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146-451: Armadillos ( Spanish for 'little armored ones') are New World placental mammals in the order Cingulata . They form part of the superorder Xenarthra , along with the anteaters and sloths . 21 extant species of armadillo have been described, some of which are distinguished by the number of bands on their armor. All species are native to the Americas , where they inhabit
292-614: A clade (i.e., monophyletic ). However, although they would have had little effective competition, all extant New World monkeys appear to derive from a radiation that occurred long afterwards, in the Early Miocene about 18 Ma ago. Subsequent to this, monkeys apparently most closely related to titis island-hopped to Cuba , Hispaniola , and Jamaica . Additionally, a find of seven 21-Ma-old apparent cebid teeth in Panama suggests that South American monkeys had dispersed across
438-472: A predator , Tolypeutes species frequently roll up into a ball. Other armadillo species cannot roll up because they have too many plates. When surprised, the North American nine-banded armadillo tends to jump straight in the air, which can lead to a fatal collision with the undercarriage or fenders of passing vehicles. Armadillos have short legs, but can move quite quickly. The nine-banded armadillo
584-677: A Spanish-based creole language called Chavacano developed in the southern Philippines. However, it is not mutually intelligible with Spanish. The number of Chavacano-speakers was estimated at 1.2 million in 1996. The local languages of the Philippines also retain significant Spanish influence, with many words derived from Mexican Spanish , owing to the administration of the islands by Spain through New Spain until 1821, until direct governance from Madrid afterwards to 1898. Great American Interchange The Great American Biotic Interchange (commonly abbreviated as GABI ), also known as
730-399: A big porcupine), and all native South American mammals larger than about 65 kg (the size of a big capybara or giant anteater ). In contrast, the largest surviving native North American mammal, the wood bison , can exceed 900 kg (2,000 lb), and the largest surviving Nearctic migrant to South America, Baird's tapir , can reach 400 kg (880 lb). The near-simultaneity of
876-524: A body temperature of 34 °C (93 °F), similar to human skin.) Humans can acquire a leprosy infection from armadillos by handling them or consuming armadillo meat. Armadillos are a presumed vector and natural reservoir for the disease in Texas, Louisiana and Florida. Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late 15th century , leprosy was unknown in the New World. Given that armadillos are native to
1022-603: A considerable number of words from Arabic , as well as a minor influence from the Germanic Gothic language through the period of Visigoth rule in Iberia. In addition, many more words were borrowed from Latin through the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church. The loanwords were taken from both Classical Latin and Renaissance Latin , the form of Latin in use at that time. According to
1168-624: A diverse group of native ungulates known as the Meridiungulata : notoungulates (the "southern ungulates"), litopterns , astrapotheres , pyrotheres and xenungulates . A few non- therian mammals – monotremes , gondwanatheres , dryolestids and possibly cimolodont multituberculates – were also present in the Paleocene ; while none of these diversified significantly and most lineages did not survive long, forms like Necrolestes and Patagonia remained as recently as
1314-522: A dramatic change in the pronunciation of its sibilant consonants , known in Spanish as the reajuste de las sibilantes , which resulted in the distinctive velar [x] pronunciation of the letter ⟨j⟩ and—in a large part of Spain—the characteristic interdental [θ] ("th-sound") for the letter ⟨z⟩ (and for ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩ ). See History of Spanish (Modern development of
1460-433: A few small marsupial and avian predators like didelphine opossums and seriemas ). It was originally thought that the native South American predator guild, including sparassodonts , carnivorous opossums like Thylophorops and Hyperdidelphys , armadillos such as Macroeuphractus , terror birds , and teratorns , as well as early-arriving immigrant Cyonasua -group procyonids , were driven to extinction during
1606-482: A first language by Spaniards and educated Filipinos ( Ilustrados ). Despite a public education system set up by the colonial government, by the end of Spanish rule in 1898, only about 10% of the population had knowledge of Spanish, mostly those of Spanish descent or elite standing. Spanish continued to be official and used in Philippine literature and press during the early years of American administration after
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#17327728036261752-452: A good subject for scientific, behavioral, or medical tests that need consistent biological and genetic makeup in the test subjects. This is the only reliable manifestation of polyembryony in the class Mammalia , and exists only within the genus Dasypus and not in all armadillos, as is commonly believed. Other species that display this trait include parasitoid wasps, certain flatworms, and various aquatic invertebrates. Even though they have
1898-609: A group of animals) accidentally floated over on driftwood or mangrove rafts. Hutias (Capromyidae) would subsequently colonize the West Indies as far as the Bahamas , reaching the Greater Antilles by the early Oligocene. Over time, some caviomorph rodents evolved into larger forms that competed with some of the native South American ungulates, which may have contributed to the gradual loss of diversity suffered by
2044-596: A horse, Pachyrukhos resembled a rabbit, Homalodotherium was a semibipedal, clawed browser like a chalicothere , and horned Trigodon looked like a rhinoceros . Both groups started evolving in the Lower Paleocene, possibly from condylarth stock, diversified, dwindled before the great interchange, and went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene. The pyrotheres and astrapotheres were also strange, but were less diverse and disappeared earlier, well before
2190-485: A land area roughly six times greater than was available to South American species. North American species were thus products of a larger and more competitive arena, where evolution would have proceeded more rapidly. They tended to be more efficient and brainier , generally able to outrun and outwit their South American counterparts, who were products of an evolutionary backwater. In the cases of ungulates and their predators, South American forms were replaced wholesale by
2336-454: A leathery, tough shell, Armadillos, (mainly Dasypus ) are common roadkill due to their habit of jumping 3–4 ft vertically when startled, which puts them into collision with the underside of vehicles. Wildlife enthusiasts are using the northward march of the armadillo as an opportunity to educate others about the animals, which can be a burrowing nuisance to property owners and managers. Armadillo shells have traditionally been used to make
2482-612: A length of only 13–15 cm (5–6 in). When threatened by a predator, Tolypeutes species frequently roll up into a ball; they are the only species of armadillo capable of this. Recent genetic research has shown that the megafaunal glyptodonts (up to 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) tall with maximum body masses of around 2 tonnes), which became extinct around 12,000 years ago are true armadillos more closely related to all other living armadillos than to Dasypus (the long-nosed or naked-tailed armadillos). Armadillos are currently classified into two families, Dasypodidae , with Dasypus as
2628-478: A long history in the territory of the current-day United States dating back to the 16th century. In the wake of the 1848 Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty , hundreds of thousands of Spanish speakers became a minoritized community in the United States. The 20th century saw further massive growth of Spanish speakers in areas where they had been hitherto scarce. According to the 2020 census, over 60 million people of
2774-553: A number of types of rodents . The larger members of the reverse migration were ground sloths , terror birds , glyptodonts , pampatheres , capybaras , and the notoungulate Mixotoxodon (the only South American ungulate known to have invaded Central America). In general, the initial net migration was symmetrical. Later on, however, the Neotropic species proved far less successful than the Nearctic. This difference in fortunes
2920-497: A possible cause of this turnover, but this is still controversial. A similar pattern occurs in the crocodilian fauna, where modern crocodiles ( Crocodylus ) dispersed to South America during the Pliocene and became the dominant member of crocodilian communities after the late Miocene extinction of the previously dominant large native crocodilians such as the giant caiman Purussaurus and giant gharial Gryposuchus , which
3066-508: A primarily Hassaniya Arabic -speaking territory, Spanish was officially spoken as the language of the colonial administration during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Today, Spanish is present in the partially-recognized Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as its secondary official language, and in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf ( Algeria ), where the Spanish language is still taught as
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#17327728036263212-718: A primarily indirect role in the extinctions in the Americas by simply facilitating the movement of humans southeastward from Beringia to North America. The reason that a number of groups went extinct in North America but lived on in South America (while no examples of the opposite pattern are known) appears to be that the dense rainforest of the Amazon basin and the high peaks of the Andes provided environments that afforded
3358-634: A result of the isolation of the Caribbean from the Pacific. The occurrence of the interchange was first discussed in 1876 by the "father of biogeography ", Alfred Russel Wallace . Wallace had spent five years exploring and collecting specimens in the Amazon basin . Others who made significant contributions to understanding the event in the century that followed include Florentino Ameghino , W. D. Matthew , W. B. Scott , Bryan Patterson , George Gaylord Simpson and S. David Webb. The Pliocene timing of
3504-617: A second language features characteristics involving the variability of the vowel system. While far from its heyday during the Spanish protectorate in Morocco , the Spanish language has some presence in northern Morocco , stemming for example from the availability of certain Spanish-language media. According to a 2012 survey by Morocco's Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES), penetration of Spanish in Morocco reaches 4.6% of
3650-531: A second language, largely by Cuban educators. The number of Spanish speakers is unknown. Spanish is also an official language of the African Union . Spanish was an official language of the Philippines from the beginning of Spanish administration in 1565 to a constitutional change in 1973. During Spanish colonization , it was the language of government, trade, and education, and was spoken as
3796-585: A second lineage of African monkeys also rafted to and at least briefly colonized South America. Ucayalipithecus remains dating from the Early Oligocene of Amazonian Peru are, by morphological analysis, deeply nested within the family Parapithecidae of the Afro-Arabian radiation of parapithecoid simians , with dental features markedly different from those of platyrrhines . The Old World members of this group are thought to have become extinct by
3942-416: A variety of different environments. Living armadillos are characterized by a leathery armor shell and long, sharp claws for digging. They have short legs, but can move quite quickly. The average length of an armadillo is about 75 cm (30 in), including its tail. The giant armadillo grows up to 150 cm (59 in) and weighs up to 54 kg (119 lb), while the pink fairy armadillo has
4088-416: Is cognate to the root word of satisfacer ("to satisfy"), and hecho ("made") is similarly cognate to the root word of satisfecho ("satisfied"). Compare the examples in the following table: Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, as shown in the examples in the following table: In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish underwent
4234-611: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe . Today, it is a global language with about 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain , and about 600 million when including second language speakers. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries , as well as one of the six official languages of
4380-431: Is a recent simplified phylogeny of the xenarthran families, which includes armadillos. The dagger symbol, "†", denotes extinct groups. Dasypodidae (Armadillos) † Pampatheriidae Chlamyphoridae (Armadillos) Cyclopedidae Myrmecophagidae † Megatheriidae † Nothrotheriidae Bradypodidae † Mylodontidae † Megalonychidae Recent genetic research suggests that an extinct group of giant armored mammals,
4526-446: Is another example of parallel evolution. This invasion most likely came from Africa. The crossing from West Africa to the northeast corner of Brazil was much shorter then, due to continental drift , and may have been aided by island hopping (e.g. via St. Paul's Rocks , if they were an inhabitable island at the time) and westward oceanic currents. Crossings of the ocean were accomplished when at least one fertilised female (more commonly
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4672-424: Is clear that carnivorans benefitted from it. Several groups of carnivorans such as dogs and cats underwent an adaptive radiation in South America after dispersing there, and the greatest modern diversity of canids in the world is in South America. The eventual triumph of the Nearctic migrants was ultimately based on geography, which played into the hands of the northern invaders in two crucial respects. The first
4818-401: Is controversial; it is regarded by a number of investigators as a misinterpreted fossil of a different gomphothere, Notiomastodon , and biostratigraphy dates the site to the Pleistocene. The early date proposed for Surameryx has also been met with skepticism. Megalonychid and mylodontid ground sloths island-hopped to North America by 9 Ma ago. A basal group of sloths had colonized
4964-454: Is estimated that about 486 million people speak Spanish as a native language , making it the second most spoken language by number of native speakers . An additional 75 million speak Spanish as a second or foreign language , making it the fourth most spoken language in the world overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi with a total number of 538 million speakers. Spanish is also
5110-408: Is formed by plates of dermal bone covered in relatively small overlapping epidermal scales called " scutes " which are composed of keratin. The skin of an armadillo can glow under ultraviolet light. Most species have rigid shields over the shoulders and hips, with a number of bands separated by flexible skin covering the back and flanks. Additional armor covers the top of the head, the upper parts of
5256-761: Is heavily influenced by Venezuelan Spanish. In addition to sharing most of its borders with Spanish-speaking countries, the creation of Mercosur in the early 1990s induced a favorable situation for the promotion of Spanish language teaching in Brazil . In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President , making it mandatory for schools to offer Spanish as an alternative foreign language course in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil. In September 2016 this law
5402-442: Is noted for its movement through water, which is accomplished via two different methods: it can walk underwater for short distances, holding its breath for as long as six minutes; or, to cross larger bodies of water, it can increase its buoyancy by swallowing air to inflate its stomach and intestines. Gestation lasts from 60 to 120 days, depending on species, although the nine-banded armadillo also exhibits delayed implantation , so
5548-483: Is only 600 km (370 mi) from the Isthmus of Panama. Other groups of native South American predators have not been studied in as much depth. Terror birds have often been suggested to have been driven to extinction by placental carnivorans, though this hypothesis has not been investigated in detail. Titanis dispersed from South America to North America against the main wave of carnivoran migrations, being
5694-732: Is related to Castile ( Castilla or archaically Castiella ), the kingdom where the language was originally spoken. The name Castile , in turn, is usually assumed to be derived from castillo ('castle'). In the Middle Ages , the language spoken in Castile was generically referred to as Romance and later also as Lengua vulgar . Later in the period, it gained geographical specification as Romance castellano ( romanz castellano , romanz de Castiella ), lenguaje de Castiella , and ultimately simply as castellano (noun). Different etymologies have been suggested for
5840-844: Is spoken by very small communities in Angola due to Cuban influence from the Cold War and in South Sudan among South Sudanese natives that relocated to Cuba during the Sudanese wars and returned for their country's independence. Spanish is also spoken in the integral territories of Spain in Africa, namely the cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the Canary Islands , located in the Atlantic Ocean some 100 km (62 mi) off
5986-813: Is the de facto national language of the country, Spanish is often used in public services and notices at the federal and state levels. Spanish is also used in administration in the state of New Mexico . The language has a strong influence in major metropolitan areas such as those of Los Angeles , Miami , San Antonio , New York , San Francisco , Dallas , Tucson and Phoenix of the Arizona Sun Corridor , as well as more recently, Chicago , Las Vegas , Boston , Denver , Houston , Indianapolis , Philadelphia , Cleveland , Salt Lake City , Atlanta , Nashville , Orlando , Tampa , Raleigh and Baltimore-Washington, D.C. due to 20th- and 21st-century immigration. Although Spanish has no official recognition in
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6132-507: Is thought to be related to the loss of wetlands habitat across northern South America. Whether this revised scenario with a reduced role for competitive exclusion applies to other groups of South American mammals such as notoungulates and litopterns is unclear, though some authors have pointed out a protracted decline in South American native ungulate diversity since the middle Miocene. Regardless of how this turnover happened, it
6278-727: Is used in an approximative tense. The Aztecs called them āyōtōchtli [aːjoːˈtoːt͡ʃt͡ɬi] , Nahuatl for "turtle-rabbit": āyōtl [ˈaːjoːt͡ɬ] (turtle) and tōchtli [ˈtoːt͡ʃt͡ɬi] (rabbit). The Portuguese word for "armadillo" is tatu which is derived from the Tupi language ta' "bark, armor" and tu "dense"; and used in Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Paraguay and Uruguay; similar names are also found in other, especially European, languages. Other various vernacular names given are: Family Dasypodidae Family Chlamyphoridae † indicates extinct taxon Below
6424-516: The Antilles previously, by the early Miocene . In contrast, megatheriid and nothrotheriid ground sloths did not migrate north until the formation of the isthmus. Terror birds may have also island-hopped to North America as early as 5 Ma ago. The Caribbean Islands were populated primarily by species from South America, due to the prevailing direction of oceanic currents, rather than to a competition between North and South American forms. Except in
6570-643: The Galápagos Islands (formerly also of South America ), giant Dipsochelys tortoises of the Seychelles (formerly also of Madagascar ), giant meiolaniid turtles on Lord Howe Island , New Caledonia and Vanuatu (previously also of Australia), ground sloths on the Antilles , Steller's sea cows off the Commander Islands and woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island and Saint Paul Island . The glacial retreat may have played
6716-639: The Great American Interchange and the Great American Faunal Interchange , was an important late Cenozoic paleozoogeographic biotic interchange event in which land and freshwater fauna migrated from North America to South America via Central America and vice versa, as the volcanic Isthmus of Panama rose up from the sea floor, forming a land bridge between the previously separated continents . Although earlier dispersals had occurred, probably over water,
6862-470: The Lesser Antilles to Anguilla . One group has proposed that a number of large Neartic herbivores actually reached South America as early as 9–10 Ma ago, in the late Miocene, via an early incomplete land bridge. These claims, based on fossils recovered from rivers in southwestern Peru, have been viewed with caution by other investigators, due to the lack of corroborating finds from other sites and
7008-567: The Miocene . Marsupials appear to have traveled via Gondwanan land connections from South America through Antarctica to Australia in the late Cretaceous or early Tertiary . One living South American marsupial, the monito del monte , has been shown to be more closely related to Australian marsupials than to other South American marsupials ( Ameridelphia ); however, it is the most basal australidelphian, meaning that this superorder arose in South America and then dispersed to Australia after
7154-740: The Pliocene from North America via the Caribbean. Tortoises also arrived in South America in the Oligocene. They were long thought to have come from North America, but a recent comparative genetic analysis concludes that the South American genus Chelonoidis (formerly part of Geochelone ) is actually most closely related to African hingeback tortoises . Tortoises are aided in oceanic dispersal by their ability to float with their heads up, and to survive up to six months without food or water. South American tortoises then went on to colonize
7300-568: The Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005. Spanish has historically had a significant presence on the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba , Bonaire and Curaçao ( ABC Islands ) throughout the centuries and in present times. The majority of the populations of each island (especially Aruba) speaking Spanish at varying although often high degrees of fluency. The local language Papiamentu (Papiamento on Aruba)
7446-508: The Spanish–American War but was eventually replaced by English as the primary language of administration and education by the 1920s. Nevertheless, despite a significant decrease in influence and speakers, Spanish remained an official language of the Philippines upon independence in 1946, alongside English and Filipino , a standardized version of Tagalog . Spanish was briefly removed from official status in 1973 but reimplemented under
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#17327728036267592-889: The Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt . The challenge this climatic asymmetry (see map on right) presented was particularly acute for Neotropic species specialized for tropical rainforest environments, which had little prospect of penetrating beyond Central America. As a result, Central America currently has 41 mammal species of Neotropical origin, compared to only three for temperate North America. However, species of South American origin ( marsupials , xenarthrans , caviomorph rodents , and monkeys ) still comprise only 21% of species from nonflying, nonmarine mammal groups in Central America , while North American invaders constitute 49% of species from such groups in South America . Thus, climate alone cannot fully account for
7738-548: The United Nations . Spanish is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese ; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English , Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani ( Hindi - Urdu ); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language. The country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico . Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance language group , in which
7884-628: The glyptodonts , should be included within the lineage of armadillos, having diverged some 35 million years ago, more recently than previously assumed. Like all of the Xenarthra lineages, armadillos originated in South America . Due to the continent's former isolation, they were confined there for most of the Cenozoic . The recent formation of the Isthmus of Panama allowed a few members of
8030-446: The hoatzin , a weak-flying bird of South American rainforests. The earliest traditionally recognized mammalian arrival from North America was a procyonid that island-hopped from Central America before the Isthmus of Panama land bridge formed, around 7.3 Ma ago. This was South America's first eutherian carnivore. South American procyonids then diversified into forms now extinct (e.g. the "dog-coati" Cyonasua , which evolved into
8176-549: The megafauna , ground sloths were notably successful emigrants; four different lineages invaded North America. A megalonychid representative, Megalonyx , spread as far north as the Yukon and Alaska, and might well have invaded Eurasia had a suitable habitat corridor across Beringia been present. Generally speaking, however, the dispersal and subsequent explosive adaptive radiation of sigmodontine rodents throughout South America (leading to over 80 currently recognized genera )
8322-542: The situation in Australia ). Sparassodonts and giant opossums shared the ecological niches for large predators with fearsome flightless "terror birds" ( phorusrhacids ), whose closest living relatives are the seriemas . North America also had large terrestrial predatory birds during the early Cenozoic (the related bathornithids ), but they died out before the GABI in the Early Miocene , about 20 million years ago. Through
8468-423: The therians ). Their low metabolic rate may in turn have been advantageous in allowing them to subsist on less abundant or less nutritious food sources. Unfortunately, the defensive adaptations of the large xenarthrans would have offered little protection against humans armed with spears and other projectiles . At the end of the Pleistocene epoch, about 12,000 years ago, three dramatic developments occurred in
8614-557: The zoogeography of mammals , but it also gave an opportunity for reptiles , amphibians , arthropods , weak-flying or flightless birds , and even freshwater fish to migrate. Coastal and marine biota were affected in the opposite manner; the formation of the Central American Isthmus caused what has been termed the Great American Schism, with significant diversification and extinction occurring as
8760-424: The 13th century. Spanish colonialism in the early modern period spurred the introduction of the language to overseas locations, most notably to the Americas. As a Romance language, Spanish is a descendant of Latin. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is Latin in origin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek. Alongside English and French , it is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout
8906-404: The 2021–2022 school year alone. The local business process outsourcing industry has also helped boost the language's economic prospects. Today, while the actual number of proficient Spanish speakers is around 400,000, or under 0.5% of the population, a new generation of Spanish speakers in the Philippines has likewise emerged, though speaker estimates vary widely. Aside from standard Spanish,
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#17327728036269052-595: The 20th century, Spanish was introduced to Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara , and to areas of the United States that had not been part of the Spanish Empire, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City . For details on borrowed words and other external influences upon Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language . Spanish is the primary language in 20 countries worldwide. As of 2023, it
9198-469: The Americas at roughly the same time (geologically speaking). Paleoindians invaded and occupied the New World (although humans may have been living in the Americas, including what is now the southern US and Chile, more than 15,000 years ago ), the last glacial period came to an end, and a large fraction of the megafauna of both North and South America went extinct. This wave of extinctions swept off
9344-500: The Americas, whereas others, such as Yepes's mulita , are restricted to small ranges. Two species, the northern naked-tailed armadillo and nine-banded armadillo , are found in Central America; the latter has also reached the United States, primarily in the south-central states (notably Texas), but with a range that extends as far east as North Carolina and Florida , and as far north as southern Nebraska and southern Indiana . Their range has consistently expanded in North America over
9490-621: The Armadillos is one of the chapters of Rudyard Kipling 's Just So Stories 1902 children's book. The vocal and piano duo Flanders and Swann recorded a humorous song called "The Armadillo". Shel Silverstein wrote a two-line poem called "Instructions" on how to bathe an armadillo in his collection A Light in the Attic . The reference was "use one bar of soap, a whole lot of hope, and 72 pads of Brillo ." Spanish language Spanish ( español ) or Castilian ( castellano )
9636-486: The Eocene, possibly via Antarctica. Similarly, free-tailed bats (Molossidae) may have reached South America from Africa in as many as five dispersals, starting in the Eocene. Emballonurids may have also reached South America from Africa about 30 Ma ago, based on molecular evidence. Vespertilionids may have arrived in five dispersals from North America and one from Africa. Natalids are thought to have arrived during
9782-654: The Equatoguinean education system and is the primary language used in government and business. Whereas it is not the mother tongue of virtually any of its speakers, the vast majority of the population is proficient in Spanish. The Instituto Cervantes estimates that 87.7% of the population is fluent in Spanish. The proportion of proficient Spanish speakers in Equatorial Guinea exceeds the proportion of proficient speakers in other West and Central African nations of their respective colonial languages. Spanish
9928-603: The GABI by competitive exclusion from immigrating placental carnivorans , and that this turnover was abrupt. However, the turnover of South America's predator guild was more complex, with competition only playing a limited role. In the case of sparassodonts and carnivorans, which has been the most heavily studied, little evidence shows that sparassodonts even encountered their hypothesized placental competitors. Many supposed Pliocene records of South American carnivorans have turned out to be misidentified or misdated. Sparassodonts appear to have been declining in diversity since
10074-503: The Great American Interchange. Opossums and porcupines were among the most successful northward migrants, reaching as far as Canada and Alaska , respectively. Most major groups of xenarthrans were present in North America until the end-Pleistocene Quaternary extinction event (as a result of at least eight successful invasions of temperate North America, and at least six more invasions of Central America only). Among
10220-705: The Iberian Peninsula. These languages included Proto-Basque , Iberian , Lusitanian , Celtiberian and Gallaecian . The first documents to show traces of what is today regarded as the precursor of modern Spanish are from the 9th century. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era , the most important influences on the Spanish lexicon came from neighboring Romance languages — Mozarabic ( Andalusi Romance ), Navarro-Aragonese , Leonese , Catalan/Valencian , Portuguese , Galician , Occitan , and later, French and Italian . Spanish also borrowed
10366-412: The Late Oligocene. Qatrania wingi of lower Oligocene Fayum deposits is considered the closest known relative of Ucayalipithecus . Remarkably, the descendants of those few bedraggled " waifs " that crawled ashore from their rafts of African flotsam in the Eocene now constitute more than twice as many of South America's species as the descendants of all the flightless mammals previously resident on
10512-412: The New World, at some point they must have acquired the disease from old-world humans. The armadillo is also a natural reservoir for Chagas disease . The nine-banded armadillo also serves science through its unusual reproductive system, in which four genetically identical offspring are born, the result of one original egg. Because they are always genetically identical, the group of four young provides
10658-540: The Old Spanish sibilants) for details. The Gramática de la lengua castellana , written in Salamanca in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija , was the first grammar written for a modern European language. According to a popular anecdote, when Nebrija presented it to Queen Isabella I , she asked him what was the use of such a work, and he answered that language is the instrument of empire. In his introduction to
10804-597: The Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called not only español but also castellano (Castilian), the language from the Kingdom of Castile , contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician , Basque , Asturian , Catalan/Valencian , Aragonese , Occitan and other minor languages. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of
10950-502: The U.S. population were of Hispanic or Hispanic American by origin. In turn, 41.8 million people in the United States aged five or older speak Spanish at home, or about 13% of the population. Spanish predominates in the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico , where it is also an official language along with English. Spanish is by far the most common second language in the country, with over 50 million total speakers if non-native or second-language speakers are included. While English
11096-732: The West Indies and Galápagos Islands (the Galápagos tortoise ). A number of clades of American geckos seem to have rafted over from Africa during both the Paleogene and Neogene. Skinks of the related genera Mabuya and Trachylepis apparently dispersed across the Atlantic from Africa to South America and Fernando de Noronha , respectively, during the last 9 Ma. Surprisingly, South America's burrowing amphisbaenians and blind snakes also appear to have rafted from Africa, as does
11242-466: The ability of South America's xenarthrans to compete effectively against the northerners represents a special case. The explanation for the xenarthrans' success lies in part in their idiosyncratic approach to defending against predation, based on possession of body armor or formidable claws . The xenarthrans did not need to be fleet-footed or quick-witted to survive. Such a strategy may have been forced on them by their low metabolic rate (the lowest among
11388-457: The administration of Ferdinand Marcos two months later. It remained an official language until the ratification of the present constitution in 1987, in which it was re-designated as a voluntary and optional auxiliary language. Additionally, the constitution, in its Article XIV, stipulates that the Government shall provide the people of the Philippines with a Spanish-language translation of
11534-579: The back of the charango , an Andean lute instrument. In certain parts of Central and South America , armadillo meat is eaten; it is a popular ingredient in Oaxaca, Mexico . During the Great Depression , Americans were known to eat armadillo, known begrudgingly as "Hoover hogs", a nod to the belief that President Herbert Hoover was responsible for the economic despair facing the nation at that time. A whimsical account of The Beginning of
11680-493: The bear-like Chapalmalania ). However, all extant procyonid genera appear to have originated in North America. The first South American procyonids may have contributed to the extinction of sebecid crocodilians by eating their eggs, but this view has not been universally viewed as plausible. The procyonids were followed to South America by rafting or island-hopping hog-nosed skunks and sigmodontine rodents . The oryzomyine tribe of sigmodontine rodents went on to colonize
11826-690: The case of Jamaica, oryzomyine rodents of North American origin were able to enter the region only after invading South America. The formation of the Isthmus of Panama led to the last and most conspicuous wave, the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI), starting around 2.7 Ma ago. This included the immigration into South America of North American ungulates (including camelids , tapirs , deer and horses ), proboscids ( gomphotheres ), carnivorans (including felids such as cougars , jaguars and saber-toothed cats , canids , mustelids , procyonids and bears ) and
11972-506: The caviomorph rodents and platyrrhine monkeys, were less impacted by the interchange than most of South America's 'old-timers', although the caviomorphs suffered a significant loss of diversity, including the elimination of the largest forms (e.g. the dinomyids ). With the exception of the North American porcupine and several extinct porcupines and capybaras, however, they did not migrate past Central America. Due in large part to
12118-684: The classic hispanus or hispanicus took the suffix -one from Vulgar Latin , as happened with other words such as bretón (Breton) or sajón (Saxon). Like the other Romance languages , the Spanish language evolved from Vulgar Latin , which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War , beginning in 210 BC. Several pre-Roman languages (also called Paleohispanic languages )—some distantly related to Latin as Indo-European languages , and some that are not related at all—were previously spoken in
12264-500: The consonant written b (a bilabial with plosive and fricative allophones). In modern Spanish, there is no difference between the pronunciation of orthographic b and v . Typical of Spanish (as also of neighboring Gascon extending as far north as the Gironde estuary , and found in a small area of Calabria ), attributed by some scholars to a Basque substratum was the mutation of Latin initial f into h- whenever it
12410-484: The continent ( 372 caviomorph and monkey species versus 136 marsupial and xenarthran species ). Many of South America's bats may have arrived from Africa during roughly the same period, possibly with the aid of intervening islands, although by flying rather than floating. Noctilionoid bats ancestral to those in the neotropical families Furipteridae , Mormoopidae , Noctilionidae , Phyllostomidae , and Thyropteridae are thought to have reached South America from Africa in
12556-587: The continent-wide extinctions. The climate change took place worldwide, but had little effect on the megafauna in Africa and southern Asia, where megafaunal species had coevolved with humans . Numerous very similar glacial retreats had occurred previously within the ice age of the last several million years without ever producing comparable waves of extinction in the Americas or anywhere else. Similar megafaunal extinctions have occurred on other recently populated land masses (e.g. Australia , Japan , Madagascar , New Zealand , and many smaller islands around
12702-620: The continued success of the xenarthrans, one area of South American ecospace the Nearctic invaders were unable to dominate was the niches for megaherbivores. Before 12,000 years ago, South America was home to about 25 species of herbivores weighing more than 1,000 kg (2,200 lb), consisting of Neotropic ground sloths, glyptodonts, and toxodontids, as well as gomphotheres and camelids of Nearctic origin. Native South American forms made up about 75% of these species. However, none of these megaherbivores has survived. Armadillos, opossums and porcupines are present in North America today because of
12848-404: The country's constitution. In recent years changing attitudes among non-Spanish speaking Filipinos have helped spur a revival of the language, and starting in 2009 Spanish was reintroduced as part of the basic education curriculum in a number of public high schools, becoming the largest foreign language program offered by the public school system, with over 7,000 students studying the language in
12994-602: The creeks, streams, and arroyos around which it lives and feeds. Armadillos have very poor eyesight, and use their keen sense of smell to hunt for food. They use their claws not only for digging and finding food but also for digging burrows for their dwellings, each of which is a single corridor the width of the animal's body. They have five clawed toes on their hind feet, and three to five toes with heavy digging claws on their fore feet. Armadillos have numerous cheek teeth which are not divided into premolars and molars , but usually have no incisors or canines . The dentition of
13140-512: The early Pleistocene. Bears , cats, and skunks do not appear in South America until the early Pleistocene (about 1 Ma ago or slightly earlier). Otters and other groups of procyonids (i.e., coatis , raccoons ) have been suggested to have dispersed to South America in the Miocene based on genetic data, but no remains of these animals have been found even at heavily sampled northern South American fossil sites such as La Venta (Colombia) , which
13286-404: The extinct meiolaniid turtles. Marsupials remaining in South America included didelphimorphs ( opossums ), paucituberculatans ( shrew opossums ) and microbiotheres (monitos del monte). Larger predatory relatives of these also existed, such as the borhyaenids and the saber-toothed Thylacosmilus ; these were sparassodont metatherians, which are no longer considered to be true marsupials. As
13432-455: The extinction of a large proportion of the South American fauna. (No extinctions in North America are plainly linked to South American immigrants. ) Native South American ungulates did poorly, with only a handful of genera withstanding the northern onslaught. (Several of the largest forms, macraucheniids and toxodontids , have long been recognized to have survived to the end of the Pleistocene. Recent fossil finds indicate that one species of
13578-408: The extinction of the last sparassodonts), not correlated with the arrival of carnivorans in South America, with terrestrial carnivore diversity being low thereafter. This has been suggested to have opened up ecological niches and allowed carnivorans to establish themselves in South America due to low competition. A meteor impact 3.3 million years ago in southern South America has been suggested as
13724-1133: The face of the Earth many of the successful participants of the GABI, as well as other species that had not migrated. All the pampatheres, glyptodonts, ground sloths, equids, proboscideans, giant short-faced bears , dire wolves , and machairodont species of both continents disappeared. The last of the South and Central American notoungulates and litopterns died out, as well as North America's giant beavers , lions , dholes , cheetahs , and many of its antilocaprid , bovid , cervid , tapirid and tayassuid ungulates. Some groups disappeared over most or all of their original range, but survived in their adopted homes, e.g. South American tapirs, camelids, and tremarctine bears (cougars and jaguars may have been temporarily reduced to South American refugia also). Others, such as capybaras, survived in their original range, but died out in areas to which they had migrated. Notably, this extinction pulse eliminated all Neotropic migrants to North America larger than about 15 kg (the size of
13870-408: The fact that almost all of the specimens in question have been collected as float in rivers without little to no stratigraphic control. These taxa are a gomphothere ( Amahuacatherium ), peccaries ( Sylvochoerus and Waldochoerus ), tapirs and Surameryx , a palaeomerycid (from a family probably ancestral to cervids). The identification of Amahuacatherium and the dating of its site
14016-581: The family to migrate northward into southern North America by the early Pleistocene , as part of the Great American Interchange . (Some of their much larger cingulate relatives, the pampatheres and chlamyphorid glyptodonts , made the same journey.) Today, all extant armadillo species are still present in South America. They are particularly diverse in Paraguay (where 11 species exist) and surrounding areas. Many species are endangered. Some, including four species of Dasypus , are widely distributed over
14162-568: The first appearance of canids or felids in South America. Thylacosmilids last occur about 3 Ma ago and appear to be rarer at pre-GABI Pliocene sites than Miocene ones. In general, sparassodonts appear to have been mostly or entirely extinct by the time most nonprocyonid carnivorans arrived, with little overlap between the groups. Purported ecological counterparts between pairs of analogous groups (thylacosmilids and saber-toothed cats, borhyaenids and felids, hathliacynids and weasels ) neither overlap in time nor abruptly replace one another in
14308-683: The following table: Spanish is marked by palatalization of the Latin double consonants ( geminates ) nn and ll (thus Latin annum > Spanish año , and Latin anellum > Spanish anillo ). The consonant written u or v in Latin and pronounced [w] in Classical Latin had probably " fortified " to a bilabial fricative /β/ in Vulgar Latin. In early Spanish (but not in Catalan or Portuguese) it merged with
14454-752: The formation of the connection between North and South America was discussed in 1910 by Henry Fairfield Osborn . Analogous interchanges occurred earlier in the Cenozoic, when the formerly isolated land masses of India and Africa made contact with Eurasia about 56 and 30 Ma ago, respectively. After the late Mesozoic breakup of Gondwana , South America spent most of the Cenozoic era as an island continent whose "splendid isolation" allowed its fauna to evolve into many forms found nowhere else on Earth, most of which are now extinct . Its endemic mammals initially consisted primarily of metatherians ( marsupials and sparassodonts ), xenarthrans , and
14600-466: The former British colony of Belize (known until 1973 as British Honduras ) where English is the sole official language, according to the 2022 census, 54% of the total population are able to speak the language. Due to its proximity to Spanish-speaking countries and small existing native Spanish speaking minority, Trinidad and Tobago has implemented Spanish language teaching into its education system. The Trinidadian and Tobagonian government launched
14746-561: The fossil record. Procyonids dispersed to South America by at least 7 Ma ago, and had achieved a modest endemic radiation by the time other carnivorans arrived ( Cyonasua -group procyonids ). However, procyonids do not appear to have competed with sparassodonts, the procyonids being large omnivores and sparassodonts being primarily hypercarnivorous . Other groups of carnivorans did not arrive in South America until much later. Dogs and weasels appear in South America about 2.9 Ma ago, but do not become abundant or diverse until
14892-604: The grammar, dated 18 August 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire." From the 16th century onwards, the language was taken to the Spanish-discovered America and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonization of America . Miguel de Cervantes , author of Don Quixote , is such a well-known reference in the world that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes"). In
15038-460: The greater success of species of Nearctic origin during the interchange. The second and more important advantage geography gave to the northerners is related to the land area in which their ancestors evolved. During the Cenozoic, North America was periodically connected to Eurasia via Beringia , allowing repeated migrations back and forth to unite the faunas of the two continents. Eurasia was connected in turn to Africa , which contributed further to
15184-416: The horse-like proterotheriid litopterns did, as well. The notoungulate mesotheriids and hegetotheriids also managed to hold on at least part way through the Pleistocene.) South America's small marsupials , though, survived in large numbers, while the primitive -looking xenarthrans proved to be surprisingly competitive and became the most successful invaders of North America. The African immigrants,
15330-508: The inflow of nutrient-rich water of deep Pacific origin was blocked. The Pacific coast of South America cooled as the input of warm water from the Caribbean was cut off. This trend is thought to have caused the extinction of the marine sloths of the area. During the last 7 Ma, South America's terrestrial predator guild has changed from one composed almost entirely of nonplacental mammals ( metatherians ), birds , and reptiles to one dominated by immigrant placental carnivorans (with
15476-535: The interchange. The North American fauna was a typical boreoeutherian one, supplemented with Afrotherian proboscids . The invasions of South America started about 40 Ma ago (middle Eocene ), when caviomorph rodents arrived in South America. Their subsequent vigorous diversification displaced some of South America's small marsupials and gave rise to – among others – capybaras , chinchillas , viscachas , and New World porcupines . The independent development of spines by New and Old World porcupines
15622-421: The invaders, possibly a result of these advantages. The greater eventual success of South America's African immigrants compared to its native early Cenozoic mammal fauna is another example of this phenomenon, since the former evolved over a greater land area; their ancestors migrated from Eurasia to Africa , two significantly larger continents, before finding their way to South America. Against this backdrop,
15768-497: The isthmus on the marine biota of the area was the inverse of its effect on terrestrial organisms, a development that has been termed the "Great American Schism". The connection between the east Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean (the Central American Seaway ) was severed, setting now-separated populations on divergent evolutionary paths. Caribbean species also had to adapt to an environment of lower productivity after
15914-540: The language is also known as Castilian ( castellano ). The group evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century, and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo , a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile , in
16060-549: The language's hegemony in an intensely centralising Spanish state were established from the 18th century onward. Other European territories in which it is also widely spoken include Gibraltar and Andorra . Spanish is also spoken by immigrant communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom , France , Italy , and Germany . Spanish is an official language of the European Union . Today,
16206-464: The large carnivorous metatherians declined, and before the arrival of most types of carnivorans , predatory opossums such as Thylophorops temporarily attained larger size (about 7 kg). Metatherians and a few xenarthran armadillos, such as Macroeuphractus , were the only South American mammals to specialize as carnivores ; their relative inefficiency created openings for nonmammalian predators to play more prominent roles than usual (similar to
16352-407: The largest Mesozoic crocodyliforms). They shared their habitat with one of the largest turtles of all time, the 3.3 m (11 ft) Stupendemys . Xenarthrans are a curious group of mammals that developed morphological adaptations for specialized diets very early in their history. In addition to those extant today ( armadillos , anteaters , and tree sloths ), a great diversity of larger types
16498-823: The last century due to a lack of natural predators. Armadillos are increasingly documented in southern Illinois and are tracking northwards due to climate change . The smallest species of armadillo, the pink fairy armadillo , weighs around 85 g (3.0 oz) and is 13–15 cm (5.1–5.9 in) in total length. The largest species, the giant armadillo , can weigh up to 54 kg (119 lb), and can be 150 cm (59 in) long. The diets of different armadillo species vary, but consist mainly of insects , grubs, and other invertebrates . Some species, however, feed almost entirely on ants and termites. They are prolific diggers. Many species use their sharp claws to dig for food, such as grubs , and to dig dens. The nine-banded armadillo prefers to build burrows in moist soil near
16644-408: The latter after the early Oligocene. By the Pliocene, some caviomorphs (e.g., Josephoartigasia monesi ) attained sizes on the order of 500 kg (1,100 lb) or larger. Later (by 36 Ma ago), primates followed, again from Africa in a fashion similar to that of the rodents. Primates capable of migrating had to be small. Like caviomorph rodents, South American monkeys are believed to be
16790-452: The limbs, and the tail. The underside of the animal is never armored and is simply covered with soft skin and fur. This armor-like skin appears to be an important defense for many armadillos, although most escape predators by fleeing (often into thorny patches, from which their armor protects them) or digging to safety. Only the South American three-banded armadillos ( Tolypeutes ) rely heavily on their armor for protection. When threatened by
16936-694: The majority of the Spanish speakers live in Hispanic America . Nationally, Spanish is the official language—either de facto or de jure —of Argentina , Bolivia (co-official with 36 indigenous languages), Chile , Colombia , Costa Rica , Cuba , Dominican Republic , Ecuador , El Salvador , Guatemala , Honduras , Mexico (co-official with 63 indigenous languages), Nicaragua , Panama , Paraguay (co-official with Guaraní ), Peru (co-official with Quechua , Aymara , and "the other indigenous languages"), Puerto Rico (co-official with English), Uruguay , and Venezuela . Spanish language has
17082-483: The megafaunal extinctions with the glacial retreat and the peopling of the Americas has led to proposals that both climate change and human hunting played a role. Although the subject is contentious, a number of considerations suggest that human activities were pivotal. The extinctions did not occur selectively in the climatic zones that would have been most affected by the warming trend, and no plausible general climate-based megafauna-killing mechanism could explain
17228-436: The middle Miocene , with many of the niches once occupied by small sparassodonts being increasingly occupied by carnivorous opossums, which reached sizes of up to roughly 8 kg (~17 lbs). Whether sparassodonts competed with carnivorous opossums or whether opossums began occupying sparassodont niches through passive replacement is still debated. Borhyaenids last occur in the late Miocene, about 4 Ma before
17374-516: The migration accelerated dramatically about 2.7 million years ( Ma ) ago during the Piacenzian age. It resulted in the joining of the Neotropic (roughly South American) and Nearctic (roughly North American) biogeographic realms definitively to form the Americas . The interchange is visible from observation of both biostratigraphy and nature ( neontology ). Its most dramatic effect is on
17520-434: The monito del monte split off. Monotrematum , a 61-Ma-old platypus-like monotreme fossil from Patagonia , may represent an Australian immigrant. Paleognath birds ( ratites and South American tinamous ) may have made a similar migration around the same time to Australia and New Zealand . Other taxa that may have dispersed by the same route (if not by flying or oceanic dispersal ) are parrots , chelid turtles, and
17666-423: The nine-banded armadillo is P 7/7, M 1/1 = 32. In common with other xenarthrans, armadillos, in general, have low body temperatures of 33–36 °C (91–97 °F) and low basal metabolic rates (40–60% of that expected in placental mammals of their mass). This is particularly true of types that specialize in using termites as their primary food source (for example, Priodontes and Tolypeutes ). The armor
17812-734: The northwest of the African mainland. The Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands traces its origins back to the Castilian conquest in the 15th century , and, in addition to a resemblance to Western Andalusian speech patterns, it also features strong influence from the Spanish varieties spoken in the Americas, which in turn have also been influenced historically by Canarian Spanish. The Spanish spoken in North Africa by native bilingual speakers of Arabic or Berber who also speak Spanish as
17958-647: The only large native South American carnivore to accomplish this. However, it only managed to colonize a small part of North America for a limited time, failing to diversify and going extinct in the early Pleistocene (1.8 Ma ago); the modest scale of its success has been suggested to be due to competition with placental carnivorans. Terror birds also decline in diversity after about 3 Ma ago. At least one genus of relatively small terror birds, Psilopterus , appears to have survived to as recently as about 96,000 years ago. The native carnivore guild appears to have collapsed completely roughly 3 Ma ago (including
18104-409: The only living genus, and Chlamyphoridae , which contains all other living armadillos as well as the glyptodonts. The word armadillo means "little armored one" in Spanish; it is derived from "armadura" (armor), with the diminutive suffix "-illo" attached. While the phrase "little armored one" would translate to "armadito" normally, the suffix "-illo" can be used in place of "-ito" when the diminutive
18250-654: The other hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. However, from 1713 to 1923, it called the language castellano . The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (a language guide published by the Royal Spanish Academy) states that, although the Royal Spanish Academy prefers to use the term español in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms— español and castellano —are regarded as synonymous and equally valid. The term castellano
18396-533: The population. Many northern Moroccans have rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, with Spanish being particularly significant in areas adjacent to Ceuta and Melilla. Spanish also has a presence in the education system of the country (through either selected education centers implementing Spain's education system, primarily located in the North, or the availability of Spanish as foreign language subject in secondary education). In Western Sahara , formerly Spanish Sahara ,
18542-411: The seaway separating Central and South America by that early date. However, all extant Central American monkeys are believed to be descended from much later migrants, and there is as yet no evidence that these early Central American cebids established an extensive or long-lasting population, perhaps due to a shortage of suitable rainforest habitat at the time. Fossil evidence presented in 2020 indicates
18688-664: The skies over late Miocene South America (6 Ma ago) soared one of the largest flying birds known, Argentavis , a teratorn that had a wing span of 6 m or more, and which may have subsisted in part on the leftovers of Thylacosmilus kills. Terrestrial sebecid ( metasuchian ) crocodyliforms with ziphodont teeth were also present at least through the middle Miocene and maybe to the Miocene-Pliocene boundary. Some of South America's aquatic crocodilians, such as Gryposuchus , Mourasuchus and Purussaurus , reached monstrous sizes, with lengths up to 12 m (comparable to
18834-528: The smaller ones) contained multiple climatic zones that would have been affected differently by any climate changes occurring at the time. However, on sizable islands far enough offshore from newly occupied territory to escape immediate human colonization, megafaunal species sometimes survived for many thousands of years after they or related species became extinct on the mainland; examples include giant kangaroos in Tasmania, giant Chelonoidis tortoises of
18980-485: The species that made their way to North America. South America, though, was connected only to Antarctica and Australia, two much smaller and less hospitable continents, and only in the early Cenozoic. Moreover, this land connection does not seem to have carried much traffic (apparently no mammals other than marsupials and perhaps a few monotremes ever migrated by this route), particularly in the direction of South America. This means that Northern Hemisphere species arose within
19126-399: The study of leprosy , since they, along with mangabey monkeys, rabbits, and mice (on their footpads), are among the few known species that can contract the disease systemically. They are particularly susceptible due to their unusually low body temperature, which is hospitable to the leprosy bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae . (The leprosy bacterium is difficult to culture and armadillos have
19272-537: The term español (Spanish). According to the Royal Spanish Academy, español derives from the Occitan word espaignol and that, in turn, derives from the Vulgar Latin * hispaniolus ('of Hispania'). Hispania was the Roman name for the entire Iberian Peninsula . There are other hypotheses apart from the one suggested by the Royal Spanish Academy. Spanish philologist Ramón Menéndez Pidal suggested that
19418-444: The theories of Ramón Menéndez Pidal , local sociolects of Vulgar Latin evolved into Spanish, in the north of Iberia, in an area centered in the city of Burgos , and this dialect was later brought to the city of Toledo , where the written standard of Spanish was first developed, in the 13th century. In this formative stage, Spanish developed a strongly differing variant from its close cousin, Leonese , and, according to some authors,
19564-640: The third most used language on the Internet , after English and Chinese. Spanish is the official language of Spain . Upon the emergence of the Castilian Crown as the dominant power in the Iberian Peninsula by the end of the Middle Ages, the Romance vernacular associated with this polity became increasingly used in instances of prestige and influence, and the distinction between "Castilian" and "Spanish" started to become blurred. Hard policies imposing
19710-585: The whole of Spain, in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas (lit. "the other Spanish languages "). Article III reads as follows: El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. ... Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas... Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. ... The other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities... The Royal Spanish Academy ( Real Academia Española ), on
19856-442: The world, such as Cyprus , Crete , Tilos and New Caledonia ) at different times that correspond closely to the first arrival of humans at each location. These extinction pulses invariably swept rapidly over the full extent of a contiguous land mass, regardless of whether it was an island or a hemisphere-spanning set of connected continents. This was true despite the fact that all the larger land masses involved (as well as many of
20002-638: The world. Spanish is well represented in the humanities and social sciences . Spanish is also the third most used language on the internet by number of users after English and Chinese and the second most used language by number of websites after English. Spanish is used as an official language by many international organizations , including the United Nations , European Union , Organization of American States , Union of South American Nations , Community of Latin American and Caribbean States , African Union , among others. In Spain and some other parts of
20148-524: The young are not typically born for eight months after mating. Most members of the genus Dasypus give birth to four monozygotic young (that is, identical quadruplets), but other species may have typical litter sizes that range from one to eight. The young are born with soft, leathery skin which hardens within a few weeks. They reach sexual maturity in three to twelve months, depending on the species. Armadillos are solitary animals that do not share their burrows with other adults. Armadillos are often used in
20294-402: Was a matter of climate . Any species that reached Panama from either direction obviously had to be able to tolerate moist tropical conditions . Those migrating southward would then be able to occupy much of South America without encountering climates that were markedly different. However, northward migrants would have encountered drier or cooler conditions by the time they reached the vicinity of
20440-634: Was developed in the cities of Toledo , in the 13th to 16th centuries, and Madrid , from the 1570s. The development of the Spanish sound system from that of Vulgar Latin exhibits most of the changes that are typical of Western Romance languages , including lenition of intervocalic consonants (thus Latin vīta > Spanish vida ). The diphthongization of Latin stressed short e and o —which occurred in open syllables in French and Italian, but not at all in Catalan or Portuguese—is found in both open and closed syllables in Spanish, as shown in
20586-622: Was distinguished by a heavy Basque influence (see Iberian Romance languages ). This distinctive dialect spread to southern Spain with the advance of the Reconquista , and meanwhile gathered a sizable lexical influence from the Arabic of Al-Andalus , much of it indirectly, through the Romance Mozarabic dialects (some 4,000 Arabic -derived words, make up around 8% of the language today). The written standard for this new language
20732-713: Was followed by a vowel that did not diphthongize. The h- , still preserved in spelling, is now silent in most varieties of the language, although in some Andalusian and Caribbean dialects, it is still aspirated in some words. Because of borrowings from Latin and neighboring Romance languages, there are many f -/ h - doublets in modern Spanish: Fernando and Hernando (both Spanish for "Ferdinand"), ferrero and herrero (both Spanish for "smith"), fierro and hierro (both Spanish for "iron"), and fondo and hondo (both words pertaining to depth in Spanish, though fondo means "bottom", while hondo means "deep"); additionally, hacer ("to make")
20878-449: Was manifested in several ways. Northwardly migrating animals often were not able to compete for resources as well as the North American species already occupying the same ecological niches; those that did become established were not able to diversify much, and in some cases did not survive for long. Southwardly migrating Nearctic species established themselves in larger numbers and diversified considerably more, and are thought to have caused
21024-550: Was present, including pampatheres , the ankylosaur -like glyptodonts , predatory euphractines , various ground sloths , some of which reached the size of elephants (e.g. Megatherium ), and even semiaquatic to aquatic marine sloths . The notoungulates and litopterns had many strange forms, such as Macrauchenia , a camel-like litoptern with a small proboscis . They also produced a number of familiar-looking body types that represent examples of parallel or convergent evolution : one-toed Thoatherium had legs like those of
21170-462: Was revoked by Michel Temer after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff . In many border towns and villages along Paraguay and Uruguay, a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken. Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish-speaking country located entirely in Africa, with the language introduced during the Spanish colonial period . Enshrined in the constitution as an official language (alongside French and Portuguese), Spanish features prominently in
21316-591: Was vastly more successful (both spatially and by number of species) than any northward migration of South American mammals. Other examples of North American mammal groups that diversified conspicuously in South America include canids and cervids, both of which currently have three or four genera in North America, two or three in Central America, and six in South America. Although members of Canis (specifically, coyotes ) currently range only as far south as Panama, South America still has more extant genera of canids than any other continent. The effect of formation of
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