China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the second-most populous country after India, representing 17.4% of the world population. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land. With an area of nearly 9.6 million square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third-largest country by total land area. The country is divided into 33 province-level divisions: 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two semi-autonomous special administrative regions. Beijing is the country's capital, while Shanghai is its most populous city by urban area and largest financial center.
Geckos are small, mostly carnivorous lizards that have a wide distribution, found on every continent except Antarctica. Belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, geckos are found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from 1.6 to 60 centimetres.
A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus Pinus of the family Pinaceae. Pinus is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae.
An apricot is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus Prunus.
Hermit crabs are anomuran decapod crustaceans of the superfamily Paguroidea that have adapted to occupy empty scavenged mollusc shells to protect their fragile exoskeletons. There are over 800 species of hermit crab, most of which possess an asymmetric abdomen concealed by a snug-fitting shell. Hermit crabs' soft (non-calcified) abdominal exoskeleton means they must occupy shelter produced by other organisms or risk being defenseless.
Gekkonidae is the largest family of geckos, containing over 950 described species in 62 genera. The Gekkonidae contain many of the most widespread gecko species, including house geckos (Hemidactylus), the tokay gecko (Gekko), day geckos (Phelsuma), the mourning gecko (Lepidodactylus), and dtellas (Gehyra). Gekkonid geckos occur globally and are particularly diverse in tropical areas. Many species of these geckos exhibit an adhering ability to surfaces through Van der Waals forces utilizing intermolecular forces between molecules of their setae and molecules of the surface they are on.
An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations.
The hairy-fronted muntjac or black muntjac is a type of deer currently found in Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian in southeastern China. It is considered to be endangered, possibly down to as few as 5–10,000 individuals spread over a wide area. Reports of hairy-fronted muntjacs from Burma result from considering the hairy-fronted muntjac and Gongshan muntjac as the same species. This suggestion is controversial. It is similar in size to the common muntjac.
Mrs. Hume's pheasant, also known as Hume's pheasant or the bar-tailed pheasant, is a large, up to 90 cm (35 in) long, forest pheasant with a greyish brown head, bare red facial skin, chestnut brown plumage, yellowish bill, brownish orange iris, white wingbars and metallic blue neck feathers. The male has a long greyish white, barred black and brown tail. The female is a chestnut brown bird with whitish throat, buff color belly and white-tipped tail.
Weh Island is a small active volcanic island to the northwest of Sumatra in Indonesia, also known as Sabang after the city situated on the northeast end of the island, whose area of 122.13 square kilometres (47.15 sq mi) includes the whole island as well as several offshore islets. It had a population of 43,527 at the official mid-2023 estimate. It is 45 minutes by fast regular ship or 2 hours by ferry from the mainland port of Banda Aceh. It was originally connected to the Sumatran mainland and became separated by sea after the stratovolcano's last eruption in the Pleistocene era. The island is situated in the Andaman Sea.
The International Bear Brotherhood Flag, also known as the bear flag, is a pride flag designed to represent the bear subculture within the LGBTQIA+ community. The colors of the flag—dark brown, orange/rust, golden yellow, tan, white, gray, and black—symbolize species of animal bears throughout the world. Though not necessarily referring to human skin color or hair color, the flag was designed with inclusion in mind. The bear culture celebrates secondary sex characteristics such as growth of body hair and facial hair, traits associated with bears.
Melanohalea is a genus of foliose lichens in the family Parmeliaceae. It contains 30 mostly Northern Hemisphere species that grow on bark or on wood. The genus is characterised by the presence of pseudocyphellae, usually on warts or on the tips of isidia, a non-pored epicortex and a medulla containing depsidones or lacking secondary metabolites. Melanohalea was circumscribed in 2004 as a segregate of the morphologically similar genus Melanelia, which was created in 1978 for certain brown Parmelia species. The methods used to estimate the evolutionary history of Melanohalea suggest that its diversification primarily occurred during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs.
The smooth toadfish is a species of fish in the pufferfish family Tetraodontidae. It is native to shallow coastal and estuarine waters of southeastern Australia, where it is widespread and abundant. French naturalist Christophe-Paulin de La Poix de Fréminville described the species in 1813, though early records confused it with its close relative, the common toadfish. The two are the only members of the genus Tetractenos after going through several taxonomic changes since discovery.
Paedophryne amauensis, also known as the New Guinea Amau frog, is a species of microhylid frog endemic to eastern Papua New Guinea. At 7.7 mm (0.30 in) in snout-to-vent length, it was once considered the world's smallest known vertebrate.
Mordella pleurosticta is a species of beetle in the genus Mordella of the family Mordellidae, which is part of the superfamily Tenebrionoidea. It was first described by Hippolyte Lucas in 1859.
Eressa pleurosticta is a moth of the family Erebidae. It was described by George Hampson in 1910. It is found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Pleurosticta acetabulum is a species of foliose lichen in the family Parmeliaceae. It is common and widespread throughout Europe, where it grows on tree bark. It has also been recorded in Algeria.
Pleurosticta koflerae is a species of foliose lichen in the family Parmeliaceae. It is a member of the group of species informally known as the "brown Parmeliae". The lichen was first formally described as Parmelia koflerae by lichenologists Georges Clauzade and Josef Poelt in 1961. Theodore Esslinger transferred it to the genus Melanelia in 1978 when he reorganized the classification of the brown Parmeliae, a continuation of his research on the group published the year before. It was finally transferred to the newly resurrected genus Pleurosticta in 1988 by H. Thorsten Lumbsch and John A. Elix.
Marilyna meraukensis, known as the Merauke toadfish, is a species of pufferfish in the family Tetraodontidae. It is a tropical brackish-water species known from New Guinea and northern Australia, where it occurs in mangrove estuaries and tidally influenced sections of rivers. It reaches 19 cm SL.
