Week of 10/22 to 10/26: Desert animals

---

Desert Animals

---

---

ornithology

      --the study of birds

---

---

songbirds

---

---

birds of prey

---

---

eagles

---

Golden Eagle web site: 
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Golden_Eagle/media-browser/486764

---

red tailed hawk

---

https://www.desertusa.com/birds/red-tailed-hawk.html

---

Cooper's Hawk

---

https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/coopers-hawk

---

prairie falcon

---

https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/prairie-falcon

Eats mostly small birds and mammals.

---

turkey vulture

---

---

Desert Salmander

---

Amphibians:  include salamanders, toads, and frogs. One difference between the two is the structure of their outer skin. Reptiles are covered with scales, shields, or plates, and their toes have claws.

http://museum2.utep.edu/chih/theland/animals/amphibians/ambystig.htm

---

salamander technology

---

• Salamanders have the ability to regrow limbs using stem cells. 
• They can regrow a leg several times
• Some know bio luminescence 

---

venomous reptile

---

The Gila monster is a species of venomous lizard native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexican state of Sonora.

---

UTEP Amphibians and and Reptiles web site: 
http://museum2.utep.edu/chih/NHCD/herps.htm 

---

Lizards of the desert

---

• A yellow-bellied three-toed skink carrying embryos, visible as light orbs inside its body. 
• Release live babies that hatch inside the body
• They live in the forest but are here in the desert presentation to show different types of lizards
  

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/09/100901-science-animals-evolution-australia-lizard-skink-live-birth-eggs/

---

blue tailed skink

---

---

horned lizards

---

---

desert rodents

---

---

Rabbits

---

---

mexican wolves

---

---

coyote

---

The coyote; from Nahuatl, Coyotl, is a canine native to North America.

• https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/c/coyote/?user.testname=none 

• https://www.desertusa.com/animals/coyote.html

---

concepts covered this week

---

Taxonomy: classification, especially of organisms

• Kingdom 
• Phylum
• Class
• Order
• Family
• Genus 
• Species

Symbiosis:

• Parasitism between opuntia moth and prickly pear cacti  
• Parasitism: A relationship between two organisms in which one organism (the parasite) benefits and the other (the host) is harmed.

• Commensalism/mutualism between roadrunner and pricklypear cactus, mutualism if poo is a good fertilizer. 
• Commensalism: an association between two organisms in which one benefits and the other derives neither benefit nor harm.

Plant reproduction:

• ​carpel includes an ovary (where the ovules are produced; ovules are the female reproductive cells, the eggs)
  
• style (a tube on top of the ovary)
  
• stigma (which receives the pollen during fertilization)
  
• Male Reproductive Organs: Stamens are the male reproductive parts of flowers.

Plant evolution:

• Scientists believe that plants evolved from green algae (protista)
  • Protista: single celled organism. The animal-like protists are known as the protozoa, the plant-like protists are the algae, and the fungus-like protists are the slime molds and water molds. 
• Early plants were similar to moss, needed water, could dry out, lived in water
• Did not reproduce through flowers
• Plants developed cuticle: waxy cover that prevents water loss
• Vascular tissue, tubes to transport materials, roots vs trunk
  • Xylems sucks water up: water to leaves from roots
  • Phloem flows food down: sugars down to roots from leaves

---

types of plants

---

• Bryophytes: seedless, non-vascular, do have cuticle, have to live in the water, can't pull water up so they have to be low to the ground
  • Mosses reproduce by spores that move in water
• Ferns: seedless, have vascular tissue, can grow bigger, have cuticle, also need water
• Gymnosperms: needles to prevent water loss, have seeds, seeds don't have shells or a fruit around them for nutrients
• Angiosperms: flowers, make fruit, vascular seed plants

Also important: Moncot vs Dicot

Monocot: flowering plants whose seeds typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. 

Dicot: flowering plants whose seeds typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. 

---

types of photosynthesis

---

• C3 plants are the most common and the most efficient at photosynthesis in cool, wet climates.
• C4 plants are most efficient at photosynthesis in hot, sunny climates.
• CAM plants are adapted to avoid water loss during photosynthesis so they are best in deserts.
• Stoma: also called a stomata, is a pore, found in the epidermis of leaves, stems, and other organs, that facilitates gas exchange. ​

​Cacti are CAM plants

---

photosynthesis formula

---

Photosynthesis: the process by which green plants and some other organisms use sunlight to synthesize foods from carbon dioxide and water. Photosynthesis in plants generally involves the green pigment chlorophyll and generates oxygen as a byproduct.

photosynthesis: absorbs red and blue light and reflects green light

---

https://physicsworld.com/a/is-photosynthesis-quantum-ish/

---

cycles

---

Nitrogen Cycle

• nitrogen fixing bacteria live with legumes

---

Carbon Cycle

---

Calvin Cycle, in plants

​ATP: Adenosine triphosphate: made up of the molecule adenosine (which itself is made up of adenine and a ribose sugar) and three phosphate groups

ATP Chemical Structure

The numbers and letters are the chemical formula, this is here just so you see what it looks like (not on a test)

• ​Energy from ATP and from the reduced coenyzme NADPH is used to remove a phosphate group from 3PGA and reduce the resulting diphosphoglycerate (DPGA) to produce the 3-carbon sugar glyceraladehyde-3-phosphate (G3P).
  
• There is only 1 net carbon produced to play with for each turn.
  
• To create 1 surplus G3P requires 3 carbons, and therefore 3 turns of the Calvin cycle.
  
• To make one glucose molecule (which can be created from 2 G3P molecules) would require 6 turns of the Calvin cycle.

---

Water Cycle

---

types of research

---

Good to know, names of types of research:

​Botany: study of plants
Entomology: study of insects
Arachnology: study of arachnids such as spiders and scorpions
Ornithology: study of birds
Herpetology: study of amphibians and reptiles
Mammalogy: study of mammals

---

animals

---

Trophic level:  each of several hierarchical levels in an ecosystem, comprising organisms that share the same function in the food chain and the same nutritional relationship to the primary sources of energy.

Poison is absorbed or ingested; a poisonous animal can only deliver toxic chemicals if another animal touches or eats it. Venom, on the other hand, is always injected. Every venomous animal has a mechanism (e.g., stingers, fangs, etc.) to inject toxins directly into another animal. It is for these reasons that frogsare can be poisonous to touch or eat, while snakes are venomous when they use their fangs to bite.

---

cow digestion

---

How did that cow eat that cactus? 

• ​​Cattle are ruminants, meaning that they have a digestive system that allows use of otherwise indigestible foods by repeatedly regurgitating and re-chewing them as "cud". 
  
• Cattle have ruminant stomachs -- stomach with four separate compartments. The compartments are called the rumen, the reticulum, the omasum and the abomasum. Each compartment has its own specialized duty in the digestive process.
  
• A cow briefly chews food as she eats, breaking it into smaller particles. As she chews, digestive enzymes in her saliva are mixed with the food before it passes down the esophagus into the reticulum and rumen. 

---

phylogenetic tree

---

Rabbits (Lagomorphs) and rodents split 

---

oh yeah, birds are dinosaurs

---