36-561: Sypheotis aurita The lesser florican ( Sypheotides indicus ), also known as the likh or kharmore , is the smallest in the bustard family and the only member of the genus Sypheotides . It is endemic to the Indian Subcontinent where it is found in tall grasslands and is best known for the leaping breeding displays made by the males during the monsoon season. The male has a contrasting black and white breeding plumage and distinctive elongated head feathers that extend behind
72-587: A backbone) such as blindworms and caecilians . Worms include several groups. The three main phyla are: Familiar worms include the earthworms , members of phylum Annelida . Other invertebrate groups may be called worms, especially colloquially. In particular, many unrelated insect larvae are called "worms", such as the railroad worm , woodworm , glowworm , bloodworm , butterworm , inchworm , mealworm , silkworm , and woolly bear worm . Worms may also be called helminths , particularly in medical terminology when referring to parasitic worms , especially
108-417: A black head, neck and lower parts. However, his throat is white. Around three 4 inch long, ribbon-like feathers arise from behind the ear-coverts on each side of the head and extend backwards, curving up and ending in spatulate tip. The back and scapulars are mottled in white with V-shaped marks. The wing coverts are white. After the breedings season, the male tends to have some white in the wing. The female
144-857: A distinct U-shaped mark on the neck near the throat. The species was formerly more widespread across much of Indian Sub-continent, but not in Sri Lanka. It breeds mainly in the central and western parts of India. Historic records exist from the Makran coast of Balochistan province in Pakistan. A record from Burma has been questioned. The species is said to move in response to rainfall and their presence at locations can be erratic, with sudden large numbers in some seasons. About 500 males in Gujarat were ringed and nearly 18 were recovered, most of them within about 50 kilometres of their ringing sites. The preferred habitat
180-460: A long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs , and usually no eyes . Worms vary in size from microscopic to over 1 metre (3.3 ft) in length for marine polychaete worms (bristle worms); 6.7 metres (22 ft) for the African giant earthworm, Microchaetus rappi ; and 58 metres (190 ft) for the marine nemertean worm (bootlace worm), Lineus longissimus . Various types of worm occupy
216-514: A scrape in the ground, and incubates them alone. Genetic dating indicates that bustards evolved c. 30 million years ago in either southern or eastern Africa from where they dispersed into Eurasia and Australia. Bustards are gregarious outside the breeding season, but are very wary and difficult to approach in the open habitats they prefer. Most species are declining or endangered through habitat loss and hunting, even where they are nominally protected. The birds were once common and abounded on
252-429: A small variety of parasitic niches, living inside the bodies of other animals. Free-living worm species do not live on land but instead live in marine or freshwater environments or underground by burrowing. In biology, "worm" refers to an obsolete taxon , Vermes , used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non- arthropod invertebrate animals , now seen to be paraphyletic . The name stems from
288-485: Is monotypic : no subspecies are recognised. The two species of smaller bustards have been called "floricans". The word has been thought to be of Dutch origin. The genus Sypheotides earlier included what is now Houbaropsis bengalensis (or Bengal florican), the two species being small and showing reverse sexual size dimorphism. The tarsus is long in Sypheotides and the seasonal plumage change in male has led to
324-471: Is a shallow scrape on the ground and 3-4 (1.88 x 1.6 inches) eggs are laid. The nest location is usually in dense grass. Females take sole part in incubation and rearing the chicks. The incubation period is about 21 days. Bustard Bustards , including floricans and korhaans , are large, terrestrial birds living mainly in dry grassland areas and in steppe regions. They range in length from 40 to 150 cm (16 to 59 in). They make up
360-685: Is apt to describe the typical walking style of the species. Some Indian bustards are also called floricans. The origin of the name is unclear. Thomas C. Jerdon writes in The Birds of India (1862) I have not been able to trace the origin of the Anglo-Indian word Florikin , but was once informed that the Little Bustard in Europe was sometimes called Flanderkin. Latham gives the word Flercher as an English name, and this, apparently, has
396-406: Is around 40 cm (16 in) long and weighs around 600 g (1.3 lb) on average. In most bustards, males are substantially larger than females, often about 30% longer and sometimes more than twice the weight. They are among the most sexually dimorphic groups of birds. In only the floricans is the sexual dimorphism the reverse, with the adult female being slightly larger and heavier than
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#1732797248258432-463: Is correct. The horizontal body carriage, size and habit of holding up their tail feathers when walking on the ground have led their local names to make associations with peacocks, with a popular name being the equivalent of "grass peacock" (such as khar-mor , tan-mor ) in some areas. the name Likh is used in northwestern India and adopted by British sportsmen in India. A male in breeding plumage has
468-506: Is grasslands but it sometimes occurs in fields such as those of cotton and lentils. Breeding areas are today restricted mainly to Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, some areas in southern Nepal and parts of Andhra Pradesh. Managing florican habitats as grassland interspersed with croplands and pastures spared rotationally provided optimal results at low production-level. These bustards are found either singly or in pairs in thick grassland or sometimes in crop fields. Indigenous tribal hunters regularly shot
504-519: Is larger and lacks the white throat, collar and elongated plumes. In 1782 the English illustrator John Frederick Miller included a hand-coloured plate of a female lesser florican in his Icones animalium et plantarum . He coined the binomial name Otis indica . It is now the only species placed in the genus Sypheotides that was introduced in 1839 by the French naturalist René Lesson . The species
540-669: Is not a worm at all, but a skin fungus. Lobopodians are an informal grouping of extinct panarthropods from the Cambrian to the Carboniferous that are often called worms or "worm-like animals" despite having had legs in the form of stubby lobopods. Likewise, the extant Onychophora are sometimes called velvet worms despite possessing stubby legs. Wyrm was the Old English term for carnivorous reptiles ("serpents") and mythical dragons . "Worm" has also been used as
576-412: Is slightly larger than the male. The females and males in non breeding plumage are buff with black streaks with darker markings on the head and neck. The back is mottled and barred in black. The neck and upper breast are buff with the streaks decreasing towards the belly. The outer primaries of the males are thin and notched on the inner-web. The leg are pale yellow and the iris is yellow. Young birds have
612-459: Is sometimes used to refer to parasitic worms. The term is more commonly used in medicine , and usually refers to roundworms and tapeworms. In taxonomy, "worm" refers to an obsolete grouping, Vermes , used by Carl Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non- arthropod invertebrate animals , now seen to be polyphyletic . In 1758, Linnaeus created the first hierarchical classification in his Systema Naturae . In his original scheme,
648-467: The Nematoda (roundworms) and Cestoda (tapeworms). Hence, " helminthology " is the study of parasitic worms. When a human or an animal, such as a dog or horse, is said to "have worms", it means that it is infested with parasitic worms , typically roundworms or tapeworms . Deworming is a method to kill off the worms that have infected a human or animal by giving anthelmintic drugs. " Ringworm "
684-411: The Old English word wyrm . Most animals called "worms" are invertebrates , but the term is also used for the amphibian caecilians and the slowworm Anguis , a legless burrowing lizard . Invertebrate animals commonly called "worms" include annelids , nematodes , flatworms , nemerteans , chaetognaths , priapulids , and insect larvae such as grubs and maggots . The term " helminth "
720-799: The Salisbury Plain . They had become rare by 1819 when a large male, surprised by a dog on Newmarket Heath , sold in Leadenhall Market for five guineas . The last bustard in Britain died in approximately 1832, but the bird is being reintroduced through batches of chicks imported from Russia. In 2009, two great bustard chicks were hatched in Britain for the first time in more than 170 years. Reintroduced bustards also hatched chicks in 2010. Worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have
756-466: The family Otididae ( / oʊ ˈ t ɪ d ɪ d iː / , formerly known as Otidae ). Bustards are omnivorous and opportunistic, eating leaves, buds, seeds, fruit, small vertebrates , and invertebrates . There are 26 species currently recognised. The word bustard comes from the Old French bistarda and some other languages: abetarda ( pt ), abetarda ( gl ), avutarda ( es ) used for
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#1732797248258792-576: The great bustard . The naturalist William Turner listed the English spelling "bustard" and "bistard" in 1544. All of the common names above are derived from Latin avis tarda or aves tardas given by Pliny the Elder , these names were mentioned by the Pierre Belon in 1555 and Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1600. The word tarda comes from tardus in Latin meaning "slow" and "deliberate", which
828-496: The 13th century, worms were recognized in Europe as part of the category of reptiles that consisted of a miscellany of egg-laying creatures, including "snakes, various fantastic monsters, lizards, assorted amphibians", as recorded by Vincent of Beauvais in his Mirror of Nature . In everyday language, the term worm is also applied to various other living forms such as larvae , insects , millipedes , centipedes , shipworms (teredo worms), or even some vertebrates (creatures with
864-485: The English to be the English in India, and Flercher to be a clerical error for some form of floriken. The family Otididae was introduced (as Otidia) by the French polymath Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1815. Otididae and before that Otidae come from the genus Otis given to the great bustard by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae in 1758, it comes from
900-1162: The Greek word ὠτίς ōtis . L. hartlaubii ( Hartlaub's bustard ) L. melanogaster ( black-bellied bustard ) A. nuba ( Nubian bustard ) A. ludwigii ( Ludwig's bustard ) A. denhami ( Denham's bustard ) A. heuglinii ( Heuglin's bustard ) A. arabs ( Arabian bustard ) A. kori ( Kori bustard ) A. nigriceps ( Great Indian bustard ) A. australis ( Australian bustard ) Tetrax tetrax ( little bustard ) Otis tarda ( great bustard ) C. macqueenii ( MacQueen's bustard ) C. undulata ( houbara bustard ) Sypheotides indicus ( lesser florican ) Houbaropsis bengalensis ( Bengal florican ) L. ruficrista ( red-crested bustard ) L. savilei ( Savile's bustard ) L. gindiana ( buff-crested bustard ) H. humilis ( little brown bustard ) H. rueppelii ( Rüppell's korhaan ) H. vigorsii ( karoo korhaan ) A. afra ( southern black korhaan ) A. afraoides ( northern black korhaan ) E. senegalensis ( white-bellied bustard ) E. caerulescens ( blue korhaan ) Family Otididae Bustards are all fairly large with
936-551: The animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes , Insecta , Pisces , Amphibia , Aves , and Mammalia . Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, the Chordata , while his Insecta (which included the crustaceans and arachnids) and Vermes have been renamed or broken up. The process was begun in 1793 by Lamarck, who called the Vermes une espèce de chaos (a sort of chaos) and split
972-525: The apogee of the leap the neck is arched backwards and the legs folded as if in a sitting posture. These jumps are repeated after intervals of about three or more minutes. The displays are made mainly in the early mornings and late evenings, but during other parts of the day in cloudy weather. The breeding system is said to be a dispersed lek with each male holding a territory of about 1-2 hectares. Males are said to favour particular display sites and shooting of these displaying birds has led to sharp declines in
1008-521: The early hours of mornings or in the evenings, except in the case of newly migrated birds which feed throughout the day. The breeding season varies with the onset of the Southwest Monsoon and is September to October in northern India and April to May in parts of southern India. During the breeding season, males leap suddenly from the grass with a peculiar croaking or knocking call, flutter their wings and fall back with slightly open wings. At
1044-442: The group into three new phyla, worms, echinoderms, and polyps (which contained corals and jellyfish). By 1809, in his Philosophie Zoologique , Lamarck had created 9 phyla apart from vertebrates (where he still had 4 phyla: mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish) and molluscs, namely cirripedes , annelids, crustaceans, arachnids, insects, worms, radiates , polyps, and infusorians . Chordates are remarkably wormlike by ancestry. In
1080-697: The male. The wings have 10 primaries and 16–24 secondary feathers. There are 18–20 feathers in the tail. The plumage is predominantly cryptic. Bustards are omnivorous , feeding principally on seeds and invertebrates . They make their nests on the ground, making their eggs and offspring often very vulnerable to predation. They walk steadily on strong legs and big toes, pecking for food as they go. Most prefer to run or walk over flying. They have long broad wings with "fingered" wingtips, and striking patterns in flight. Many have interesting mating displays, such as inflating throat sacs or elevating elaborate feathered crests. The female lays three to five dark, speckled eggs in
1116-635: The males during the breeding season, as they were easy to spot because of their courtship display. It was said to be good for eating but considered inferior to the meat of the Bengal florican. They fly faster than other bustards and give a duck-like impression in flight. Lesser floricans feed on a wide variety of small vertebrates and invertebrates which include worms , centipedes , lizards , frogs and insects such as locusts , flying ants and hairy caterpillars . They are also known to feed on shoots and seeds, herbs and berries. Usually floricans feed during
Lesser florican - Misplaced Pages Continue
1152-453: The neck. These bustards are found mainly in northwestern and central India during the summer but are found more widely distributed across India in winter. The species is highly endangered and has been extirpated in some parts of its range such as Pakistan . It is threatened both by hunting and habitat degradation. The only similar species is the Bengal florican ( Houbarobsis bengalensis ) which
1188-404: The populations in the past. Lek sites tend to have flat ground with low vegetation and good visibility and well used sites usually show signs of trampling. Females have a defensive display at nest which involves spreading their wings, tail and neck feathers. The females are said to produce a whistling call which attracts males. Males are aggressive towards other males in the neighbourhood. The nest
1224-463: The retention of the separate genus, although the two genera are evolutionarily close. Male and female plumages were initially thought of as separate species leading to the names aurita and indica and the species has been placed in the past in the genera Otis , Eupodotis and Sypheotis . The species ending which is related to the gender of the Latin genus has been debated and it believed that indicus
1260-642: The same origin as Florikin. The Hobson-Jobson dictionary, however, casts doubt on this theory stating that We doubt if Jerdon has here understood Latham correctly. What Latham writes is, in describing the Passarage Bustard, which, he says, is the size of the Little Bustard: Inhabits India. Called Passarage Plover. ... I find that it is known in India by the name of Oorail; by some of the English called Flercher. (Suppt. to Gen. Synopsis of Birds, 1787, 229). Here we understand
1296-438: The two largest species , the kori bustard ( Ardeotis kori ) and the great bustard ( Otis tarda ), being frequently cited as the world's heaviest flying birds. In both the largest species, large males exceed a weight of 20 kg (44 lb), weigh around 13.5 kg (30 lb) on average and can attain a total length of 150 cm (59 in). The smallest species is the little brown bustard ( Eupodotis humilis ), which
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