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MORE INFORMATION ON QUIZ QUESTIONS

1. Charles Darwin (1809-82) toured the globe in the HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836. He delivered his famous paper concerning evolution to the Royal Linnaean Society in 1858. The book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, was published in 1859. Its interesting to think that the theory of evolution has only been around for about 100 years.

2. The Genus Gymnogyps, uses two Greek words, gumnos meaning bare naked, and gups meaning vulture

3. Vagility is a synonym for motility, or an organism's relative degree of mobility.

4. As with all rodents, the beaver's incisors grow continually throughout the individual's life. The front portion of the teeth are composed of hard enamel while the back area is composed of softer material. With this, the back area wears faster and results in maintaining a sharp beveled edge, ideal for gnawing. Without proper care (gnawing on hard wood material) the teeth would grow too long and cause death in the animal. This explains the gnaw marks left behind by rats and the "senseless"chewing marks that beavers leave on telephone poles and other wood structures

5.. Beavers have webbed hind feet used for walking in mud and propelling them through water. Also, you can often see the marks from their large tail which is dragged behind their body when walking on land.

6. An operculum is a general term for "flap". It is often associated with the hard covering of the gill structure found on fish, the flap that covers the eyes and nostrils of some birds, a small bone in the middle ear of some amphibians, and number of other uses.

7. The equation Ñ = n/m M Where, M is number marked first sampling, n is number captured second sampling, m is number recaptured and Ñ is the estimated population size represents the basis for single mark-recapture methods of population estimation. This equation is know as the Lincoln-Peterson estimate. It involves capturing a number of animals, marking them as captured, releasing them to mix with the population, and then capturing them a second time.

8. The first Endangered Species Act, Implemented in 1966, contained a list of 78 species for protection. To date, 7 of the original group have became extinct. This list includes:

Tecopa Pupfish January 15, 1982
Longjaw Cisco September 2, 1983
Blue Pike September 2, 1983
Santa Barbara Song Sparrow October 12, 1983
Sampson's Pearly Mussel January 9, 1984
Amistad Gambusia December 4, 1987
Dusky Seaside Sparrow December 12, 1990

Thanks to J. Warren Webb, for supplying me with the this information

9. The common opossum (Didelphis virginianus) is the only North American representative of the marsupial order. The young are born after only about 15 days of gestation and are about the size of a dime. These tiny infants weigh about 0.4 grams and are about a centimeter in length. Once grown, they will have 50 teeth, more than any other north American mammal.

10. Cuckold is an old term used by ecologists to describe a male animal when its mate has been "unfaithful". It is important to distinguish cuckold males from other males, especially when relating fitness. A cuckold male invests paternal energy but gains no hereditary benefits.