A Great Gray Owl glides along the frozen landscape. This Owl is unique as it is partially melanistic, meaning, it has darker pigmentation resulting in an almost charcoal appearance, especially on its facial disk. Ottawa Greenbelt, Ontario.

The blue-footed booby (Sula nebouxii) is a marine bird native to subtropical and tropical regions of the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is one of six species of the genus Sula – known as boobies. It is easily recognizable by its distinctive bright blue feet, which is a sexually selected trait. Males display their feet in an elaborate mating ritual by lifting them up and down while strutting before the female. The female is slightly larger than the male and can measure up to 90 cm (35 in) long with a wingspan of up to 1.5 m (5 ft).

 

The blue color of the blue-footed booby's webbed feet comes from carotenoid pigments obtained from its diet of fresh fish. Carotenoids act as antioxidants and stimulants for the blue-footed booby's immune function, suggesting that carotenoid-pigmentation is an indicator of an individual's immunological state.

 

From Wikipedia.

"Cosmonautical Appurtenance: Sophia Mastiff (Shitheeling The Demiurge No.3)"

 

Cyanotype, created like all in the series -- by degree, or accretion, and blooming autotelical -- dedicated to the memory of my real first love whose unflagging portliness of spirit ever rises but is yet all-succumbing like a burst packet of memory tainting the sunrise or a sweet pot of bell-rung honey.

 

What's really interesting about this piece is that the areas which are exposed, hesitantly almost, but really more congealingly cloyed ---the areas exposed but appear to be only half-so, the fatigable loft-purple haze dipping most prominently from upper left and corpsulating in the sameward bottom area --- is entirely the result of fixing the paper not with gelatin, as is my wont, but rather with semen.

 

One assumes the darker pigmentation indicates the presence of virile sperms, at least so far as sperms can be measured photomorphically.

 

Etc.

 

The lion (Panthera leo) is a large cat of the genus Panthera, native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; a short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult male lions are larger than females and have a prominent mane. It is a social species, forming groups called prides. A lion's pride consists of a few adult males, related females, and cubs. Groups of female lions usually hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates. The lion is an apex and keystone predator; although some lions scavenge when opportunities occur and have been known to hunt humans, lions typically do not actively seek out and prey on humans.

 

The lion inhabits grasslands, savannahs, and shrublands. It is usually more diurnal than other wild cats, but when persecuted, it adapts to being active at night and at twilight. During the Neolithic period, the lion ranged throughout Africa and Eurasia, from Southeast Europe to India, but it has been reduced to fragmented populations in sub-Saharan Africa and one population in western India. It has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1996 because populations in African countries have declined by about 43% since the early 1990s. Lion populations are untenable outside designated protected areas. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are the greatest causes for concern.

 

One of the most widely recognised animal symbols in human culture, the lion has been extensively depicted in sculptures and paintings, on national flags, and in contemporary films and literature. Lions have been kept in menageries since the time of the Roman Empire and have been a key species sought for exhibition in zoological gardens across the world since the late 18th century. Cultural depictions of lions were prominent in Ancient Egypt, and depictions have occurred in virtually all ancient and medieval cultures in the lion's historic and current range.

 

Etymology

The English word lion is derived via Anglo-Norman liun from Latin leōnem (nominative: leō), which in turn was a borrowing from Ancient Greek λέων léōn. The Hebrew word לָבִיא lavi may also be related.[4] The generic name Panthera is traceable to the classical Latin word 'panthēra' and the ancient Greek word πάνθηρ 'panther'.[5]

 

Taxonomy

 

The upper cladogram is based on the 2006 study,[6][7] the lower one on the 2010[8] and 2011[9] studies.

Felis leo was the scientific name used by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, who described the lion in his work Systema Naturae.[3] The genus name Panthera was coined by Lorenz Oken in 1816.[10] Between the mid-18th and mid-20th centuries, 26 lion specimens were described and proposed as subspecies, of which 11 were recognised as valid in 2005.[1] They were distinguished mostly by the size and colour of their manes and skins.[11]

 

Subspecies

 

Range map showing distribution of subspecies and clades

In the 19th and 20th centuries, several lion type specimens were described and proposed as subspecies, with about a dozen recognised as valid taxa until 2017.[1] Between 2008 and 2016, IUCN Red List assessors used only two subspecific names: P. l. leo for African lion populations, and P. l. persica for the Asiatic lion population.[2][12][13] In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group revised lion taxonomy, and recognises two subspecies based on results of several phylogeographic studies on lion evolution, namely:[14]

 

P. l. leo (Linnaeus, 1758) − the nominate lion subspecies includes the Asiatic lion, the regionally extinct Barbary lion, and lion populations in West and northern parts of Central Africa.[14] Synonyms include P. l. persica (Meyer, 1826), P. l. senegalensis (Meyer, 1826), P. l. kamptzi (Matschie, 1900), and P. l. azandica (Allen, 1924).[1] Multiple authors referred to it as 'northern lion' and 'northern subspecies'.[15][16]

P. l. melanochaita (Smith, 1842) − includes the extinct Cape lion and lion populations in East and Southern African regions.[14] Synonyms include P. l. somaliensis (Noack 1891), P. l. massaica (Neumann, 1900), P. l. sabakiensis (Lönnberg, 1910), P. l. bleyenberghi (Lönnberg, 1914), P. l. roosevelti (Heller, 1914), P. l. nyanzae (Heller, 1914), P. l. hollisteri (Allen, 1924), P. l. krugeri (Roberts, 1929), P. l. vernayi (Roberts, 1948), and P. l. webbiensis (Zukowsky, 1964).[1][11] It has been referred to as 'southern subspecies' and 'southern lion'.[16]

However, there seems to be some degree of overlap between both groups in northern Central Africa. DNA analysis from a more recent study indicates, that Central African lions are derived from both northern and southern lions, as they cluster with P. leo leo in mtDNA-based phylogenies whereas their genomic DNA indicates a closer relationship with P. leo melanochaita.[17]

 

Lion samples from some parts of the Ethiopian Highlands cluster genetically with those from Cameroon and Chad, while lions from other areas of Ethiopia cluster with samples from East Africa. Researchers, therefore, assume Ethiopia is a contact zone between the two subspecies.[18] Genome-wide data of a wild-born historical lion sample from Sudan showed that it clustered with P. l. leo in mtDNA-based phylogenies, but with a high affinity to P. l. melanochaita. This result suggested that the taxonomic position of lions in Central Africa may require revision.[19]

 

Fossil records

 

Skull of an American lion on display at the National Museum of Natural History

Other lion subspecies or sister species to the modern lion existed in prehistoric times:[20]

 

P. l. sinhaleyus was a fossil carnassial excavated in Sri Lanka, which was attributed to a lion. It is thought to have become extinct around 39,000 years ago.[21]

P. fossilis was larger than the modern lion and lived in the Middle Pleistocene. Bone fragments were excavated in caves in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Czech Republic.[22][23]

P. spelaea, or the cave lion, lived in Eurasia and Beringia during the Late Pleistocene. It became extinct due to climate warming or human expansion latest by 11,900 years ago.[24] Bone fragments excavated in European, North Asian, Canadian and Alaskan caves indicate that it ranged from Europe across Siberia into western Alaska.[25] It likely derived from P. fossilis,[26] and was genetically isolated and highly distinct from the modern lion in Africa and Eurasia.[27][26] It is depicted in Paleolithic cave paintings, ivory carvings, and clay busts.[28]

P. atrox, or the American lion, ranged in the Americas from Canada to possibly Patagonia.[29] It arose when a cave lion population in Beringia became isolated south of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet about 370,000 years ago.[30][31] A fossil from Edmonton dates to 11,355 ± 55 years ago.[32]

Evolution

 

red Panthera spelaea

blue Panthera atrox

green Panthera leo

 

Maximal range of the modern lion

and its prehistoric relatives

in the late Pleistocene

The Panthera lineage is estimated to have genetically diverged from the common ancestor of the Felidae around 9.32 to 4.47 million years ago to 11.75 to 0.97 million years ago,[6][33][34] and the geographic origin of the genus is most likely northern Central Asia.[35] Results of analyses differ in the phylogenetic relationship of the lion; it was thought to form a sister group with the jaguar (P. onca) that diverged 3.46 to 1.22 million years ago,[6] but also with the leopard (P. pardus) that diverged 3.1 to 1.95 million years ago[8][9] to 4.32 to 0.02 million years ago. Hybridisation between lion and snow leopard (P. uncia) ancestors possibly continued until about 2.1 million years ago.[34] The lion-leopard clade was distributed in the Asian and African Palearctic since at least the early Pliocene.[35] The earliest fossils recognisable as lions were found at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and are estimated to be up to 2 million years old.[33]

 

Estimates for the divergence time of the modern and cave lion lineages range from 529,000 to 392,000 years ago based on mutation rate per generation time of the modern lion. There is no evidence for gene flow between the two lineages, indicating that they did not share the same geographic area.[19] The Eurasian and American cave lions became extinct at the end of the last glacial period without mitochondrial descendants on other continents.[27][36][37] The modern lion was probably widely distributed in Africa during the Middle Pleistocene and started to diverge in sub-Saharan Africa during the Late Pleistocene. Lion populations in East and Southern Africa became separated from populations in West and North Africa when the equatorial rainforest expanded 183,500 to 81,800 years ago.[38] They shared a common ancestor probably between 98,000 and 52,000 years ago.[19] Due to the expansion of the Sahara between 83,100 and 26,600 years ago, lion populations in West and North Africa became separated. As the rainforest decreased and thus gave rise to more open habitats, lions moved from West to Central Africa. Lions from North Africa dispersed to southern Europe and Asia between 38,800 and 8,300 years ago.[38]

 

Extinction of lions in southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East interrupted gene flow between lion populations in Asia and Africa. Genetic evidence revealed numerous mutations in lion samples from East and Southern Africa, which indicates that this group has a longer evolutionary history than genetically less diverse lion samples from Asia and West and Central Africa.[39] A whole genome-wide sequence of lion samples showed that samples from West Africa shared alleles with samples from Southern Africa, and samples from Central Africa shared alleles with samples from Asia. This phenomenon indicates that Central Africa was a melting pot of lion populations after they had become isolated, possibly migrating through corridors in the Nile Basin during the early Holocene.[19]

 

Hybrids

Further information: Panthera hybrid

In zoos, lions have been bred with tigers to create hybrids for the curiosity of visitors or for scientific purpose.[40][41] The liger is bigger than a lion and a tiger, whereas most tigons are relatively small compared to their parents because of reciprocal gene effects.[42][43] The leopon is a hybrid between a lion and leopard.[44]

 

Description

 

A tuft at the end of the tail is a distinct characteristic of the lion.

 

Skeleton

The lion is a muscular, broad-chested cat with a short, rounded head, a reduced neck, and round ears; males have broader heads. The fur varies in colour from light buff to silvery grey, yellowish red, and dark brown. The colours of the underparts are generally lighter. A new-born lion has dark spots, which fade as the cub reaches adulthood, although faint spots may still be seen on the legs and underparts.[45][46] The tail of all lions ends in a dark, hairy tuft that, in some lions, conceals an approximately 5 mm (0.20 in)-long, hard "spine" or "spur" that is formed from the final, fused sections of tail bone. The functions of the spur are unknown. The tuft is absent at birth and develops at around 5+1⁄2 months of age. It is readily identifiable at the age of seven months.[47]

 

Its skull is very similar to that of the tiger, although the frontal region is usually more depressed and flattened and has a slightly shorter postorbital region and broader nasal openings than those of the tiger. Due to the amount of skull variation in the two species, usually only the structure of the lower jaw can be used as a reliable indicator of species.[48][49]

 

The skeletal muscles of the lion make up 58.8% of its body weight and represent the highest percentage of muscles among mammals.[50][51]

 

Size

Among felids, the lion is second only to the tiger in size.[46] The size and weight of adult lions vary across its range and habitats.[52][53][54][55] Accounts of a few individuals that were larger than average exist from Africa and India.[45][56][57][58]

 

AverageFemale lionsMale lions

Head-and-body length160–184 cm (63–72 in)[59]184–208 cm (72–82 in)[59]

Tail length72–89.5 cm (28.3–35.2 in)[59]82.5–93.5 cm (32.5–36.8 in)[59]

Weight118.37–143.52 kg (261.0–316.4 lb) in Southern Africa,[52]

119.5 kg (263 lb) in East Africa,[52]

110–120 kg (240–260 lb) in India[53]186.55–225 kg (411.3–496.0 lb) in Southern Africa,[52]

174.9 kg (386 lb) in East Africa,[52]

160–190 kg (350–420 lb) in India[53]

Mane

 

A six-year-old male in Phinda Private Game Reserve

 

Male in Pendjari National Park

The male lion's mane is the most recognisable feature of the species.[11] It may have evolved around 320,000–190,000 years ago.[60] It grows downwards and backwards, covering most of the head, neck, shoulders, and chest. The mane is typically brownish and tinged with yellow, rust, and black hairs.[46] It starts growing when lions enter adolescence, when testosterone levels increase, and reach their full size at around four years old.[61] Cool ambient temperatures in European and North American zoos may result in a heavier mane.[62] On average, Asiatic lions have sparser manes than African lions.[63]

 

This feature likely evolved to signal the fitness of males to females. The mane of the lion is thought to serve mating purposes. Males with darker manes appear to have greater reproductive success and are more likely to remain in a pride for longer. They have longer and thicker hair and higher testosterone levels, but they are also more vulnerable to heat stress.[64][65] Unlike in other felid species, female lions consistently interact with multiple males at once.[66] Another hypothesis suggests that the mane also serves to protect the neck in fights, but this is disputed.[67][68] During fights, including those involving maneless females and adolescents, the neck is not targeted as much as the face, back, and hindquarters. Injured lions also begin to lose their manes.[69]

 

Almost all male lions in Pendjari National Park are either maneless or have very short manes.[70] Maneless lions have also been reported in Senegal, in Sudan's Dinder National Park and in Tsavo East National Park, Kenya.[71] Castrated lions often have little to no mane because the removal of the gonads inhibits testosterone production.[72]

 

Rarely, lionesses (in the wild and in captivity) have been observed to grow manes.[73][74] Increased testosterone may be the cause of maned lionesses reported in northern Botswana.[75]

 

Colour variation

Further information: White lion

The white lion is a rare morph with a genetic condition called leucism, which is caused by a double recessive allele. It is not albino; it has normal pigmentation in the eyes and skin. White lions have occasionally been encountered in and around Kruger National Park and the adjacent Timbavati Private Game Reserve in eastern South Africa. They were removed from the wild in the 1970s, thus decreasing the white lion gene pool. Nevertheless, 17 births have been recorded in five prides between 2007 and 2015.[76] White lions are selected for breeding in captivity.[77] They have reportedly been bred in camps in South Africa for use as trophies to be killed during canned hunts.[78]

 

Distribution and habitat

 

Lion in Gir National Park

African lions live in scattered populations across sub-Saharan Africa. The lion prefers grassy plains and savannahs, scrub bordering rivers, and open woodlands with bushes. It rarely enters closed forests. On Mount Elgon, the lion has been recorded up to an elevation of 3,600 m (11,800 ft) and close to the snow line on Mount Kenya.[45] Savannahs with an annual rainfall of 300 to 1,500 mm (12 to 59 in) make up the majority of lion habitat in Africa, estimated at 3,390,821 km2 (1,309,203 sq mi) at most, but remnant populations are also present in tropical moist forests in West Africa and montane forests in East Africa.[79] The Asiatic lion now survives only in and around Gir National Park in Gujarat, western India. Its habitat is a mixture of dry savannah forest and very dry, deciduous scrub forest.[12]

 

Historical range

In Africa, the range of the lion originally spanned most of the central African rainforest zone and the Sahara desert.[80] In the 1960s, it became extinct in North Africa, except in the southern part of Sudan.[81][79][82]

 

In southern Europe and Asia, the lion once ranged in regions where climatic conditions supported an abundance of prey.[83] In Greece, it was common, as reported by Herodotus in 480 BC; it was considered rare by 300 BC and extirpated by AD 100.[45] It was present in the Caucasus until the 10th century.[49] It lived in Palestine until the Middle Ages and in Southwest Asia until the late 19th century. By the late 19th century, it had been extirpated in most of Turkey.[84] The last live lion in Iran was sighted in 1942, about 65 km (40 mi) northwest of Dezful,[85] although the corpse of a lioness was found on the banks of the Karun river in Khuzestan province in 1944.[86] It once ranged from Sind and Punjab in Pakistan to Bengal and the Narmada River in central India.[87]

 

Behaviour and ecology

Lions spend much of their time resting; they are inactive for about twenty hours per day.[88] Although lions can be active at any time, their activity generally peaks after dusk with a period of socialising, grooming, and defecating. Intermittent bursts of activity continue until dawn, when hunting most often takes place. They spend an average of two hours a day walking and fifty minutes eating.[89]

 

Group organisation

 

Lion pride in Etosha National Park

 

A lioness (left) and two males in Masai Mara

The lion is the most social of all wild felid species, living in groups of related individuals with their offspring. Such a group is called a "pride". Groups of male lions are called "coalitions".[90] Females form the stable social unit in a pride and do not tolerate outside females.[91] The majority of females remain in their birth prides while all males and some females will disperse.[92] The average pride consists of around 15 lions, including several adult females and up to four males and their cubs of both sexes. Large prides, consisting of up to 30 individuals, have been observed.[93] The sole exception to this pattern is the Tsavo lion pride that always has just one adult male.[94] Prides act as fission–fusion societies, and members will split into subgroups that keep in contact with roars.[95]

 

Nomadic lions range widely and move around sporadically, either in pairs or alone.[90] Pairs are more frequent among related males. A lion may switch lifestyles; nomads can become residents and vice versa.[96] Interactions between prides and nomads tend to be hostile, although pride females in estrus allow nomadic males to approach them.[97] Males spend years in a nomadic phase before gaining residence in a pride.[98] A study undertaken in the Serengeti National Park revealed that nomadic coalitions gain residency at between 3.5 and 7.3 years of age.[99] In Kruger National Park, dispersing male lions move more than 25 km (16 mi) away from their natal pride in search of their own territory. Female lions stay closer to their natal pride. Therefore, female lions in an area are more closely related to each other than male lions in the same area.[100]

 

The evolution of sociability in lions was likely driven both by high population density and the clumped resources of savannah habitats. The larger the pride, the more high-quality territory they can defend; "hotspots" being near river confluences, where the cats have better access to water, prey and shelter (via vegetation).[101][102] The area occupied by a pride is called a "pride area" whereas that occupied by a nomad is a "range".[90] Males associated with a pride patrol the fringes.[46] Both males and females defend the pride against intruders, but the male lion is better-suited for this purpose due to its stockier, more powerful build. Some individuals consistently lead the defense against intruders, while others lag behind.[103] Lions tend to assume specific roles in the pride; slower-moving individuals may provide other valuable services to the group.[104] Alternatively, there may be rewards associated with being a leader that fends off intruders; the rank of lionesses in the pride is reflected in these responses.[105] The male or males associated with the pride must defend their relationship with the pride from outside males who may attempt to usurp them.[96] Dominance hierarchies do not appear to exist among individuals of either sex in a pride.[106]

 

Asiatic lion prides differ in group composition. Male Asiatic lions are solitary or associate with up to three males, forming a loose pride while females associate with up to 12 other females, forming a stronger pride together with their cubs. Female and male lions associate only when mating.[107] Coalitions of males hold territory for a longer time than single lions. Males in coalitions of three or four individuals exhibit a pronounced hierarchy, in which one male dominates the others and mates more frequently.[108]

 

Hunting and diet

 

Male lion and cub feeding on a Cape buffalo in Sabi Sand Game Reserve

 

Four lionesses catching a buffalo in the Serengeti

 

A skeletal mount of a lion attacking a common eland, on display at The Museum of Osteology

The lion is a generalist hypercarnivore and is considered to be both an apex and keystone predator due to its wide prey spectrum.[109][110] Its prey consists mainly of ungulates particularly blue wildebeest, plains zebra, African buffalo, common warthog, gemsbok and giraffe.[111] In India, chital and sambar deer are the most common wild prey,[46][111][112] while livestock contributes significantly to lion kills outside protected areas.[113] They usually avoid fully grown adult elephants, rhinoceroses and hippopotamus and small prey like dik-dik, hyraxes, hares and monkeys.[111][114] Unusual prey include porcupines and small reptiles. Lions kill other predators but seldom consume them.[115]

 

Young lions first display stalking behaviour at around three months of age, although they do not participate in hunting until they are almost a year old and begin to hunt effectively when nearing the age of two.[116] Single lions are capable of bringing down zebra and wildebeest, while larger prey like buffalo and giraffe are riskier.[96] In Chobe National Park, large prides have been observed hunting African bush elephants up to around 15 years old in exceptional cases, with the victims being calves, juveniles, and even subadults.[117][118] In typical hunts, each lioness has a favoured position in the group, either stalking prey on the "wing", then attacking, or moving a smaller distance in the centre of the group and capturing prey fleeing from other lionesses. Males attached to prides do not usually participate in group hunting.[119] Some evidence suggests, however, that males are just as successful as females; they are typically solo hunters who ambush prey in small bushland.[120] They may join in the hunting of large, slower-moving prey like buffalo; and even hunt them on their own. Moderately-sized hunting groups generally have higher success rates than lone females and larger groups.[121]

 

Lions are not particularly known for their stamina. For instance, a lioness's heart comprises only 0.57% of her body weight and a male's is about 0.45% of his body weight, whereas a hyena's heart comprises almost 1% of its body weight.[122] Thus, lions run quickly only in short bursts at about 48–59 km/h (30–37 mph) and need to be close to their prey before starting the attack.[123] One study in 2018 recorded a lion running at a top speed of 74.1 km/h (46.0 mph).[124] They take advantage of factors that reduce visibility; many kills take place near some form of cover or at night.[125] The lion's attack is short and powerful; it attempts to catch prey with a fast rush and final leap, usually pulls it down by the rump, and kills with a clamping bite to the throat or muzzle. It can hold the prey's throat for up to 13 minutes, until the prey stops moving.[126]

 

Lions typically consume prey at the location of the hunt but sometimes drag large prey into cover.[127] They tend to squabble over kills, particularly the males. Cubs suffer most when food is scarce but otherwise all pride members eat their fill, including old and crippled lions, which can live on leftovers.[96] Large kills are shared more widely among pride members.[128] An adult lioness requires an average of about 5 kg (11 lb) of meat per day while males require about 7 kg (15 lb).[129] Lions gorge themselves and eat up to 30 kg (66 lb) in one session.[86] If it is unable to consume all of the kill, it rests for a few hours before continuing to eat. On hot days, the pride retreats to shade with one or two males standing guard.[127] Lions defend their kills from scavengers such as vultures and hyenas.[96]

 

Lions scavenge on carrion when the opportunity arises, scavenging animals dead from natural causes such as disease or those that were killed by other predators. Scavenging lions keep a constant lookout for circling vultures, which indicate the death or distress of an animal.[130] Most carrion on which both hyenas and lions feed upon are killed by hyenas rather than lions.[55] Carrion is thought to provide a large part of lion diet.[131]

 

Predatory competition

 

Lioness chasing a spotted hyena in Kruger National Park

 

Lioness stealing a kill from a leopard in Kruger National Park

Lions and spotted hyenas occupy a similar ecological niche and compete for prey and carrion; a review of data across several studies indicates a dietary overlap of 58.6%.[132] Lions typically ignore hyenas unless they are on a kill or are being harassed, while the latter tend to visibly react to the presence of lions with or without the presence of food. In the Ngorongoro crater, lions subsist largely on kills stolen from hyenas, causing them to increase their kill rate.[133] In Botswana's Chobe National Park, the situation is reversed as hyenas there frequently challenge lions and steal their kills, obtaining food from 63% of all lion kills.[134] When confronted on a kill, hyenas may either leave or wait patiently at a distance of 30–100 m (98–328 ft) until the lions have finished.[135] Hyenas may feed alongside lions and force them off a kill. The two species attack one another even when there is no food involved for no apparent reason.[136] Lions can account for up to 71% of hyena deaths in Etosha National Park. Hyenas have adapted by frequently mobbing lions that enter their home ranges.[137] When the lion population in Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve declined, the spotted hyena population increased rapidly.[138]

 

Lions tend to dominate cheetahs and leopards, steal their kills and kill their cubs and even adults when given the chance.[139] Cheetahs often lose their kills to lions or other predators.[140] A study in the Serengeti ecosystem revealed that lions killed at least 17 of 125 cheetah cubs born between 1987 and 1990.[141] Cheetahs avoid their competitors by hunting at different times and habitats.[142] Leopards take refuge in trees, but lionesses occasionally attempt to climb up and retrieve their kills.[143]

 

Lions similarly dominate African wild dogs, taking their kills and slaying pups or adult dogs. Population densities of wild dogs are low in areas where lions are more abundant.[144] However, there are a few reported cases of old and wounded lions falling prey to wild dogs.[145][146]

 

Reproduction and life cycle

 

Lions mating at Masai Mara

 

A lion cub in Masai Mara

Most lionesses reproduce by the time they are four years of age.[147] Lions do not mate at a specific time of year and the females are polyestrous.[148] Like those of other cats, the male lion's penis has spines that point backward. During withdrawal of the penis, the spines rake the walls of the female's vagina, which may cause ovulation.[149][150] A lioness may mate with more than one male when she is in heat.[151] Lions of both sexes may be involved in group homosexual and courtship activities. Males will also head-rub and roll around with each other before mounting each other.[152][153] Generation length of the lion is about seven years.[154] The average gestation period is around 110 days;[148] the female gives birth to a litter of between one and four cubs in a secluded den, which may be a thicket, a reed-bed, a cave, or some other sheltered area, usually away from the pride. She will often hunt alone while the cubs are still helpless, staying relatively close to the den.[155] Lion cubs are born blind, their eyes opening around seven days after birth. They weigh 1.2–2.1 kg (2.6–4.6 lb) at birth and are almost helpless, beginning to crawl a day or two after birth and walking around three weeks of age.[156] To avoid a buildup of scent attracting the attention of predators, the lioness moves her cubs to a new den site several times a month, carrying them one-by-one by the nape of the neck.[155]

 

Usually, the mother does not integrate herself and her cubs back into the pride until the cubs are six to eight weeks old.[155] Sometimes the introduction to pride life occurs earlier, particularly if other lionesses have given birth at about the same time.[96][157] When first introduced to the rest of the pride, lion cubs lack confidence when confronted with adults other than their mother. They soon begin to immerse themselves in the pride life, however, playing among themselves or attempting to initiate play with the adults.[157] Lionesses with cubs of their own are more likely to be tolerant of another lioness's cubs than lionesses without cubs. Male tolerance of the cubs varies—one male could patiently let the cubs play with his tail or his mane, while another may snarl and bat the cubs away.[158]

 

Video of a lioness and her cubs in Phinda Reserve

Pride lionesses often synchronise their reproductive cycles and communal rearing and suckling of the young, which suckle indiscriminately from any or all of the nursing females in the pride. The synchronisation of births is advantageous because the cubs grow to being roughly the same size and have an equal chance of survival, and sucklings are not dominated by older cubs.[96][157] Weaning occurs after six or seven months. Male lions reach maturity at about three years of age and at four to five years are capable of challenging and displacing adult males associated with another pride. They begin to age and weaken at between 10 and 15 years of age at the latest.[159]

 

When one or more new males oust the previous males associated with a pride, the victors often kill any existing young cubs, perhaps because females do not become fertile and receptive until their cubs mature or die. Females often fiercely defend their cubs from a usurping male but are rarely successful unless a group of three or four mothers within a pride join forces against the male.[160] Cubs also die from starvation and abandonment, and predation by leopards, hyenas and wild dogs. Male cubs are excluded from their maternal pride when they reach maturity at around two or three years of age,[161] while some females may leave when they reach the age of two.[92] When a new male lion takes over a pride, adolescents both male and female may be evicted.[162]

 

Health and mortality

 

Lions in a tree near Lake Nakuru

Lions may live 12–17 years.[46] Although adult lions have no natural predators, evidence suggests most die violently from attacks by humans or other lions.[163] Lions often inflict serious injuries on members of other prides they encounter in territorial disputes or members of the home pride when fighting at a kill.[164] Crippled lions and cubs may fall victim to hyenas and leopards or be trampled by buffalo or elephants. Careless lions may be maimed when hunting prey.[165] Nile crocodiles may also kill and eat lions, evidenced by the occasional lion claw found in crocodile stomachs.[166]

 

Ticks commonly infest the ears, neck and groin regions of the lions.[167][168] Adult forms of several tapeworm species of the genus Taenia have been isolated from lion intestines, having been ingested as larvae in antelope meat.[169] Lions in the Ngorongoro Crater were afflicted by an outbreak of stable fly (Stomoxys calcitrans) in 1962, resulting in lions becoming emaciated and covered in bloody, bare patches. Lions sought unsuccessfully to evade the biting flies by climbing trees or crawling into hyena burrows; many died or migrated and the local population dropped from 70 to 15 individuals.[170] A more recent outbreak in 2001 killed six lions.[171]

 

Captive lions have been infected with canine distemper virus (CDV) since at least the mid-1970s.[172] CDV is spread by domestic dogs and other carnivores; a 1994 outbreak in Serengeti National Park resulted in many lions developing neurological symptoms such as seizures. During the outbreak, several lions died from pneumonia and encephalitis.[173] Feline immunodeficiency virus and lentivirus also affect captive lions.[174][175]

 

Communication

 

Head rubbing among pride members is a common social behaviour.

When resting, lion socialisation occurs through a number of behaviours; the animal's expressive movements are highly developed. The most common peaceful, tactile gestures are head rubbing and social licking,[176] which have been compared with the role of allogrooming among primates.[177] Head rubbing, nuzzling the forehead, face and neck against another lion appears to be a form of greeting[178] and is seen often after an animal has been apart from others or after a fight or confrontation. Males tend to rub other males, while cubs and females rub females.[179] Social licking often occurs in tandem with head rubbing; it is generally mutual and the recipient appears to express pleasure. The head and neck are the most common parts of the body licked; this behaviour may have arisen out of utility because lions cannot lick these areas themselves.[180]

  

Lion roar

Duration: 10 seconds.0:10

A captive lion roaring

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Lions have an array of facial expressions and body postures that serve as visual gestures.[181] A common facial expression is the "grimace face" or flehmen response, which a lion makes when sniffing chemical signals and involves an open mouth with bared teeth, raised muzzle, wrinkled nose, closed eyes and relaxed ears.[182] Lions also use chemical and visual marking;[181] males spray urine[183] and scrape plots of ground and objects within the territory.[181]

 

The lion's repertoire of vocalisations is large; variations in intensity and pitch appear to be central to communication. Most lion vocalisations are variations of growling, snarling, meowing and roaring. Other sounds produced include purring, puffing, bleating and humming. Roaring is used to advertise its presence. Lions most often roar at night, a sound that can be heard from a distance of 8 kilometres (5 mi).[184] They tend to roar in a very characteristic manner starting with a few deep, long roars that subside into grunts.[185][186]

 

Conservation

The lion is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. The Indian population is listed on CITES Appendix I and the African population on CITES Appendix II.[2]

 

In Africa

Video of a wild lioness

Several large and well-managed protected areas in Africa host large lion populations. Where an infrastructure for wildlife tourism has been developed, cash revenue for park management and local communities is a strong incentive for lion conservation.[2] Most lions now live in East and Southern Africa; their numbers are rapidly decreasing, and fell by an estimated 30–50% in the late half of the 20th century. Primary causes of the decline include disease and human interference.[2] In 1975, it was estimated that since the 1950s, lion numbers had decreased by half to 200,000 or fewer.[187] Estimates of the African lion population range between 16,500 and 47,000 living in the wild in 2002–2004.[188][81]

 

In the Republic of the Congo, Odzala-Kokoua National Park was considered a lion stronghold in the 1990s. By 2014, no lions were recorded in the protected area so the population is considered locally extinct.[189] The West African lion population is isolated from the one in Central Africa, with little or no exchange of breeding individuals. In 2015, it was estimated that this population consists of about 400 animals, including fewer than 250 mature individuals. They persist in three protected areas in the region, mostly in one population in the W A P protected area complex, shared by Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. This population is listed as Critically Endangered.[13] Field surveys in the WAP ecosystem revealed that lion occupancy is lowest in the W National Park, and higher in areas with permanent staff and thus better protection.[190]

 

A population occurs in Cameroon's Waza National Park, where between approximately 14 and 21 animals persisted as of 2009. In addition, 50 to 150 lions are estimated to be present in Burkina Faso's Arly-Singou ecosystem. In 2015, an adult male lion and a female lion were sighted in Ghana's Mole National Park. These were the first sightings of lions in the country in 39 years. In the same year, a population of up to 200 lions that was previously thought to have been extirpated was filmed in the Alatash National Park, Ethiopia, close to the Sudanese border.

 

In 2005, Lion Conservation Strategies were developed for West and Central Africa, and or East and Southern Africa. The strategies seek to maintain suitable habitat, ensure a sufficient wild prey base for lions, reduce factors that lead to further fragmentation of populations, and make lion–human coexistence sustainable. Lion depredation on livestock is significantly reduced in areas where herders keep livestock in improved enclosures. Such measures contribute to mitigating human–lion conflict.

 

In Asia

The last refuge of the Asiatic lion population is the 1,412 km2 (545 sq mi) Gir National Park and surrounding areas in the region of Saurashtra or Kathiawar Peninsula in Gujarat State, India. The population has risen from approximately 180 lions in 1974 to about 400 in 2010.[199] It is geographically isolated, which can lead to inbreeding and reduced genetic diversity. Since 2008, the Asiatic lion has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. By 2015, the population had grown to 523 individuals inhabiting an area of 7,000 km2 (2,700 sq mi) in Saurashtra. The Asiatic Lion Census conducted in 2017 recorded about 650 individuals.

 

The presence of numerous human habitations close to the National Park results in conflict between lions, local people and their livestock. Some consider the presence of lions a benefit, as they keep populations of crop damaging herbivores in check. The establishment of a second, independent Asiatic lion population in Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary, located in Madhya Pradesh was planned but in 2017, the Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project seemed unlikely to be implemented.

 

Captive breeding

Lions imported to Europe before the middle of the 19th century were possibly foremost Barbary lions from North Africa, or Cape lions from Southern Africa. Another 11 animals thought to be Barbary lions kept in Addis Ababa Zoo are descendants of animals owned by Emperor Haile Selassie. WildLink International in collaboration with Oxford University launched an ambitious International Barbary Lion Project with the aim of identifying and breeding Barbary lions in captivity for eventual reintroduction into a national park in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. However, a genetic analysis showed that the captive lions at Addis Ababa Zoo were not Barbary lions, but rather closely related to wild lions in Chad and Cameroon.

 

In 1982, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums started a Species Survival Plan for the Asiatic lion to increase its chances of survival. In 1987, it was found that most lions in North American zoos were hybrids between African and Asiatic lions. Breeding programs need to note origins of the participating animals to avoid cross-breeding different subspecies and thus reducing their conservation value. Captive breeding of lions was halted to eliminate individuals of unknown origin and pedigree. Wild-born lions were imported to American zoos from Africa between 1989 and 1995. Breeding was continued in 1998 in the frame of an African lion Species Survival Plan.

 

About 77% of the captive lions registered in the International Species Information System in 2006 were of unknown origin; these animals might have carried genes that are extinct in the wild and may therefore be important to the maintenance of the overall genetic variability of the lion.

 

Interactions with humans

Lions are part of a group of exotic animals that have been central to zoo exhibits since the late 18th century. Although many modern zoos are more selective about their exhibits, there are more than 1,000 African and 100 Asiatic lions in zoos and wildlife parks around the world. They are considered an ambassador species and are kept for tourism, education and conservation purposes. Lions can live over twenty years in captivity; for example, three sibling lions at the Honolulu Zoo lived to the age of 22 in 2007.

 

The first European "zoos" spread among noble and royal families in the 13th century, and until the 17th century were called seraglios. At that time, they came to be called menageries, an extension of the cabinet of curiosities. They spread from France and Italy during the Renaissance to the rest of Europe. In England, although the seraglio tradition was less developed, lions were kept at the Tower of London in a seraglio established by King John in the 13th century; this was probably stocked with animals from an earlier menagerie started in 1125 by Henry I at his hunting lodge in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, where according to William of Malmesbury lions had been stocked.

 

Lions were kept in cramped and squalid conditions at London Zoo until a larger lion house with roomier cages was built in the 1870s. Further changes took place in the early 20th century when Carl Hagenbeck designed enclosures with concrete "rocks", more open space and a moat instead of bars, more closely resembling a natural habitat. Hagenbeck designed lion enclosures for both Melbourne Zoo and Sydney's Taronga Zoo; although his designs were popular, the use of bars and caged enclosures prevailed in many zoos until the 1960s. In the late 20th century, larger, more natural enclosures and the use of wire mesh or laminated glass instead of lowered dens allowed visitors to come closer than ever to the animals; some attractions such as the Cat Forest/Lion Overlook of Oklahoma City Zoological Park placed the den on ground level, higher than visitors.

 

Lion taming has been part of both established circuses and individual acts such as Siegfried & Roy. The practice began in the early 19th century by Frenchman Henri Martin and American Isaac Van Amburgh, who both toured widely and whose techniques were copied by a number of followers.[225] Van Amburgh performed before Queen Victoria in 1838 when he toured Great Britain. Martin composed a pantomime titled Les Lions de Mysore ("the lions of Mysore"), an idea Amburgh quickly borrowed. These acts eclipsed equestrianism acts as the central display of circus shows and entered public consciousness in the early 20th century with cinema. In demonstrating the superiority of human over animal, lion taming served a purpose similar to animal fights of previous centuries. The ultimate proof of a tamer's dominance and control over a lion is demonstrated by the placing of the tamer's head in the lion's mouth. The now-iconic lion tamer's chair was possibly first used by American Clyde Beatty (1903–1965).

 

Hunting and games

Lion hunting has occurred since ancient times and was often a royal tradition, intended to demonstrate the power of the king over nature. Such hunts took place in a reserved area in front of an audience. The monarch was accompanied by his men and controls were put in place to increase their safety and ease of killing. The earliest surviving record of lion hunting is an ancient Egyptian inscription dated circa 1380 BC that mentions Pharaoh Amenhotep III killing 102 lions in ten years "with his own arrows". The Assyrian emperor Ashurbanipal had one of his lion hunts depicted on a sequence of Assyrian palace reliefs c. 640 BC, known as the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal. Lions were also hunted during the Mughal Empire, where Emperor Jahangir is said to have excelled at it. In Ancient Rome, lions were kept by emperors for hunts, gladiator fights and executions.

 

The Maasai people have traditionally viewed the killing of lions as a rite of passage. Historically, lions were hunted by individuals, however, due to reduced lion populations, elders discourage solo lion hunts. During the European colonisation of Africa in the 19th century, the hunting of lions was encouraged because they were considered pests and lion skins were sold for £1 each. The widely reproduced imagery of the heroic hunter chasing lions would dominate a large part of the century. Trophy hunting of lions in recent years has been met with controversy, notably with the killing of Cecil the lion in mid-2015.

 

Man-eating

Lions do not usually hunt humans but some (usually males) seem to seek them out. One well-publicised case is the Tsavo maneaters; in 1898, 28 officially recorded railway workers building the Uganda Railway were taken by lions over nine months during the construction of a bridge in Kenya. The hunter who killed the lions wrote a book detailing the animals' predatory behaviour; they were larger than normal and lacked manes, and one seemed to suffer from tooth decay. The infirmity theory, including tooth decay, is not favoured by all researchers; an analysis of teeth and jaws of man-eating lions in museum collections suggests that while tooth decay may explain some incidents, prey depletion in human-dominated areas is a more likely cause of lion predation on humans. Sick or injured animals may be more prone to man-eating but the behaviour is not unusual, nor necessarily aberrant.

 

Lions' proclivity for man-eating has been systematically examined. American and Tanzanian scientists report that man-eating behaviour in rural areas of Tanzania increased greatly from 1990 to 2005. At least 563 villagers were attacked and many eaten over this period. The incidents occurred near Selous Game Reserve in Rufiji River and in Lindi Region near the Mozambican border. While the expansion of villages into bush country is one concern, the authors argue conservation policy must mitigate the danger because in this case, conservation contributes directly to human deaths. Cases in Lindi in which lions seize humans from the centres of substantial villages have been documented. Another study of 1,000 people attacked by lions in southern Tanzania between 1988 and 2009 found that the weeks following the full moon, when there was less moonlight, were a strong indicator of increased night-time attacks on people.

 

According to Robert R. Frump, Mozambican refugees regularly crossing Kruger National Park, South Africa, at night are attacked and eaten by lions; park officials have said man-eating is a problem there. Frump said thousands may have been killed in the decades after apartheid sealed the park and forced refugees to cross the park at night. For nearly a century before the border was sealed, Mozambicans had regularly crossed the park in daytime with little harm.

 

Cultural significance

Lions carved on a rock weight, Jiroft culture, Iran, 3rd mil. BC

The lion is one of the most widely recognised animal symbols in human culture. It has been extensively depicted in sculptures and paintings, on national flags, and in contemporary films and literature. It appeared as a symbol for strength and nobility in cultures across Europe, Asia and Africa, despite incidents of attacks on people. The lion has been depicted as "king of the jungle" and "king of beasts", and thus became a popular symbol for royalty and stateliness. The lion is also used as a symbol of sporting teams.

 

Africa

Museum of Denmark

In sub-Saharan Africa, the lion has been a common character in stories, proverbs and dances, but rarely featured in visual arts. In some cultures, the lion symbolises power and royalty. In the Swahili language, the lion is known as simba which also means "aggressive", "king" and "strong". Some rulers had the word "lion" in their nickname. Sundiata Keita of the Mali Empire was called "Lion of Mali". The founder of the Waalo kingdom is said to have been raised by lions and returned to his people part-lion to unite them using the knowledge he learned from the lions.

 

In parts of West Africa, lions symbolised the top class of their social hierarchies. In more heavily forested areas where lions were rare, the leopard represented the top of the hierarchy. In parts of West and East Africa, the lion is associated with healing and provides the connection between seers and the supernatural. In other East African traditions, the lion represents laziness. In much of African folklore, the lion is portrayed as having low intelligence and is easily tricked by other animals.

 

The ancient Egyptians portrayed several of their war deities as lionesses, which they revered as fierce hunters. Egyptian deities associated with lions include Sekhmet, Bast, Mafdet, Menhit, Pakhet and Tefnut. These deities were often connected with the sun god Ra and his fierce heat, and their dangerous power was invoked to guard people or sacred places. The sphinx, a figure with a lion's body and the head of a human or other creature, represented a pharaoh or deity who had taken on this protective role.

 

Asia

Roaring and striding lion from the Throne Room of Nebuchadnezzar II, 6th century BC, from Babylon, Iraq

The lion was a prominent symbol in ancient Mesopotamia from Sumer up to Assyrian and Babylonian times, where it was strongly associated with kingship. Lions were among the major symbols of the goddess Inanna/Ishtar. The Lion of Babylon was the foremost symbol of the Babylonian Empire. The Lion of Judah is the biblical emblem of the tribe of Judah and the later Kingdom of Judah. Lions are frequently mentioned in the Bible, notably in the Book of Daniel, in which the eponymous hero refuses to worship King Darius and is forced to sleep in the lions' den where he is miraculously unharmed (Dan 6). In the Book of Judges, Samson kills a lion as he travels to visit a Philistine woman.(Judg 14).

 

Indo-Persian chroniclers regarded the lion as keeper of order in the realm of animals. The Sanskrit word mrigendra signifies a lion as king of animals in general or deer in particular. Narasimha, the man-lion, is one of ten avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu. Singh is an ancient Indian vedic name meaning "lion", dating back over 2,000 years. It was originally used only by Rajputs, a Hindu Kshatriya or military caste but is used by millions of Hindu Rajputs and more than twenty million Sikhs today. The Lion Capital of Ashoka, erected by Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century CE, depicts four lions standing back to back. It was made the National Emblem of India in 1950. The lion is also symbolic for the Sinhalese people, the term derived from the Sanskrit Sinhala, meaning "of lions" while a sword-wielding lion is the central figure on the national flag of Sri Lanka.

 

The lion is a common motif in Chinese art; it was first used in art during the late Spring and Autumn period (fifth or sixth century BC) and became more popular during the Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 220) when imperial guardian lions started to be placed in front of imperial palaces for protection. Because lions have never been native to China, early depictions were somewhat unrealistic; after the introduction of Buddhist art to China in the Tang dynasty after the sixth century AD, lions were usually depicted wingless with shorter, thicker bodies and curly manes. The lion dance is a traditional dance in Chinese culture in which performers in lion costumes mimic a lion's movements, often with musical accompaniment from cymbals, drums and gongs. They are performed at Chinese New Year, the August Moon Festival and other celebratory occasions for good luck.

 

Western world

Lion-headed figures and amulets were excavated in tombs in the Greek islands of Crete, Euboea, Rhodes, Paros and Chios. They are associated with the Egyptian deity Sekhmet and date to the early Iron Age between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. Tfhe lion is featured in several of Aesop's fables, notably The Lion and the Mouse. The Nemean lion was symbolic in ancient Greece and Rome, represented as the constellation and zodiac sign Leo, and described in mythology, where it was killed and worn by the hero Heracles, symbolising victory over death. Lancelot and Gawain were also heroes slaying lions in the Middle Ages. In some medieval stories, lions were portrayed as allies and companions. "Lion" was the nickname of several medieval warrior-rulers with a reputation for bravery, such as Richard the Lionheart.

 

Lions continue to appear in modern literature as characters including the messianic Aslan in the 1950 novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis, and the comedic Cowardly Lion in L. Frank Baum's 1900 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Lion symbolism was used from the advent of cinema; one of the most iconic and widely recognised lions is Leo, which has been the mascot for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios since the 1920s. The 1966 film Born Free features Elsa the lioness and is based on the book Born Free published in 1960. The lion's role as king of the beasts has been used in the 1994 Disney animated feature film The Lion King.

 

Lions are frequently depicted on coats of arms, like on the coat of arms of Finland, either as a device on shields or as supporters, but the lioness is used much less frequently. The heraldic lion is particularly common in British arms. It is traditionally depicted in a great variety of attitudes, although within French heraldry only lions rampant are considered to be lions; felined figures in any other position are instead referred to as leopards

My husband, who has bred cattle all his life, tells me that Charolais, because of their extraordinary height and length, are often sway-backed.

 

The Charolais originated in west-central to southeastern France, in the old French provinces of Charolles and neighboring Nievre. The exact origins of the Charolais are lost to us but it must have been developed from cattle found in the area. Legend has it that white cattle were first noticed in the region as early as 878 A.D., and by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were well and favorably known in French markets, especially at Lyon and Villefranche.

  

Charolais are white or creamy white in color, but the skin carries appreciable pigmentation. The hair coat is usually short in summer but thickens and lengthens in cold weather. Charolais is a naturally horned beef animal. But through the breeding-up program, where naturally polled breeds were sometimes used as foundation animals, polled Charolais have emerged as an important part of the breed. Charolais cattle are large with mature bulls weighing from 2,000 to well over 2,500 pounds and cows weigh from 1,250 to over 2,000 pounds.

  

Kosgoda

Sri Lanka

  

This is the oldest Conservation and Research project started in Sri Lanka in early 1978. It was at a time when all 7 species of sea turtles were on the Endangered list. Of the 7 species, 5 of the species were found to be frequenting the beaches of the southern coast of Sri Lanka where they beached, to lay their eggs. These eggs were collected by the villagers and sold in the open market.

 

It was about this time when the famous Swedish camera maker Victor Hasselblad whose cameras were the first to be used on the moon, came into the picture. He happened to be a close friend of the highly renowned Sri Lankan bird photographer, Dr Upane de Zylva , and Victor, having similar interests in photography, had made a donation through Dr Zylva to be used in any form of conservation and research, in Sri Lanka.

htrcc.info/

 

Albinism and leucism are two types of color mutations involving color loss producing different phenotypes. There are different definitions of leucism, with some authors referring to it as partial albinism

However, true albinos are easily differentiated, because they lack pigmentation and feature red or pinkish eyes, while leucistic animals have reduced/absent coloration but with normal eye pigmentation (Krecsak 2008; Turner 2011).

 

They referred to this turtle as albino,but I guess this one is rather leucistic than albino as the eyes were dark and not red or pinkish.

Brussels

The base colors of Muscovies are chocolate, bronze, white, blue, lavender, and black. All other colors are a combination of, or form of, the previous colors. Base colors are determined by those colors which can be expressed as a single unique genetic marker which has a pre-determined effect on pigmentation. The exact expression of the gene can vary from bird to bird.

 

There are also patterns, like barred, pied, ripple, and canizie (white head). There are others such as bibbed and white winged which aren't really considered true patterns. Then there is also the much disputed lace pattern.

 

Muscovy are like the Indiana Jones of the bird world. They are well seasoned travelers who have been welcomed into even the most remote corners of the world.

 

Most people know that Muscovy are South American birds. They started out domestic life with the Aztecs quite a while ago in the tropics.

 

From there they traveled the world. From France, England, Russia, China, and almost everywhere you can imagine.

 

Along the way they were crossbred with other birds. This is likely where we get odd colors and discrepencies in which color exists where.

 

There isn't any real record or proof of where and when and what. However, it's believed that the current Muscovy is a combination of the South American Comb duck, the White Winged Wood duck, and the common Muscovy.

 

If you look up the individual birds, you'll see many similarities to the current farm duck that we raise today.

 

This could very well explain why not all areas have chocolate and other areas don't have bronze. We don't really know when new genetics were added in and which genetics.

 

It's easy to forget what well seasoned travelers the Muscovy are! But, they are an amazing bird with a hundred different names.

 

The Pato Mudo, the Barbary, Pato do mato, Pato Criolo, Pato Selvagem, Pato Real, ... Then there are the more exotic names: Mentok, Moskusand, Knoppand, and dozens of names that I couldn't spell much less pronounce.

 

While the Muscovy cannot breed with the common mallard, it certainly can cross with some other ducks of closer relation.

 

Due to it's history as a well seasoned traveler, Muscovy genetics can be a bit difficult. But, that happens to be what I love about them.

 

With that in mind, as you read, please remember: Muscovy genetics are still a work in progress.

 

Written by Ugly Duck Farm

MI

United States

  

Jellyfish, also known sea jellies, are the medusa-phase of certain gelatinous members of the subphylum Medusozoa, which is a major part of the phylum Cnidaria.

 

Jellyfish are mainly free-swimming marine animals with umbrella-shaped bells and trailing tentacles, although a few are anchored to the seabed by stalks rather than being mobile. The bell can pulsate to provide propulsion for highly efficient locomotion. The tentacles are armed with stinging cells and may be used to capture prey and defend against predators. Jellyfish have a complex life cycle. The medusa is normally the sexual phase, which produces planula larvae; these then disperse widely and enter a sedentary polyp phase, before reaching sexual maturity.

 

Jellyfish are found all over the world, from surface waters to the deep sea. Scyphozoans (the "true jellyfish") are exclusively marine, but some hydrozoans with a similar appearance live in freshwater. Large, often colorful, jellyfish are common in coastal zones worldwide. The medusae of most species are fast-growing, and mature within a few months then die soon after breeding, but the polyp stage, attached to the seabed, may be much more long-lived. Jellyfish have been in existence for at least 500 million years,[1] and possibly 700 million years or more, making them the oldest multi-organ animal group.[2]

 

Jellyfish are eaten by humans in certain cultures. They are considered a delicacy in some Asian countries, where species in the Rhizostomeae order are pressed and salted to remove excess water. Australian researchers have described them as a "perfect food": sustainable and protein-rich but relatively low in food energy.[3]

 

They are also used in research, where the green fluorescent protein used by some species to cause bioluminescence has been adapted as a fluorescent marker for genes inserted into other cells or organisms.

 

The stinging cells used by jellyfish to subdue their prey can injure humans. Thousands of swimmers worldwide are stung every year, with effects ranging from mild discomfort to serious injury or even death. When conditions are favourable, jellyfish can form vast swarms, which can be responsible for damage to fishing gear by filling fishing nets, and sometimes clog the cooling systems of power and desalination plants which draw their water from the sea.

  

Names

The name jellyfish, in use since 1796,[4] has traditionally been applied to medusae and all similar animals including the comb jellies (ctenophores, another phylum).[5][6] The term jellies or sea jellies is more recent, having been introduced by public aquaria in an effort to avoid use of the word "fish" with its modern connotation of an animal with a backbone, though shellfish, cuttlefish and starfish are not vertebrates either.[7][8] In scientific literature, "jelly" and "jellyfish" have been used interchangeably.[9][10] Many sources refer to only scyphozoans as "true jellyfish".[11]

 

A group of jellyfish is called a "smack"[12] or a "smuck".[13]

 

Mapping to taxonomic groups

 

A purple-striped jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Phylogeny

Definition

The term jellyfish broadly corresponds to medusae,[4] that is, a life-cycle stage in the Medusozoa. The American evolutionary biologist Paulyn Cartwright gives the following general definition:

 

Typically, medusozoan cnidarians have a pelagic, predatory jellyfish stage in their life cycle; staurozoans are the exceptions [as they are stalked].[14]

 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines jellyfish as follows:

 

A free-swimming marine coelenterate that is the sexually reproducing form of a hydrozoan or scyphozoan and has a nearly transparent saucer-shaped body and extensible marginal tentacles studded with stinging cells.[15]

 

Given that jellyfish is a common name, its mapping to biological groups is inexact. Some authorities have called the comb jellies[16] and certain salps[16] jellyfish, though other authorities state that neither of these are jellyfish, which they consider should be limited to certain groups within the medusozoa.[17][18]

 

The non-medusozoan clades called jellyfish by some but not all authorities (both agreeing and disagreeing citations are given in each case) are indicated with "???" on the following cladogram of the animal kingdom:

 

Animalia

Porifera

 

Ctenophora (comb jellies)[16] ???[17]

 

Cnidaria (includes jellyfish and other jellies)

 

Bilateria

Protostomia

 

Deuterostomia

Ambulacraria

 

Chordata

Tunicata (includes salps)[16] ???[18]

 

Vertebrata

 

Medusozoan jellyfish

Jellyfish are not a clade, as they include most of the Medusozoa, barring some of the Hydrozoa.[19][20] The medusozoan groups included by authorities are indicated on the following phylogenetic tree by the presence of citations. Names of included jellyfish, in English where possible, are shown in boldface; the presence of a named and cited example indicates that at least that species within its group has been called a jellyfish.

 

Cnidaria

Anthozoa (corals)

 

Polypodiozoa and Myxozoa (parasitic cnidarians)

 

Medusozoa

Acraspeda

Staurozoa (stalked jellyfish)[21]

 

Rhopaliophora

Cubozoa (box jellyfish)[16]

 

Scyphozoa

Discomedusae[16]

 

Coronatae (crown jellyfish)[22]

 

(true jellyfish[19])

Hydrozoa

Aplanulata

 

Siphonophorae

 

Some Leptothecata[16] e.g. crystal jelly

 

Filifera[16] e.g. red paper lantern jellyfish[23]

 

Trachylinae

Limnomedusae, e.g. flower hat jelly[16]

 

Narcomedusae, e.g. cosmic jellyfish[24]

 

Taxonomy

The subphylum Medusozoa includes all cnidarians with a medusa stage in their life cycle. The basic cycle is egg, planula larva, polyp, medusa, with the medusa being the sexual stage. The polyp stage is sometimes secondarily lost. The subphylum include the major taxa, Scyphozoa (large jellyfish), Cubozoa (box jellyfish) and Hydrozoa (small jellyfish), and excludes Anthozoa (corals and sea anemones).[25] This suggests that the medusa form evolved after the polyps.[26] Medusozoans have tetramerous symmetry, with parts in fours or multiples of four.[25]

 

The four major classes of medusozoan Cnidaria are:

 

Scyphozoa are sometimes called true jellyfish, though they are no more truly jellyfish than the others listed here. They have tetra-radial symmetry. Most have tentacles around the outer margin of the bowl-shaped bell, and long, oral arms around the mouth in the center of the subumbrella.[25]

Cubozoa (box jellyfish) have a (rounded) box-shaped bell, and their velarium assists them to swim more quickly. Box jellyfish may be related more closely to scyphozoan jellyfish than either are to the Hydrozoa.[26]

Hydrozoa medusae also have tetra-radial symmetry, nearly always have a velum (diaphragm used in swimming) attached just inside the bell margin, do not have oral arms, but a much smaller central stalk-like structure, the manubrium, with terminal mouth opening, and are distinguished by the absence of cells in the mesoglea. Hydrozoa show great diversity of lifestyle; some species maintain the polyp form for their entire life and do not form medusae at all (such as Hydra, which is hence not considered a jellyfish), and a few are entirely medusal and have no polyp form.[25]

Staurozoa (stalked jellyfish) are characterized by a medusa form that is generally sessile, oriented upside down and with a stalk emerging from the apex of the "calyx" (bell), which attaches to the substrate. At least some Staurozoa also have a polyp form that alternates with the medusoid portion of the life cycle. Until recently, Staurozoa were classified within the Scyphozoa.[25]

There are over 200 species of Scyphozoa, about 50 species of Staurozoa, about 50 species of Cubozoa, and the Hydrozoa includes about 1000–1500 species that produce medusae, but many more species that do not.[27][28]

 

Fossil history

 

Fossil jellyfish, Rhizostomites lithographicus, one of the Scypho-medusae, from the Kimmeridgian (late Jurassic, 157 to 152 mya) of Solnhofen, Germany

 

Stranded scyphozoans on a Cambrian tidal flat at Blackberry Hill, Wisconsin

 

The conulariid Conularia milwaukeensis from the Middle Devonian of Wisconsin

Since jellyfish have no hard parts, fossils are rare. The oldest unambiguous fossil of a free-swimming medusa is Burgessomedusa from the mid Cambrian Burgess Shale of Canada, which is likely either a stem group of box jellyfish (Cubozoa) or Acraspeda (the clade including Staurozoa, Cubozoa, and Scyphozoa). Other claimed records from the Cambrian of China and Utah in the United States are uncertain, and possibly represent ctenophores instead.[29]

 

Anatomy

 

Labelled cross section of a jellyfish

The main feature of a true jellyfish is the umbrella-shaped bell. This is a hollow structure consisting of a mass of transparent jelly-like matter known as mesoglea, which forms the hydrostatic skeleton of the animal.[25] 95% or more of the mesogloea consists of water,[30] but it also contains collagen and other fibrous proteins, as well as wandering amoebocytes which can engulf debris and bacteria. The mesogloea is bordered by the epidermis on the outside and the gastrodermis on the inside. The edge of the bell is often divided into rounded lobes known as lappets, which allow the bell to flex. In the gaps or niches between the lappets are dangling rudimentary sense organs known as rhopalia, and the margin of the bell often bears tentacles.[25]

  

Anatomy of a scyphozoan jellyfish

On the underside of the bell is the manubrium, a stalk-like structure hanging down from the centre, with the mouth, which also functions as the anus, at its tip. There are often four oral arms connected to the manubrium, streaming away into the water below.[31] The mouth opens into the gastrovascular cavity, where digestion takes place and nutrients are absorbed. This is subdivided by four thick septa into a central stomach and four gastric pockets. The four pairs of gonads are attached to the septa, and close to them four septal funnels open to the exterior, perhaps supplying good oxygenation to the gonads. Near the free edges of the septa, gastric filaments extend into the gastric cavity; these are armed with nematocysts and enzyme-producing cells and play a role in subduing and digesting the prey. In some scyphozoans, the gastric cavity is joined to radial canals which branch extensively and may join a marginal ring canal. Cilia in these canals circulate the fluid in a regular direction.[25]

  

Discharge mechanism of a nematocyst

The box jellyfish is largely similar in structure. It has a squarish, box-like bell. A short pedalium or stalk hangs from each of the four lower corners. One or more long, slender tentacles are attached to each pedalium.[32] The rim of the bell is folded inwards to form a shelf known as a velarium which restricts the bell's aperture and creates a powerful jet when the bell pulsates, allowing box jellyfish to swim faster than true jellyfish.[25] Hydrozoans are also similar, usually with just four tentacles at the edge of the bell, although many hydrozoans are colonial and may not have a free-living medusal stage. In some species, a non-detachable bud known as a gonophore is formed that contains a gonad but is missing many other medusal features such as tentacles and rhopalia.[25] Stalked jellyfish are attached to a solid surface by a basal disk, and resemble a polyp, the oral end of which has partially developed into a medusa with tentacle-bearing lobes and a central manubrium with four-sided mouth.[25]

 

Most jellyfish do not have specialized systems for osmoregulation, respiration and circulation, and do not have a central nervous system. Nematocysts, which deliver the sting, are located mostly on the tentacles; true jellyfish also have them around the mouth and stomach.[33] Jellyfish do not need a respiratory system because sufficient oxygen diffuses through the epidermis. They have limited control over their movement, but can navigate with the pulsations of the bell-like body; some species are active swimmers most of the time, while others largely drift.[34] The rhopalia contain rudimentary sense organs which are able to detect light, water-borne vibrations, odour and orientation.[25] A loose network of nerves called a "nerve net" is located in the epidermis.[35][36] Although traditionally thought not to have a central nervous system, nerve net concentration and ganglion-like structures could be considered to constitute one in most species.[37] A jellyfish detects stimuli, and transmits impulses both throughout the nerve net and around a circular nerve ring, to other nerve cells. The rhopalial ganglia contain pacemaker neurones which control swimming rate and direction.[25]

 

In many species of jellyfish, the rhopalia include ocelli, light-sensitive organs able to tell light from dark. These are generally pigment spot ocelli, which have some of their cells pigmented. The rhopalia are suspended on stalks with heavy crystals at one end, acting like gyroscopes to orient the eyes skyward. Certain jellyfish look upward at the mangrove canopy while making a daily migration from mangrove swamps into the open lagoon, where they feed, and back again.[2]

 

Box jellyfish have more advanced vision than the other groups. Each individual has 24 eyes, two of which are capable of seeing colour, and four parallel information processing areas that act in competition,[38] supposedly making them one of the few kinds of animal to have a 360-degree view of its environment.[39]

 

Box jellyfish eye

The study of jellyfish eye evolution is an intermediary to a better understanding of how visual systems evolved on Earth.[40] Jellyfish exhibit immense variation in visual systems ranging from photoreceptive cell patches seen in simple photoreceptive systems to more derived complex eyes seen in box jellyfish.[40] Major topics of jellyfish visual system research (with an emphasis on box jellyfish) include: the evolution of jellyfish vision from simple to complex visual systems), the eye morphology and molecular structures of box jellyfish (including comparisons to vertebrate eyes), and various uses of vision including task-guided behaviors and niche specialization.

 

Evolution

Experimental evidence for photosensitivity and photoreception in cnidarians antecedes the mid 1900s, and a rich body of research has since covered evolution of visual systems in jellyfish.[41] Jellyfish visual systems range from simple photoreceptive cells to complex image-forming eyes. More ancestral visual systems incorporate extraocular vision (vision without eyes) that encompass numerous receptors dedicated to single-function behaviors. More derived visual systems comprise perception that is capable of multiple task-guided behaviors.

 

Although they lack a true brain, cnidarian jellyfish have a "ring" nervous system that plays a significant role in motor and sensory activity. This net of nerves is responsible for muscle contraction and movement and culminates the emergence of photosensitive structures.[40] Across Cnidaria, there is large variation in the systems that underlie photosensitivity. Photosensitive structures range from non-specialized groups of cells, to more "conventional" eyes similar to those of vertebrates.[41] The general evolutionary steps to develop complex vision include (from more ancestral to more derived states): non-directional photoreception, directional photoreception, low-resolution vision, and high-resolution vision.[40] Increased habitat and task complexity has favored the high-resolution visual systems common in derived cnidarians such as box jellyfish.[40]

 

Basal visual systems observed in various cnidarians exhibit photosensitivity representative of a single task or behavior. Extraocular photoreception (a form of non-directional photoreception), is the most basic form of light sensitivity and guides a variety of behaviors among cnidarians. It can function to regulate circadian rhythm (as seen in eyeless hydrozoans) and other light-guided behaviors responsive to the intensity and spectrum of light. Extraocular photoreception can function additionally in positive phototaxis (in planula larvae of hydrozoans),[41] as well as in avoiding harmful amounts of UV radiation via negative phototaxis. Directional photoreception (the ability to perceive direction of incoming light) allows for more complex phototactic responses to light, and likely evolved by means of membrane stacking.[40] The resulting behavioral responses can range from guided spawning events timed by moonlight to shadow responses for potential predator avoidance.[41][42] Light-guided behaviors are observed in numerous scyphozoans including the common moon jelly, Aurelia aurita, which migrates in response to changes in ambient light and solar position even though they lack proper eyes.[41]

 

The low-resolution visual system of box jellyfish is more derived than directional photoreception, and thus box jellyfish vision represents the most basic form of true vision in which multiple directional photoreceptors combine to create the first imaging and spatial resolution. This is different from the high-resolution vision that is observed in camera or compound eyes of vertebrates and cephalopods that rely on focusing optics.[41] Critically, the visual systems of box jellyfish are responsible for guiding multiple tasks or behaviors in contrast to less derived visual systems in other jellyfish that guide single behavioral functions. These behaviors include phototaxis based on sunlight (positive) or shadows (negative), obstacle avoidance, and control of swim-pulse rate.[43]

 

Box jellyfish possess "proper eyes" (similar to vertebrates) that allow them to inhabit environments that lesser derived medusae cannot. In fact, they are considered the only class in the clade Medusozoa that have behaviors necessitating spatial resolution and genuine vision.[41] However, the lens in their eyes are more functionally similar to cup-eyes exhibited in low-resolution organisms, and have very little to no focusing capability.[44][43] The lack of the ability to focus is due to the focal length exceeding the distance to the retina, thus generating unfocused images and limiting spatial resolution.[41] The visual system is still sufficient for box jellyfish to produce an image to help with tasks such as object avoidance.

 

Utility as a model organism

Box jellyfish eyes are a visual system that is sophisticated in numerous ways. These intricacies include the considerable variation within the morphology of box jellyfishes' eyes (including their task/behavior specification), and the molecular makeup of their eyes including: photoreceptors, opsins, lenses, and synapses.[41] The comparison of these attributes to more derived visual systems can allow for a further understanding of how the evolution of more derived visual systems may have occurred, and puts into perspective how box jellyfish can play the role as an evolutionary/developmental model for all visual systems.[45]

 

Characteristics

Box jellyfish visual systems are both diverse and complex, comprising multiple photosystems.[41] There is likely considerable variation in visual properties between species of box jellyfish given the significant inter-species morphological and physiological variation. Eyes tend to differ in size and shape, along with number of receptors (including opsins), and physiology across species of box jellyfish.[41]

 

Box jellyfish have a series of intricate lensed eyes that are similar to those of more derived multicellular organisms such as vertebrates. Their 24 eyes fit into four different morphological categories.[46] These categories consist of two large, morphologically different medial eyes (a lower and upper lensed eye) containing spherical lenses, a lateral pair of pigment slit eyes, and a lateral pair of pigment pit eyes.[43] The eyes are situated on rhopalia (small sensory structures) which serve sensory functions of the box jellyfish and arise from the cavities of the exumbrella (the surface of the body) on the side of the bells of the jellyfish.[41] The two large eyes are located on the mid-line of the club and are considered complex because they contain lenses. The four remaining eyes lie laterally on either side of each rhopalia and are considered simple. The simple eyes are observed as small invaginated cups of epithelium that have developed pigmentation.[47] The larger of the complex eyes contains a cellular cornea created by a mono ciliated epithelium, cellular lens, homogenous capsule to the lens, vitreous body with prismatic elements, and a retina of pigmented cells. The smaller of the complex eyes is said to be slightly less complex given that it lacks a capsule but otherwise contains the same structure as the larger eye.[47]

 

Box jellyfish have multiple photosystems that comprise different sets of eyes.[41] Evidence includes immunocytochemical and molecular data that show photopigment differences among the different morphological eye types, and physiological experiments done on box jellyfish to suggest behavioral differences among photosystems. Each individual eye type constitutes photosystems that work collectively to control visually guided behaviors.[41]

 

Box jellyfish eyes primarily use c-PRCs (ciliary photoreceptor cells) similar to that of vertebrate eyes. These cells undergo phototransduction cascades (process of light absorption by photoreceptors) that are triggered by c-opsins.[48] Available opsin sequences suggest that there are two types of opsins possessed by all cnidarians including an ancient phylogenetic opsin, and a sister ciliary opsin to the c-opsins group. Box jellyfish could have both ciliary and cnidops (cnidarian opsins), which is something not previously believed to appear in the same retina.[41] Nevertheless, it is not entirely evident whether cnidarians possess multiple opsins that are capable of having distinctive spectral sensitivities.[41]

 

Comparison with other organisms

Comparative research on genetic and molecular makeup of box jellyfishes' eyes versus more derived eyes seen in vertebrates and cephalopods focuses on: lenses and crystallin composition, synapses, and Pax genes and their implied evidence for shared primordial (ancestral) genes in eye evolution.[49]

 

Box jellyfish eyes are said to be an evolutionary/developmental model of all eyes based on their evolutionary recruitment of crystallins and Pax genes.[45] Research done on box jellyfish including Tripedalia cystophora has suggested that they possess a single Pax gene, PaxB. PaxB functions by binding to crystallin promoters and activating them. PaxB in situ hybridization resulted in PaxB expression in the lens, retina, and statocysts.[45] These results and the rejection of the prior hypothesis that Pax6 was an ancestral Pax gene in eyes has led to the conclusion that PaxB was a primordial gene in eye evolution, and that the eyes of all organisms likely share a common ancestor.[45]

 

The lens structure of box jellyfish appears very similar to those of other organisms, but the crystallins are distinct in both function and appearance.[49] Weak reactions were seen within the sera and there were very weak sequence similarities within the crystallins among vertebrate and invertebrate lenses.[49] This is likely due to differences in lower molecular weight proteins and the subsequent lack of immunological reactions with antisera that other organisms' lenses exhibit.[49]

 

All four of the visual systems of box jellyfish species investigated with detail (Carybdea marsupialis, Chiropsalmus quadrumanus, Tamoya haplonema and Tripedalia cystophora) have invaginated synapses, but only in the upper and lower lensed eyes. Different densities were found between the upper and lower lenses, and between species.[46] Four types of chemical synapses have been discovered within the rhopalia which could help in understanding neural organization including: clear unidirectional, dense-core unidirectional, clear bidirectional, and clear and dense-core bidirectional. The synapses of the lensed eyes could be useful as markers to learn more about the neural circuit in box jellyfish retinal areas.[46]

 

Evolution as a response to natural stimuli

The primary adaptive responses to environmental variation observed in box jellyfish eyes include pupillary constriction speeds in response to light environments, as well as photoreceptor tuning and lens adaptations to better respond to shifts between light environments and darkness. Interestingly, some box jellyfish species' eyes appear to have evolved more focused vision in response to their habitat.[50]

 

Pupillary contraction appears to have evolved in response to variation in the light environment across ecological niches across three species of box jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri, Chiropsella bronzie, and Carukia barnesi). Behavioral studies suggest that faster pupil contraction rates allow for greater object avoidance,[50] and in fact, species with more complex habitats exhibit faster rates. Ch. bronzie inhabit shallow beach fronts that have low visibility and very few obstacles, thus, faster pupil contraction in response to objects in their environment is not important. Ca. barnesi and Ch. fleckeri are found in more three-dimensionally complex environments like mangroves with an abundance of natural obstacles, where faster pupil contraction is more adaptive.[50] Behavioral studies support the idea that faster pupillary contraction rates assist with obstacle avoidance as well as depth adjustments in response to differing light intensities.

 

Light/dark adaptation via pupillary light reflexes is an additional form of an evolutionary response to the light environment. This relates to the pupil's response to shifts between light intensity (generally from sunlight to darkness). In the process of light/dark adaptation, the upper and lower lens eyes of different box jellyfish species vary in specific function.[43] The lower lens-eyes contain pigmented photoreceptors and long pigment cells with dark pigments that migrate on light/dark adaptation, while the upper-lens eyes play a concentrated role in light direction and phototaxis given that they face upward towards the water surface (towards the sun or moon).[43] The upper lens of Ch. bronzie does not exhibit any considerable optical power while Tr. cystophora (a box jellyfish species that tends to live in mangroves) does. The ability to use light to visually guide behavior is not of as much importance to Ch. bronzie as it is to species in more obstacle-filled environments.[43] Differences in visually guided behavior serve as evidence that species that share the same number and structure of eyes can exhibit differences in how they control behavior.

 

Largest and smallest

Jellyfish range from about one millimeter in bell height and diameter,[51] to nearly 2 metres (6+1⁄2 ft) in bell height and diameter; the tentacles and mouth parts usually extend beyond this bell dimension.[25]

 

The smallest jellyfish are the peculiar creeping jellyfish in the genera Staurocladia and Eleutheria, which have bell disks from 0.5 millimetres (1⁄32 in) to a few millimeters in diameter, with short tentacles that extend out beyond this, which these jellyfish use to move across the surface of seaweed or the bottoms of rocky pools;[51] many of these tiny creeping jellyfish cannot be seen in the field without a hand lens or microscope. They can reproduce asexually by fission (splitting in half). Other very small jellyfish, which have bells about one millimeter, are the hydromedusae of many species that have just been released from their parent polyps;[52] some of these live only a few minutes before shedding their gametes in the plankton and then dying, while others will grow in the plankton for weeks or months. The hydromedusae Cladonema radiatum and Cladonema californicum are also very small, living for months, yet never growing beyond a few mm in bell height and diameter.[53]

  

The lion's mane jellyfish (Cyanea capillata) is one of the largest species.

The lion's mane jellyfish, Cyanea capillata, was long-cited as the largest jellyfish, and arguably the longest animal in the world, with fine, thread-like tentacles that may extend up to 36.5 m (119 ft 9 in) long (though most are nowhere near that large).[54][55] They have a moderately painful, but rarely fatal, sting.[56] The increasingly common giant Nomura's jellyfish, Nemopilema nomurai, found in some, but not all years in the waters of Japan, Korea and China in summer and autumn is another candidate for "largest jellyfish", in terms of diameter and weight, since the largest Nomura's jellyfish in late autumn can reach 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in bell (body) diameter and about 200 kg (440 lb) in weight, with average specimens frequently reaching 0.9 m (2 ft 11 in) in bell diameter and about 150 kg (330 lb) in weight.[57][58] The large bell mass of the giant Nomura's jellyfish[59] can dwarf a diver and is nearly always much greater than the Lion's Mane, whose bell diameter can reach 1 m (3 ft 3 in).[60]

 

The rarely encountered deep-sea jellyfish Stygiomedusa gigantea is another candidate for "largest jellyfish", with its thick, massive bell up to 100 cm (3 ft 3 in) wide, and four thick, "strap-like" oral arms extending up to 6 m (19+1⁄2 ft) in length, very different from the typical fine, threadlike tentacles that rim the umbrella of more-typical-looking jellyfish, including the Lion's Mane.[61]

 

Desmonema glaciale, which lives in the Antarctic region, can reach a very large size (several meters).[62][63] Purple-striped jelly (Chrysaora colorata) can also be extremely long (up to 15 feet).[64]

 

Life history and behavior

See also: Biological life cycle and Developmental biology

Illustration of two life stages of seven jelly species

The developmental stages of scyphozoan jellyfish's life cycle:

1–3 Larva searches for site

4–8 Polyp grows

9–11 Polyp strobilates

12–14 Medusa grows

Life cycle

Jellyfish have a complex life cycle which includes both sexual and asexual phases, with the medusa being the sexual stage in most instances. Sperm fertilize eggs, which develop into larval planulae, become polyps, bud into ephyrae and then transform into adult medusae. In some species certain stages may be skipped.[65]

 

Upon reaching adult size, jellyfish spawn regularly if there is a sufficient supply of food. In most species, spawning is controlled by light, with all individuals spawning at about the same time of day; in many instances this is at dawn or dusk.[66] Jellyfish are usually either male or female (with occasional hermaphrodites). In most cases, adults release sperm and eggs into the surrounding water, where the unprotected eggs are fertilized and develop into larvae. In a few species, the sperm swim into the female's mouth, fertilizing the eggs within her body, where they remain during early development stages. In moon jellies, the eggs lodge in pits on the oral arms, which form a temporary brood chamber for the developing planula larvae.[67]

 

The planula is a small larva covered with cilia. When sufficiently developed, it settles onto a firm surface and develops into a polyp. The polyp generally consists of a small stalk topped by a mouth that is ringed by upward-facing tentacles. The polyps resemble those of closely related anthozoans, such as sea anemones and corals. The jellyfish polyp may be sessile, living on the bottom, boat hulls or other substrates, or it may be free-floating or attached to tiny bits of free-living plankton[68] or rarely, fish[69][70] or other invertebrates. Polyps may be solitary or colonial.[71] Most polyps are only millimetres in diameter and feed continuously. The polyp stage may last for years.[25]

 

After an interval and stimulated by seasonal or hormonal changes, the polyp may begin reproducing asexually by budding and, in the Scyphozoa, is called a segmenting polyp, or a scyphistoma. Budding produces more scyphistomae and also ephyrae.[25] Budding sites vary by species; from the tentacle bulbs, the manubrium (above the mouth), or the gonads of hydromedusae.[68] In a process known as strobilation, the polyp's tentacles are reabsorbed and the body starts to narrow, forming transverse constrictions, in several places near the upper extremity of the polyp. These deepen as the constriction sites migrate down the body, and separate segments known as ephyra detach. These are free-swimming precursors of the adult medusa stage, which is the life stage that is typically identified as a jellyfish.[25][72] The ephyrae, usually only a millimeter or two across initially, swim away from the polyp and grow. Limnomedusae polyps can asexually produce a creeping frustule larval form, which crawls away before developing into another polyp.[25] A few species can produce new medusae by budding directly from the medusan stage. Some hydromedusae reproduce by fission.[68]

 

Lifespan

Little is known of the life histories of many jellyfish as the places on the seabed where the benthic forms of those species live have not been found. However, an asexually reproducing strobila form can sometimes live for several years, producing new medusae (ephyra larvae) each year.[73]

 

An unusual species, Turritopsis dohrnii, formerly classified as Turritopsis nutricula,[74] might be effectively immortal because of its ability under certain circumstances to transform from medusa back to the polyp stage, thereby escaping the death that typically awaits medusae post-reproduction if they have not otherwise been eaten by some other organism. So far this reversal has been observed only in the laboratory.[75]

 

Locomotion

 

Jellyfish locomotion is highly efficient. Muscles in the jellylike bell contract, setting up a start vortex and propelling the animal. When the contraction ends, the bell recoils elastically, creating a stop vortex with no extra energy input.

Using the moon jelly Aurelia aurita as an example, jellyfish have been shown to be the most energy-efficient swimmers of all animals.[76] They move through the water by radially expanding and contracting their bell-shaped bodies to push water behind them. They pause between the contraction and expansion phases to create two vortex rings. Muscles are used for the contraction of the body, which creates the first vortex and pushes the animal forward, but the mesoglea is so elastic that the expansion is powered exclusively by relaxing the bell, which releases the energy stored from the contraction. Meanwhile, the second vortex ring starts to spin faster, sucking water into the bell and pushing against the centre of the body, giving a secondary and "free" boost forward. The mechanism, called passive energy recapture, only works in relatively small jellyfish moving at low speeds, allowing the animal to travel 30 percent farther on each swimming cycle. Jellyfish achieved a 48 percent lower cost of transport (food and oxygen intake versus energy spent in movement) than other animals in similar studies. One reason for this is that most of the gelatinous tissue of the bell is inactive, using no energy during swimming.[77]

 

Ecology

Diet

Jellyfish are, like other cnidarians, generally carnivorous (or parasitic),[78] feeding on planktonic organisms, crustaceans, small fish, fish eggs and larvae, and other jellyfish, ingesting food and voiding undigested waste through the mouth. They hunt passively using their tentacles as drift lines, or sink through the water with their tentacles spread widely; the tentacles, which contain nematocysts to stun or kill the prey, may then flex to help bring it to the mouth.[25] Their swimming technique also helps them to capture prey; when their bell expands it sucks in water which brings more potential prey within reach of the tentacles.[79]

 

A few species such as Aglaura hemistoma are omnivorous, feeding on microplankton which is a mixture of zooplankton and phytoplankton (microscopic plants) such as dinoflagellates.[80] Others harbour mutualistic algae (Zooxanthellae) in their tissues;[25] the spotted jellyfish (Mastigias papua) is typical of these, deriving part of its nutrition from the products of photosynthesis, and part from captured zooplankton.[81][82] The upside-down jellyfish (Cassiopea andromeda) also has a symbiotic relationship with microalgae, but captures tiny animals to supplement their diet. This is done by releasing tiny balls of living cells composed of mesoglea. These use cilia to drive them through water and stinging cells which stun the prey. The blobs also seems to have digestive capabilities.[83]

 

Predation

Other species of jellyfish are among the most common and important jellyfish predators. Sea anemones may eat jellyfish that drift into their range. Other predators include tunas, sharks, swordfish, sea turtles and penguins.[84][85] Jellyfish washed up on the beach are consumed by foxes, other terrestrial mammals and birds.[86] In general however, few animals prey on jellyfish; they can broadly be considered to be top predators in the food chain. Once jellyfish have become dominant in an ecosystem, for example through overfishing which removes predators of jellyfish larvae, there may be no obvious way for the previous balance to be restored: they eat fish eggs and juvenile fish, and compete with fish for food, preventing fish stocks from recovering.[87]

 

Symbiosis

Some small fish are immune to the stings of the jellyfish and live among the tentacles, serving as bait in a fish trap; they are safe from potential predators and are able to share the fish caught by the jellyfish.[88] The cannonball jellyfish has a symbiotic relationship with ten different species of fish, and with the longnose spider crab, which lives inside the bell, sharing the jellyfish's food and nibbling its tissues.[89]

 

Blooms

Main article: Jellyfish bloom

 

Map of population trends of native and invasive jellyfish.[90]

Circles represent data records; larger circles denote higher certainty of findings.

Increase (high certainty)

Increase (low certainty)

Stable/variable

Decrease

No data

Jellyfish form large masses or blooms in certain environmental conditions of ocean currents, nutrients, sunshine, temperature, season, prey availability, reduced predation and oxygen concentration. Currents collect jellyfish together, especially in years with unusually high populations. Jellyfish can detect marine currents and swim against the current to congregate in blooms.[91][92] Jellyfish are better able to survive in nutrient-rich, oxygen-poor water than competitors, and thus can feast on plankton without competition. Jellyfish may also benefit from saltier waters, as saltier waters contain more iodine, which is necessary for polyps to turn into jellyfish. Rising sea temperatures caused by climate change may also contribute to jellyfish blooms, because many species of jellyfish are able to survive in warmer waters.[93] Increased nutrients from agricultural or urban runoff with nutrients including nitrogen and phosphorus compounds increase the growth of phytoplankton, causing eutrophication and algal blooms. When the phytoplankton die, they may create dead zones, so-called because they are hypoxic (low in oxygen). This in turn kills fish and other animals, but not jellyfish,[94] allowing them to bloom.[95][96] Jellyfish populations may be expanding globally as a result of land runoff and overfishing of their natural predators.[97][98] Jellyfish are well placed to benefit from disturbance of marine ecosystems. They reproduce rapidly; they prey upon many species, while few species prey on them; and they feed via touch rather than visually, so they can feed effectively at night and in turbid waters.[99][100] It may be difficult for fish stocks to re-establish themselves in marine ecosystems once they have become dominated by jellyfish, because jellyfish feed on plankton, which includes fish eggs and larvae.[101][102][96]

  

Moon jellyfishes can live in northern hemisphere seas,[103][104] such as the Baltic Sea.[105][106]

As suspected at the turn of this century, [107][108] jellyfish blooms are increasing in frequency. Between 2013 and 2020 the Mediterranean Science Commission monitored on a weekly basis the frequency of such outbreaks in coastal waters from Morocco to the Black Sea, revealing a relatively high frequency of these blooms nearly all year round, with peaks observed from March to July and often again in the autumn. The blooms are caused by different jellyfish species, depending on their localisation within the Basin: one observes a clear dominance of Pelagia noctiluca and Velella velella outbreaks in the western Mediterranean, of Rhizostoma pulmo and Rhopilema nomadica outbreaks in the eastern Mediterranean, and of Aurelia aurita and Mnemiopsis leidyi outbreaks in the Black Sea.[109]

 

Some jellyfish populations that have shown clear increases in the past few decades are invasive species, newly arrived from other habitats: examples include the Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Baltic Sea, central and eastern Mediterranean, Hawaii, and tropical and subtropical parts of the West Atlantic (including the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and Brazil).[105][106]

 

Jellyfish blooms can have significant impact on community structure. Some carnivorous jellyfish species prey on zooplankton while others graze on primary producers.[110] Reductions in zooplankton and ichthyoplankton due to a jellyfish bloom can ripple through the trophic levels. High-density jellyfish populations can outcompete other predators and reduce fish recruitment.[111] Increased grazing on primary producers by jellyfish can also interrupt energy transfer to higher trophic levels.[112]

 

During blooms, jellyfish significantly alter the nutrient availability in their environment. Blooms require large amounts of available organic nutrients in the water column to grow, limiting availability for other organisms.[113] Some jellyfish have a symbiotic relationship with single-celled dinoflagellates, allowing them to assimilate inorganic carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen creating competition for phytoplankton.[113] Their large biomass makes them an important source of dissolved and particulate organic matter for microbial communities through excretion, mucus production, and decomposition.[90][114] The microbes break down the organic matter into inorganic ammonium and phosphate. However, the low carbon availability shifts the process from production to respiration creating low oxygen areas making the dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus largely unavailable for primary production.

 

These blooms have very real impacts on industries. Jellyfish can outcompete fish by utilizing open niches in over-fished fisheries.[115] Catch of jellyfish can strain fishing gear and lead to expenses relating to damaged gear. Power plants have been shut down due to jellyfish blocking the flow of cooling water.[116] Blooms have also been harmful for tourism, causing a rise in stings and sometimes the closure of beaches.[117]

 

Jellyfish form a component of jelly-falls, events where gelatinous zooplankton fall to the seafloor, providing food for the benthic organisms there.[118] In temperate and subpolar regions, jelly-falls usually follow immediately after a bloom.[119]

 

Habitats

 

A common Scyphozoan jellyfish seen near beaches in the Florida Panhandle

Most jellyfish are marine animals, although a few hydromedusae inhabit freshwater. The best known freshwater example is the cosmopolitan hydrozoan jellyfish, Craspedacusta sowerbii. It is less than an inch (2.5 cm) in diameter, colorless and does not sting.[120] Some jellyfish populations have become restricted to coastal saltwater lakes, such as Jellyfish Lake in Palau.[121] Jellyfish Lake is a marine lake where millions of golden jellyfish (Mastigias spp.) migrate horizontally across the lake daily.[82]

 

Although most jellyfish live well off the ocean floor and form part of the plankton, a few species are closely associated with the bottom for much of their lives and can be considered benthic. The upside-down jellyfish in the genus Cassiopea typically lie on the bottom of shallow lagoons where they sometimes pulsate gently with their umbrella top facing down. Even some deep-sea species of hydromedusae and scyphomedusae are usually collected on or near the bottom. All of the stauromedusae are found attached to either seaweed or rocky or other firm material on the bottom.[122]

 

Some species explicitly adapt to tidal flux. In Roscoe Bay, jellyfish ride the current at ebb tide until they hit a gravel bar, and then descend below the current. They remain in still waters until the tide rises, ascending and allowing it to sweep them back into the bay. They also actively avoid fresh water from mountain snowmelt, diving until they find enough salt.

  

Parasites

Jellyfish are hosts to a wide variety of parasitic organisms. They act as intermediate hosts of endoparasitic helminths, with the infection being transferred to the definitive host fish after predation. Some digenean trematodes, especially species in the family Lepocreadiidae, use jellyfish as their second intermediate hosts. Fish become infected by the trematodes when they feed on infected jellyfish.

 

Relation to humans

Jellyfish have long been eaten in some parts of the world. Fisheries have begun harvesting the American cannonball jellyfish, Stomolophus meleagris, along the southern Atlantic coast of the United States and in the Gulf of Mexico for export to Asia.

 

Jellyfish are also harvested for their collagen, which is being investigated for use in a variety of applications including the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

 

Aquaculture and fisheries of other species often suffer severe losses – and so losses of productivity – due to jellyfish.

 

Products

Main article: Jellyfish as food

In some countries, including China, Japan, and Korea, jellyfish are a delicacy. The jellyfish is dried to prevent spoiling. Only some 12 species of scyphozoan jellyfish belonging to the order Rhizostomeae are harvested for food, mostly in southeast Asia. Rhizostomes, especially Rhopilema esculentum in China (海蜇 hǎizhé, 'sea stingers') and Stomolophus meleagris (cannonball jellyfish) in the United States, are favored because of their larger and more rigid bodies and because their toxins are harmless to humans.

 

Traditional processing methods, carried out by a jellyfish master, involve a 20- to 40-day multi-phase procedure in which, after removing the gonads and mucous membranes, the umbrella and oral arms are treated with a mixture of table salt and alum, and compressed. Processing makes the jellyfish drier and more acidic, producing a crisp texture. Jellyfish prepared this way retain 7–10% of their original weight, and the processed product consists of approximately 94% water and 6% protein. Freshly processed jellyfish has a white, creamy color and turns yellow or brown during prolonged storage.

 

In China, processed jellyfish are desalted by soaking in water overnight and eaten cooked or raw. The dish is often served shredded with a dressing of oil, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar, or as a salad with vegetables. In Japan, cured jellyfish are rinsed, cut into strips and served with vinegar as an appetizer. Desalted, ready-to-eat products are also available.

 

Biotechnology

The hydromedusa Aequorea victoria was the source of green fluorescent protein, studied for its role in bioluminescence and later for use as a marker in genetic engineering.

Pliny the Elder reported in his Natural History that the slime of the jellyfish "Pulmo marinus" produced light when rubbed on a walking stick.

 

In 1961, Osamu Shimomura extracted green fluorescent protein (GFP) and another bioluminescent protein, called aequorin, from the large and abundant hydromedusa Aequorea victoria, while studying photoproteins that cause bioluminescence in this species. Three decades later, Douglas Prasher sequenced and cloned the gene for GFP. Martin Chalfie figured out how to use GFP as a fluorescent marker of genes inserted into other cells or organisms. Roger Tsien later chemically manipulated GFP to produce other fluorescent colors to use as markers. In 2008, Shimomura, Chalfie and Tsien won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work with GFP. Man-made GFP became widely used as a fluorescent tag to show which cells or tissues express specific genes. The genetic engineering technique fuses the gene of interest to the GFP gene. The fused DNA is then put into a cell, to generate either a cell line or (via IVF techniques) an entire animal bearing the gene. In the cell or animal, the artificial gene turns on in the same tissues and the same time as the normal gene, making a fusion of the normal protein with GFP attached to the end, illuminating the animal or cell reveals what tissues express that protein—or at what stage of development. The fluorescence shows where the gene is expressed.

 

Aquarium display

Jellyfish are displayed in many public aquariums. Often the tank's background is blue and the animals are illuminated by side light, increasing the contrast between the animal and the background. In natural conditions, many jellies are so transparent that they are nearly invisible. Jellyfish are not adapted to closed spaces. They depend on currents to transport them from place to place. Professional exhibits as in the Monterey Bay Aquarium feature precise water flows, typically in circular tanks to avoid trapping specimens in corners. The outflow is spread out over a large surface area and the inflow enters as a sheet of water in front of the outflow, so the jellyfish do not get sucked into it. As of 2009, jellyfish were becoming popular in home aquariums, where they require similar equipment.

 

Stings

Jellyfish are armed with nematocysts, a type of specialized stinging cell. Contact with a jellyfish tentacle can trigger millions of nematocysts to pierce the skin and inject venom, but only some species' venom causes an adverse reaction in humans. In a study published in Communications Biology, researchers found a jellyfish species called Cassiopea xamachana which when triggered will release tiny balls of cells that swim around the jellyfish stinging everything in their path. Researchers described these as "self-propelling microscopic grenades" and named them cassiosomes.

 

The effects of stings range from mild discomfort to extreme pain and death. Most jellyfish stings are not deadly, but stings of some box jellyfish (Irukandji jellyfish), such as the sea wasp, can be deadly. Stings may cause anaphylaxis (a form of shock), which can be fatal. Jellyfish kill 20 to 40 people a year in the Philippines alone. In 2006 the Spanish Red Cross treated 19,000 stung swimmers along the Costa Brava.

 

Vinegar (3–10% aqueous acetic acid) may help with box jellyfish stings but not the stings of the Portuguese man o' war. Clearing the area of jelly and tentacles reduces nematocyst firing. Scraping the affected skin, such as with the edge of a credit card, may remove remaining nematocysts. Once the skin has been cleaned of nematocysts, hydrocortisone cream applied locally reduces pain and inflammation. Antihistamines may help to control itching. Immunobased antivenins are used for serious box jellyfish stings.

 

In Elba Island and Corsica dittrichia viscosa is now used by residents and tourists to heal stings from jellyfish, bees and wasps pressing fresh leaves on the skin with quick results.

 

Mechanical issues

Jellyfish in large quantities can fill and split fishing nets and crush captured fish. They can clog cooling equipment, having disabled power stations in several countries; jellyfish caused a cascading blackout in the Philippines in 1999, as well as damaging the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California in 2008. They can also stop desalination plants and ships' engines.

[order] CICONIIFORMES | [family] Ardeidae | [latin] Nycticorax nycticorax | [UK] Black-crowned Night-Heron | [FR] Bihoreau gris | [DE] Nachtreiher | [ES] Martinete Comun | [NL] Kwak

 

Measurements

spanwidth min.: 98 cm

spanwidth max.: 110 cm

size min.: 58 cm

size max.: 65 cm

Breeding

incubation min.: 21 days

incubation max.: 22 days

fledging min.: 40 days

fledging max.: 22 days

broods 1

eggs min.: 2

eggs max.: 7

 

Genus description

 

Ixobrychus is a genus of bitterns, a group of wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae. It has a single representative species in each of North America, South America, Eurasia and Australasia. The tropical species are largely resident, but the two northern species are partially migratory, with many birds moving south to warmer areas in winter. The Ixobrychus bitterns are all small species, their four larger relatives being in the genus Botaurus. They breed in large reedbeds, and can often be difficult to observe except for occasional flight views due to their secretive behaviour.

  

Physical characteristics

 

The adult has distinctive coloring, with black cap, upper back and scapulars; gray wings, rump and tail; and white to pale gray underparts. The bill is stout and black, and the eyes are red. For most of the year, the legs of the adult are yellow-green, but by the height of the breeding season, they have turned pink. The eyes of the juvenile black-crowned night heron are yellowish or amber, and the dull gray legs lack the colorful pigmentation of those of the adult. The juvenile has a brown head, neck, chest and belly streaked with buff and white. The wings and back are darker brown, though the tips of the feathers have large white spots. These spots are particularly large on the greater secondary coverts. The young do not acquire full adult plumage until the third year.

 

Habitat

 

Fresh, salt or brackish water, areas with aquatic vegetation or on forested margins of shallow rivers, streams, pools, ponds, lakes, swamps and mangroves. Feeding in dry land and along marine coasts. Roosts in leafy trees: pine, oak, mangroves, etc, or bamboo.

 

Feeding

 

The black-crowned night heron is an opportunistic feeder. Its diet consists mainly of fish, though it is frequently rounded out by other items such as leeches, earthworms, aquatic and terrestrial insects. It also eats crayfish, mussels, squid, amphibians, lizards, snakes, rodents, birds, eggs, carrion, plant materials, and garbage and refuse at landfills. It is usually a solitary forager, and it strongly defends its feeding territory. The night heron prefers to feed in shallow waters, where it grasps its prey with its bill instead of stabbing it. A technique called 'bill vibrating'--which is opening and closing the bill rapidly in water--creates a disturbance which may lure prey. Evening to early morning are the usual times it feeds, but when food is in high demand, such as during the breeding season, it will feed at any time of the day.

 

Breeding

 

Black-crowned night herons are presumed to be monogamous. Pair formations are signaled by males becoming aggressive and performing snap displays, in which they walk around in a crouched position, head lowered, snapping their mandibles together or grasping a twig. The snap display is followed by the advertisement display to attract females. In this display a male stretches his neck out and bobs his head, and when his head is level with his feet, he gives a snap-hiss vocalization. Twig-shaking and preening may be occur between songs. It has been suggested that these displays provide social stimulus to other birds, prompting them to display. This stimultion in colonial species may be crucial for successful reproduction. Females that come near the displaying male are rejected at first, but eventually a female is allowed to enter his territory. The newly-formed pair then allopreens (cleaning each other) and engages in mutual billing. At the time of pair formation, the legs of both sexes turn pink. Copulation usually takes place on or near the nest, and begins the first or second day after the pair is formed.

There is one brood per season. Black-crowned night herons nest colonially, and often there can be more than a dozen nests in one tree. The nest is built near the trunk of a tree or in the fork of branches, either in the open or deep in foliage. The male initiates nest building by beginning to build a new nest or refurbishing an old one. The nest is usually a platform lined with roots and grass. During and after pair formation, the male collects sticks and presents them to the female, who works them into the nest. The male's twig ceremony gradually changes to nest building.

The eggs are laid at 2 day intervals, beginning 4-5 days after pair formation. Incubation, which lasts 24-26 days, is carried out by both adults. The clutch size is 3-5 eggs. The eggs are greenest on the first day and fade to pale blue or green after that. On hot days, the parents wet their feathers, perhaps to keep the eggs cool. Both parents brood the young. After 2 weeks, the young leave the nest, although they don't go far. By 3 weeks, they can be found clustered at the tops of trees if they are disturbed. By Week 6-7 they fly well and depart for the feeding grounds. Adult black-crowned night herons do not recognize their own young and will accept and brood young from other nests. The young have a tendancy to regurgitate their food onto intruders when disturbed.

 

Migration

 

Migratory and dispersive. In July-August juveniles disperse in all directions, mostly north and west of colonies. This dispersal merges into autumn migration which in Europe lasts through September and October; some linger into December in North Africa. Overwhelming majority of west Palearctic birds winter in tropical Africa where southern limits unknown as resident breeding population present. Rather early return to west Palearctic colonies, from mid-March with most back by mid-April.

 

Nyah is part of Inamorata Vitiligo collection that celebrates the beauty of this unique type of pigmentation. The collection consists of three dolls in Chocolate resin: Nyah (Nnaji sculpt), Nala (Nnaji sculpt) and Imani (Nubia sculpt).

 

Nala has one blue and one brown eye, black lashes, red glossy lips and vitiligo pigmentation. The white lingerie is from Inamorata Cherub LE30 from 2013.

 

The jewellery and dolls are available for sale in my shop at emiliacouture.com/shop/

A springtail looking for a place to hide. I found this one under spruce bark.

Fake(+)(+), Perfect

(o)(o), Perky (*)(*), Cold (^)(^) and even Grandmas \o/\o/. Big( ? )( ?

)small (.)(.) Save them all. REPOST for Breast Cancer Awareness! Let's save the ta-tas!! :o)

 

Leucistic Maned Duck (Chenonetta jubata), Cattai National Park, NSW, Australia

 

Ebird checklist:

ebird.org/australia/view/checklist/S49986322

 

Leucism is a condition in which there is partial loss of pigmentation in an animal resulting in white, pale, or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, feathers, scales or cuticle, but not the eyes.

 

Source: Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucism

le Mascaret, Rixensart

The white patches and light colored talons are caused by a leucistic condition -- a condition of reduced pigmentation resulting in white patches. These patches of white can occur while the rest of the eagle is colored normal. Unlike albinism, the eye color is normal.

le Mascaret, Rixensart

This Carion Crow shows partial white feathers, known as leucism. Leucism represents a wide variety of conditions that result in the partial loss of pigmentation in an animal—causing white, pale, or patchy coloration of the skin or feathers (Wikipedia).

This leaf was removed from the more basal region of a shoot, but there isn't a great deal of difference in leaf shape along the shoot's length, other than a tendency to be a little less broad and with a more protracted leaf tip in the more distal leaves.

 

Cells with a reddish pigmentation can be seen towards the leaf base, especially those that are part of the strong costa. The latter extends into the long, tapering, pointed leaf tip. The leaf margin appears to be thickened and bears small teeth, especially towards, and including, the leaf tip. Also visible are some longitudinal folds on the leaf lamina (i.e. the leaf is plicate).

Leucism is a condition where there is partial loss of pigmentation resulting in white, pale, or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, feathers, scales or cuticle, but not the eyes. Unlike albinism, it is caused by a reduction in multiple types of pigment, not just melanin. (Wikipedia)

 

According to the California Audubon Society, the lack of bright color may make a leucistic bird unattractive to mates and at greater danger of being attacked by predators. Lighter plumage may rob the birds of protective camouflage and make them more vulnerable to predators such as hawks and feral cats. Because plumage colors play an important role in courtship rituals, birds with leucism may be unable to find strong, healthy mates. Melanin is also an important structural component of feathers, and birds with extensive leucism have weaker feathers that will wear out more swiftly, making flight more difficult and eliminating some of the bird’s insulation against harsh weather.

The grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus), also known as the Congo grey parrot, Congo African grey parrot or African grey parrot, is an Old World parrot in the family Psittacidae. The Timneh parrot (Psittacus timneh) once was identified as a subspecies of the grey parrot, but has since been elevated to a full species.

 

Taxonomy

The grey parrot was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other parrots in the genus Psittacus and coined the binomial name Psittacus erithacus. Linnaeus erroneously specified the type locality as "Guinea": the locality was later designated as Ghana in West Africa. The genus name is Latin for "parrot". The specific epithet erithacus is Latin and is derived from the Ancient Greek εριθακος (erithakos) for an unknown bird that was said to mimic human sounds, perhaps the black redstart. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.

 

The Timneh parrot was formerly treated as a subspecies of the grey parrot but is now considered to be a separate species based mainly on the results from a genetic and morphological study published in 2007. Although Linnaeus placed all the parrots known to him in the genus Psittacus, only the grey parrot and the Timneh parrot are now assigned to this genus.

 

Description

The grey parrot is a medium-sized, predominantly grey, black-billed parrot. Its typical weight is 400 g (14 oz), with an approximate length of 33 cm (13 in), and a wingspan of 46–52 cm (18–20+1⁄2 in). The grey colour on the head and wings is generally darker than its body. The head and body feathers have slight white edges. The tail feathers are red.

 

Due to selection by parrot breeders, some grey parrots are partly or completely red. Both sexes appear similar. The colouration of juveniles is similar to that of adults, but typically their eyes are dark grey to black, in comparison to the yellow irises around dark pupils of the adult birds, and their undertail coverts are tinged with grey. Adults weigh 418–526 g (14+3⁄4–18+1⁄2 oz).

 

Grey parrots may live for 40–60 years in captivity, although their mean lifespan in the wild appears to be shorter—approximately 23 years. They start breeding at an age of 3–5 years and lay 3-5 eggs per brood.

 

Distribution and habitat

The grey parrot is native to equatorial Africa, including Angola, Cameroon, the Congo, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda. The species is found inside a range from Kenya to the eastern part of the Ivory Coast. Current estimates for the global population are uncertain and range from 630,000 to 13 million birds. Populations are decreasing worldwide. The species seems to favor dense forests, but can also be found at forest edges and in more open vegetation types, such as gallery and savanna forests.

 

A population study published in 2015 found that the species had been "virtually eliminated" from Ghana with numbers declining 90 to 99% since 1992. They were found in only 10 of 42 forested areas, and three roosts that once held 700–1200 birds each, now had only 18 in total. Local people mainly blamed the pet trade and the felling of timber for the decline. Populations are thought to be stable in Cameroon. In the Congo, an estimated 15,000 are taken every year for the pet trade, from the eastern part of the country, although the annual quota is stated to be 5,000.

 

Grey parrots have escaped or been deliberately released into Florida, U.S., but no evidence indicates that the population is breeding naturally.

 

Behaviour and ecology in the wild

Little is known about the behaviour and activities of these birds in the wild. In addition to a lack of research funding, it can be particularly difficult to study these birds in wild situations due to their status as prey animals, which leads them to have rather secretive personalities. It has been shown that wild greys may also imitate a wide variety of sounds they hear, much like their captive relatives. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, two greys sound-recorded while roosting reportedly had a repertoire of over 200 different calls, including nine imitations of other wild bird songs and one of a bat.

 

Feeding

Grey parrots are mainly frugivorous, with most of their diet consisting of fruit, nuts, and seeds, including oil palm fruit. They sometimes also eat flowers and tree bark, as well as insects and snails. In the wild, the grey parrot is partly a ground feeder.

 

Breeding

Grey parrots are monogamous breeders who nest in tree cavities. Each mated pair of parrots needs their own tree for their nest. The hen lays three to five eggs, which she incubates for 30 days while being fed by her mate. The adults defend their nesting sites.

 

Grey parrot chicks require feeding and care from their parents in the nest. The parents take care of them until 4–5 weeks after they are fledged. Young leave the nest at the age of 12 weeks. Little is known about the courtship behaviour of this species in the wild.[9] They weigh 12–14 g (7⁄16–1⁄2 oz) at hatching and 372–526 g (13+1⁄8–18+1⁄2 oz) when they leave their parents.

 

Conservation

Natural predators for this species include palm-nut vultures and several raptors. Monkeys target eggs and the young for food.

 

Humans are by far the largest threat to wild grey populations. Between 1994 and 2003, more than 359,000 grey parrots were traded on the international market. Approximately 21% of the wild population was being harvested every year. Mortality rates are extremely high between the time they are captured and they reach the market, ranging from 60 to 66%. This species also is hunted for its meat and for its body parts, which are used in traditional medicines. As a result of the extensive harvest of wild birds, in addition to habitat loss, this species is believed to be undergoing a rapid decline in the wild and therefore, has been rated as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

 

In October 2016, the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Fauna and Flora (CITES) extended the highest level of protection to grey parrots by listing the species under Appendix 1, which regulates international trade in the species.

 

In 2021, the Kenyan government held a short amnesty, during which grey parrot owners could pay a fee to obtain a permit for their birds and facilitate legal ownership. Following the expiry of this time period, it is now illegal to own this species without a permit.

 

In captivity

The species is common in captivity and regularly kept by humans as a companion parrot, prized for its ability to mimic human speech, which makes it one of the most popular avian pets. An escaped pet in Japan was returned to his owner after repeating the owner's name and address.

 

Grey parrots are notorious for mimicking noises heard in their environment and using them tirelessly. They are highly intelligent birds, needing extensive behavioral and social enrichment as well as extensive attention in captivity or else they may become distressed. Feather plucking is a common symptom seen among such distressed grey parrots, affecting up to 40% of captive individuals. They may also be prone to behavioural problems due to their sensitive nature. Social isolation hastens stress and aging.

 

The grey parrot is a highly social species which relies on a flock-type structure, even when raised in captivity. Because they are so dependent on the other birds within their flock, much of their speech and vocal ability is acquired through interaction with the humans with whom they reside. Both wild and captive parrots have been shown to use contact calls, which allow them to interact with their flock mates and communicate information about their location, detection of predators, availability of food, and safety status. In addition, contact calls are used to form strong social bonds with their flock mates, or in the case of captive greys, with their human housemates. In captivity, they have been shown to display communicative competence, meaning they not only use human language correctly, but also in such a way that is appropriate for the social situation which they are in.

 

Diet

In captivity, they may be fed bird pellets, a variety of fruits such as pear, orange, pomegranate, apple, and banana, and vegetables such as carrot, cooked sweet potato, celery, fresh kale, peas, and green beans. They also need a source of calcium.

 

Disease

Grey parrots in captivity have been observed to be susceptible to fungal infections, bacterial infections, nutritional insufficiency, malignant tumors, psittacine beak and feather disease, tapeworms, and blood-worms. Young grey parrots are more commonly infected by psittacine beak and feather disease than adults. Infected birds show symptoms such as loss of appetite, fluffy feathers, sluggishness, and reduced walking abilities due to brittle bones.

 

Grey parrots are more likely to have rhinitis,[clarification needed] an inflammatory and infectious disease of the nasal cavity. Birds may exhibit signs like wheezing, sneezing, nasal snuffling, and swelling or occlusion of the nares. Treatment options include gentle debridement and nasal irrigation.

 

Intelligence and cognition

Grey parrots are highly intelligent and are considered by many to be one of the most intelligent species of psittacines. Many individuals have been shown to perform at the cognitive level of a four- to six-year-old human child in some tasks. Several studies have been conducted, indicating a suite of higher-level cognitive abilities. Experiments have shown that grey parrots can learn number sequences and can learn to associate human voices with the faces of the humans who create them. It has been reported that grey parrots are capable of using existing known English words to create new labels for objects when the bird does not know the name of the object. For example "banerry" ("banana" + "cherry") for "apple", "banana crackers" for "dried banana chips" or "yummy bread" for "cake".

 

The American scientist Irene Pepperberg's research with Alex the parrot showed his ability to learn more than 100 words, differentiating between objects, colours, materials and shapes. Pepperberg spent several decades working with Alex, and wrote numerous scientific papers on experiments performed, indicating his advanced cognitive abilities. One such study found that Alex had the ability to add numbers as well as having a zero-like concept, similar to that of young children and apes.

 

In addition to their striking cognitive abilities, grey parrots have displayed altruistic behavior and concern for others. Researchers found that while blue-headed macaws were unlikely to share a nut with other members of their own species, grey parrots would actively give their conspecific partner a nut, even if it meant that they would not be able to get one themselves. When the roles were reversed, their partners were overwhelmingly likely to return the favor, foregoing their own nut to their partner's benefits. This indicates not only a display of selflessness but also an act of reciprocity.

 

A 2012 study demonstrated that captive grey parrots have individual musical preferences. When presented with the opportunity to choose between two different pieces of music via a touch screen monitor located in their cage, the two birds in the test consistently chose different songs, to which they then danced and sang along. Some pet grey parrots have also been observed using the music feature of smart speakers (such as Alexa or Amazon Echo) to verbally request playback of specific favored songs.

 

Some research has shown that foot preference can be linked to the number of words a particular parrot may know and use. Researchers found that grey parrots who prefer to use their right foot showed a marked increase in the number of words within their lexicon as compared to parrots who were left-footed. Scientists postulate that parrots may have lateralization of brain function, much like mammals do.

 

In two murder trials, one in 1993 and another in 2017, there was consideration to use the deceased victim's pet grey parrot's "testimony" as evidence due to the pet parrot's witnessing and repeating the victim's last words. In the 1993 murder trial of Gary Joseph Rasp, the defendant was accused of murdering Jane Gill. Public defender Charles Ogulnik wanted to use Jane's pet grey parrot Max as evidence to prove Gary's innocence due to Max repeating Jane's last words "Richard, no, no, no!". In the 2017 murder trial of Glenna Duram, the defendant is accused of murdering her husband Martin Duram. The prosecutor was exploring the possibility of using the couple's pet parrot Bud as evidence when Bud kept repeating Martin's last words "Don't fucking shoot."

 

Mutations

Grey mutations occur naturally in the wild, such as the Blue Ino (albino), the Incomplete Ino, and the Blue varietals. The Blue Ino is all white. The Incomplete Ino has light pigmentation. The Blue has a white tail.

 

Breeders from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Scandinavia have bred greys intensively since the 1800s. These bred varieties include the Red Pied, F2 Pied, Grizzles, Ino, Incomplete, Parino, Lutino, Cinnamon, and Red Factor. South African bird breeder Von van Antwerpen and New Zealand partner Jaco Bosman selected F2 Pieds and created the first Red Factor Greys. They are rare, may be predominantly red-pigmented, and vary in price depending upon the extent of the red plumage displayed.

 

History

The domestication of grey parrots has a history dating to 2000 B.C., depicting native birds in Egyptian hieroglyphics as pets. They were used for values by the Greeks and the Romans who kept them in birdcages. The grey parrots, due to recent years of illegal trading, have been classified as Endangered in 2016 by the IUCN Red List.

Jellyfish, also known sea jellies, are the medusa-phase of certain gelatinous members of the subphylum Medusozoa, which is a major part of the phylum Cnidaria.

 

Jellyfish are mainly free-swimming marine animals with umbrella-shaped bells and trailing tentacles, although a few are anchored to the seabed by stalks rather than being mobile. The bell can pulsate to provide propulsion for highly efficient locomotion. The tentacles are armed with stinging cells and may be used to capture prey and defend against predators. Jellyfish have a complex life cycle. The medusa is normally the sexual phase, which produces planula larvae; these then disperse widely and enter a sedentary polyp phase, before reaching sexual maturity.

 

Jellyfish are found all over the world, from surface waters to the deep sea. Scyphozoans (the "true jellyfish") are exclusively marine, but some hydrozoans with a similar appearance live in freshwater. Large, often colorful, jellyfish are common in coastal zones worldwide. The medusae of most species are fast-growing, and mature within a few months then die soon after breeding, but the polyp stage, attached to the seabed, may be much more long-lived. Jellyfish have been in existence for at least 500 million years, and possibly 700 million years or more, making them the oldest multi-organ animal group.

 

Jellyfish are eaten by humans in certain cultures. They are considered a delicacy in some Asian countries, where species in the Rhizostomeae order are pressed and salted to remove excess water. Australian researchers have described them as a "perfect food": sustainable and protein-rich but relatively low in food energy.

 

They are also used in research, where the green fluorescent protein used by some species to cause bioluminescence has been adapted as a fluorescent marker for genes inserted into other cells or organisms.

 

The stinging cells used by jellyfish to subdue their prey can injure humans. Thousands of swimmers worldwide are stung every year, with effects ranging from mild discomfort to serious injury or even death. When conditions are favourable, jellyfish can form vast swarms, which can be responsible for damage to fishing gear by filling fishing nets, and sometimes clog the cooling systems of power and desalination plants which draw their water from the sea.

  

Names

The name jellyfish, in use since 1796, has traditionally been applied to medusae and all similar animals including the comb jellies (ctenophores, another phylum). The term jellies or sea jellies is more recent, having been introduced by public aquaria in an effort to avoid use of the word "fish" with its modern connotation of an animal with a backbone, though shellfish, cuttlefish and starfish are not vertebrates either. In scientific literature, "jelly" and "jellyfish" have been used interchangeably. Many sources refer to only scyphozoans as "true jellyfish".

 

A group of jellyfish is called a "smack" or a "smuck".

 

Definition

The term jellyfish broadly corresponds to medusae, that is, a life-cycle stage in the Medusozoa. The American evolutionary biologist Paulyn Cartwright gives the following general definition:

 

Typically, medusozoan cnidarians have a pelagic, predatory jellyfish stage in their life cycle; staurozoans are the exceptions [as they are stalked].

 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines jellyfish as follows:

 

A free-swimming marine coelenterate that is the sexually reproducing form of a hydrozoan or scyphozoan and has a nearly transparent saucer-shaped body and extensible marginal tentacles studded with stinging cells.

 

Given that jellyfish is a common name, its mapping to biological groups is inexact. Some authorities have called the comb jellies and certain salps jellyfish, though other authorities state that neither of these are jellyfish, which they consider should be limited to certain groups within the medusozoa.

 

The non-medusozoan clades called jellyfish by some but not all authorities (both agreeing and disagreeing citations are given in each case) are indicated with on the following cladogram of the animal kingdom:

 

Jellyfish are not a clade, as they include most of the Medusozoa, barring some of the Hydrozoa. The medusozoan groups included by authorities are indicated on the following phylogenetic tree by the presence of citations. Names of included jellyfish, in English where possible, are shown in boldface; the presence of a named and cited example indicates that at least that species within its group has been called a jellyfish.

 

Taxonomy

The subphylum Medusozoa includes all cnidarians with a medusa stage in their life cycle. The basic cycle is egg, planula larva, polyp, medusa, with the medusa being the sexual stage. The polyp stage is sometimes secondarily lost. The subphylum include the major taxa, Scyphozoa (large jellyfish), Cubozoa (box jellyfish) and Hydrozoa (small jellyfish), and excludes Anthozoa (corals and sea anemones). This suggests that the medusa form evolved after the polyps. Medusozoans have tetramerous symmetry, with parts in fours or multiples of four.

 

The four major classes of medusozoan Cnidaria are:

Scyphozoa are sometimes called true jellyfish, though they are no more truly jellyfish than the others listed here. They have tetra-radial symmetry. Most have tentacles around the outer margin of the bowl-shaped bell, and long, oral arms around the mouth in the center of the subumbrella.

Cubozoa (box jellyfish) have a (rounded) box-shaped bell, and their velarium assists them to swim more quickly. Box jellyfish may be related more closely to scyphozoan jellyfish than either are to the Hydrozoa.

Hydrozoa medusae also have tetra-radial symmetry, nearly always have a velum (diaphragm used in swimming) attached just inside the bell margin, do not have oral arms, but a much smaller central stalk-like structure, the manubrium, with terminal mouth opening, and are distinguished by the absence of cells in the mesoglea. Hydrozoa show great diversity of lifestyle; some species maintain the polyp form for their entire life and do not form medusae at all (such as Hydra, which is hence not considered a jellyfish), and a few are entirely medusal and have no polyp form.

Staurozoa (stalked jellyfish) are characterized by a medusa form that is generally sessile, oriented upside down and with a stalk emerging from the apex of the "calyx" (bell), which attaches to the substrate. At least some Staurozoa also have a polyp form that alternates with the medusoid portion of the life cycle. Until recently, Staurozoa were classified within the Scyphozoa.

There are over 200 species of Scyphozoa, about 50 species of Staurozoa, about 50 species of Cubozoa, and the Hydrozoa includes about 1000–1500 species that produce medusae, but many more species that do not.

 

Fossil history

Since jellyfish have no hard parts, fossils are rare. The oldest unambiguous fossil of a free-swimming medusa is Burgessomedusa from the mid Cambrian Burgess Shale of Canada, which is likely either a stem group of box jellyfish (Cubozoa) or Acraspeda (the clade including Staurozoa, Cubozoa, and Scyphozoa). Other claimed records from the Cambrian of China and Utah in the United States are uncertain, and possibly represent ctenophores instead.

 

Anatomy

The main feature of a true jellyfish is the umbrella-shaped bell. This is a hollow structure consisting of a mass of transparent jelly-like matter known as mesoglea, which forms the hydrostatic skeleton of the animal. 95% or more of the mesogloea consists of water, but it also contains collagen and other fibrous proteins, as well as wandering amoebocytes which can engulf debris and bacteria. The mesogloea is bordered by the epidermis on the outside and the gastrodermis on the inside. The edge of the bell is often divided into rounded lobes known as lappets, which allow the bell to flex. In the gaps or niches between the lappets are dangling rudimentary sense organs known as rhopalia, and the margin of the bell often bears tentacles.

  

Anatomy of a scyphozoan jellyfish

On the underside of the bell is the manubrium, a stalk-like structure hanging down from the centre, with the mouth, which also functions as the anus, at its tip. There are often four oral arms connected to the manubrium, streaming away into the water below. The mouth opens into the gastrovascular cavity, where digestion takes place and nutrients are absorbed. This is subdivided by four thick septa into a central stomach and four gastric pockets. The four pairs of gonads are attached to the septa, and close to them four septal funnels open to the exterior, perhaps supplying good oxygenation to the gonads. Near the free edges of the septa, gastric filaments extend into the gastric cavity; these are armed with nematocysts and enzyme-producing cells and play a role in subduing and digesting the prey. In some scyphozoans, the gastric cavity is joined to radial canals which branch extensively and may join a marginal ring canal. Cilia in these canals circulate the fluid in a regular direction.

  

Discharge mechanism of a nematocyst

The box jellyfish is largely similar in structure. It has a squarish, box-like bell. A short pedalium or stalk hangs from each of the four lower corners. One or more long, slender tentacles are attached to each pedalium. The rim of the bell is folded inwards to form a shelf known as a velarium which restricts the bell's aperture and creates a powerful jet when the bell pulsates, allowing box jellyfish to swim faster than true jellyfish. Hydrozoans are also similar, usually with just four tentacles at the edge of the bell, although many hydrozoans are colonial and may not have a free-living medusal stage. In some species, a non-detachable bud known as a gonophore is formed that contains a gonad but is missing many other medusal features such as tentacles and rhopalia. Stalked jellyfish are attached to a solid surface by a basal disk, and resemble a polyp, the oral end of which has partially developed into a medusa with tentacle-bearing lobes and a central manubrium with four-sided mouth.

 

Most jellyfish do not have specialized systems for osmoregulation, respiration and circulation, and do not have a central nervous system. Nematocysts, which deliver the sting, are located mostly on the tentacles; true jellyfish also have them around the mouth and stomach. Jellyfish do not need a respiratory system because sufficient oxygen diffuses through the epidermis. They have limited control over their movement, but can navigate with the pulsations of the bell-like body; some species are active swimmers most of the time, while others largely drift. The rhopalia contain rudimentary sense organs which are able to detect light, water-borne vibrations, odour and orientation. A loose network of nerves called a "nerve net" is located in the epidermis. Although traditionally thought not to have a central nervous system, nerve net concentration and ganglion-like structures could be considered to constitute one in most species. A jellyfish detects stimuli, and transmits impulses both throughout the nerve net and around a circular nerve ring, to other nerve cells. The rhopalial ganglia contain pacemaker neurones which control swimming rate and direction.

 

In many species of jellyfish, the rhopalia include ocelli, light-sensitive organs able to tell light from dark. These are generally pigment spot ocelli, which have some of their cells pigmented. The rhopalia are suspended on stalks with heavy crystals at one end, acting like gyroscopes to orient the eyes skyward. Certain jellyfish look upward at the mangrove canopy while making a daily migration from mangrove swamps into the open lagoon, where they feed, and back again.

 

Box jellyfish have more advanced vision than the other groups. Each individual has 24 eyes, two of which are capable of seeing colour, and four parallel information processing areas that act in competition, supposedly making them one of the few kinds of animal to have a 360-degree view of its environment.

 

Box jellyfish eye

The study of jellyfish eye evolution is an intermediary to a better understanding of how visual systems evolved on Earth. Jellyfish exhibit immense variation in visual systems ranging from photoreceptive cell patches seen in simple photoreceptive systems to more derived complex eyes seen in box jellyfish. Major topics of jellyfish visual system research (with an emphasis on box jellyfish) include: the evolution of jellyfish vision from simple to complex visual systems), the eye morphology and molecular structures of box jellyfish (including comparisons to vertebrate eyes), and various uses of vision including task-guided behaviors and niche specialization.

 

Evolution

Experimental evidence for photosensitivity and photoreception in cnidarians antecedes the mid 1900s, and a rich body of research has since covered evolution of visual systems in jellyfish. Jellyfish visual systems range from simple photoreceptive cells to complex image-forming eyes. More ancestral visual systems incorporate extraocular vision (vision without eyes) that encompass numerous receptors dedicated to single-function behaviors. More derived visual systems comprise perception that is capable of multiple task-guided behaviors.

 

Although they lack a true brain, cnidarian jellyfish have a "ring" nervous system that plays a significant role in motor and sensory activity. This net of nerves is responsible for muscle contraction and movement and culminates the emergence of photosensitive structures. Across Cnidaria, there is large variation in the systems that underlie photosensitivity. Photosensitive structures range from non-specialized groups of cells, to more "conventional" eyes similar to those of vertebrates. The general evolutionary steps to develop complex vision include (from more ancestral to more derived states): non-directional photoreception, directional photoreception, low-resolution vision, and high-resolution vision. Increased habitat and task complexity has favored the high-resolution visual systems common in derived cnidarians such as box jellyfish.

 

Basal visual systems observed in various cnidarians exhibit photosensitivity representative of a single task or behavior. Extraocular photoreception (a form of non-directional photoreception), is the most basic form of light sensitivity and guides a variety of behaviors among cnidarians. It can function to regulate circadian rhythm (as seen in eyeless hydrozoans) and other light-guided behaviors responsive to the intensity and spectrum of light. Extraocular photoreception can function additionally in positive phototaxis (in planula larvae of hydrozoans), as well as in avoiding harmful amounts of UV radiation via negative phototaxis. Directional photoreception (the ability to perceive direction of incoming light) allows for more complex phototactic responses to light, and likely evolved by means of membrane stacking. The resulting behavioral responses can range from guided spawning events timed by moonlight to shadow responses for potential predator avoidance. Light-guided behaviors are observed in numerous scyphozoans including the common moon jelly, Aurelia aurita, which migrates in response to changes in ambient light and solar position even though they lack proper eyes.

 

The low-resolution visual system of box jellyfish is more derived than directional photoreception, and thus box jellyfish vision represents the most basic form of true vision in which multiple directional photoreceptors combine to create the first imaging and spatial resolution. This is different from the high-resolution vision that is observed in camera or compound eyes of vertebrates and cephalopods that rely on focusing optics. Critically, the visual systems of box jellyfish are responsible for guiding multiple tasks or behaviors in contrast to less derived visual systems in other jellyfish that guide single behavioral functions. These behaviors include phototaxis based on sunlight (positive) or shadows (negative), obstacle avoidance, and control of swim-pulse rate.

 

Box jellyfish possess "proper eyes" (similar to vertebrates) that allow them to inhabit environments that lesser derived medusae cannot. In fact, they are considered the only class in the clade Medusozoa that have behaviors necessitating spatial resolution and genuine vision. However, the lens in their eyes are more functionally similar to cup-eyes exhibited in low-resolution organisms, and have very little to no focusing capability. The lack of the ability to focus is due to the focal length exceeding the distance to the retina, thus generating unfocused images and limiting spatial resolution. The visual system is still sufficient for box jellyfish to produce an image to help with tasks such as object avoidance.

 

Utility as a model organism

Box jellyfish eyes are a visual system that is sophisticated in numerous ways. These intricacies include the considerable variation within the morphology of box jellyfishes' eyes (including their task/behavior specification), and the molecular makeup of their eyes including: photoreceptors, opsins, lenses, and synapses. The comparison of these attributes to more derived visual systems can allow for a further understanding of how the evolution of more derived visual systems may have occurred, and puts into perspective how box jellyfish can play the role as an evolutionary/developmental model for all visual systems.

 

Characteristics

Box jellyfish visual systems are both diverse and complex, comprising multiple photosystems. There is likely considerable variation in visual properties between species of box jellyfish given the significant inter-species morphological and physiological variation. Eyes tend to differ in size and shape, along with number of receptors (including opsins), and physiology across species of box jellyfish.

 

Box jellyfish have a series of intricate lensed eyes that are similar to those of more derived multicellular organisms such as vertebrates. Their 24 eyes fit into four different morphological categories. These categories consist of two large, morphologically different medial eyes (a lower and upper lensed eye) containing spherical lenses, a lateral pair of pigment slit eyes, and a lateral pair of pigment pit eyes. The eyes are situated on rhopalia (small sensory structures) which serve sensory functions of the box jellyfish and arise from the cavities of the exumbrella (the surface of the body) on the side of the bells of the jellyfish. The two large eyes are located on the mid-line of the club and are considered complex because they contain lenses. The four remaining eyes lie laterally on either side of each rhopalia and are considered simple. The simple eyes are observed as small invaginated cups of epithelium that have developed pigmentation. The larger of the complex eyes contains a cellular cornea created by a mono ciliated epithelium, cellular lens, homogenous capsule to the lens, vitreous body with prismatic elements, and a retina of pigmented cells. The smaller of the complex eyes is said to be slightly less complex given that it lacks a capsule but otherwise contains the same structure as the larger eye.

 

Box jellyfish have multiple photosystems that comprise different sets of eyes. Evidence includes immunocytochemical and molecular data that show photopigment differences among the different morphological eye types, and physiological experiments done on box jellyfish to suggest behavioral differences among photosystems. Each individual eye type constitutes photosystems that work collectively to control visually guided behaviors.

 

Box jellyfish eyes primarily use c-PRCs (ciliary photoreceptor cells) similar to that of vertebrate eyes. These cells undergo phototransduction cascades (process of light absorption by photoreceptors) that are triggered by c-opsins. Available opsin sequences suggest that there are two types of opsins possessed by all cnidarians including an ancient phylogenetic opsin, and a sister ciliary opsin to the c-opsins group. Box jellyfish could have both ciliary and cnidops (cnidarian opsins), which is something not previously believed to appear in the same retina. Nevertheless, it is not entirely evident whether cnidarians possess multiple opsins that are capable of having distinctive spectral sensitivities.

 

Comparison with other organisms

Comparative research on genetic and molecular makeup of box jellyfishes' eyes versus more derived eyes seen in vertebrates and cephalopods focuses on: lenses and crystallin composition, synapses, and Pax genes and their implied evidence for shared primordial (ancestral) genes in eye evolution.

 

Box jellyfish eyes are said to be an evolutionary/developmental model of all eyes based on their evolutionary recruitment of crystallins and Pax genes. Research done on box jellyfish including Tripedalia cystophora has suggested that they possess a single Pax gene, PaxB. PaxB functions by binding to crystallin promoters and activating them. PaxB in situ hybridization resulted in PaxB expression in the lens, retina, and statocysts. These results and the rejection of the prior hypothesis that Pax6 was an ancestral Pax gene in eyes has led to the conclusion that PaxB was a primordial gene in eye evolution, and that the eyes of all organisms likely share a common ancestor.

 

The lens structure of box jellyfish appears very similar to those of other organisms, but the crystallins are distinct in both function and appearance. Weak reactions were seen within the sera and there were very weak sequence similarities within the crystallins among vertebrate and invertebrate lenses. This is likely due to differences in lower molecular weight proteins and the subsequent lack of immunological reactions with antisera that other organisms' lenses exhibit.

 

All four of the visual systems of box jellyfish species investigated with detail (Carybdea marsupialis, Chiropsalmus quadrumanus, Tamoya haplonema and Tripedalia cystophora) have invaginated synapses, but only in the upper and lower lensed eyes. Different densities were found between the upper and lower lenses, and between species. Four types of chemical synapses have been discovered within the rhopalia which could help in understanding neural organization including: clear unidirectional, dense-core unidirectional, clear bidirectional, and clear and dense-core bidirectional. The synapses of the lensed eyes could be useful as markers to learn more about the neural circuit in box jellyfish retinal areas.

 

Evolution as a response to natural stimuli

The primary adaptive responses to environmental variation observed in box jellyfish eyes include pupillary constriction speeds in response to light environments, as well as photoreceptor tuning and lens adaptations to better respond to shifts between light environments and darkness. Interestingly, some box jellyfish species' eyes appear to have evolved more focused vision in response to their habitat.

 

Pupillary contraction appears to have evolved in response to variation in the light environment across ecological niches across three species of box jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri, Chiropsella bronzie, and Carukia barnesi). Behavioral studies suggest that faster pupil contraction rates allow for greater object avoidance, and in fact, species with more complex habitats exhibit faster rates. Ch. bronzie inhabit shallow beach fronts that have low visibility and very few obstacles, thus, faster pupil contraction in response to objects in their environment is not important. Ca. barnesi and Ch. fleckeri are found in more three-dimensionally complex environments like mangroves with an abundance of natural obstacles, where faster pupil contraction is more adaptive. Behavioral studies support the idea that faster pupillary contraction rates assist with obstacle avoidance as well as depth adjustments in response to differing light intensities.

 

Light/dark adaptation via pupillary light reflexes is an additional form of an evolutionary response to the light environment. This relates to the pupil's response to shifts between light intensity (generally from sunlight to darkness). In the process of light/dark adaptation, the upper and lower lens eyes of different box jellyfish species vary in specific function. The lower lens-eyes contain pigmented photoreceptors and long pigment cells with dark pigments that migrate on light/dark adaptation, while the upper-lens eyes play a concentrated role in light direction and phototaxis given that they face upward towards the water surface (towards the sun or moon). The upper lens of Ch. bronzie does not exhibit any considerable optical power while Tr. cystophora (a box jellyfish species that tends to live in mangroves) does. The ability to use light to visually guide behavior is not of as much importance to Ch. bronzie as it is to species in more obstacle-filled environments. Differences in visually guided behavior serve as evidence that species that share the same number and structure of eyes can exhibit differences in how they control behavior.

 

Largest and smallest

Jellyfish range from about one millimeter in bell height and diameter, to nearly 2 metres (6+1⁄2 ft) in bell height and diameter; the tentacles and mouth parts usually extend beyond this bell dimension.

 

The smallest jellyfish are the peculiar creeping jellyfish in the genera Staurocladia and Eleutheria, which have bell disks from 0.5 millimetres (1⁄32 in) to a few millimeters in diameter, with short tentacles that extend out beyond this, which these jellyfish use to move across the surface of seaweed or the bottoms of rocky pools; many of these tiny creeping jellyfish cannot be seen in the field without a hand lens or microscope. They can reproduce asexually by fission (splitting in half). Other very small jellyfish, which have bells about one millimeter, are the hydromedusae of many species that have just been released from their parent polyps; some of these live only a few minutes before shedding their gametes in the plankton and then dying, while others will grow in the plankton for weeks or months. The hydromedusae Cladonema radiatum and Cladonema californicum are also very small, living for months, yet never growing beyond a few mm in bell height and diameter.

 

The lion's mane jellyfish, Cyanea capillata, was long-cited as the largest jellyfish, and arguably the longest animal in the world, with fine, thread-like tentacles that may extend up to 36.5 m (119 ft 9 in) long (though most are nowhere near that large). They have a moderately painful, but rarely fatal, sting. The increasingly common giant Nomura's jellyfish, Nemopilema nomurai, found in some, but not all years in the waters of Japan, Korea and China in summer and autumn is another candidate for "largest jellyfish", in terms of diameter and weight, since the largest Nomura's jellyfish in late autumn can reach 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in bell (body) diameter and about 200 kg (440 lb) in weight, with average specimens frequently reaching 0.9 m (2 ft 11 in) in bell diameter and about 150 kg (330 lb) in weight. The large bell mass of the giant Nomura's jellyfish can dwarf a diver and is nearly always much greater than the Lion's Mane, whose bell diameter can reach 1 m (3 ft 3 in).

 

The rarely encountered deep-sea jellyfish Stygiomedusa gigantea is another candidate for "largest jellyfish", with its thick, massive bell up to 100 cm (3 ft 3 in) wide, and four thick, "strap-like" oral arms extending up to 6 m (19+1⁄2 ft) in length, very different from the typical fine, threadlike tentacles that rim the umbrella of more-typical-looking jellyfish, including the Lion's Mane.

 

Desmonema glaciale, which lives in the Antarctic region, can reach a very large size (several meters). Purple-striped jelly (Chrysaora colorata) can also be extremely long (up to 15 feet).

 

Life history and behavior

Life cycle

Jellyfish have a complex life cycle which includes both sexual and asexual phases, with the medusa being the sexual stage in most instances. Sperm fertilize eggs, which develop into larval planulae, become polyps, bud into ephyrae and then transform into adult medusae. In some species certain stages may be skipped.

 

Upon reaching adult size, jellyfish spawn regularly if there is a sufficient supply of food. In most species, spawning is controlled by light, with all individuals spawning at about the same time of day; in many instances this is at dawn or dusk. Jellyfish are usually either male or female (with occasional hermaphrodites). In most cases, adults release sperm and eggs into the surrounding water, where the unprotected eggs are fertilized and develop into larvae. In a few species, the sperm swim into the female's mouth, fertilizing the eggs within her body, where they remain during early development stages. In moon jellies, the eggs lodge in pits on the oral arms, which form a temporary brood chamber for the developing planula larvae.

 

The planula is a small larva covered with cilia. When sufficiently developed, it settles onto a firm surface and develops into a polyp. The polyp generally consists of a small stalk topped by a mouth that is ringed by upward-facing tentacles. The polyps resemble those of closely related anthozoans, such as sea anemones and corals. The jellyfish polyp may be sessile, living on the bottom, boat hulls or other substrates, or it may be free-floating or attached to tiny bits of free-living plankton or rarely, fish or other invertebrates. Polyps may be solitary or colonial. Most polyps are only millimetres in diameter and feed continuously. The polyp stage may last for years.

 

After an interval and stimulated by seasonal or hormonal changes, the polyp may begin reproducing asexually by budding and, in the Scyphozoa, is called a segmenting polyp, or a scyphistoma. Budding produces more scyphistomae and also ephyrae. Budding sites vary by species; from the tentacle bulbs, the manubrium (above the mouth), or the gonads of hydromedusae. In a process known as strobilation, the polyp's tentacles are reabsorbed and the body starts to narrow, forming transverse constrictions, in several places near the upper extremity of the polyp. These deepen as the constriction sites migrate down the body, and separate segments known as ephyra detach. These are free-swimming precursors of the adult medusa stage, which is the life stage that is typically identified as a jellyfish. The ephyrae, usually only a millimeter or two across initially, swim away from the polyp and grow. Limnomedusae polyps can asexually produce a creeping frustule larval form, which crawls away before developing into another polyp. A few species can produce new medusae by budding directly from the medusan stage. Some hydromedusae reproduce by fission.

 

Lifespan

Little is known of the life histories of many jellyfish as the places on the seabed where the benthic forms of those species live have not been found. However, an asexually reproducing strobila form can sometimes live for several years, producing new medusae (ephyra larvae) each year.

 

An unusual species, Turritopsis dohrnii, formerly classified as Turritopsis nutricula, might be effectively immortal because of its ability under certain circumstances to transform from medusa back to the polyp stage, thereby escaping the death that typically awaits medusae post-reproduction if they have not otherwise been eaten by some other organism. So far this reversal has been observed only in the laboratory.

 

Locomotion

Jellyfish locomotion is highly efficient. Muscles in the jellylike bell contract, setting up a start vortex and propelling the animal. When the contraction ends, the bell recoils elastically, creating a stop vortex with no extra energy input.

Using the moon jelly Aurelia aurita as an example, jellyfish have been shown to be the most energy-efficient swimmers of all animals. They move through the water by radially expanding and contracting their bell-shaped bodies to push water behind them. They pause between the contraction and expansion phases to create two vortex rings. Muscles are used for the contraction of the body, which creates the first vortex and pushes the animal forward, but the mesoglea is so elastic that the expansion is powered exclusively by relaxing the bell, which releases the energy stored from the contraction. Meanwhile, the second vortex ring starts to spin faster, sucking water into the bell and pushing against the centre of the body, giving a secondary and "free" boost forward. The mechanism, called passive energy recapture, only works in relatively small jellyfish moving at low speeds, allowing the animal to travel 30 percent farther on each swimming cycle. Jellyfish achieved a 48 percent lower cost of transport (food and oxygen intake versus energy spent in movement) than other animals in similar studies. One reason for this is that most of the gelatinous tissue of the bell is inactive, using no energy during swimming.

 

Ecology

Diet

Jellyfish are, like other cnidarians, generally carnivorous (or parasitic), feeding on planktonic organisms, crustaceans, small fish, fish eggs and larvae, and other jellyfish, ingesting food and voiding undigested waste through the mouth. They hunt passively using their tentacles as drift lines, or sink through the water with their tentacles spread widely; the tentacles, which contain nematocysts to stun or kill the prey, may then flex to help bring it to the mouth. Their swimming technique also helps them to capture prey; when their bell expands it sucks in water which brings more potential prey within reach of the tentacles.

 

A few species such as Aglaura hemistoma are omnivorous, feeding on microplankton which is a mixture of zooplankton and phytoplankton (microscopic plants) such as dinoflagellates. Others harbour mutualistic algae (Zooxanthellae) in their tissues; the spotted jellyfish (Mastigias papua) is typical of these, deriving part of its nutrition from the products of photosynthesis, and part from captured zooplankton. The upside-down jellyfish (Cassiopea andromeda) also has a symbiotic relationship with microalgae, but captures tiny animals to supplement their diet. This is done by releasing tiny balls of living cells composed of mesoglea. These use cilia to drive them through water and stinging cells which stun the prey. The blobs also seems to have digestive capabilities.

 

Predation

Other species of jellyfish are among the most common and important jellyfish predators. Sea anemones may eat jellyfish that drift into their range. Other predators include tunas, sharks, swordfish, sea turtles and penguins. Jellyfish washed up on the beach are consumed by foxes, other terrestrial mammals and birds. In general however, few animals prey on jellyfish; they can broadly be considered to be top predators in the food chain. Once jellyfish have become dominant in an ecosystem, for example through overfishing which removes predators of jellyfish larvae, there may be no obvious way for the previous balance to be restored: they eat fish eggs and juvenile fish, and compete with fish for food, preventing fish stocks from recovering.

 

Symbiosis

Some small fish are immune to the stings of the jellyfish and live among the tentacles, serving as bait in a fish trap; they are safe from potential predators and are able to share the fish caught by the jellyfish. The cannonball jellyfish has a symbiotic relationship with ten different species of fish, and with the longnose spider crab, which lives inside the bell, sharing the jellyfish's food and nibbling its tissues.

 

Main article: Jellyfish bloom

Jellyfish form large masses or blooms in certain environmental conditions of ocean currents, nutrients, sunshine, temperature, season, prey availability, reduced predation and oxygen concentration. Currents collect jellyfish together, especially in years with unusually high populations. Jellyfish can detect marine currents and swim against the current to congregate in blooms. Jellyfish are better able to survive in nutrient-rich, oxygen-poor water than competitors, and thus can feast on plankton without competition. Jellyfish may also benefit from saltier waters, as saltier waters contain more iodine, which is necessary for polyps to turn into jellyfish. Rising sea temperatures caused by climate change may also contribute to jellyfish blooms, because many species of jellyfish are able to survive in warmer waters. Increased nutrients from agricultural or urban runoff with nutrients including nitrogen and phosphorus compounds increase the growth of phytoplankton, causing eutrophication and algal blooms. When the phytoplankton die, they may create dead zones, so-called because they are hypoxic (low in oxygen). This in turn kills fish and other animals, but not jellyfish, allowing them to bloom. Jellyfish populations may be expanding globally as a result of land runoff and overfishing of their natural predators. Jellyfish are well placed to benefit from disturbance of marine ecosystems. They reproduce rapidly; they prey upon many species, while few species prey on them; and they feed via touch rather than visually, so they can feed effectively at night and in turbid waters. It may be difficult for fish stocks to re-establish themselves in marine ecosystems once they have become dominated by jellyfish, because jellyfish feed on plankton, which includes fish eggs and larvae.

 

As suspected at the turn of this century, jellyfish blooms are increasing in frequency. Between 2013 and 2020 the Mediterranean Science Commission monitored on a weekly basis the frequency of such outbreaks in coastal waters from Morocco to the Black Sea, revealing a relatively high frequency of these blooms nearly all year round, with peaks observed from March to July and often again in the autumn. The blooms are caused by different jellyfish species, depending on their localisation within the Basin: one observes a clear dominance of Pelagia noctiluca and Velella velella outbreaks in the western Mediterranean, of Rhizostoma pulmo and Rhopilema nomadica outbreaks in the eastern Mediterranean, and of Aurelia aurita and Mnemiopsis leidyi outbreaks in the Black Sea.

 

Some jellyfish populations that have shown clear increases in the past few decades are invasive species, newly arrived from other habitats: examples include the Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Baltic Sea, central and eastern Mediterranean, Hawaii, and tropical and subtropical parts of the West Atlantic (including the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and Brazil).

 

Jellyfish blooms can have significant impact on community structure. Some carnivorous jellyfish species prey on zooplankton while others graze on primary producers. Reductions in zooplankton and ichthyoplankton due to a jellyfish bloom can ripple through the trophic levels. High-density jellyfish populations can outcompete other predators and reduce fish recruitment. Increased grazing on primary producers by jellyfish can also interrupt energy transfer to higher trophic levels.

 

During blooms, jellyfish significantly alter the nutrient availability in their environment. Blooms require large amounts of available organic nutrients in the water column to grow, limiting availability for other organisms. Some jellyfish have a symbiotic relationship with single-celled dinoflagellates, allowing them to assimilate inorganic carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen creating competition for phytoplankton. Their large biomass makes them an important source of dissolved and particulate organic matter for microbial communities through excretion, mucus production, and decomposition. The microbes break down the organic matter into inorganic ammonium and phosphate. However, the low carbon availability shifts the process from production to respiration creating low oxygen areas making the dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus largely unavailable for primary production.

 

These blooms have very real impacts on industries. Jellyfish can outcompete fish by utilizing open niches in over-fished fisheries. Catch of jellyfish can strain fishing gear and lead to expenses relating to damaged gear. Power plants have been shut down due to jellyfish blocking the flow of cooling water. Blooms have also been harmful for tourism, causing a rise in stings and sometimes the closure of beaches.

 

Jellyfish form a component of jelly-falls, events where gelatinous zooplankton fall to the seafloor, providing food for the benthic organisms there. In temperate and subpolar regions, jelly-falls usually follow immediately after a bloom.

 

Habitats

Most jellyfish are marine animals, although a few hydromedusae inhabit freshwater. The best known freshwater example is the cosmopolitan hydrozoan jellyfish, Craspedacusta sowerbii. It is less than an inch (2.5 cm) in diameter, colorless and does not sting. Some jellyfish populations have become restricted to coastal saltwater lakes, such as Jellyfish Lake in Palau. Jellyfish Lake is a marine lake where millions of golden jellyfish (Mastigias spp.) migrate horizontally across the lake daily.

 

Although most jellyfish live well off the ocean floor and form part of the plankton, a few species are closely associated with the bottom for much of their lives and can be considered benthic. The upside-down jellyfish in the genus Cassiopea typically lie on the bottom of shallow lagoons where they sometimes pulsate gently with their umbrella top facing down. Even some deep-sea species of hydromedusae and scyphomedusae are usually collected on or near the bottom. All of the stauromedusae are found attached to either seaweed or rocky or other firm material on the bottom.

 

Some species explicitly adapt to tidal flux. In Roscoe Bay, jellyfish ride the current at ebb tide until they hit a gravel bar, and then descend below the current. They remain in still waters until the tide rises, ascending and allowing it to sweep them back into the bay. They also actively avoid fresh water from mountain snowmelt, diving until they find enough salt.

  

Parasites

Jellyfish are hosts to a wide variety of parasitic organisms. They act as intermediate hosts of endoparasitic helminths, with the infection being transferred to the definitive host fish after predation. Some digenean trematodes, especially species in the family Lepocreadiidae, use jellyfish as their second intermediate hosts. Fish become infected by the trematodes when they feed on infected jellyfish.

 

Relation to humans

Jellyfish have long been eaten in some parts of the world. Fisheries have begun harvesting the American cannonball jellyfish, Stomolophus meleagris, along the southern Atlantic coast of the United States and in the Gulf of Mexico for export to Asia.

 

Jellyfish are also harvested for their collagen, which is being investigated for use in a variety of applications including the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

 

Aquaculture and fisheries of other species often suffer severe losses – and so losses of productivity – due to jellyfish.

 

Products

Main article: Jellyfish as food

In some countries, including China, Japan, and Korea, jellyfish are a delicacy. The jellyfish is dried to prevent spoiling. Only some 12 species of scyphozoan jellyfish belonging to the order Rhizostomeae are harvested for food, mostly in southeast Asia. Rhizostomes, especially Rhopilema esculentum in China (海蜇 hǎizhé, 'sea stingers') and Stomolophus meleagris (cannonball jellyfish) in the United States, are favored because of their larger and more rigid bodies and because their toxins are harmless to humans.

 

Traditional processing methods, carried out by a jellyfish master, involve a 20- to 40-day multi-phase procedure in which, after removing the gonads and mucous membranes, the umbrella and oral arms are treated with a mixture of table salt and alum, and compressed. Processing makes the jellyfish drier and more acidic, producing a crisp texture. Jellyfish prepared this way retain 7–10% of their original weight, and the processed product consists of approximately 94% water and 6% protein. Freshly processed jellyfish has a white, creamy color and turns yellow or brown during prolonged storage.

 

In China, processed jellyfish are desalted by soaking in water overnight and eaten cooked or raw. The dish is often served shredded with a dressing of oil, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar, or as a salad with vegetables. In Japan, cured jellyfish are rinsed, cut into strips and served with vinegar as an appetizer. Desalted, ready-to-eat products are also available.

 

Biotechnology

The hydromedusa Aequorea victoria was the source of green fluorescent protein, studied for its role in bioluminescence and later for use as a marker in genetic engineering.

Pliny the Elder reported in his Natural History that the slime of the jellyfish "Pulmo marinus" produced light when rubbed on a walking stick.

 

In 1961, Osamu Shimomura extracted green fluorescent protein (GFP) and another bioluminescent protein, called aequorin, from the large and abundant hydromedusa Aequorea victoria, while studying photoproteins that cause bioluminescence in this species. Three decades later, Douglas Prasher sequenced and cloned the gene for GFP. Martin Chalfie figured out how to use GFP as a fluorescent marker of genes inserted into other cells or organisms. Roger Tsien later chemically manipulated GFP to produce other fluorescent colors to use as markers. In 2008, Shimomura, Chalfie and Tsien won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work with GFP. Man-made GFP became widely used as a fluorescent tag to show which cells or tissues express specific genes. The genetic engineering technique fuses the gene of interest to the GFP gene. The fused DNA is then put into a cell, to generate either a cell line or (via IVF techniques) an entire animal bearing the gene. In the cell or animal, the artificial gene turns on in the same tissues and the same time as the normal gene, making a fusion of the normal protein with GFP attached to the end, illuminating the animal or cell reveals what tissues express that protein—or at what stage of development. The fluorescence shows where the gene is expressed.

 

Aquarium display

Jellyfish are displayed in many public aquariums. Often the tank's background is blue and the animals are illuminated by side light, increasing the contrast between the animal and the background. In natural conditions, many jellies are so transparent that they are nearly invisible. Jellyfish are not adapted to closed spaces. They depend on currents to transport them from place to place. Professional exhibits as in the Monterey Bay Aquarium feature precise water flows, typically in circular tanks to avoid trapping specimens in corners. The outflow is spread out over a large surface area and the inflow enters as a sheet of water in front of the outflow, so the jellyfish do not get sucked into it. As of 2009, jellyfish were becoming popular in home aquariums, where they require similar equipment.

 

Stings

Jellyfish are armed with nematocysts, a type of specialized stinging cell. Contact with a jellyfish tentacle can trigger millions of nematocysts to pierce the skin and inject venom, but only some species' venom causes an adverse reaction in humans. In a study published in Communications Biology, researchers found a jellyfish species called Cassiopea xamachana which when triggered will release tiny balls of cells that swim around the jellyfish stinging everything in their path. Researchers described these as "self-propelling microscopic grenades" and named them cassiosomes.

 

The effects of stings range from mild discomfort to extreme pain and death. Most jellyfish stings are not deadly, but stings of some box jellyfish (Irukandji jellyfish), such as the sea wasp, can be deadly. Stings may cause anaphylaxis (a form of shock), which can be fatal. Jellyfish kill 20 to 40 people a year in the Philippines alone. In 2006 the Spanish Red Cross treated 19,000 stung swimmers along the Costa Brava.

 

Vinegar (3–10% aqueous acetic acid) may help with box jellyfish stings but not the stings of the Portuguese man o' war. Clearing the area of jelly and tentacles reduces nematocyst firing. Scraping the affected skin, such as with the edge of a credit card, may remove remaining nematocysts. Once the skin has been cleaned of nematocysts, hydrocortisone cream applied locally reduces pain and inflammation. Antihistamines may help to control itching. Immunobased antivenins are used for serious box jellyfish stings.

 

In Elba Island and Corsica dittrichia viscosa is now used by residents and tourists to heal stings from jellyfish, bees and wasps pressing fresh leaves on the skin with quick results.

 

Mechanical issues

Jellyfish in large quantities can fill and split fishing nets and crush captured fish. They can clog cooling equipment, having disabled power stations in several countries; jellyfish caused a cascading blackout in the Philippines in 1999, as well as damaging the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California in 2008. They can also stop desalination plants and ships' engines.

le Mascaret, Rixensart

An albino notchleaf scorpionweed (Phacelia crenulata) plant with white flowers that are missing their normally deep-purple pigment.

A blackbird with reduced pigmentation in its feathers, resulting in patches or areas of white or pale coloration, rather than the typical black plumage. This condition, known as leucism, is a genetic mutation that affects melanin production, the pigment responsible for dark colours

Yorke Peninsula SA

Lego Simpsons 71005

 

The Simpsons is an American adult animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company.The series is a satirical depiction of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture, society, television, and many aspects of the human condition.

  

The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with the producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after members of his own family, substituting Bart for his own name. The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and was an early hit for Fox, becoming the network's first series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season (1989–1990).

  

Since its debut on December 17, 1989, the show has broadcast 548 episodes and the 25th season began on September 30, 2013. The Simpsons is the longest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American animated program, and in 2009 it surpassed Gunsmoke as the longest-running American primetime, scripted television series. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 26 and 27, 2007, and grossed over $527 million.

--------------

Les Simpson (The Simpsons) est une série télévisée d'animation américaine créée par Matt Groening et diffusée depuis le 17 décembre 1989 sur le réseau FOX.

  

Elle met en scène les Simpson, stéréotype d'une famille de classe moyenne. Leurs aventures servent une satire du mode de vie américain. Les membres de la famille, tous ayant la pigmentation de peau de couleur jaune, sont Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa et Maggie.

  

[My Portfotolio] [My Google + ]

  

Thanks to all for visits and faves :)

  

[My GETTY Images @] [My MOST FAVE on Flickriver] [My RECENT on Fluidr] [My STREAM on Darckr]

 

Archaeognatha (Lepismachilis y-signata) at around 13,5x magnification (slightly cropped).

 

Archaeognatha are supposed to be the oldest extant species within the insects. The compound eyes of Lepismachilis y-signata demonstrating the characteristic Y-like pigmentation of the eyes. The lateral ocelli are directly located under the compound eyes.

 

165 exposures taken with Mitutoyo M Plan Apo 10x, Morfanon, ISO 50, 2 flash, paper cylinder diffuser, stacked with Zerene (DMap & PMax method).

Lego Simpsons 71005

 

The Simpsons is an American adult animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company.The series is a satirical depiction of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture, society, television, and many aspects of the human condition.

  

The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with the producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after members of his own family, substituting Bart for his own name. The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and was an early hit for Fox, becoming the network's first series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season (1989–1990).

  

Since its debut on December 17, 1989, the show has broadcast 548 episodes and the 25th season began on September 30, 2013. The Simpsons is the longest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American animated program, and in 2009 it surpassed Gunsmoke as the longest-running American primetime, scripted television series. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 26 and 27, 2007, and grossed over $527 million.

--------------

Les Simpson (The Simpsons) est une série télévisée d'animation américaine créée par Matt Groening et diffusée depuis le 17 décembre 1989 sur le réseau FOX.

  

Elle met en scène les Simpson, stéréotype d'une famille de classe moyenne. Leurs aventures servent une satire du mode de vie américain. Les membres de la famille, tous ayant la pigmentation de peau de couleur jaune, sont Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa et Maggie.

  

[My Portfotolio] [My Google + ]

  

Thanks to all for visits and faves :)

  

[My GETTY Images @] [My MOST FAVE on Flickriver] [My RECENT on Fluidr] [My STREAM on Darckr]

 

= Degeeria minuta Burmeister, 1838 = Entomobrya flava Lie-Pettersen, 1896 = Isotoma cursitans Bourlet, 1839 = Isotoma fusiformis Bourlet, 1839 = Podura annulata Fabricius, 1775 = Podura nigromaculata Templeton, 1835 = Podura nivalis Linnaeus, 1758 = Podura simplex Koch, 1840 = Podura striata Koch, 1840 = Podura variegata Guerin, 1838.

Lego Simpsons 71005

 

The Simpsons is an American adult animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company.The series is a satirical depiction of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture, society, television, and many aspects of the human condition.

  

The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with the producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after members of his own family, substituting Bart for his own name. The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and was an early hit for Fox, becoming the network's first series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season (1989–1990).

  

Since its debut on December 17, 1989, the show has broadcast 548 episodes and the 25th season began on September 30, 2013. The Simpsons is the longest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American animated program, and in 2009 it surpassed Gunsmoke as the longest-running American primetime, scripted television series. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 26 and 27, 2007, and grossed over $527 million.

--------------

Les Simpson (The Simpsons) est une série télévisée d'animation américaine créée par Matt Groening et diffusée depuis le 17 décembre 1989 sur le réseau FOX.

  

Elle met en scène les Simpson, stéréotype d'une famille de classe moyenne. Leurs aventures servent une satire du mode de vie américain. Les membres de la famille, tous ayant la pigmentation de peau de couleur jaune, sont Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa et Maggie.

  

[My Portfotolio] [My Google + ]

  

Thanks to all for visits and faves :)

  

[My GETTY Images @] [My MOST FAVE on Flickriver] [My RECENT on Fluidr] [My STREAM on Darckr]

 

Para: El Diván Azul Abcfotodiario [Ñ] ñoras / cascabel chili peppers

 

No cabe duda, todos los días se aprende algo nuevo. En el grupo de El Diván Azul el tema de la semana 15 fue Ñ de Ñora, cuando he leído el tema me quede pensando que %@%$## es ÑORA? Ni tarde ni perezosa me informe que Ñora es un pimiento/chile, y dije carajos donde voy a conseguir ñoras, pues después de darle vueltas en como hacer mi foto, pues no quería dejar de participar, le platique a mi querida amiga Angie que no sabia que era ñoras, pero investigando supe que era un chile/pimiento, pero que no sabia donde conseguirlo pues esa guindilla/chile/pimiento era originaria de varios lugares de España, casi pude escuchar la risa de Angie cuando me dijo; Eli querida ñoras si son de España, pero aquí en nuestro México viene siendo el chile cascabel aaahh suspire cuando leí, lo que Angie me decía, pues eso, que yo busque que era ñora y me salio mucha información de ello, pero jamas me salio información de como se le conocía en otros países. Así que ayer muy temprano mi hija Selma y Yo, nos fuimos al mercado Hidalgo en Tijuana a comprar chiles cascabel, mejor conocidas en España como Ñoras.

 

Chile Cascabel: Proporciona un sabor picante y agradable, cuando es fresco es de color verde pasando a rojo, pequeño y redondo, después de que se seca, es de un color rojizo oscuro, y se le llama cascabel porque cuando se le sacude suena como un cascabel.

 

Ñoras:. Es un pimiento murciano pequeño y redondo, seco, un poco picante, muy utilizado en la región murciana, Alicante, Valencia, Cataluña y en Levante en general.

 

Su utilización en la cocina como condimento está en alza. Su poderoso y singular sabor en guisos, salsas y coloración en arroces, le está dando un lugar creciente en toda la cocina popular de los países como a los chefs de mayor prestigio.

 

-Aquí les dejo la receta para una salsa de chile cascabel:

2 jitomates

3 dientes de ajo

8 chiles cascabel / Ñoras

Sal

Un trozo pequeño de cebolla

-Asar todos los ingrediente es un comal, luego moler en la licuadora o mejor aún, en el molcajete, y luego sazonar con sal y listo...

    

Chile [ [náhuatl: chilli o xilli] es el nombre común usado en México y Centroamérica para denominar los frutos picantes de varias especies de plantas solanáceas del género Capsicum, del cual existen variedades de muchos tamaños, formas y colores. En otros países hispanoparlantes se le conoce como ají, guindilla o pimiento.

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The cascabel chili (little bell), also known as the rattle chili, is one of the Mirasol cultivars of the species Capsicum annuum. The rattle and bell designations describe the tendency of loose seeds to rattle inside a dried cascabel when shaken. Fresh cascabel, which is 2-3 cm in diameter, is also known by the alias bola chili or chile bola (Spanish: ball chili). The pigmentation of the fresh chilis blends from green to red; when dried, the color darkens.

Farmers cultivate cascabel in several states throughout México.

 

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Pomegranate

Fruit-bearing deciduous shrub

For other uses, see Pomegranate (disambiguation).

The pomegranate (Punica granatum) is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punicoideae, that grows between 5 and 10 m (16 and 33 ft) tall. Rich in symbolic and mythological associations in many cultures, it is thought to have originated from Afghanistan and Iran before being introduced and exported to other parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe.[4][5][6]

 

Quick Facts Conservation status, Scientific classification ...

It was introduced into Spanish America in the late 16th century and into California by Spanish settlers in 1769.[7] It is widely cultivated throughout West Asia and the Caucasus region, South Asia, Central Asia, north and tropical Africa, the drier parts of Southeast Asia, and the Mediterranean Basin.[7] The fruit is typically in season in the Northern Hemisphere from September to February, and in the Southern Hemisphere from March to May.[8][9]

 

The pomegranate and its juice are variously used in baking, cooking, juice blends, garnishes, non-alcoholic drinks, and cocktails.

 

Etymology

 

A pomegranate tree in an illustration for the Tacuinum Sanitatis, made in Lombardy, late 14th century (Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome)

The name pomegranate derives from medieval Latin pōmum 'apple' and grānātum 'seeded'.[10] Possibly stemming from the old French word for the fruit, pomme-grenade, the pomegranate was known in early English as apple of Granada—a term which today survives only in heraldic blazons. This is a folk etymology, confusing the Latin granatus with the name of the Spanish city of Granada, which is derived from an unrelated Arabic word.[11]

 

Garnet derives from Old French grenat by metathesis, from Medieval Latin granatum as used in a different meaning 'of a dark red color'. This derivation may have originated from pomum granatum, describing the color of pomegranate pulp, or from granum, referring to 'red dye, cochineal'.[12]

 

The modern French term for pomegranate, grenade, has given its name to the military grenade.[13]

 

Pomegranates were colloquially called wineapples or wine-apples in Ireland, although this term has fallen out of use. It still persists at the Moore Street open-air market, in central Dublin.[14][15]

 

Description

 

Pomegranate being trained as a bonsai

The pomegranate is a shrub or small tree growing 5 to 10 m (16 to 33 ft) high, with multiple spiny branches. It is long-lived, with some specimens in France surviving for 200 years.[7] P. granatum leaves are opposite or subopposite, glossy, narrow oblong, entire, 3–7 cm (1+1⁄4–2+3⁄4 in) long and 2 cm (3⁄4 in) broad. The flowers are bright red and 3 cm (1+1⁄4 in) in diameter, with three to seven petals.[7] Some fruitless varieties are grown for the flowers alone.[16]

  

Whole pomegranate and piece with arils

Fruit

 

Pomegranate flower

 

Fruit setting

The pomegranate fruit husk is red-purple with an outer, hard pericarp, and an inner, spongy mesocarp (white "albedo"), which comprises the fruit's inner wall where seeds attach.[17] Membranes of the mesocarp are organized as nonsymmetric chambers that contain seeds which are embedded without attachment to the mesocarp.[17] Pomegranate seeds are characterized by having sarcotesta, thick fleshy seed coats derived from the integuments or outer layers of the ovule's epidermal cells.[18][19] The number of seeds in a pomegranate can vary from 200 to about 1,400.[20]

 

Botanically, the fruit is a berry with edible seeds and pulp produced from the ovary of a single flower.[18] The fruit is intermediate in size between a lemon and a grapefruit, 5–12 cm (2–4+1⁄2 in) in diameter with a rounded shape and thick, reddish husk.[7]

 

In mature fruits, the juice obtained by compressing the seeds yields a tart flavor due to low pH (4.4) and high contents of polyphenols,[21] which may cause a red indelible stain on fabrics.[22] The pigmentation of pomegranate juice primarily results from the presence of anthocyanins and ellagitannins.[21][23]

 

Cultivation

P. granatum is grown for its vegetable crop, and as ornamental trees and shrubs in parks and gardens. Mature specimens can develop sculptural twisted bark, multiple trunks, and a distinctive overall form. Pomegranates are drought-tolerant, and can be grown in dry areas with either a Mediterranean winter rainfall climate or in summer rainfall climates. In wetter areas, they can be prone to root decay from fungal diseases. They can tolerate moderate frost, down to about −12 °C (10 °F).[24]

 

Insect pests of the pomegranate can include the butterflies Virachola isocrates, Iraota timoleon, Deudorix epijarbas, and the leaf-footed bug Leptoglossus zonatus, and fruit flies and ants are attracted to unharvested ripe fruit.[25]

 

Propagation

P. granatum reproduces sexually in nature but can be propagated using asexual reproduction. Propagation methods include layering, hardwood cuttings, softwood cuttings and tissue culture. Required conditions for rooting cuttings include warm temperatures within the 18 – 29 °C (65 – 85 °F) range and a semi-humid environment. Rooting hormone increases rooting success rate but is not required.[26] Grafting is possible but impractical and tends to yield low success rates.

 

Varieties

P. granatum var. nana is a dwarf variety of P. granatum popularly planted as an ornamental plant in gardens and larger containers, and used as a bonsai specimen tree. It could well be a wild form with a distinct origin. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.[27][28]

 

The only other species in the genus Punica is the Socotran pomegranate (P. protopunica), which is endemic to the Socotran archipelago of four islands located in the Arabian Sea, the largest island of which is also known as Socotra. The territory is part of Yemen. It differs in having pink (not red) flowers and smaller, less sweet fruit.[29]

 

Cultivars

 

Black pomegranate

P. granatum has more than 500 named cultivars, but has considerable synonymy in which the same genotype is named differently across regions of the world.[17]

 

Several characteristics between pomegranate genotypes vary for identification, consumer preference, preferred use, and marketing, the most important of which are fruit size, exocarp color (ranging from yellow to purple, with pink and red most common), seed-coat color (ranging from white to red), the hardness of seed, maturity, juice content and its acidity, sweetness, and astringency.[17]

 

Production and export

The leading producers globally are India and China, followed by Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, the US, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Spain.[30] During 2019, Chile, Peru, Egypt, Israel, India, and Turkey supplied pomegranates to the European market.[31] Chile was the main supplier to the United States market, which has a limited supply from Southern California.[31] China was self-sufficient for its pomegranate supply in 2019, while other South Asia markets were supplied mainly by India.[31] Pomegranate production and exports in South Africa competed with South American shipments in 2012–18, with export destinations including Europe, the Middle East, the United Kingdom, and Russia.[32] South Africa imports pomegranates mainly from Israel.[32]

 

History

 

Pomegranate, late Southern Song dynasty or early Yuan dynasty circa 1200–1340 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

The pomegranate is native to a region from modern-day Iran to northern India.[7] Pomegranates have been cultivated throughout the Middle East, India, and the Mediterranean region for several millennia, and it is also cultivated in the Central Valley of California and in Arizona.[7][33][34] Pomegranates may have been domesticated as early as the fifth millennium BC, as they were one of the first fruit trees to be domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean region.[35]

 

Carbonized exocarp of the fruit has been identified in early Bronze Age levels of Tell es-Sultan (Jericho) in the West Bank, as well as late Bronze Age levels of Hala Sultan Tekke on Cyprus and Tiryns.[36] A large, dry pomegranate was found in the tomb of Djehuty, the butler of Queen Hatshepsut in Egypt; Mesopotamian records written in cuneiform mention pomegranates from the mid-third millennium BC onwards.[37] Waterlogged pomegranate remains have been identified at the circa 14th century BC Uluburun shipwreck off the coast of Turkey.[38] Other goods on the ship include perfume, ivory and gold jewelry, suggesting that pomegranates at this time may have been considered a luxury good.[39] Other archaeological finds of pomegranate remains from the Late Bronze Age have been found primarily in elite residences, supporting this inference.[38]

 

It is also extensively grown in southern China and Southeast Asia, whether originally spread along the Silk Road route or brought by sea traders. Kandahar is famous in Afghanistan for its high-quality pomegranates.[40]

 

Although not native to Korea or Japan, the pomegranate is widely grown there and many cultivars have been developed. It is widely used for bonsai because of its flowers and for the unusual twisted bark the older specimens can attain.[41] The term "balaustine" (Latin: balaustinus) is also used for a pomegranate-red color.[42]

  

Coat of arms of Spain with a pomegranate at the bottom, symbolizing the kingdom of Granada.

Spanish colonists later introduced the fruit to the Caribbean and America (Spanish America). However, in the English colonies, it was less at home: "Don't use the pomegranate inhospitably, a stranger that has come so far to pay his respects to thee," the English Quaker Peter Collinson wrote to the botanizing John Bartram in Philadelphia, 1762. "Plant it against the side of thy house, nail it close to the wall. In this manner it thrives wonderfully with us, and flowers beautifully, and bears fruit this hot year. I have twenty-four on one tree... Doctor Fothergill says, of all trees this is most salutiferous to mankind."[43]

  

Illustration by Otto Wilhelm Thomé, 1885

The pomegranate had been introduced as an exotic to England the previous century, by John Tradescant the Elder, but the disappointment that it did not set fruit there led to its repeated introduction to the American colonies, even New England. It succeeded in the South: Bartram received a barrel of pomegranates and oranges from a correspondent in Charleston, South Carolina, 1764. John Bartram partook of "delitious" pomegranates with Noble Jones at Wormsloe Plantation, near Savannah, Georgia, in September 1765. Thomas Jefferson planted pomegranates at Monticello in 1771; he had them from George Wythe of Williamsburg.[44]

 

Use

Culinary

 

Pomegranate seeds are edible raw

 

A stall selling pomegranate juice in Xi'an, China

Pomegranate juice can be sweet or sour, but most fruits are moderate in taste, with sour notes from the acidic ellagitannins contained in the juice.[23] Pomegranate juice has long been a common drink in Europe and the Middle East, and is distributed worldwide.[45] Pomegranate juice is also used as a cooking ingredient. In Syria, pomegranate juice is added to intensify the flavor of some dishes such as kibbeh safarjaliyeh.

 

Grenadine syrup, commonly used in cocktail, originally consisted of thickened and sweetened pomegranate juice,[46] but today is typically a syrup made just of sugar and commercially produced natural and artificial flavors, preservatives, and food coloring, or using substitute fruits (such as berries).

  

A bowl of ash-e anar, an Iranian soup made with pomegranate juice

Before tomatoes (a New World fruit) arrived in the Middle East, pomegranate juice, pomegranate molasses, and vinegar were widely used in many Iranian foods; this mixture still found in traditional recipes such as fesenjān, a thick sauce made from pomegranate juice and ground walnuts, usually spooned over duck or other poultry and rice, and in ash-e anar (pomegranate soup).[47][48]

 

Pomegranate seeds are used as a spice known as anar dana (from Persian: anar + dana, pomegranate + seed), most notably in Indian and Pakistani cuisine. Dried whole seeds can often be obtained in ethnic Indian markets. These seeds are separated from the flesh, dried for 10–15 days, and used as an acidic agent for chutney and curry preparation. Ground anardana is also used, which results in deeper flavoring in dishes and prevents the seeds from getting stuck in teeth. Seeds of the wild pomegranate variety known as daru from the Himalayas are considered high-quality sources for this spice.

 

Dried pomegranate seeds, found in some natural specialty food markets, still contain some residual water, maintaining a natural sweet and tart flavor. Dried seeds can be used in several culinary applications, such as trail mix, granola bars, or as a topping for salad, yogurt, or ice cream.

  

Turkish lamb chops with candied figs and herbed mashed potatoes, garnished with pomegranate

In Turkey, pomegranate sauce (Turkish: nar ekşisi) is used as a salad dressing, to marinate meat, or simply to drink straight. Pomegranate seeds are also used in salads and sometimes as garnish for desserts such as güllaç.[49] Pomegranate syrup, also called pomegranate molasses, is used in muhammara, a roasted red pepper, walnut, and garlic spread popular in Syria and Turkey.[50]

 

In Greece, pomegranate is used in many recipes, including kollivozoumi, a creamy broth made from boiled wheat, pomegranates, and raisins, legume salad with wheat and pomegranate, traditional Middle Eastern lamb kebabs with pomegranate glaze, pomegranate eggplant relish, and avocado-pomegranate dip. Pomegranate is also made into a liqueur, and as a popular fruit confectionery used as ice cream topping, mixed with yogurt, or spread as jam on toast.

 

In Mexico, pomegranate seeds are commonly used to adorn the traditional dish chiles en nogada, representing the red of the Mexican flag in the dish which evokes the green (poblano pepper), white (nogada sauce) and red (pomegranate seeds) tricolor.

 

Other uses

Pomegranate peels may be used to stain wool and silk in the carpet industry.[citation needed]

 

Nutrition

Quick Facts Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz), Energy ...

The edible portion of raw pomegranate is 78% water, 19% carbohydrates, 2% protein, and 1% fat (table). A 100 g (3.5 oz) serving of pomegranate sarcotesta provides 12% of the Daily Value (DV) for vitamin C, 16% DV for vitamin K, and 10% DV for folate (table), while the seeds are a rich source of dietary fiber (20% DV).[53]

 

Research

Phytochemicals

Processing

The phenolic content of pomegranate juice is degraded by processing and pasteurization techniques.[54]

 

Juice

The most abundant phytochemicals in pomegranate juice are polyphenols, including the hydrolyzable tannins called ellagitannins formed when ellagic acid and gallic acid bind with a carbohydrate to form pomegranate ellagitannins, also known as punicalagins.[23] The red color of the juice is attributed to anthocyanins,[23] such as delphinidin, cyanidin, and glycosides of pelargonidin.[55] Generally, an increase in juice pigmentation occurs during fruit ripening.[55]

 

Peel

Pomegranate peel contains high amount of polyphenols, condensed tannins, catechins, and prodelphinidins.[56][57] The higher phenolic content of the peel yields extracts for use in dietary supplements and food preservatives.[58]

 

Seed

Pomegranate seed oil contains punicic acid (65%), palmitic acid (5%), stearic acid (2%), oleic acid (6%), and linoleic acid (7%).[59]

 

Health claims

Despite limited research data, manufacturers and marketers of pomegranate juice have liberally used results from preliminary research to promote products.[60] In February 2010, the FDA issued a warning letter to one such manufacturer, POM Wonderful, for using published literature to make illegal claims of unproven anti-disease effects.[61][62][63]

 

In May 2016, the US Federal Trade Commission declared that POM Wonderful could not make health claims in its advertising, followed by a US Supreme Court ruling that declined a request by POM Wonderful to review the court ruling, upholding the FTC decision.[64][65]

 

Symbolism

White squirrels are almost always a white version of the eastern grey squirrel. There are a few types of genetic aberrations that cause the white coats. The first is albinism, caused by a mutation on a gene that codes for pigmentation. Albinos have red eyes.

This album's name is dedicated to my favourite game of all time Elder Scrolls Online and race of all time, The Argonians (reptile humanoids). There's a story for you to read below about some of them towards the bottom.

 

What does Ku Vastei mean? Read below

 

By Lights-the-Way, Mystic of the Mages Guild

 

It is hard to describe the culture of my people. Often my tongue stumbles as I try to explain, but it is my hope that ink and quill will give me time enough to gather my thoughts. And perhaps, though such writing, I will finally connect the parts of me that now feel so divided; my homeland of Murkmire and my new life within the Mages Guild.

 

These journals are to become my ku-vastei. And, as I write that, I can think of no better topic to begin with.

 

Ku-vastei roughly translates to "the catalyst of needed change," though such a direct translation in no way does justice to the original meaning. Another translation could be "that which creates the needed pathway for change to occur" or even "the spark which ignites the flame which must come into being."

 

Perhaps a more direct analysis should be first presented. Ku-vastei is a noun, a thing or person. Vastei directly translates to change, an important part of my culture. Ku is harder to speak of. It is that which leads to change, though not that which creates change. An important role, as stagnation is a fate worse than death.

 

Take a boulder which sits atop a cliff, teetering in place. It must fall eventually. The ku-vastei does not push the boulder off the cliff; rather, it picks the pebble which holds the rock in place. And so it falls, not by a push, but by a pathway cleared.

 

Ku-vastei is revered, just as change itself is revered, for to look back at what was means to stumble as you move forward. Sometimes, a little push in the right direction is all someone needs to remember such wisdom. Other times, they may need to be shoved.

 

-------------------------------------

 

The Gee-Rusleel Tribe

 

by Emmanubeth Hurrent, the Wayfarers' Society of Wayrest

 

I've had the privilege to speak to two different Miredancer elders now, and I've learned a great deal from both of these conversations. The "Gee-Rusleel," as they call themselves, are among the most introspective Argonians I've met in my travels. They also tend to be the most pleasant. For all their reclusiveness and wariness, I've never met a people more willing to share a meal or a game of Shells and Stones. They are skilled crafters, with a particular knack for working with Hist amber and egg shells. They are also peerless navigators, guiding their flat-bottom boats effortlessly through the swamp, master weavers, and skilled cartographers.

 

The most defining characteristic of the Miredancer tribe, however, is piety. This deep reverence for the Hist has earned them the right to name a "Sap-Speaker" for countless generations.

 

According to the elders I spoke with, the Sap-Speaker is the Hist's direct intermediary. (This is, of course, subject to debate. Many tribes boast unique methods of communion with the Hist. But as far as I have seen, the Miredancers make the most compelling case for the methods they use.) Sap-Speakers often go into seclusion for days or even weeks on end, venturing either down into the roots or high into the canopy of leaves in the uppermost branches. Here, they commune with the Hist. Indeed, the word that one of the elders used was "journey."

 

These journeys into the Hist tax the Sap-Speakers, but are thoroughly private affairs. After days by themselves, the Sap-Speakers emerge to hide away with old books, scrolls, and tablets. I asked after the purpose of these periods of seclusion, and this is what the elders told me. "The Sap-Speaker enters the embrace of the Hist to learn from the great tree," one elder said. "While in close contact with the roots and branches, the Sap-Speaker receives visions and other forms of communication that neither you nor I would understand."

 

The other elder continued. "Even the Sap-Speaker finds some of what is shown to be mystifying and confusing. I have heard that a Sap-Speaker is treated to ancient metaphors, arcane secrets, and visions that make little sense to creatures so far removed from sap and pulp." Apparently, the second period of seclusion allows the Sap-Speaker time to reflect on what he or she was shown, as well as time to consult with the ancient writings of Sap-Speakers who came before. After a suitable period of study and reflection, the Sap-Speaker emerges to reveal the Hist's will to the tribe.

 

I attempted to get more information about what happens while the Sap-Speaker meditates among the roots or branches, but I'm not sure the elders knew much more. They did tell me that the only nourishment the Sap-Speaker receives during these periods of seclusion is provided by the Hist itself in the form of sap, leaves, and the otherwise forbidden fruit of the tree.

 

There is a price to pay for the gift of Hist communion, however. Ingesting large quantities of Hist sap is a dangerous affair, even for Argonians. Sap-Speakers routinely suffer the effects of sap-poisoning, including "gold tongue" (permanent change of mouth pigmentation to a golden hue), unbidden hallucinations, "bark-scale" (thickening and darkening of surface scales), and other maladies they were reticent to talk about. The current Sap-Speaker, Thumarz, was in seclusion during my visit to the tribal village. I hope to meet him someday. If he's half as wise as the elders I interacted with, I'd no doubt learn a great deal from him.

 

Despite their deeply religious nature, the Miredancers also seem to have an obsession with games of all types. They are particularly fond of the games Nine-Shells and Shells and Stones, as well as sports such as the popular "teeba-hatsei" (also known as "hip and tail ball.") In addition to lovingly explaining their own games, they wanted to know everything I could tell them about the games we play back in Wayrest. I must admit, their enthusiasm was quite infectious! And I found it highly amusing to watch them try to re-create Deceiver's Bones from the vague description I provided.

 

The Miredancers are also inveterate gamblers, but they often forget to collect their winnings. Unlike the games of men and mer, Miredancer competitions appear to be completely devoid of malice or injured pride. Victory and defeat seem more like afterthoughts than objectives, due in no small part to their phlegmatic disposition. As in most things, their focus is strictly on the moment—the now. It pains me to leave their village, but I still have many more tribes to study. I doubt any of them will be as fascinating or as friendly as the Miredancers.

 

["the tribe is not currently in the game but in the world of the game"]

Brawny brand ambassador with viridescent pigmentation and leafy crown and tunic. Usually shown bearing oversized corn cobs or pea pods.1957

 

Attractive sexy asian american with freckled face wears a low-cut dress.

"Laguna Colorada" is a shallow salt lake in the southwest of the altiplano of Bolivia, within "Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve" and close to the border with Chile. The reddish color of its waters is caused by red sediments and pigmentation of some algae.

In this area, James's flamingos abound.

Laguna Colorada (Red Lagoon) is a shallow salt lake in the southwest of the altiplano of Bolivia, within Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve and close to the border with Chile.

 

The reddish color of its waters, which is caused by red sediments and pigmentation of some algae.

 

The birds which can be seen in some of the pictures are flamingos.

le Mascaret, Rixensart

le Mascaret, Rixensart

A selection of "typical forms" in the garden this morning, but I was attracted by this individual. Typical Group 1 (pale abd.6) but unusual in having a square of orange/red pigment just in fromt of abd.5. ~0.9 mm in length.

 

[Part of a garden survey of the "novel" springtail Katiannidae Genus nov.1 sp. nov. that I'm doing with FransJanssens@www.collembola.org initially, to establish the size and differences between sexes and the various instars. As a result of the initial findings, Frans is suggesting that there are two distinct groups:

 

Group 1 - where abd.6 in adults is pale and there is little red pigmentation along the dorsal surface of the abdomen, and

 

Group 2 - where abd.6 in adults is dark and there is (sometimes) significant red pigmentation along the dorsal surface of the abdomen..

 

Canon MP-E65mm Macro (at 5x) + 1.4x tele-extender + 25mm extension tube + diffused YN24EX flash. Cropped.]

Nyah is part of Inamorata Vitiligo collection that celebrates the beauty of this unique type of pigmentation. The collection consists of three dolls in Chocolate resin: Nyah (Nnaji sculpt), Nala (Nnaji sculpt) and Imani (Nubia sculpt).

 

Nala has one blue and one brown eye, black lashes, red glossy lips and vitiligo pigmentation. The white lingerie is from Inamorata Cherub LE30 from 2013.

 

The jewellery and dolls are available for sale in my shop at emiliacouture.com/shop/

West Midlands Safari Park,

Very rarely, the Bengal Tiger produces white specimens. The earliest recordings of sightings of white tigers date from the mid 16th century, but only a dozen sightings have been noted in the last 100 years. The last wild white tiger was sighted in 1951! White tigers are neither a separate sub species nor albino, but instead have reduced pigmentation. White tigers are produced when two carriers of the recessive gene, who may not necessarily be white themselves, breed. This condition is known as leucism.

White Tiger or Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris)

 

The white tiger is a pigmentation variant of the Bengal tiger, which is reported in the wild from time to time in States of India like Assam, Bengal, Bihar,Sunderbans and especially in the former State of Rewa.

  

Variation

 

The White Bengal tigers are distinctive for their color fur. According to the website, “Animal Corner,” the correct term to name the white tiger is Chinchilla albinistic. The white fur is due to the lack of pheomelanin pigment, which is found in Bengal tigers with orange color fur. When compared to Bengal tigers, the white Bengal tigers tend to grow faster and heavier than the orange Bengal tiger. They also tend to be somewhat bigger at birth, and as fully grown adults. White Bengal tigers are fully grown when they are 2–3 years of age. White male tigers reach weights of 200 to 230 kilograms and up to 3 meters in length. Similar to zebras, the white Bengal tiger’s stripes are like fingerprints, no two tigers have the same. Also, the stripes of the tiger are a pigmentation of the skin.

 

For a white Bengal tiger to be born, both parents must carry the unusual gene for white colouring, which, according to the website “Animal Corner,” only happens naturally about once in 10,000 births. As stated by Kailash Sankhala, the director of the New Delhi Zoo in the 1960s, “one of the functions of the white gene tiger may have been to keep a size gene in the population, in case it's ever needed." Dark-striped white individuals are well-documented in the Bengal tiger subspecies, also known as the Royal Bengal or Indian tiger (Panthera tigris tigris or P. t. bengalensis), and may also have occurred in captive Siberian tigers (Panthera tigris altaica)[citation needed], as well as having been reported historically in several other subspecies.

 

Currently, several hundred white tigers are in captivity worldwide, with about one hundred being found in India. Nevertheless, their population is on the increase. Nandankanan in the state of Odisha, India, is the host zoo for white tigers. In 1980, the first litter of white tigers were born to Deepak and Ganga, two normal tawny tigers. Subsequent litters of white tigers have been distributed to zoos both at home and abroad. Currently, Nandankanan is home to over 34 white tigers. Their unique white color fur has made them popular in entertainment showcasing exotic animals, and at zoos. German-American magicians Siegfried & Roy became famous for breeding and training two white tigers for their performances, referring to them as "royal white tigers," the white tiger's association with the Maharaja of Rewa. The first white Bengal tiger was found in India by royalty Maharaja Shri Martand Singh of Rewa. According to the website, “Animal Corner”, in 1948, Maharaja killed the white tigress leaving four cubs behind. Later, the cubs of the dead tigress were shot except for the white cub. It is believed that all white Bengal tigers are descendants of this cub.

  

White Siberian tigers

 

The existence of white Siberian tigers has not been scientifically documented, despite occasional unsubstantiated reports of sightings of white tigers in the regions where wild Siberian tigers live. It may be that the white mutation does not exist in the wild Siberian tiger population: no white Siberian tigers have been born in captivity, despite the fact that the subspecies has been extensively bred during the last few decades (with much outbreeding between the different Siberian lineages for purposes of conservation genetics); a recessive allele should occasionally turn up in a homozygous state during such breeding, and in this particular case yield white tigers from normally-colored parents, but no such animals have been reported.

 

The famous white Siberian tigers found in captivity are actually not pure Siberian tigers. They are instead the result of Siberian tigers breeding with Bengal tigers. The gene for white coating is quite common among Bengal tigers, but the natural birth of a white Bengal tiger is still a very rare occasion in the wild, where white tigers are not bred selectively.

 

The white tiger is not considered a tiger subspecies, but rather a hybrid mutant variant of the existing tiger subspecies. If a pure white Siberian tiger were to be born, it would therefore not be selectively bred within the tiger conservation programs. It would, however, probably still be selectively bred outside the program in an effort to create more white Siberian tigers. Due to the popularity of white tigers, they are used to attract visitors to zoos. White tigers are found in zoos in China commonly. White Tigers are very large. They can weigh up to 300 kg and reach more than 4 meters of length.

  

Stripeless white tigers and golden tabby tiger

 

An additional genetic condition can remove most of the striping of a white tiger, making the animal almost pure white. One such specimen was exhibited at Exeter Change in England in 1820, and described by Georges Cuvier as "A white variety of Tiger is sometimes seen, with the stripes very opaque, and not to be observed except in certain angles of light." Naturalist Richard Lydekker said that, "a white tiger, in which the fur was of a creamy tint, with the usual stripes faintly visible in certain parts, was exhibited at the old menagerie at Exeter Change about the year 1820." Hamilton Smith said, "A wholly white tiger, with the stripe-pattern visible only under reflected light, like the pattern of a white tabby cat, was exhibited in the Exeter Change Menagerie in 1820.", and John George Wood stated that, "a creamy white, with the ordinary tigerine stripes so faintly marked that they were only visible in certain lights." Edwin Henry Landseer also drew this tigress in 1824.

 

The modern strain of snow white tigers came from repeated brother–sister matings of Bhim and Sumita at Cincinnati Zoo. The gene involved may have come from a Siberian tiger, via their part-Siberian ancestor Tony. Continued inbreeding appears to have caused a recessive gene for stripelessness to show up. About one fourth of Bhim and Sumita's offspring were stripeless. Their striped white offspring, which have been sold to zoos around the world, may also carry the stripeless gene. Because Tony's genome is present in many white tiger pedigrees, the gene may also be present in other captive white tigers. As a result, stripeless white tigers have appeared in zoos as far afield as the Czech Republic (Liberec), Spain and Mexico. Stage magicians Siegfried & Roy were the first to attempt to selectively breed tigers for stripelessness; they owned snow-white Bengal tigers taken from Cincinnati Zoo (Tsumura, Mantra, Mirage and Akbar-Kabul) and Guadalajara, Mexico (Vishnu and Jahan), as well as a stripeless Siberian tiger called Apollo.

 

In 2004, a blue-eyed, stripeless white tiger was born in a wildlife refuge in Alicante, Spain. Its parents are normal orange Bengals. The cub was named Artico ("Arctic").

Stripeless white tigers were thought to be sterile until Siegfried & Roy's stripeless white tigress Sitarra, a daughter of Bhim and Sumita, gave birth. Another variation which came out of the white strains were unusually light-orange tigers called "golden tabby tigers". These are probably orange tigers which carry the stripeless white gene as a recessive. Some white tigers in India are very dark, between white and orange.

  

Genetics

 

A white tiger's pale coloration is due to the lack of the red and yellow pigments that normally produce the orange color. This had long been thought to be due to a mutation in the gene for the tyrosinase enzyme. A knockout mutation in this gene results in albinism, the inability to make either pheomelanin or eumelanin, while the consequence of a less severe mutation in the same gene is the cause of a selective loss of pheomelanin, the so-called Chinchilla trait. The white phenotype in tigers had been attributed to this Chinchilla mutation in tyrosinase, and some publications prior to the 1980s refer to it as an albino gene for this reason.[citation needed] However, genomic analysis has demonstrated instead that a mutation in the SLC45A2 gene is responsible. The resultant single amino acid substitution in this transport protein, by a mechanism yet to be determined, causes the elimination of pheomelanin expression seen in the white tiger. This is a recessive trait, meaning that it is only seen in individuals that are homozygous for this mutation. Inbreeding promotes recessive traits and has been used as a strategy to produce white tigers in captivity.

 

The stripe color varies due to the influence and interaction of other genes. Another genetic characteristic makes the stripes of the tiger very pale; white tigers of this type are called snow-white or "pure white". White tigers, Siamese cats, and Himalayan rabbits have enzymes in their fur which react to temperature, causing them to grow darker in the cold. A white tiger named Mohini was whiter than her relatives in the Bristol Zoo, who showed more cream tones. This may have been because she spent less time outdoors in the winter. White tigers produce a mutated form of tyrosinase, an enzyme used in the production of melanin, which only functions at certain temperatures, below 37 °C (99 °F). This is why Siamese cats and Himalayan rabbits are darker on their faces, ears, legs, and tails (the color points), where the cold penetrates more easily. This is called acromelanism, and other cats breeds derived from the Siamese, such as the Himalayan and the snowshoe cat, also exhibit the condition. Kailash Sankhala observed that white tigers were always whiter in Rewa State, even when they were born in New Delhi and returned there. "In spite of living in a dusty courtyard, they were always snow white." A weakened immune system is directly linked to reduced pigmentation in white tigers.

  

Genetic defects

 

Outside of India, inbred white tigers have been prone to crossed eyes, a condition known as strabismus, an example of which is "Clarence the cross-eyed lion", due to incorrectly routed visual pathways in the brains of white tigers. When stressed or confused, all white tigers cross their eyes. Strabismus is associated with white tigers of mixed Bengal x Siberian ancestry. The only pure-Bengal white tiger reported to be cross-eyed was Mohini's daughter Rewati. Strabismus is directly linked to the white gene and is not a separate consequence of inbreeding. The orange litter-mates of white tigers are not prone to strabismus. Siamese cats and albinos of every species which have been studied all exhibit the same visual pathway abnormality found in white tigers. Siamese cats are also sometimes cross-eyed, as are some albino ferrets. The visual pathway abnormality was first documented in white tigers in the brain of a white tiger called Moni after he died, although his eyes were of normal alignment. The abnormality is that there is a disruption in the optic chiasm. The examination of Moni's brain suggested the disruption is less severe in white tigers than it is in Siamese cats. Because of the visual pathway abnormality, by which some optic nerves are routed to the wrong side of the brain, white tigers have a problem with spatial orientation, and bump into things until they learn to compensate. Some tigers compensate by crossing their eyes. When the neurons pass from the retina to the brain and reach the optic chiasma, some cross and some do not, so that visual images are projected to the wrong hemisphere of the brain. White tigers cannot see as well as normal tigers and suffer from photophobia, like albinos.

 

Other genetic problems include shortened tendons of the forelegs, club foot, kidney problems, arched or crooked backbone and twisted neck. Reduced fertility and miscarriages, noted by ”tiger man” Kailash Sankhala in pure-Bengal white tigers were attributed to inbreeding depression. A condition known as "star-gazing" (the head and neck are raised almost straight up, as if the affected animal is gazing at the stars), which is associated with inbreeding in big cats, has also been reported in white tigers. Some white tigers born to North American lines have bulldog faces with a snub nose, jutting jaw, domed head and wide-set eyes with an indentation between the eyes. However, some of these traits may be linked to poor diet rather than inbreeding.

There was a 450 lb (200 kg) male cross-eyed white tiger at the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo in Hawaii, which was donated to the zoo by Las Vegas magician Dirk Arthur. There is a picture of a white tiger which appears to be cross-eyed on just one side in Siegfried & Roy's book Mastering The Impossible. A white tiger, named Scarlett O'Hara, who was Tony's sister, was cross-eyed only on the right side.

 

A male white tiger named Cheytan, a son of Bhim and Sumita born at the Cincinnati Zoo, died at the San Antonio Zoo in 1992 from anaesthesia complications during root canal therapy. It appears that white tigers also react strangely to anaesthesia. The best drug for immobilizing a tiger is CI 744, but a few tigers, white ones in particular, undergo a re-sedation effect 24–36 hours later. This is due to their inability to produce normal tyrosinase, a trait they share with albinos, according to zoo veterinarian David Taylor. He treated a pair of white tigers from the Cincinnati Zoo at Fritz Wurm's safari park in Stukenbrock, Germany, for salmonella poisoning, which reacted strangely to the anaesthesia.

 

Mohini was checked for Chédiak-Higashi syndrome in 1960, but the results were inconclusive. This condition is similar to albino mutations and causes bluish lightening of the fur color, crossed eyes, and prolonged bleeding after surgery. Also, in the event of an injury, the blood is slow to coagulate. This condition has been observed in domestic cats, but there has never been a case of a white tiger having Chédiak-Higashi syndrome. There has been a single case of a white tiger having central retinal degeneration, reported from the Milwaukee County Zoo, which could be related to reduced pigmentation in the eye. The white tiger in question was a male named Mota on loan from the Cincinnati Zoo.

 

There is a myth that white tigers have an 80% infant mortality rate. However, the infant mortality rate for white tigers is no higher than it is for normal orange tigers bred in captivity. Cincinnati Zoo director Ed Maruska said: "We have not experienced premature death among our white tigers. Forty-two animals born in our collection are still alive. Mohan, a large white tiger, died just short of his 20th birthday, an enviable age for a male of any subspecies, since most males live shorter captive lives. Premature deaths in other collections may be artifacts of captive environmental conditions...in 52 births we had four stillbirths, one of which was an unexplained loss. We lost two additional cubs from viral pneumonia, which is not excessive. Without data from non-inbred tiger lines, it is difficult to determine whether this number is high or low with any degree of accuracy."Ed Maruska also addressed the issue of deformities: "Other than a case of hip dysplasia that occurred in a male white tiger, we have not encountered any other body deformities or any physiological or neurological disorders. Some of these reported maladies in mutant tigers in other collections may be a direct result of inbreeding or improper rearing management of tigers generally."

  

Inbreeding and outcrossing

 

Because of the extreme rarity of the white tiger allele in the wild,[9] the breeding pool was limited to the small number of white tigers in captivity. According to Kailash Sankhala, the last white tiger ever seen in the wild was shot in 1958. Today there is a large number of white tigers in captivity. A white Amur tiger may have been born at Center Hill and has given rise to a strain of white Amur tigers. A man named Robert Baudy realized that his tigers had white genes when a tiger he sold to Marwell Zoo in England developed white spots, and bred them accordingly. The Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa Bay has four of these white Amur tigers, descended from Robert Baudy's stock.

It has also been possible to expand the white-gene pool by outcrossing white tigers with unrelated orange tigers and then using the cubs to produce more white tigers. The white tigers Ranjit, Bharat, Priya and Bhim were all outcrossed, in some instances to more than one tiger. Bharat was bred to an unrelated orange tiger named Jack from the San Francisco Zoo and had an orange daughter named Kanchana. Bharat and Priya were also bred with an unrelated orange tiger from Knoxville Zoo, and Ranjit was bred to this tiger's sister, also from Knoxville Zoo. Bhim fathered several litters with an unrelated orange tigress named Kimanthi at the Cincinnati Zoo. ankam Ranjeeth had several mates at the Omaha Zoo.

 

The last descendants of Bristol Zoo's white tigers were a group of orange tigers from outcrosses which were bought by a Pakistani senator and shipped to Pakistan. Rajiv, Pretoria Zoo's white tiger, who was born in the Cincinnati Zoo, was also outcrossed and sired at least two litters of orange cubs at Pretoria Zoo. Outcrossing is not necessarily done with the intent of producing more white cubs by resuming inbreeding further down the line.

 

Outcrossing is a way of bringing fresh blood into the white strain. The New Delhi Zoo loaned out white tigers to some of India's better zoos for outcrossing, and the government had to impose a whip to force zoos to return either the white tigers or their orange offspring.

 

Siegfried & Roy performed at least one outcross. In the mid-1980s they offered to work with the Indian government in the creation of a healthier strain of white tigers. The Indian government reportedly considered the offer; however, India had a moratorium on breeding white tigers after cubs were born at New Delhi Zoo with arched backs and clubbed feet, necessitating euthanasia. Siegfried & Roy have bred white tigers in collaboration with the Nashville Zoo.

 

Because of the inbreeding and resulting genetic defects the Association of Zoos and Aquariums barred member zoos from breeding white tigers, white lions and king cheetahs in a white paper adopted by the board of directors in July 2011. It is noteworthy that the first person to speak out against the displaying of white tigers was William G. Conway, General Director of the New York Zoological Society, which later became known as the Wildlife Conservation Society when he said, "White tigers are freaks. It's not the role of a zoo to show two headed calves and white tigers." He warned AZA in 1983 of the harm to the zoo's credibility in catering to the public's fascination with freaks, but went unheeded until 2008 when AZA issued a request to their members to stop breeding white tigers and then later in July 2011 when the AZA formally adopted that stance as policy. Conway was attacked by Ed Maruska of the Cincinnati Zoo for his observation, but in the end Conway's belief was validated.

 

A complete scan of the genome led to the discovery that the white tiger’s distinguishing characteristic arises from a single naturally occurring mutation, the substitution of one amino acid for another—valine for alanine—in the protein identified as SLC45A2. The implication of this discovery means that white tigers can be bred from any colored Bengal tiger pair possessing the unique but naturally occurring recessive gene.

  

Popular culture

 

White tigers appear frequently in literature, video games, television, and comic books. Such examples include the Swedish rock band Kent, which featured a white tiger on the cover of their best-selling album Vapen & ammunition in 2002. This was a tribute to the band's home town Eskilstuna, as the local zoo in town had white tigers from the Hawthorn Circus as its main attraction. The white tiger has also been featured in the video for the song "Human" by the popular American synth-rock band The Killers. White Tiger is also the name of an American glam metal band from the 1980s.

 

In the live action version of Disney's 101 Dalmatians, Cruella de Vil kills a white tiger for its fur.

 

- Seto Bagh (or White tiger in English) is a Nepali language novel by Diamond - Shumsher Rana about an encounter with a white tiger.

 

- Aravind Adiga's novel The White Tiger won the Man Booker Prize in 2008. The central character and narrator refers to himself as "The White Tiger". It was a nickname given to him as a child to denote that he was unique in the "jungle" (his hometown), that he was smarter than the others.

 

- Video games including white tigers include Zoo Tycoon, the Warcraft universe, and Perfect World International. White Tigers are featured as a wild, tamable "pet" companion in Guild Wars Factions. White tigers are also seen in Heroes of Might and Magic IV. The protector of the mystical world of Shangri-La in Far Cry 4 is a white tiger that allies with the protagonist to defeat demons.

  

- Both the Power Rangers and the Japanese Super Sentai series from which the Power Rangers series is based on, have used White Tiger themed mecha. A trained white tiger from the Bowmanville Zoo in Ontario, Canada, was used in the Animorphs TV series. A superhero named White Tiger appears in "The Justice Friends" on Dexter's Laboratory.

 

- Marvel Comics also publishes several superheroes who go by the name White Tiger. A white tiger named White Blaze is frequently shown in the anime Ronin Warriors.

 

- Tigatron from the animated TV series Transformers: Beast Wars is based on the white tiger. There have been at least 4 heroes in Marvel comics called "The White Tiger": two gained powers from a group of three mystic amulets that they possessed, one was actually a tigress evolved by the High Evolutionary, and one was given an artificial version of the "Black Panther's Heart Shaped Herb".

 

- Kylie Chan's 'Dark Heavens' series incorporates the four winds of Chinese mythology – including The White Tiger.

 

- In Hayate the Combat Butler, Tama; Nagi Sanzenin's pet tiger is a white tiger.

In 2013, a white tiger used for election campaign in Lahore, Pakistan died of dehydration

  

In Captivity

 

India

 

Nandankanan, in the Indian state of Odisha hosts 34 white tigers. White tigers were born to normal coloured parents in 1980, a unique event in the world. A unique white tiger safari was established in this Zoological Park on 1 October 1991.

 

Algeria

 

Parc de Ben Aknoun, is a zoo in the city of Algiers, which houses white tigers of a rare breed. Two females and a male, were brought on a flight from Gabon, in July 2014.

 

Portugal

 

Jardim Zoológico de Lisboa (the Zoologic Garden of Lisbon) is home to five white tigers, a male and female along with their cubs (one male and two females), all born in the zoo.

 

Trinidad

 

The Emperor Valley Zoo houses a male and female white tiger. On 9 January 2015 the female white bengal tiger named Rajasi gave birth to two cubs at the Emperor Valley Zoo.

 

Hungary

 

Two Bengal White Tigers where born in a zoo in January of 2015, in a zoo in Gyor.

  

[Credit: en.wikipedia.org/]

A male blackbird with leucism, partial loss of pigmentation, at the Woodland Cemetery in southern Stockholm, Sweden. May 2025.

Liz by Andy Warhol. Ken C. Arnold Art Collection Andy Warhol

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to:navigation, search

For the song by David Bowie, see Andy Warhol (song)

Andy Warhol

 

Warhol in 1977

Birth name Andrew Warhola

Born August 6, 1928(1928-08-06)

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Died February 22, 1987 (aged 58)

New York City, U.S.

Nationality American

Field Painting, Cinema

Training Carnegie Mellon University

Movement Pop art

Works Chelsea Girls (1966 film)

Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966 event)

Campbell's Soup Cans (1962 painting)

 

Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author, and public figure known for his membership in wildly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons.

 

Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame." In his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Andy Warhol Museum exists in memory of his life and artwork.

 

The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is $100 million for a 1963 canvas titled Eight Elvises. The private transaction was reported in a 2009 article in The Economist, which described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market." $100 million is a benchmark price that only Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, Gustav Klimt and Willem de Kooning have achieved.[1]

 

Contents [hide]

1 Childhood

2 Early career

3 1960s

4 Attempted assassination

5 1970s

6 1980s

7 Sexuality

8 Religious beliefs

9 Death

10 Works

10.1 Paintings

10.2 Films

10.3 Factory in New York

10.4 Filmography

10.5 Music

10.6 Books and print

10.7 Other media

10.8 Producer and product

11 Dedicated museums

12 Movies about Warhol

12.1 Dramatic portrayals

12.2 Documentaries

13 See also

14 References

15 Further reading

16 External links

 

Childhood

 

Warhol's childhood home at 3252 Dawson Street in the South Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaAndy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[2] He was the fourth child of Ondrej Warhola (died 1942)[3] and Julia (nee Zavacka, 1892-1972),[4] whose first child was born in their homeland and died before their migration to the U.S. His parents were working-class immigrants from Mikó (now called Miková), in northeastern Slovakia, then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire. Warhol's father immigrated to the US in 1914, and his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Andy Warhol's grandparents. Warhol's father worked in a coal mine. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh.[5] The family was Byzantine Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Andy Warhol had two older brothers, Ján and Pavol, who were born in today's Slovakia. Pavol's son, James Warhola, became a successful children's book illustrator.

 

In third grade, Warhol had chorea, the nervous system disease that causes involuntary movements of the extremities, which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever and causes skin pigmentation blotchiness.[6] He became a hypochondriac, developing a fear of hospitals and doctors. Often bed-ridden as a child, he became an outcast among his school-mates and bonded strongly with his mother.[7] At times when he was confined to bed, he drew, listened to the radio and collected pictures of movie stars around his bed. Warhol later described this period as very important in the development of his personality, skill-set and preferences. When Warhol was 13, his father died in an accident.[8]

 

Early career

Warhol showed early artistic talent and studied commercial art at the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (now Carnegie Mellon University).[9] In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a successful career in magazine illustration and advertising. During the 1950s, he gained fame for his whimsical ink drawings of shoe advertisements. These were done in a loose, blotted-ink style, and figured in some of his earliest showings at the Bodley Gallery in New York. With the concurrent rapid expansion of the record industry and the introduction of the vinyl record, Hi-Fi, and stereophonic recordings, RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials.[10]

  

Campbell's Soup I (1968)1960s

His first one-man art-gallery exhibition as a fine artist[11][12] was on July 9, 1962, in the Ferus Gallery of Los Angeles. The exhibition marked the West Coast debut of pop art.[13] Andy Warhol's first New York solo Pop exhibit was hosted at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery November 6–24, 1962. The exhibit included the works Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles and 100 Dollar Bills. At the Stable Gallery exhibit, the artist met for the first time John Giorno who would star in Warhol's first film, Sleep, in 1963.[citation needed]

 

It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as Campbell's Soup Cans and Coca-Cola bottles, as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Troy Donahue, Muhammad Ali and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory", his studio during these years, and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He began producing prints using the silkscreen method. His work became popular and controversial.

 

Among the imagery tackled by Warhol were dollar bills, celebrities and brand name products. He also used as imagery for his paintings newspaper headlines or photographs of mushroom clouds, electric chairs, and police dogs attacking civil rights protesters. Warhol also used Coca Cola bottles as subject matter for paintings. He had this to say about Coca Cola:

 

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.[14]

New York's Museum of Modern Art hosted a Symposium on pop art in December 1962 during which artists like Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were scandalized by Warhol's open embrace of market culture. This symposium set the tone for Warhol's reception. Throughout the decade it became more and more clear that there had been a profound change in the culture of the art world, and that Warhol was at the center of that shift.[citation needed]

  

Campbell's Tomato Juice Box (1964)A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit The American Supermarket, a show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical U.S. small supermarket environment, except that everything in it – from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc. – was created by six prominent pop artists of the time, among them the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol's painting of a can of Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for $6. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what art is (or of what is art and what is not).[citation needed]

 

As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; in the 1960s, however, this was particularly true. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with producing silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "The Factory", Warhol's aluminum foil-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included Freddie Herko, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape-record his phone conversations).[15]

 

During the '60s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "Superstars", including Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Ultra Violet, and Candy Darling. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some – like Berlin – remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and film-maker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this time.

 

Attempted assassination

On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and art critic and curator Mario Amaya at Warhol's studio.[16] Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She founded a "group" called S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men) and authored the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, a separatist feminist attack on patriarchy. Over the years, Solanas' manifesto has found a following.[17] Solanas appears in the 1968 Warhol film I, A Man. Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script, apparently, had been misplaced.[18]

 

Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol however, was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived (surgeons opened his chest and massaged his heart to help stimulate its movement again). He suffered physical effects for the rest of his life. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art.[19][20]

 

Solanas was arrested the day after the assault. By way of explanation, she said that Warhol "had too much control over my life." She was eventually sentenced to three years under the control of the Department of Corrections. After the shooting, the Factory scene became much more tightly controlled, and for many this event brought the "Factory 60s" to an end.[20] The shooting was mostly overshadowed in the media due to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy two days later.

 

Warhol had this to say about the attack: "Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television." [21]

 

1970s

 

Andy Warhol and Jimmy Carter in 1977Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s proved a much quieter decade, as Warhol became more entrepreneurial. According to Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions– including Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, his wife Empress Farah Pahlavi, his sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, Brigitte Bardot, and Michael Jackson.[22][citation needed] Warhol's famous portrait of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was created in 1973. He also founded, with Gerard Malanga, Interview magazine, and published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975). An idea expressed in the book: "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."[cite this quote]

 

Warhol used to socialize at various nightspots in New York City, including Max's Kansas City; and, later in the '70s, Studio 54.[23] He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square."[24]

 

1980s

Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of '80s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi.

 

By this period, Warhol was being criticized for becoming merely a "business artist".[25] In 1979, unfavorable reviews met his exhibits of portraits of 1970s personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects. This criticism was echoed for his 1980 exhibit of ten portraits at the Jewish Museum in New York, entitled Jewish Geniuses, which Warhol – who exhibited no interest in Judaism or matters of interest to Jews – had described in his diary as "They're going to sell."[25] In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol's superficiality and commerciality as "the most brilliant mirror of our times," contending that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s."[25]

 

Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic."[26]

 

Sexuality

Warhol never married or had children.[27] Many people think of him as asexual and merely a "voyeur"; however, it is now well-established that he was homosexual (see biographers such as Victor Bockris, Bob Colacello,[28] and art historian Richard Meyer[29]). The question of his sexuality aside, Warhol stated in a 1980 interview that he was still a virgin.[30] The question of how Warhol's sexuality influenced his work and shaped his relationship to the art world is a major subject of scholarship on the artist, and is an issue that Warhol himself addressed in interviews, in conversation with his contemporaries, and in his publications (e.g. Popism: The Warhol Sixties).

 

Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works (portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor, and films like Blow Job, My Hustler, and Lonesome Cowboys) draw from gay underground culture and/or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. Many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters. That said, some stories about Warhol's development as an artist revolved around the obstacle his sexuality initially presented as he tried to launch his career. The first works that he submitted to a gallery in the pursuit of a career as an artist were homoerotic drawings of male nudes. They were rejected for being too openly gay.[31] In Popism, furthermore, the artist recalls a conversation with the film maker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty Warhol had being accepted socially by the then more famous (but closeted) gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. De Antonio explained that Warhol was "too swish and that upsets them." In response to this, Warhol writes, "There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change... Other people could change their attitudes but not me".[32][33] In exploring Warhol's biography, many turn to this period – the late 1950s and early 1960s – as a key moment in the development of his persona. Some have suggested that his frequent refusal to comment on his work, to speak about himself (confining himself in interviews to responses like "Um, No" and "Um, Yes", and often allowing others to speak for him) – and even the evolution of his Pop style – can be traced to the years when Warhol was first dismissed by the inner circles of the New York art world.[34]

 

Religious beliefs

 

Images of Jesus from The Last Supper cycle (1986). Warhol made almost 100 variations on the theme, which the Guggenheim felt "indicates an almost obsessive investment in the subject matter."[35]Warhol was a practicing Byzantine Catholic. He regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person.[36] Several of Warhol's later works depicted religious subjects, including two series, Details of Renaissance Paintings (1984) and The Last Supper (1986). In addition, a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate.[36]

 

During his life, Warhol regularly attended Mass, and the priest at Warhol's church, Saint Vincent's, said that the artist went there almost daily,[36] although he never took communion or made confession and sat or knelt in the pews at the back.".[30] The priest thought he was afraid of being recognized; Warhol said he was self-conscious about being seen in a Roman Catholic church crossing himself "in the Orthodox way" (right to left instead of the reverse).[30]

 

His art is noticeably influenced by the eastern Christian iconographic tradition which was so evident in his places of worship.[36]

 

Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because [it was] private." Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: "To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for the priesthood".[36]

 

Death

Warhol died in New York City at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987. According to news reports, he had been making good recovery from a routine gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative cardiac arrhythmia.[37] Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors. His family sued the hospital for inadequate care, saying that the arrhythmia was caused by improper care and water intoxication.[38]

  

Warhol's grave at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic CemeteryWarhol's body was taken back to Pittsburgh by his brothers for burial. The wake was at Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home and was an open-coffin ceremony. The coffin was a solid bronze casket with gold plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He was posed holding a small prayer book and a red rose. The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side. The eulogy was given by Monsignor Peter Tay. Yoko Ono also made an appearance. The coffin was covered with white roses and asparagus ferns. After the liturgy, the coffin was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh. At the grave, the priest said a brief prayer and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the coffin was lowered, Paige Powell dropped a copy of Interview magazine, an Interview t-shirt, and a bottle of the Estee Lauder perfume "Beautiful" into the grave. Warhol was buried next to his mother and father. Weeks later a memorial service was held in Manhattan for Warhol on April 1, 1987, at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.

 

Warhol's will dictated that his entire estate – with the exception of a few modest legacies to family members – would go to create a foundation dedicated to the "advancement of the visual arts". Warhol had so many possessions that it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death; the auction grossed more than US$20 million. His total estate was worth considerably more, due in no small part to shrewd investments over the years.[citation needed]

 

In 1987, in accordance with Warhol's will, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was founded. The Foundation not only serves as the official Estate of Andy Warhol, but also has a mission "to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process" and is "focused primarily on supporting work of a challenging and often experimental nature."[39]

 

The Artists Rights Society is the U.S. copyright representative for the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for all Warhol works with the exception of Warhol film stills.[40] The U.S. copyright representative for Warhol film stills is the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.[41] Additionally, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has agreements in place for its image archive. All digital images of Warhol are exclusively managed by Corbis, while all transparency images of Warhol are managed by Art Resource.[42]

 

The Andy Warhol Foundation released its 20th Anniversary Annual Report as a three-volume set in 2007: Vol. I, 1987–2007; Vol. II, Grants & Exhibitions; and Vol. III, Legacy Program.[43] The Foundation remains one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the U.S.[44]

 

Works

Paintings

This section needs references that appear in reliable third-party publications. Primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources. (February 2009)

 

By the beginning of the 1960s, Warhol was a very successful commercial illustrator. His detailed and elegant drawings for I. Miller shoes were particularly popular. These illustrations consisted mainly of "blotted ink" drawings (or monoprints), a technique which he applied in much of his early art. Although many artists of this period worked in commercial art, most did so discreetly. Warhol was so successful, however, that his profile as an illustrator seemed to undermine his efforts to be taken seriously as an artist.

 

Pop Art was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as Roy Lichtenstein, would later become synonymous with the movement. Warhol, who would become famous as the "Pope of Pop", turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Those drips emulated the style of successful abstract expressionists (such as Willem de Kooning). Warhol's first Pop Art paintings were displayed in April 1961, serving as the backdrop for New York Department Store Bronwit Teller's window display. This was the same stage his Pop Art contemporaries Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg had also once graced.[45] Eventually, Warhol pared his image vocabulary down to the icon itself – to brand names, celebrities, dollar signs – and removed all traces of the artist's "hand" in the production of his paintings.

 

To him, part of defining a niche was defining his subject matter. Cartoons were already being used by Lichtenstein, typography by Jasper Johns, and so on; Warhol wanted a distinguishing subject. His friends suggested he should paint the things he loved the most. It was the gallerist Muriel Latow who came up with the ideas for both the soup cans and Warhol's dollar paintings. On 23 November 1961 Warhol wrote Latow a check for $50 which, according to the 2009 Warhol biography, Pop, The Genius of Warhol, was payment for coming up with the idea of the soup cans as subject matter.[46] For his first major exhibition Warhol painted his famous cans of Campbell's Soup, which he claimed to have had for lunch for most of his life. The work sold for $10,000 at an auction on November 17, 1971, at Sotheby's New York – a minimal amount for the artist whose paintings sell for over $6 million more recently.[47]

 

He loved celebrities, so he painted them as well. From these beginnings he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the hand-made from the artistic process. Warhol frequently used silk-screening; his later drawings were traced from slide projections. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.[48]

 

In 1979, Warhol was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group 4 race version of the then elite supercar BMW M1 for the fourth installment in the BMW Art Car Project. Unlike the three artists before him, Warhol declined the use of a small scale practice model, instead opting to immediately paint directly onto the full scale automobile. It was indicated that Warhol spent only a total of 23 minutes to paint the entire car.[49]

 

Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques– silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colors – whether he painted celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes, and disasters, as in the 1962–63 Death and Disaster series. The Death and Disaster paintings (such as Red Car Crash, Purple Jumping Man, and Orange Disaster) transform personal tragedies into public spectacles, and signal the use of images of disaster in the then evolving mass media.

 

The unifying element in Warhol's work is his deadpan Keatonesque style – artistically and personally affectless. This was mirrored by Warhol's own demeanor, as he often played "dumb" to the media, and refused to explain his work. The artist was famous for having said that all you need to know about him and his works is already there, "Just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it." [50]

 

His Rorschach inkblots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow motif) and his oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with urine) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works – and their means of production – mirrored the atmosphere at Andy's New York "Factory". Biographer Bob Colacello provides some details on Andy's "piss paintings":

 

Victor... was Andy's ghost pisser on the Oxidations. He would come to the Factory to urinate on canvases that had already been primed with copper-based paint by Andy or Ronnie Cutrone, a second ghost pisser much appreciated by Andy, who said that the vitamin B that Ronnie took made a prettier color when the acid in the urine turned the copper green. Did Andy ever use his own urine? My diary shows that when he first began the series, in December 1977, he did, and there were many others: boys who'd come to lunch and drink too much wine, and find it funny or even flattering to be asked to help Andy 'paint.' Andy always had a little extra bounce in his walk as he led them to his studio...[51]

Warhol's first portrait of Basquiat (1982) is a black photosilkscreen over an oxidized copper "piss painting".

 

After many years of silkscreen, oxidation, photography, etc., Warhol returned to painting with a brush in hand in a series of over 50 large collaborative works done with Jean-Michel Basquiat between 1984 and 1986.[52][53] Despite negative criticism when these were first shown, Warhol called some of them "masterpieces," and they were influential for his later work.[54]

 

The influence of the large collaborations with Basquiat can be seen in Warhol's The Last Supper cycle, his last and possibly his largest series, seen by some as "arguably his greatest,"[55] but by others as “wishy-washy, religiose” and “spiritless."[56] It is also the largest series of religious-themed works by any U.S. artist.[55]

 

At the time of his death, Warhol was working on Cars, a series of paintings for Mercedes-Benz. [57]

 

Films

Warhol worked across a wide range of media – painting, photography, drawing, and sculpture. In addition, he was a highly prolific filmmaker. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than 60 films [58], plus some 500 short black-and-white "screen test" portraits of Factory visitors.[59] One of his most famous films, Sleep, monitors poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours. The 35-minute film Blow Job is one continuous shot of the face of DeVeren Bookwalter supposedly receiving oral sex from filmmaker Willard Maas, although the camera never tilts down to see this. Another, Empire (1964), consists of eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building in New York City at dusk. The film Eat consists of a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes. Warhol attended the 1962 premiere of the static composition by LaMonte Young called Trio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films including Kiss, Eat, and Sleep (for which Young initially was commissioned to provide music). Uwe Husslein cites filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who accompanied Warhol to the Trio premiere, and who claims Warhol's static films were directly inspired by the performance.[60]

 

Batman Dracula is a 1964 film that was produced and directed by Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits. A fan of the Batman series, Warhol's movie was an "homage" to the series, and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis.

 

Warhol's 1965 film Vinyl is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. Others record improvised encounters between Factory regulars such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Ondine, Nico, and Jackie Curtis. Legendary underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film Camp.

 

His most popular and critically successful film was Chelsea Girls (1966). The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 16 mm-films being projected simultaneously, with two different stories being shown in tandem. From the projection booth, the sound would be raised for one film to elucidate that "story" while it was lowered for the other. The multiplication of images evoked Warhol's seminal silk-screen works of the early 1960s.

 

Other important films include Bike Boy, My Hustler, and Lonesome Cowboys, a raunchy pseudo-western. These and other titles document gay underground and camp culture, and continue to feature prominently in scholarship about sexuality and art.[61][62] Blue Movie – a film in which Warhol superstar Viva makes love and fools around in bed with a man for 33 minutes of the film's playing-time – was Warhol's last film as director. The film was at the time scandalous for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. For many years Viva refused to allow it to be screened. It was publicly screened in New York in 2005 for the first time in over thirty years.

 

After his June 3, 1968, shooting, a reclusive Warhol relinquished his personal involvement in filmmaking. His acolyte and assistant director, Paul Morrissey, took over the film-making chores for the Factory collective, steering Warhol-branded cinema towards more mainstream, narrative-based, B-movie exploitation fare with Flesh, Trash, and Heat. All of these films, including the later Andy Warhol's Dracula and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, were far more mainstream than anything Warhol as a director had attempted. These latter "Warhol" films starred Joe Dallesandro – more of a Morrissey star than a true Warhol superstar.

 

In the early '70s, most of the films directed by Warhol were pulled out of circulation by Warhol and the people around him who ran his business. After Warhol's death, the films were slowly restored by the Whitney Museum and are occasionally projected at museums and film festivals. Few of the Warhol-directed films are available on video or DVD.

 

Factory in New York

Factory: 1342 Lexington Avenue (the first Factory)

The Factory: 231 East 47th street 1963-1967 (the building no longer exists)

Factory: 33 Union Square 1967-1973 (Decker Building)

Factory: 860 Broadway (near 33 Union Square) 1973-1984 (the building has now been completely remodeled and was for a time (2000–2001) the headquarters of the dot-com consultancy Scient)

Factory: 22 East 33rd Street 1984-1987 (the building no longer exists)

Home: 1342 Lexington Avenue

Home: 57 East 66th street (Warhol's last home)

Last personal studio: 158 Madison Avenue

Filmography

Main article: Andy Warhol filmography

Music

In the mid 1960s, Warhol adopted the band the Velvet Underground, making them a crucial element of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia performance art show. Warhol, with Paul Morrissey, acted as the band's manager, introducing them to Nico (who would perform with the band at Warhol's request). In 1966 he "produced" their first album The Velvet Underground & Nico, as well as providing its album art. His actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time. After the band's first album, Warhol and band leader Lou Reed started to disagree more about the direction the band should take, and their artistic friendship ended.[citation needed]

 

Warhol designed many album covers for various artists starting with the photographic cover of John Wallowitch's debut album, This Is John Wallowitch!!! (1964). He designed the cover art for the Rolling Stones albums Sticky Fingers (1971) and Love You Live (1977), and the John Cale albums The Academy In Peril (1972) and Honi Soit in 1981. In 1975, Warhol was commissioned to do several portraits of Mick Jagger, and in 1982 he designed the album cover for the Diana Ross album Silk Electric.[citation needed] One of his last works was a portrait of Aretha Franklin for the cover of her 1986 gold album Aretha, which was done in the style of the Reigning Queens series he had completed the year before.[63]

 

Warhol was also friendly with many recording artists, including Deborah Harry, Grace Jones, Diana Ross and John Lennon (with whom he posed for an infamous photograph[64]) - he designed the cover to Lennon's 1986 posthumously released Menlove Ave. Warhol also appeared as a bartender in The Cars' music video for their single "Hello Again", and Curiosity Killed The Cat's video for their "Misfit" single (both videos, and others, were produced by Warhol's video production company).[citation needed] Warhol featured in Grace Jones' music video for "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect for You)".

 

Warhol strongly influenced the New Wave/punk rock band Devo, as well as David Bowie. Bowie recorded a song called "Andy Warhol" for his 1971 album Hunky Dory. Lou Reed wrote the song "Andy's Chest", about Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Warhol, in 1968. He recorded it with the Velvet Underground, but this version wasn't officially released until the VU album appeared in 1985. He recorded a new version for his 1972 solo album Transformer, produced by Bowie and Mick Ronson.[citation needed]

  

Cover of copy no. 18 of 25 Cats Name [sic] Sam and One Blue Pussy by Andy Warhol given in 1954 to Edgar de Evia and Robert Denning when the author was a guest in their home in the Rhinelander Mansion.[citation needed]Books and print

Beginning in the early 1950s, Warhol produced several unbound portfolios of his work.

 

The first of several bound self-published books by Warhol was 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy, printed in 1954 by Seymour Berlin on Arches brand watermarked paper using his blotted line technique for the lithographs. The original edition was limited to 190 numbered, hand colored copies, using Dr. Martin's ink washes. Most of these were given by Warhol as gifts to clients and friends. Copy #4, inscribed "Jerry" on the front cover and given to Geraldine Stutz, was used for a facsimile printing in 1987[65] and the original was auctioned in May 2006 for US $35,000 by Doyle New York.[66]

 

Other self-published books by Warhol include:

 

A Gold Book

Wild Raspberries

Holy Cats

After gaining fame, Warhol "wrote" several books that were commercially published:

 

a, A Novel (1968, ISBN 0-8021-3553-6) is a literal transcription– containing spelling errors and phonetically written background noise and mumbling– of audio recordings of Ondine and several of Andy Warhol's friends hanging out at the Factory, talking, going out.[citation needed]

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again) (1975, ISBN 0-15-671720-4)– according to Pat Hackett's introduction to The Andy Warhol Diaries, Pat Hackett did the transcriptions and text for the book based on daily phone conversations, sometimes (when Warhol was traveling) using audio cassettes that Andy Warhol gave her. Said cassettes contained conversations with Brigid Berlin (also known as Brigid Polk) and former Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello.[citation needed]

Popism: The Warhol Sixties (1980, ISBN 0-15-672960-1), authored by Warhol and Pat Hackett is a retrospective view of the sixties and the role of Pop Art.

The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989, ISBN 0-446-39138-7), edited by Pat Hackett, is a diary dictated by Warhol to Hackett in daily phone conversations. Warhol started the diary to keep track of his expenses after being audited, although it soon evolved to include his personal and cultural observations.[67]

Warhol created the fashion magazine Interview that is still published today. The loopy title script on the cover is thought to be either his own handwriting or that of his mother, Julia Warhola, who would often do text work for his early commercial pieces.[68]

 

Other media

As stated, although Andy Warhol is most known for his paintings and films, he has authored works in many different media.

 

Drawing: Warhol started his career as a commercial illustrator, producing drawings in "blotted-ink" style for advertisements and magazine articles. Best known of these early works are his drawings of shoes. Some of his personal drawings were self-published in small booklets, such as Yum, Yum, Yum (about food), Ho, Ho, Ho (about Christmas) and (of course) Shoes, Shoes, Shoes. His most artistically acclaimed book of drawings is probably A Gold Book, compiled of sensitive drawings of young men. A Gold Book is so named because of the gold leaf that decorates its pages.[69]

Sculpture: Warhol's most famous sculpture is probably his Brillo Boxes, silkscreened ink on wood replicas of Brillo soap pad boxes (designed by James Harvey), part of a series of "grocery carton" sculptures that also included Heinz ketchup and Campbell's tomato juice cases.[70] Other famous works include the Silver Clouds– helium filled, silver mylar, pillow-shaped balloons. A Silver Cloud was included in the traveling exhibition Air Art (1968–69) curated by Willoughby Sharp. Clouds was also adapted by Warhol for avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham's dance piece RainForest (1968).[71]

Audio: At one point Warhol carried a portable recorder with him wherever he went, taping everything everybody said and did. He referred to this device as his "wife". Some of these tapes were the basis for his literary work. Another audio-work of Warhol's was his "Invisible Sculpture", a presentation in which burglar alarms would go off when entering the room. Warhol's cooperation with the musicians of The Velvet Underground was driven by an expressed desire to become a music producer.[citation needed]

Time Capsules: In 1973, Warhol began saving ephemera from his daily life– correspondence, newspapers, souvenirs, childhood objects, even used plane tickets and food– which was sealed in plain cardboard boxes dubbed Time Capsules. By the time of his death, the collection grew to include 600, individually dated "capsules". The boxes are now housed at the Andy Warhol Museum.[72]

Television: Andy Warhol dreamed of a television show that he wanted to call The Nothing Special, a special about his favorite subject: Nothing. Later in his career he did create two cable television shows, Andy Warhol's TV in 1982 and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes (based on his famous "fifteen minutes of fame" quotation) for MTV in 1986. Besides his own shows he regularly made guest appearances on other programs, including The Love Boat wherein a Midwestern wife (Marion Ross) fears Andy Warhol will reveal to her husband (Tom Bosley, who starred alongside Ross in sitcom Happy Days) her secret past as a Warhol superstar named Marina del Rey. Warhol also produced a TV commercial for Schrafft's Restaurants in New York City, for an ice cream dessert appropriately titled the "Underground Sundae".[73]

Fashion: Warhol is quoted for having said: "I'd rather buy a dress and put it up on the wall, than put a painting, wouldn't you?"[cite this quote] One of his most well-known Superstars, Edie Sedgwick, aspired to be a fashion designer, and his good friend Halston was a famous one. Warhol's work in fashion includes silkscreened dresses, a short sub-career as a catwalk-model and books on fashion as well as paintings with fashion (shoes) as a subject.[citation needed]

Performance Art: Warhol and his friends staged theatrical multimedia happenings at parties and public venues, combining music, film, slide projections and even Gerard Malanga in an S&M outfit cracking a whip. The Exploding Plastic Inevitable in 1966 was the culmination of this area of his work.[74]

Theater: Andy Warhol's PORK opened on May 5, 1971 at LaMama theater in New York for a two week run and was brought to the Roundhouse in London for a longer run in August, 1971. Pork was based on tape-recorded conversations between Brigin Berlin and Andy during which Brigid would play for Andy tapes she had made of phone conversations between herself and her mother, socialite Honey Berlin. The play featured Jayne County as "Vulva" and Cherry Vanilla as "Amanda Pork".[citation needed] In 1974, Andy Warhol also produced the stage musical Man On The Moon, which was written by John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas.

Photography: To produce his silkscreens, Warhol made photographs or had them made by his friends and assistants. These pictures were mostly taken with a specific model of Polaroid camera that Polaroid kept in production especially for Warhol. This photographic approach to painting and his snapshot method of taking pictures has had a great effect on artistic photography. Warhol was an accomplished photographer, and took an enormous amount of photographs of Factory visitors, friends.[citation needed]

Computer: Warhol used Amiga computers to generate digital art, which he helped design and build with Amiga, Inc. He also displayed the difference between slow fill and fast fill on live TV with Debbie Harry as a model.[75] (video)

Producer and product

Warhol had assistance in producing his paintings. This is also true of his film-making and commercial enterprises.[citation needed]

 

He founded the gossip magazine Interview, a stage for celebrities he "endorsed" and a business staffed by his friends. He collaborated with others on all of his books (some of which were written with Pat Hackett.) He adopted the young painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the band The Velvet Underground, presenting them to the public as his latest interest, and collaborating with them. One might even say that he produced people (as in the Warholian "Superstar" and the Warholian portrait). He endorsed products, appeared in commercials, and made frequent celebrity guest appearances on television shows and in films (he appeared in everything from Love Boat to Saturday Night Live and the Richard Pryor movie, Dynamite Chicken).[citation needed]

 

In this respect Warhol was a fan of "Art Business" and "Business Art"– he, in fact, wrote about his interest in thinking about art as business in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again.[citation needed]

 

Dedicated museums

Two museums are dedicated to Andy Warhol. The Andy Warhol Museum, one of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, is located at 117 Sandusky Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the largest American art museum dedicated to a single artist, holding more than 12,000 works by the artist.[citation needed]

 

The other museum is the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art, established in 1991 by Andy's brother John Warhola, the Slovak Ministry of Culture, and the Warhol Foundation in New York. It is located in the small town of Medzilaborce, Slovakia. Andy's parents and his two brothers were born 15 kilometres away in the village of Miková. The museum houses several originals donated mainly by the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York and also personal items donated by Warhol's relatives.[citation needed]

 

Movies about Warhol

Dramatic portrayals

 

Warhol (right) with director Ulli Lommel on the set of 1979's Cocaine Cowboys, in which Warhol appeared as himselfIn 1979, Warhol appeared as himself in the film Cocaine Cowboys.[76]

 

After his passing, Warhol was portrayed by Crispin Glover in Oliver Stone's film The Doors (1991), by David Bowie in Basquiat, a film by Julian Schnabel, and by Jared Harris in the film I Shot Andy Warhol directed by Mary Harron (1996). Warhol appears as a character in Michael Daugherty's 1997 opera Jackie O. Actor Mark Bringleson makes a brief cameo as Warhol in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). Many films by avant-garde cineast Jonas Mekas have caught the moments of Andy's life. Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the 1998 film 54. Guy Pearce portrayed Warhol in the 2007 film, Factory Girl, about Edie Sedgwick's life.[77] Actor Greg Travis portrays Warhol in a brief scene from the 2009 film Watchmen.

 

Gus Van Sant was planning a version of Warhol's life with River Phoenix in the lead role just before Phoenix's death in 1993.[78]

 

Documentaries

The 2001 documentary, Absolut Warhola was produced by Polish director Stanislaw Mucha, featuring Warhol's parents' family and hometown in Slovakia.[79]

Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film is a reverential four-hour 2006 movie by Ric Burns.[80]

Andy Warhol: Double Denied is a 52 minute movie by lan Yentob about the difficulties in authenticating Warhol's work.[81]

 

The Los Angeles California Temple (formerly the Los Angeles Temple), the tenth operating and the second-largest temple operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is on Santa Monica Boulevard in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California. When it was dedicated in 1956, it was the largest temple of the church, later surpassed by the Salt Lake Temple with its additions and annexations. The temple serves 41 stakes in Los Angeles, Ventura, Kern, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. The grounds includes a visitors' center open to the public, the Los Angeles Regional Family History Center, also open to the public, and the headquarters for the Los Angeles mission.

 

The Los Angeles Temple was announced when the church purchased 24.23 acres (98,000 m²) from the Harold Lloyd Motion Picture Company on March 23, 1937, by president Heber J. Grant. Construction was to begin soon thereafter, but financial difficulties relating to the Great Depression and World War II delayed the groundbreaking until 1951.

 

The temple plans were revised at this time to include a priesthood assembly room, an unusual feature in temples built after the Salt Lake Temple. It was also expanded to accommodate an unprecedented 300 patrons per session.

 

Located at 10777 W. Santa Monica Boulevard in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California, the temple sits atop a small hill above the intersection of Overland Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard.

 

The well manicured grounds, open to the public, are filled with a various plants, including Canary Island Pine trees, several varieties of palm trees, Bird of Paradise trees, olive trees, and rare Chinese Ginkgo trees. At the left and right of the temple are two fountains, and at the front is a large reflection pool. Several family-themed statues further beautify the grounds. In December temple grounds are all aglow with thousands of multi-colored lights in celebration of Christmas.

 

While not as regionally prominent as the temples in Oakland, San Diego, and Washington, the Los Angeles California Temple is still one of the most distinctive features of Los Angeles' Westside. Thousands of commuters pass it every day on busy Santa Monica Boulevard. The proliferation of high-rise buildings along the Wilshire Boulevard corridor and in nearby Century City has reduced its prominence in the Westside skyline. However, its dramatic night lighting and sheer size still make an imposing sight, particularly for travelers exiting the Santa Monica Freeway northbound on Overland.

 

Numerous Church facilities are on its grounds including a meetinghouse, a baseball field, the headquarters of the Church's California Los Angeles Mission, and apartments (used by missionaries, temple workers, temple patrons, and visiting church officials).

 

The remaining land, along Manning Avenue, was subdivided for residential lots, the sale of which considerably offset the expense of constructing the temple. Because it was the church's first temple (save the roughly contemporaneous Bern Switzerland Temple) built outside of an LDS-dominated settlement, the Los Angeles Temple was the first LDS temple explicitly designed for automobile accessibility: its parking facilities were larger than those of any temple built previously, and there is no direct pedestrian connection between the front doors and Santa Monica Boulevard.

 

The temple's architecture is generally Modernist, an aesthetic that extends to the choice of exterior cladding: 146,000 square feet (14,000 m²) of Mo-Sai pre-cast concrete facing, a mixture of crushed quartz and white Portland cement quarried in Utah and Nevada. The very light brown pigmentation of the Mo-Sai blend has the advantage of concealing the thin layer of soot that accumulates on most buildings in Los Angeles. The temple is 369 feet (112 m) long, 269 feet (82 m) wide and has an overall height of 257 feet (78 m). Atop the temple stands a 15 foot (5 m) tall statue of the angel Moroni.

 

The rooms include a baptistry, celestial room, four ordinance rooms, ten sealing rooms, and an assembly room that stretches the entire length of the temple. The Los Angeles temple features murals on the walls of its progressive-style ordinance rooms including the celestial room. The only other temple with celestial room murals is the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_California_Temple