#cursorius

[herpsandbirds]

Cream-colored Courser (Cursorius cursor), parent with chicks, fdamily Glareolidae, order Charadriiformes, found in North Africa and the Middle East

photograph by Seyed Babak Musavi

[alonglistofbirds]

[2724/11080] Cream-coloured courser - Cursorius cursor

Order: Charadriiformes Suborder: Lari Family: Glareolidae (pratincoles and coursers) Subfamily: Cursoriinae (coursers)

Photo credit: Aitor gil guruceaga via Macaulay Library

[birdblues]

Indian Courser

[gergarnero]

CORREDOR RUFO

CURSORIUS RUFUS NOMBRE CIENTÍFICO: CURSORIUS RUFUS. LONGITUD: 20 A 23 CM. PESO: 70 A 80 GRAMOS. PLUMAJE: IGUAL PARA AMBOS SEXOS. MIGRACIÓN: NO MIGRATORIO. ESTADO: MENOR RIESGO. UBICACIÓN: SUR DE ÁFRICA. A DIFERENCIA DE LA MAYORÍA DE LAS AVES ZANCUDAS, LAS OCHO ESPECIES DE CORREDORES VIVEN EN HÁBITATS SECOS Y ADQUIEREN SU NOMBRE POR SU CARRERA RÁPIDA. EL CORREROR RUFO ES DE COLOR MARRÓN ARENA CON…

[animalids]

Cream-coloured courser (Cursorius cursor)

Photo by Ron Winkler

[birdwatcher-sketches]

Cream-colored Courser (Cursorius cursor)

© Peter Hines

[birdstudies]

September 30, 2019 - Temminck's Courser (Cursorius temminckii)

Found across parts of central and southern Africa in palm and acacia savannas, shallow wetlands, and other grassy habitats, these coursers are usually seen alone or in pairs during the breeding season and in flocks at other times of year. They feed on insects, including harvester termites, as well as mollusks, and some seeds, foraging while running and stopping suddenly. Nesting on the ground, often in recently burned areas, their eggs and chicks have dark patterning that may help camouflage them against the charred grasses.

[tribbetherium]

The Early Temperocene: 145 million years post-establishment

North Than Meets The Eye: Northern Prairie of South Ecatoria

The continent of South Ecatoria may be frozen tundra in its southernmost region. However, this area comprises only a small part of South Ecatoria's landmass-- further up north, one can see a whole spectrum of biomes, ranging from grasslands to temperate forests to floodplains and marshes and conifer woodland left from the Glaciocene when conifer forests, tolerant to cold, flourished worldwide.

Directly north of the Austral Tundra, however, are the Northern Prairies: a warmer, temperate region of primarily low vegetation such as grasses, cloverferns and bushy scrubland, with small patches and pockets of temperate forest where the soil is richest. Trees that grow here are sculpted into narrow, slanted shapes by the strong winds brought about by warm air currents blowing south from the equator.

The Northern Prairie is home to a wide diversity of species, hailing mostly from Arcuterra and Lacero during the Therocene and Glaciocene. Here, large basal hamtelopes such as the prairie hamhare (Gracilolagomys cursorius) are rather abundant, trotting about on their four-toed hooved feet, while ungulopes, distinguished by their keratinous horns, single hoofed feet and greater capacity to process tough vegetation, are less common due to the relative absence of saberleaf grass-- their primary food-- on the continent, with hard-stemmed weedwood being the primary grasses. As such, local ungulopes are typically low-level browsers here, such as the greaserhorn (Curviceratungulus caprimimus), having taller builds and longer necks and specializing instead on low-hanging branches, bushes and shrubs instead.

Another distinctive herbivore are the banded firetails (Pyrocauditherium dimorphium), generalist forager podotheres with long striped tails that in females are drably colored but in males are decked in brilliant stripes of red and yellow, which they use like flags in courtship or territorial display, but can easily be folded down to avoid being conspicuous to predators. Their vertical stripes help them blend in with the shadows of grasses, and even if spotted make it difficult for attackers to pick out any one indivudual in a herd.

Pterodents too are quite populous in these regions, primarily only as temporary and migratory visitors. One year-round resident, however, is the slender-footed roadgander (Minipteryx longipes), an odd member of the normally pelagic wandergander family, which with its large size, long, powerful legs, and smaller wings, is a more cursorial and ground-dwelling species that indeed is unable to fly very well, with many flights lasting less than ten seconds and being only used to escape predators and fly up into trees or ledges for safety, but instead can compensate by being able to sprint fairly quickly when threatened. Generalist omnivores, they eat insects, small animals, fungi, flowers and fruit, and often frequent bodies of water to wade in the shallows to catch shrish and other small water-dwelling meals.

While many of the species here rely on agility and camouflage as their main defenses, others rely on physical ones instead. The grassland porcuswine (Suispinus ecatorius), a holdover of the Glaciocene, is one of the few bumbaa species that endured the end-Glaciocene extinction and now thrives among several other species of its clade in South Ecatoria. Porcuswines, as their names suggest, have adapted their coarse, wiry hairs into a set of sharp quills, making it difficult for any attacker to target them from behind. From the front, their tusks, normally used in digging up plants, double as weapons to keep enemies at bay.

Another well-armed species is the rocky shingle (Tortugamys balboae), a densely-armored omnivorous rattile that relies on its heavy plates, formed of fused scales, as defense. Camouflage is another one of its tactics, digging itself into the ground and wedging itself in place, nearly impossible to budge once it does so. In this half-buried state it resembles less of an animal and more of an inert large rock, and during times of dormancy other animals may walk right past it, or even on it, without realizing it was even there to begin with. Indeed, while its diet consists of nearly all vegetation and insects it digs up from nests, it sometimes takes advantage of its inconspicuous appearance to snatch up an occasional unwary small animal, primarily at times in the breeding season when meatier supplements to their diet are more welcome.

All of these species evolved-- or utilized pre-evolved-- defenses, due to them coevolving with some of the most intelligent and flexible predators around, the baskervilles, and an arms race has waged on for the past ten million years or so as the ever-enterprising baskervilles found ways around their defenses, while they evolved even more pronounced defenses in turn. These prairies, specifically, are home to another, very different species from its southern cousin, the northern baskerville (Calliducyon borealus).

Northern baskervilles are less bulky and shaggy than their southern relative, and live quite a different lifestyle. With so many well-defended large prey in the area, they now primarily specialize on smaller game, such as hamtelopes and podotheres, fish for food in the river systems that run through the prairies, and even experiment with omnivory, partaking of berries and fruit in times where prey is scarce. Some populations consume plant matter to such extent that they in a way have become proper omnivores, including a balance of plants and meat in their diet, an advantage to being forced to subsist on meat alone.

Northern baskervilles are just as, if not even more so, intelligent than their southern cousins, their diverse diet being fuel for bigger and better brains, which in turn allows them to explore various options in the prairies. While the southern baskerville adapted its behavioral flexibility to better make do in a scarce environment, the northern baskerville is flexible in a place of greater abundance, where experimentation can prove beneficial at exploiting new resources.

Northern baskervilles are highly social creatures, harboring the same degree of cooperative and social bonding and communication, even if they now seldom hunt prey big enough to require team effort unless necessary. Their fondess for exploration and sense of curiosity gives them a more playful aspect in intra-species interactions, with even adults eager for affectionate play-fights with pack mates as much as with pups. Like the southern baskerville, they live in family groups consisting of a mated pair and their grown offspring: however, while the southern baskerville pack is relegated to just a nuclear family, with young leaving their packs to breed, the northern baskerville pack consists of several related nuclear families with more than one mated pair. More members mean more hunters and foragers to gather food and bring it back to the communal den, while still having multiple adults back home to watch the pups. A large pack may contain as many as up to forty individuals if resources permit it, with all the members cooperatively grooming one another, caring over their young, and bringing back food to the ailing or infirm to help them recover.

Far from being a dedicated macro-predator, the northern baskerville has, in contrast to its southern kin, has become a more generalized omnivore: hunting small game, targeting weakened larger prey opportunistically, and adding significant amounts of fruit and vegetation to their diet. Two highly intelligent species, on the brink of greater awareness, suddenly diverge starkly in behavior: forever altering the course of both their species' evolution as millions more of years march on.

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[alphynix]

Transcript for the text on the image under the cut:

PAGE 1

Spectember 2020 #13 | nixillustration.com | alphynix.tumblr.com Concept suggested by: Anonymous

Arboreal Alligators

(Ascendosuchinae)

Crocodyliformes originated as terrestrial animals, some of which went on to become omnivorous or herbivorous on several separate occasions. Among the predatory semi-aquatic members of the group, convergent returns to a fully terrestrial lifestyle have happened multiple times over their evolutionary history.

And eventually a group of small alligatorids did both of those things.

Modern crocodilians are known to occasionally eat fruit, and the cat-sized VARIGATOR took this even further. With reduced armor and a more upright posture, these short-snouted gators were fast-running fox-like omnivores that fed on a wide variety of food sources, with plant matter making up a significant percentage of their diet.

[Image: a small terrestrial descendant of modern alligators, with a short blunt snout and long upright limbs.] Varigator cursorius

Varigators also retained their ancestors' habit of occasionally climbing into trees, taking the opportunity to bask up in the branches, avoid larger ground-based predators, or survey their territory from above. Eventually this behavior resulted in an evolutionary divergence, with a lineage of increasingly arboreal ESCAGATORS splitting off from the terrestrial forms.

Adapting more and more for climbing, escagators developed opposable gripping digits, a semi-prehensile tail, and even more lightweight sparsely-armored bodies. They browsed on an increasing amount of leaves, nuts, and fruits up in the canopy, and their teeth specialized into a surprisingly mammal-like arrangement, with sharp teeth at the front of the mouth and multi-cusped chewing molar-like teeth further back.

Only about the size of a rat, these arboreal gators are slow-moving, cryptically-colored and rarely-seen animals.

[Image: a varigator resting up on a tree branch.] A varigator in a tree.

PAGE 2

[Image: a descendant of the terrestrial alligator, clinging to a branch. It's a vaguely chameleon-like reptile with long slender limbs, opposable digits on its hands and feet, a semi-prehensile tail, and reduced body armor. It's face has a short broad snout and its eyes are forward-facing.] A typical escagator, Ascendosuchus arboramplexus

[Image: detail of an escagator's head with its mouth open, showing its mammal-like differentiated teeth.] Ascendosuchus has a complex mammal-like heterodont dentition that allows it to process a variety of foods.

[Image: detail of an escagator's limbs, showing the "double thumbs" on the hand and the opposable fourth toe on the foot.] The limbs have become long and slender with a wide range of motion, and the digits are highly specialized for climbing and clinging onto branches. Both the first two digits on the hands and the last digit on the feet have become opposable "thumbs".

Like other crocodilians, both the hands and feet only have claws on the first three digits.

[Image: detail of the tip of an escagator's tail, showing the broad pad covered with triangular scale-like osteoderms.] While most of the escagator's body armor is highly reduced, the tip of its semi-prehensile tail bears a flattened pad with rough-textured osteoderms, able to flex horizontally and serve as an additional point of grip. Most individuals appear to have a distinct preference for one direction, essentially being right or left "handed".

[odishaphotos]

Temink Nukuri Bird

Temink Nukuri Bird

The Temur Nukuri (Temminck's courser in English, Cursorius temminckii biology) is a member of the Nukuri Bird Family Gleriolidae. Birds are found in sub-Saharan Africa. Amidst the burning bush and grass of the African savannah grass, the bird has been observed laying its dark brown eggs.

[herpsandbirds]

Burchell's Courser (Cursorius rufus), family Glareolidae, order Charadriiformes, Namibia

photograph by Chantelle Bosch 

[alonglistofbirds]

[1941/10977] Burchell's courser - Cursorius rufus

Order: Charadriiformes Suborder: Lari Family: Glareolidae (pratincoles and coursers) Subfamily: Cursoriinae (coursers)

Photo credit: Dominic Standing via Macaulay Library

[birdblues]

Indian Courser

[notinordinate]

Poecilus cursorius (Dejean, 1828) https://ift.tt/3dBllfo

[rhianna]

Transitions in ancient language

Cotgrave gives barater ‘to scow.rse,' ‘to barter,’ and Farmer and Henley * have horse-coser, -courser ‘horse-dealer.' The earliest quotations in Wülcker * are for the fifteenth century, mango a curswre, and hic mango a cosyr. But the Oxford English Dictionary records fourteenth century corse, cowrse, “to exchange,’ ‘to barter’; corser, “a jobber,’ ‘a horse-dealer’; corserie, ‘brokery,’ ‘jobbery,’ ‘barter.’ To this group unquestionably belongs Harman's" cursetors, ‘vaga bonds.’ Similarly the vagabond expression cozen, “to cheat,’ and its derivatives cozemer, cozemage, belong here. The oldest forms * For this and the following words see Du Cange. The transition from itinerant merchant to vagabond is so natural a one, especially when the first is already popularly connected with currere, that it becomes difficult to ascertain where one ends and the other begins. Cursorius is also recorded in the sense of “depredator,' and from this it is not far to ‘pirate,’ ‘corsair.’  [6]

Source:   Wiener, Leo, 1862-1939. Gypsies As Fortune-tellers And As Blacksmiths: [Pt.] II-III. [Liverpool, 190910.

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102689575/Cite

[spnl]

The semi-desert area of Ras Baalbek ... A hidden Gem

The semi-desert area of Ras Baalbek … A hidden Gem

By Fouad Itani

The semi-desert area of Ras Baalbek in the northern Bekaa region is a barren area where little precipitation occurs and consequently living conditions there are hostile to both fauna and flora. What makes this area special is a wide selection of biome-restricted species rarely found elsewhere in Lebanon. This attracts few birdwatchers but also, unfortunately, unethical hunters and…