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cichlid
cichlid , common name for members of the family Cichlidae, several hundred species of spiny-finned freshwater fishes of moderate or small size, native to Africa, S Asia, Mexico, and Central and South America. Cichlids are found in tropical waters, where they occupy the same ecological niche as their...
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Darwin's finches
Darwin's finches or Galapagos finches , species of small finches, constituting the subfamily Geospizinae of the finch family. This group of thirteen species is confined to the Galápagos Islands, except a single species found on Cocos Island, about 600 mi (960 km) northeast. Their special ...
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fly
fly name commonly used for any of a variety of winged insects , but properly restricted to members of the order Diptera, the true flies, which includes the housefly , gnat , midge , mosquito , and tsetse fly . All have sucking or piercing-and-sucking mouthparts and, except for a few wingless ...
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fly
fly name commonly used for any of a variety of winged insects , but properly restricted to members of the order Diptera, the true flies, which includes the housefly , gnat , midge , mosquito , and tsetse fly . All have sucking or piercing-and-sucking mouthparts and, except for a few wingless ...
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coyote
coyote or prairie wolf, small, swift wolf , Canis latrans, native to W North America. It is found in deserts, prairies, open woodlands, and brush country; it is also called brush wolf. The coyote resembles a medium-sized dog, with a narrow, pointed face, long, thick, tawny fur and a black-ti...
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rhea
rhea , common name for a South American bird of the family Rheidae, which is related to the ostrich . Weighing from 44 to 55 lb (20-25 kg) and standing up to 60 in. (152 cm) tall, the rhea is slightly smaller than the ostrich and lacks that bird's extravagant plumelike tail feathers. The rhea also ...
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tenrec
tenrec , any of the small insectivorous mammals of the family Tenrecidae, also called tendrecs or tanrecs. These animals are found on the island of Madagascar. In that closed environment they have evolved diverse forms, filling various ecological niches occupied by other small mammals elsewhere. The...
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marsupial
marsupial , member of the order Marsupialia, or pouched mammals. With the exception of the New World opossums and an obscure S American family (Caenolestidae), marsupials are now found only in Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and a few adjacent islands. They are generally distinguished from placen...
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mass extinction
mass extinction the extinction of a large percentage of the earth's species, opening ecological niches for other species to fill. There have been at least ten such events. The five greatest were those of the final Ordovician period (approximately 435 million years ago), the late Devonian period ...
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ecology
ecology study of the relationships of organisms to their physical environment and to one another. The study of an individual organism or a single species is termed autecology; the study of groups of organisms is called synecology.
The Ecosystem
Within the biosphere —the total expan...
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