Darwin's finches are a group of about 18 species of passerine birds. They are well known for their remarkable diversity in beak form and function. They are often classified as the subfamily Geospizinae or tribe Geospizini. They belong to the tanager family and are not closely related to the true finches. The closest known relative of the Galápagos finches is the South American dull-coloured grassquit. They were first collected when the second voyage of the Beagle visited the Galápagos Islands, with Charles Darwin on board as a gentleman naturalist. Apart from the Cocos finch, which is from Cocos Island, the others are found only on the Galápagos Islands.
John Edward Gray, FRS was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of zoologist George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray (1766–1828). The standard author abbreviation J.E.Gray is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name. The same is used for a zoological name.
Richard Bowdler Sharpe was an English zoologist and ornithologist who worked as curator of the bird collection at the British Museum of natural history. In the course of his career he published several monographs on bird groups and produced a multi-volume catalogue of the specimens in the collection of the museum. He described many new species of bird and also has had species named in his honour by other ornithologists including Sharpe's longclaw and Sharpe's starling.
Sahure was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the second ruler of the Fifth Dynasty. He reigned for about 13 years in the early 25th century BC during the Old Kingdom Period. Sahure's reign marks the political and cultural high point of the Fifth Dynasty. He was probably the son of his predecessor Userkaf with Queen Neferhetepes II, and was in turn succeeded by his son Neferirkare Kakai.
Manchester Museum is a museum displaying works of archaeology, anthropology and natural history and is owned by the University of Manchester, in England. Sited on Oxford Road (A34) at the heart of the university's group of neo-Gothic buildings, it provides access to about 4.5 million items from every continent. It is the UK's largest university museum and serves both as a major visitor attraction and as a resource for academic research and teaching. It has around 430,000 visitors each year.
Richard Lydekker was an English naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history.
Captain Frederick Wollaston Hutton was an English-born New Zealand scientist who applied the theory of natural selection to explain the origins and nature of the natural history of New Zealand. Whilst an army officer, he embarked on an academic career in geology and biology, to become one of the most able and prolific nineteenth century naturalists of New Zealand.
The Jamaican iguana, also known commonly as Colley's iguana, is a large species of lizard in the family Iguanidae. The species is endemic to Jamaica. It is critically endangered, even considered extinct between 1948 and 1990. Once found throughout Jamaica and on the offshore islets Great Goat Island and Little Goat Island, it is now confined to the forests of the Hellshire Hills.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Smithii', commonly known as the Downton Elm, was one of a number of cultivars arising from the crossing of the Wych Elm U. glabra with the Field Elm U. minor. The tree was originally planted at Downton Castle near Ludlow, as one of a batch, not all of them pendulous in habit, raised at Smith's Nursery, Worcester, England, from seeds obtained from a tree in Nottingham in 1810.
Conus marmoreus, common name the "marbled cone", is a species of predatory sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Conidae, the cone snails, cone shells or cones. It is the type species for the genus Conus. This is a species which is believed to feed mostly on marine molluscs including other cone snails. This snail is venomous, like all cone snails.
James John Joicey FES was an English amateur entomologist, who assembled an extensive collection of Lepidoptera in his private research museum, called the Hill Museum, in Witley, Surrey. His collection, 40 years in the making, was considered to have been the second largest in the world held privately and to have numbered over 1.5 million specimens. Joicey was a fellow of the Zoological Society of London, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Entomological Society, the Royal Horticultural Society, and the Linnean Society of London.
Helicidae is a large, diverse family of western Palaearctic, medium to large-sized, air-breathing land snails, sometimes called the "typical snails." It includes some of the largest European land snails, several species are common in anthropogenic habitats, and some became invasive on other continents. A number of species in this family are valued as food items, including Cornu aspersum the brown or garden snail, and Helix pomatia. The biologies of these two species in particular have been thoroughly studied and documented.
Jean-Jacques Kieffer was a French naturalist and entomologist who specialised in the study of parasitic insects. Educated as a priest, Kieffer taught natural science in Bitche, Lorraine while working on the description and classification of insects. His work and publications later became a predominant source of description and classification for entomologists in the early 20th century, in particular with regard to parasitoid wasps, midges, and mosquitos.
The Gobi jerboa is a species of rodent in the family Dipodidae. It is found in China and Mongolia. Its natural habitats are temperate grassland and temperate desert.
The red-crested tree-rat or Santa Marta toro is a species of tree-rat found in the monotypic genus Santamartamys in the family Echimyidae. It is nocturnal and is believed to feed on plant matter, and is mainly rufous, with young specimens having a grey coat. IUCN list the species as critically endangered: it is affected by feral cats, climate change, and the clearing of forest in its potential range in coastal Colombia.
Conus geographus, popularly called the geography cone or the geographer cone, is a species of predatory cone snail. It lives in reefs of the tropical Indo-Pacific, and hunts small fish. While all cone snails hunt and kill prey using venom, the venom of conus geographus is potent enough to kill humans.
Eremina is a genus of land snails.
A. N. Waterhouse, also known as Annie Newman Waterhouse was an English illustrator, woodcutter, engraver, and teacher. She is best known for her illustrations in working with Joseph Wilson Lowry on Samuel Pickworth Woodward's A Manual of the Mollusca, which was published in three parts. The first part of A Manual of the Mollusca was published in 1851, and it was one of the most notable works on Mollusks that existed at that time. She was also a professor at Marlborough House, and taught classes on wood engraving for ladies only.
