Saint Helena is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory.
John Obadiah Westwood was an English entomologist and archaeologist also noted for his artistic talents. He published several illustrated works on insects and antiquities. He was among the first entomologists with an academic position at Oxford University. He was a natural theologian, staunchly anti-Darwinian, and sometimes adopted a quinarian viewpoint. Although he never travelled widely, he described species from around the world on the basis of specimens, especially of the larger, curious, and colourful species, obtained by naturalists and collectors in England.
The Mymaridae, commonly known as fairyflies or fairy wasps, are a family of chalcidoid wasps found in temperate, subtropical, and tropical regions throughout the world. The family contains around 100 genera with 1,400 species.
The Saint Helena hoopoe, also known as the Saint Helena giant hoopoe or giant hoopoe, is an extinct species of hoopoe known exclusively from an incomplete subfossil skeleton. Once endemic to the island of Saint Helena, it was last seen around 1550, likely driven to extinction by various aspects of human activity.
The Saint Helena rail was a large flightless rail from Saint Helena. It became extinct in the early 16th century.
The Saint Helena olive is an extinct species of flowering plant. It is the only member of the genus Nesiota. It was endemic to the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. Despite its name, it is unrelated to the true olive, but is instead a member of the family Rhamnaceae, the family which contains buckthorns and jujube. The last remaining tree in the wild died in 1994, and the last remaining individual in cultivation died in December 2003, despite conservation efforts. It is thus a prime example of recent plant extinction. The Saint Helena olive belongs to the tribe Phyliceae, which are mostly endemic to Southern Africa.
Pladaroxylon is a genus of trees in the tribe Senecioneae within the family Asteraceae.
Dicksonia arborescens, the Saint Helena tree fern, is a characteristic plant of the "tree fern thicket" vegetation of the highest parts of the central ridge of the island of Saint Helena. It is the type species of the genus Dicksonia.
The flowering plant genus Trochetiopsis consists of two extant and one extinct species endemic to the island of Saint Helena. They were formerly placed in the family Sterculiaceae, but this is included in the expanded Malvaceae in the APG and most subsequent systematics.
Commidendrum robustum, the Saint Helena gumwood, is a species of tree endemic to Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Though it is now comparatively rare, it was once one of the most abundant trees of mid-elevations of the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. A small tree to 7–8 m, it was cut extensively for fuel in the early years of settlement of the island by the English East India Company. It has given its name to certain placenames on the island such as "Gumwoods". It is one of several species in the endemic genus Commidendrum.
Mellissia was formerly a monotypic genus in the family Solanaceae with the single species, Mellissia begoniifolia, endemic to the island of Saint Helena. It was named by Joseph Dalton Hooker in honour of John Charles Melliss, a 19th-century engineer and amateur naturalist who worked on Saint Helena.
John Charles Melliss was a British engineer and amateur naturalist. He lived in St. Helena and wrote a book on the geology, history and geography of the island in 1875. He also wrote on the natural history of the island. J.D. Hooker named the genus Mellissia in his honour.
Petrobium is a genus in the family Asteraceae.
Nesohedyotis is a genus of flowering plants endemic to the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. It in the family Rubiaceae.
Saint Helena, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha, as well the other uninhabited islands nearby, are a haven for wildlife in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The islands are or were home to much endemic flora and fauna, especially invertebrates, and many endemic fish species are found in the reef ecosystems off the islands. The islands have been identified by BirdLife International as Important Bird Areas for both their endemic landbirds and breeding seabirds.
Storrs Lovejoy Olson was an American biologist and ornithologist who spent his career at the Smithsonian Institution, retiring in 2008. One of the world's foremost avian paleontologists, he was best known for his studies of fossil and subfossil birds on islands such as Ascension, St. Helena and Hawaii. His early higher education took place at Florida State University in 1966, where he obtained a B.A. in biology, and the University of Florida, where he received an M.S. in biology. Olson's doctoral studies took place at Johns Hopkins University, in what was then the School of Hygiene and Public Health. He was married to fellow paleornithologist Helen F. James.
Lachanodes is a genus of plants in the groundsel tribe of the sunflower family. The plants are native to certain islands in the South Atlantic.
Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island, 7°56′ south of the Equator in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is about 960 miles (1,540 km) from the coast of Africa and 1,400 miles (2,300 km) from the coast of South America. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, of which the main island, Saint Helena, is around 800 miles (1,300 km) to the southeast. The territory also includes the sparsely populated Tristan da Cunha archipelago, 2,000 miles (3,200 km) to the south, about halfway to the Antarctic Circle.
Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha is a British Overseas Territory located in the South Atlantic and consisting of the island of Saint Helena, Ascension Island, and the archipelago of Tristan da Cunha. Its name was Saint Helena and Dependencies until 1 September 2009, when a new constitution came into force, giving the three islands equal status as three territories, with a grouping under the Crown.
The St. Helena white seabream is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Sparidae, which includes the seabreams and porgies. This fish is endemic to the island of Saint Helena in the southern Atlantic.
