Odonata is an order of flying insects that includes the dragonflies and damselflies.
Damselflies are flying insects of the suborder Zygoptera in the order Odonata. They are similar to dragonflies but are smaller and have slimmer bodies. Most species fold the wings along the body when at rest, unlike dragonflies which hold the wings flat and away from the body. An ancient group, damselflies have existed since at least the Lower Permian beginning about 299 million years ago, and are found on every continent except Antarctica.
Elephant birds are extinct flightless birds belonging to the order Aepyornithiformes that were native to the island of Madagascar. They are thought to have become extinct around 1000 AD, likely as a result of human activity. Elephant birds comprised three species, one in the genus Mullerornis, and two in Aepyornis.Aepyornis maximus is possibly the largest bird to have ever lived, with their eggs being the largest known for any amniote. Elephant birds are palaeognaths, and their closest living relatives are kiwi, suggesting that ratites did not diversify by vicariance during the breakup of Gondwana but instead convergently evolved flightlessness from ancestors that dispersed more recently by flying.
Ailuridae is a family in the mammal order Carnivora. The family consists of the red panda and its extinct relatives.
Nyctibatrachus is a genus of frogs endemic to the Western Ghats of southwestern India. Their common name is night frogs. Their scientific name also means "night frog", in reference to their habits and dark color. They are the only extant members of the monotypic subfamily Nyctibatrachinae. Currently, 35 species belong to Nyctibatrachus.
The giant tree-rat is a species in the family Echimyidae, the spiny rats. It is the only species in the monotypic genus Toromys. It is endemic to Brazil, where it occurs in the flooded forest along the banks of the Amazon River and its tributaries.
The Pseudostigmatidae are a family of tropical damselflies, known as helicopter damselflies, giant damselflies, or forest giants. The family includes the largest of all damselfly species. They specialize in preying on web-building spiders, and breed in phytotelmata, the small bodies of water held by plants such as bromeliads.
Megaloprepus caerulatus, also known as the blue-winged helicopter, is a forest giant damselfly of the family Coenagrionidae. Forest giant damselflies were previously recognized as their own family, Pseudostigmatidae. M. caerulatus is found in wet and moist forests in Central and South America. It has the greatest wingspan of any living damselfly or dragonfly, up to 19 centimeters (7.5 inches) in the largest males. Its large size and the markings on its wings make it a conspicuous species; a hovering Megaloprepus has been described as a "pulsating blue-and-white beacon".
Makalata is a genus of rodents in the family Echimyidae.
Amanipodagrion gilliesi is a species of damselfly. Its monotypic genus Amanipodagrion was formerly in the subfamily Argiolestinae of the flatwing damselfly family (Megapodagrionidae). As a result of molecular phylogenetic studies by Bybee et al. in 2021, it is now in its own family, Amanipodagrionidae.
Chlorocypha is a genus of damselflies in the family Chlorocyphidae.
Hetaerina is a genus of damselflies in the family Calopterygidae. They are commonly known as rubyspots because of the deep red wing bases of the males. The name is from Ancient Greek: ἑταίρα (hetaira), courtesan. H. rudis, the Guatemalan rubyspot, is considered vulnerable on the IUCN Red Data List.
Ischnura is a genus of damselflies known as forktails in the family Coenagrionidae. Forktails are distributed worldwide, including various oceanic islands. The males have a forked projection at the tip of the abdomen which gives the group their common name.
Nesciothemis farinosa (Eastern Blacktail) is a species of dragonfly in the family Libellulidae.
Platycypha caligata, the dancing jewel, is a species of damselfly in the family Chlorocyphidae. It is found in eastern, central and southern Africa from Ethiopia to Angola and South Africa. Its natural habitats include shady parts of subtropical or tropical streams and rivers in forest, woodland, savanna, and shrubland, and shorelines of lakes.
Pseudagrion glaucoideum is a species of damselfly in the family Coenagrionidae. It is found in the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Uganda. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and rivers.
Trithemis is a genus of dragonflies in the family Libellulidae. They are commonly known as dropwings. There are over 40 species, mainly from Africa; two are endemic to Madagascar, and five can be found in Asia. They are found in a wide variety of habitats; some species being adapted to permanent streams in forests, and others being capable of breeding in temporary pools in deserts.
Anteaters are the four extant mammal species in the suborder Vermilingua, commonly known for eating ants and termites. The individual species have other names in English and other languages. Together with the sloths, they are within the order Pilosa. The name "anteater" is also commonly applied to the unrelated aardvark, numbat, echidnas, and pangolins, although they are not closely related to them.
The genus Epiophlebia is the sole member of the family Epiophlebiidae, which is itself the sole living representative of the Epiproctan infraorder Epiophlebioptera, and it contains only three species. The first two species were historically placed in their own suborder Anisozygoptera, considered intermediate between dragonflies and damselflies, mainly because the hind wings are very similar in size and shape to the forewings and held back over the body at rest, as in damselflies. It has more recently been recognized that the genus Epiophlebia shares a more recent ancestor with dragonflies, and the group has accordingly been reclassified as an infraorder within the dragonflies. Very recently a third species, Epiophlebia sinensis, has been described from Heilongjiang province in northeast China, bridging Epiophlebia distribution gap between Nepal and Japan. A fourth species has been claimed from larval material from South China, but this is not universally accepted. Epiophlebia species are a freshwater indicator of a river ecosystem health. A study that has been conducted on the head anatomy of Epiophlebia has verified the presence of 41 muscles in the head of the larva. Like in true dragonflies (Anisoptera) the aquatic nymphs breathe through a rectal chamber, but jet propulsion has yet to be documented. Epiophlebia species are a representative of a dragonfly fauna which originated during the Jurassic period on the rising continent of Eurasia.
Ocepeia is an extinct genus of afrotherian mammal that lived in present-day Morocco during the middle Paleocene epoch, approximately 60 million years ago. First named and described in 2001, the type species is O. daouiensis from the Selandian stage of Morocco's Ouled Abdoun Basin. A second, larger species, O. grandis, is known from the Thanetian, a slightly younger stage in the same area. In life, the two species are estimated to have weighed about 3.5 kg (7.7 lb) and 10 kg (22 lb), respectively, and are believed to have been specialized leaf-eaters. The fossil skulls of Ocepeia are the oldest known afrotherian skulls, and the best-known of any Paleocene mammal in Africa.
