of the artists, the compilation benefits the Human Rights Campaign, an organization that fights for civil rights for LGBT people.[27]

2008–2010: Cupcakes Taste Like Violence and Beauty Killer

Prior to the release of his second extended play, Star released his debut single "Heart Surgery Isn't That Bad..." on Valentine's Day, 2008, followed by its b-side, "I Hate Music", on April 17, 2008.[28] Star later recorded and released "Starstruck" featuring Danger Radio - his first single available for free download as a "thank you" to fans.[29][30] Trace Cyrus and Mason Musso from Metro Station[31] originally provided vocals for the song, however, due to a feud between the band and Star,[32][33] they were ultimately replaced with Andrew de Torres from Danger Radio.

Cupcakes Taste Like Violence, Star's sophomore extended play, was released on December 9, 2008.[34] This is his first record to be available as a CD as well as digitial download.[34] This is also Star's debut record to be released under Popsicle Records through Warner Music Group’s Independent Label Group. Star said the extended play "remindes me of myself. I may look sweet, but I'm really scary and violent on the inside."[35] Cupcakes Taste Like Violence peaked at number six on the Billboard Top Electronic Albums[36] and at number eight on the Billboard Top Heatseekers.[37] "Lollipop Luxury" was the first single from the extended play released November 18, 2008.

Star's debut studio album, Beauty Killer, was released on September 22, 2009.[38] The first single from the album, "Prisoner", was released for digital download on May 2, 2009.[39] The track received two million plays on MySpace at the end of its second week being available for stream. "Love Rhymes With Fuck You" was the second single from the album; like "Prisoner", it was also released for digital download on June 30, 2009.[40] The album debuted at number 122 in the US Billboard 200 Chart. It also debuted at #7 in the US Billboard Top Dance/Electronic Albums Chart and fell to #12 on its second week.[41] A music video for "Get Away With Murder" was filmed on November 7, 2009. The video premiered on the front page of MySpace on January 23, 2010.[42]

It was announced that recording was underway for Star's first studio album in late 2007.[43] He stated that the new songs "are more sexy, some are more "guy"ish and some are me screaming my heart out. I'm still finding what "Jeffree Star" really is. And I think I'm almost there..."[44] To "tide fans over" until the first single from the album was released, on April 21, 2009, Star released a remix cover of Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" which was made available for free download.[45] Morgan Page's radio edit mix of "Prisoner" was released for free download by Star on December 18, 2009. He worked with producers such as Lester Mendez, 3OH!3's Nathaniel Motte, God's Paparazzi[39] and more. Star performed at Warped Tour 2009 to promote some of the music from his album.[39][46]

Star originally planned a North American headlining concert tour, titled "I'm Cold, Keep Me Warm...Bitch!" for two weeks in December 2009. However, due to "personal things [that] have gotten out of hand in [his] family" the tour was canceled. Star will be embarking on his "2 DRUNK 2 FUCK" 2010 world tour where he says he will "be going everywhere...and yes that means Europe and Australia". This will be his first headlining tour supporting the album. Dates have been officially announced in the USA, United Kingdom and several countries in continental Europe.

Star released his fifth single "Blush" (his second single-only release) on February 16, 2010. "Size of Your Boat" was released as Star's sixth single (third single-only release) on July 1, 2010.[47] The song "I'm In Love (With a Killer)" was released on October 10, 2010 and made available for free download via Facebook. Star also recorded an anthem song for the It Gets Better Project titled "Kiss It Better". The song was also made available for free download on November 4, 2010. Star was featured on How Embarrassing, the comedy album from Jeff "JJ Star" Duran which was released in March 2011.

On September 22nd, 2011, Star leaked a song called "Prom Night!" as a teaser for his second studio album (TBA), via Youtube.[48]

Other work

 

Make-up, modeling and internet fame

Star was referred to celebrities including Kelly Osbourne, Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, AFI frontman Davey Havok and Jessicka from the band Scarling.[8][49] He is a former make-up artist for porn company, Hustler.

Star gained a cult following from posting outrageous photographs of himself on Internet forums and later MySpace, who began sending him gifts including expensive cameras to take more pictures.[8]

  

Jeffree waving to the crowd at Warped Tour 2009.

On August 1, 2006, Los Angeles' LGBT magazine Frontiers featured Star on its cover. On November 17, 2006 Star and several contestants from "America's Next Top Model" were a part of Black Chandelier's "Fall 2006 Runway Show" at Salt Lake City's Union Pacific Depot. Star was also a guest on "America's Next Top Model, Cycle 7".[49]

On March 16, 2007, Star was one of the featured runway models for BOXeight's production of designer Jared Gold’s flamboyant "Quiet Army show", regarded as "the wildest front row in all of Fashion Week." The shows 2007 theme was "Mormon chic", effectively using the Los Angeles Theater as a backdrop during L.A. Fashion Week.[50] He has appeared in several music videos including Good Charlotte's "The River",[51] Godhead's "Push", Aiden's "One Love", Metro Station's "Shake It"[52] and Ke$ha's "Take It Off (K$ n' Friends Version)"[53]

Merchandise

Star's T-shirts, hoodies and accessories were ranked #1 on Hottopic.com. He is also developing a fragrance called "Fierce", which he says will smell like "vanilla and cotton candy."[54]

Filmography

 

Television guest appearances

YearTitleRoleNotes

2007Video on TrialHimselfGuest judge (episode 20, season 2)

LA Ink"Kat's in Love" (episode 10, season 1)

2011"Nothing Is Forever, Not Even Tattoos" (episode 21, season 4)

Discography

 

Main article: Jeffree Star discography

2009: Beauty Killer

References

 

^ Catalyst, Clint (Spring 2006). "Jeffree Star". Swindle (magazine). Retrieved 2007-07-20.

^ Dempsey, John (May 22, 2007). "World of Wonders touts reality trio: Jeffree Star, Jim J. Bullock topline new shows". Variety. Retrieved 2007-07-21.

^ a b c d Smith, Kevin (May 24, 2007). "Queen of the Internet". Arizona Star. Archived from the original on 2007-06-01. Retrieved 2007-06-09.

^ a b c Emonds, Craig (April 2, 2007). "MySpace continues to expedite music careers". South End Newspaper. Retrieved 2007-07-21.[dead link]

^ Emonds, Craig (April 2, 2007). "MySpace continues to expedite music careers". South End Newspaper. Retrieved 2007-07-21.[dead link][dead link]

^ "Jeffree Star Tickets". AllGigs.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-07-30.

^ a b Weiner, Jonah (April 11, 2006)."Tila Tequila for President". Slate.com. Retrieved July 29, 2006.

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Immediato, Linda (9 May 2007). "Jeffree Star: The Fairest One of All". LA Weekly. Retrieved 2007-06-09.

^ "Jeffree Star: Electro / Pop / Rap". Virb. Archived from the original on 2007-09-12. Retrieved 2007-07-21.

^ a b Catalyst, Clint (2006). "The Future is Jeffree Star: Inside the cult-like following of the Internet's most popular queer icon". Frontiers. Retrieved 2007-07-20.[dead link]

^ a b c d Star, Jeffree (2007-07-20). "Jeffree Star's MySpace profile". MySpace. Archived from the original on 2007-09-11. Retrieved 2010-05-28.

^ "LAist Interview: Jeffree Star". laist. March 10, 2008. Retrieved November 12, 2010.

^ "SOME TRUTH FOR YOU...". Buzznet. Jeffree Star's Official Website.

^ Market News Publishing. (November 1, 2006) Kicks Off Retail Revolution.

^ a b Lecaro, Lina (April 4, 2007). "In the Kodak, in the Pink". LA Times. Archived from the original on 2007-07-10. Retrieved 2007-07-21.

^ "Buzznet Lands $6 Million Round of Financing Led By Redpoint Ventures and Anthem Venture Partners Same Venture Capital Firm That Pioneered MySpace Backs Leading Next Generation Social Media Company". PR Newswire. May 24, 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-22.

^ 22 januari 2006 (2009-08-07). "Jeffree Star Interview - Part 1 (repost)". YouTube. Retrieved 2010-03-29.

^ Lecaro, Lina (October 25, 2006). "Dirty Sanchez: Local bands, man". LA Times. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-07-21.

^ "Rock Picks For the week of December 14 – 21". LA Times. December 13, 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-07-21.

^ YouTube - Metro Station and Jeffree Star

^ Breathe Carolina Go From Jeffree Star Openers To Record Deal at The Insider

^ MY SPRING TOUR.. & WARPED TOUR DATES! so excited!!!! - Buzznet

^ MySpace.com - ULTRAVIOLET SOUND (@ Rockin Roots Fest TONIGHT!! ) - los angeles - Electrique / Pop Punk / New Wave - www.myspace.com/ultravioletsound

^ Star, Jeffree (2007-07-20). "Jeffree Star: Electro / Pop". MySpace. Retrieved 2007-07-20.

^ Naff, Lycia (June 23, 2007). "Britney to Join Cyndi Lauper's Tour for Surprise Show". People. Retrieved 2007-07-20.

^ "True Colors: Special Guests". TrueColorsConcerts LLC. 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-07-13. Retrieved 2007-07-20.

^ a b Spiro, Josh (2007-07-18). "Cyndi Lauper Releases 'True Colors' Comp". CMJ. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-07-20.

^ "Jeffree Star’s Brand New Single ‘Heart Surgery Isn’t That Bad’". popdirt.com. 2008-02-21. Retrieved 2010-03-29.

^ "MPFree: Jeffree Star 'Starstruck'". BUZZNET.com. Retrieved 2008-10-03.

^ purevolume | We're Listening To You - JEFFREE STAR - NEW TRACK POSTED

^ YouTube - Jeffree Star Interview[dead link]

^ Perezhilton.com - Miley's Brother Is Tranny Hating?! And He's A Druggie Too???

^ YouTube - EXCLUSIVE: Trace Cyrus From Metro Station Responds To Jeffree Star

^ a b Amazon.com Cupcakes Taste Like Violence Jeffree Star

^ MTV Buzzworthy Blog >> Jeffree Star, On Recording 'Cupcakes Taste like Violence' In Nothing But Heels

^ [1][dead link]

^ [2][dead link]

^ Star, Jeffree (24 July 2009)"Jeffree Star Beauty Killer Out Sept. 22nd". Retrieved 2009-07-24.[dead link]

^ a b c "Jeffree Star to release debut "Beauty Killer" this summer". Hip Online. Retrieved 2009-05-04.

^ Jeffree Star announces his second single from 'Beauty Killer'.[dead link]

^ Billboard.com Beauty Killer - Jeffree Star(2009)

^ Jeffree Star announces debut music video release date[dead link] January 15, 2009

^ "Jeffree Star's Recording a New Album -- 2 New Song Titles So Far". Buzznet. Retrieved 2007-12-10.

^ "the road to PRISONER.". Blogs.MySpace.com. Retrieved 2009-05-02.

^ "JEFFREE STAR TAKES NO PRISONERS". 29-95.com. Retrieved 2009-07-23.

^ "Vans Warped Tour 2009". WarpedTour.com. Archived from the original on 2008-08-22.

^ Connecting to the iTunes Store

^ www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lGuYCkRBtE

^ a b Spencer, Amy (November 9, 2006). "Jeffree Star - Queen of the Beautifuls". IN Utah This Week. Archived from the original on 2007-10-09. Retrieved 2007-07-24.

^ Immediato, Linda (March 21, 2007). "L.A. Fashion Week Smackdown". LA Weekly. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-07-21.

^ YouTube - Good Charlotte - The River

^ YouTube - Metro Station - Shake It

^ YouTube - Ke$ha - "Take It Off" (K$ n' Friends version)

^ Entertainment: Orange Pop: The unstoppable Jeffree Star

Barred windows looking out towards the cell blocks, at Mansfield Reformatory.

  

The StaceShank Redemption Series - Part III

"Close-up view of the liftoff of the Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51L taken from camera site 39B-2/T3. From this camera position, a cloud of grey-brown smoke can be seen on the right side of the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) on a line directly across from the letter "U" in United States. This was the first visible sign that an SRB joint breach may have occured.

On January 28, 1986 frigid overnight temperatures caused normally pliable rubber O-ring seals and putty that are designed to seal and establish joint integrity between the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) joint segments, to become hard and non-flexible. At the instant of SRB ignition, tremendous stresses and pressures occur within the SRB casing and especially at the joint attachmentment points. The failure of the O-rings and putty to "seat" properly at motor ignition, caused hot exhaust gases to blow by the seals and putty. During Challenger's ascent, this hot gas "blow by" ultimately cut a swath completely through the steel booster casing; and like a welder's torch, began cutting into the External Tank (ET).

 

It is believed that the ET was compromised in several locations starting in the aft at the initial point where SRB joint failure occured. The ET hydrogen tank is believed to have been breached first, with continuous rapid incremental failure of both the ET and SRB. A chain reaction of events occurring in milliseconds culminated in a massive explosion.

 

The orbiter Challenger was instantly ejected by the blast and went askew into the supersonic air flow. These aerodynamic forces caused structural shattering and complete destruction of the orbiter. Though it was concluded that the G-forces experienced during orbiter ejection and break-up were survivable, impact with the ocean surface was not. Tragically, all seven crewmembers perished."

 

Above description (likely taken from official NASA verbiage/caption), per:

 

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Challenger_-_GPN-2000-001...

 

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:STS51L-10144_black_smoke.jpg

Both above credit: Wikimedia Commons website

Metal structure outside my office window that does nothing to stop the sun's glare, which I think was the original purpose. But hey it looks interesting when photographed from the side from the adjacent carpark.

Another leftover from last year before we go back to the flakes: a zebra jumping spider (Salticus scenicus), on my house's external wall. Huge pedipalps and gaping mouth! I like how this shot shows the "sphericity" of the eyes.

 

Pentax-M 150mm F/3.5 plus a stacked reversed lens (not sure which it was, probably a Sigma 24-70mm zoom or possibly a Vivitar 28mm prime) and off-camera diffused Yongnuo YN-560 III flash.

 

IMPORTANT:

If you would like to use this photo in a way that is appropriate under its Creative Commons license, you are welcome to do so, but please make sure to credit me by my real name and Flickr handle, and please also include a link to the Flickr page of the photo, as well as a link to the relevant Creative Commons license text. I have put examples of proper attribution on my profile page. Optionally, you may also send me a little note about your use... :)

 

For any other type of use, please contact me to properly license this image.

 

Thank you!

 

(IMGP5569_RCrEtc6)

Physical object

Proprioceptive relationship

Visual feedback

Copyright © John G. Lidstone, all rights reserved.

I hope you enjoy my work and thanks for viewing.

 

NO use of this image is allowed without my express prior permission and subject to compensation/payment.

I do not want my images linked in Facebook groups.

 

It is an offence, under law, if you remove my copyright marking, and/or post this image anywhere else without my express written permission.

If you do, and I find out, you will be reported for copyright infringement action to the host platform and/or group applicable and you will be barred by me from social media platforms I use.

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My ownership & copyright is also embedded in the image metadata.

   

Shibuya

A mainly forest species, it may be encountered along forest paths during night walks. It can appear in various colours, but is generally pale green at the sides, and greenish-brown on the back with brownish spots.

 

It has relatively long toes, which end in rounded tips. The species is best identified by its white lips and brownish tympanum (external ear-drum).

 

The species ranges from Southern Thailand, throughout Malaysia and forested parts of Singapore, to the islands of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Bali and Sulawesi.

 

Technical info:

100mm f2.8 L macro lens + 20mm ET

f11

1/125

ISO250

pop up flash + DIY diffuser

handheld

The forward drydock only has enough space for shuttle craft, I felt it was time to add some space for larger vessels to berth. It is only when this beast gets turned around that I see how much more there is to do...

An HDR photomontage of my room incase you're wondering :P

 

For some reason it's messed up at the right hand side though :/

 

Think it was probably the computers at school when i was resizing before upload :s

Statue on an external wall at Kelaniya Temple near Colombo, Sri Lanka.

 

Kelaniya Great High Temple is one of Sri Lanka's most revered sacred Buddhist sites as it is believed to mark the location of a sermon given by the Buddha during what is believed to be his third visit to the island of Lanka. Kelaniya is one of 16 Solosmasthana sites on the island that Sri Lankan Buddhists believed were visited by the Buddha during his 3 visits to the island.

Lockheed F-104 Starfighter at ISHIKAWA AVIATION PLAZA

Frame :*SURLY*cross check Painted by COOK PAINT WORKS

Headset :*WHITE INDUSTRIES* external headset

Wheels :*PHILWOOD* 11-speed road hub rear × *H PLUS SON* archetype rim

Tire :*WTB* riddler tire

Crank :*SUGINO* × *WOLF TOOTH COMPONENTS* drop stop chainring

RD :*SHIMANO* deore

Brake Lever :*PAUL* canti lever

Handle :*SURLY* moloko bar

Stem:*THOMSON* elite x4 stem

Saddle :*BROOKS* b17 standard

Seat Post :*THOMSON* elite setback seatpost

Grip:*WTB* original trail grip

Pedal :*BL SELECT* SHARK pedal

Rack:*SURLY* nice rack front

Sekwer:*SALSA CYCLES* flip-off skewers

OLYMPUS OM-D E-M5, KERN MACRO-SWITAR RX 26mm F1.1

On the train on the way to Dublin going through the Curragh, Co. Kildare.

This is 4 photos stitched with Autostitch. The stitch didn't work out great, so there's a bit of photoshoppery here too. See Large

Inspired by this (I got to get me one of those fancy Russians thingys...)

 

Part of the Ireland set.

See the Slideshow

 

.

 

Self portrait in the reflection of the eyes of my daughter in the hands of my son with the three graces in Washington DC.

MARINE COPRS BASE, Hawaii (Aug. 23, 2021) - U.S. Marines with 1st Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment attach a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle to a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter assigned to Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron (HMH) 463 during hoist operations training on Marine Corps Base Hawaii, August 24, 2021. Hoist operations were conducted in order to train landing support specialist and pilots to transfer heavy equipment and supplies from one location to another. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Branden J. Bourque) 210823-M-FG361-339

 

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