Biodiversity of Cyprus by NGO Protection of the Natural Heritage and the Biodiversity of Cyprus

The rich and rare biodiversity in Cyprus. The Cyprus biodiversity includes 1908 plants, 780 seashells, 250 fishes, more than 7.000 insects, 410 birds including migratory, 31 mammals, 9 snakes, 11 lizards,three amphibians, 120 land snails, fungi estimated 5-8 thousandand and three turtles.These numbers continually increase as a result of researc. Also see All about Cyprus. From George Konstantinou. Email - fanigeorge@hotmail.com - Το υλικό της ιστοσελίδας αποτελεί πνευματική ιδιοκτησία.

Wednesday, 23 August 2023

Οι Καμάρες της Λάρνακας - Το Παλαιό Υδραγωγείο Μπέκιρ Πασά - The old Aqueduct Kamares in Larnaca - Cyprus

Chama sp. - Fossils from Nicosia - Cyprus

Family Chamidae

Chama is a genus of cemented saltwater clams, marine bivalve molluscs in the family Chamidae, the jewel boxes

This genus is known in the fossil record from the Cretaceous period to the Quaternary period (age range 130.0 to 0.0 million years ago.). Fossil shells within this genus have been found all over the world

Photos by George Konstantinou

Coral sp. attached to Vermetus sp. - Fossils from Nicosia - Cyprus

Family Vermetidae

Vermetus is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Vermetidae, the worm snails or worm shells.

The genus Vermetus is very ancient: it occurs in the fossil record from the Jurassic to the Quaternary (age range: from 164.7 to 0.0 million years ago)

Photos by George Konstantinou

Tuesday, 22 August 2023

Mitrella thiara (BROCCHI, 1814) - Fossils from Nicosia - Cyprus

Family Columbellidae

Mitrella is a genus of small sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Columbellidae, the dove shells or dove snails

Photos by George Konstantinou

Mitrella (Macrurella) nassoides (Grateloup, 1827) - Fossils from Nicosia - Cyprus

Family Columbellidae

Mitrella is a genus of small sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Columbellidae, the dove shells or dove snails

Photos by George Konstantinou

Cylichna cylindracea (Pennant, 1777) Fossils from Nicosia - Cyprus

Family Cylichnidae

Cylichna cylindracea is a species of gastropods belonging to the family Cylichnidae.

The species is found in America, Europe, Africa. It is a predator of foraminiferans, Ammonia batavus and Globobulimina turgida

Photos by Demetris Kolokotronis

Acteocina knockeri (E. A. Smith, 1872) - Fossils from Nicosia - Cyprus

Family Tornatinidae

Acteocina is a genus of very small sea snails, bubble snails, marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks in the family Tornatinidae, the canoe bubbles or chalice bubble snails.

Photos by Demetris Kolokotronis

Acamptochetus sp. - Fossil from Nicosia, Cyprus

Family: Colubrariidae

Colubrariidae are a taxonomic family of medium-sized sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Buccinoidea

Photos by George Konstantinou

Piddocks or Angelwings bivalve shells from Larnaca , Cyprus

Family: Pholadidae

Pholadidae, known as piddocks or angelwings, are a family of bivalve molluscs similar to a clam.

Photos by George Konstantinou

(Echinoderms) Sand Sea urchin fossils from Nicosia - Cyprus

Sand Sea urchin

Sea urchins (/ˈɜːrtʃɪnz/) are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin are distributed on the seabeds of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to 5,000 meters (16,000 ft; 2,700 fathoms). The spherical, hard shells (tests) of sea urchins are round and covered in spines. Most urchin spines range in length from 3 to 10 cm (1 to 4 in), with outliers such as the black sea urchin possessing spines as long as 30 cm (12 in). Sea urchins move slowly, crawling with tube feet, and also propel themselves with their spines. Although algae are the primary diet, sea urchins also eat slow-moving (sessile) animals. Predators that eat sea urchins include a wide variety of fish, starfish, crabs, marine mammals, and humans.

Echinoids dates from the Ordovician period, some 450 million years ago. The closest echinoderm relatives of the sea urchin are the sea cucumbers (Holothuroidea), which like them are deuterostomes, a clade that includes the chordates. (Sand dollars are a separate order in the sea urchin class Echinoidea.)

The animals have been studied since the 19th century as model organisms in developmental biology, as their embryos were easy to observe. That has continued with studies of their genomes because of their unusual fivefold symmetry and relationship to chordates. Species such as the slate pencil urchin are popular in aquaria, where they are useful for controlling algae. Fossil urchins have been used as protective amulets.

The earliest echinoid fossils date to the Middle Ordovician period (circa 465 Mya). There is a rich fossil record, their hard tests made of calcite plates surviving in rocks from every period since then. Spines are present in some well-preserved specimens, but usually only the test remains. Isolated spines are common as fossils. Some Jurassic and Cretaceous Cidaroida had very heavy, club-shaped spines.

Most fossil echinoids from the Paleozoic era are incomplete, consisting of isolated spines and small clusters of scattered plates from crushed individuals, mostly in Devonian and Carboniferous rocks. The shallow-water limestones from the Ordovician and Silurian periods of Estonia are famous for echinoids. Paleozoic echinoids probably inhabited relatively quiet waters. Because of their thin tests, they would certainly not have survived in the wave-battered coastal waters inhabited by many modern echinoids. Echinoids declined to near extinction at the end of the Paleozoic era, with just six species known from the Permian period. Only two lineages survived this period's massive extinction and into the Triassic: the genus Miocidaris, which gave rise to modern cidaroida (pencil urchins), and the ancestor that gave rise to the euechinoids. By the upper Triassic, their numbers increased again. Cidaroids have changed very little since the Late Triassic, and are the only Paleozoic echinoid group to have survived.

The euechinoids diversified into new lineages in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, and from them emerged the first irregular echinoids (the Atelostomata) during the early Jurassic.

Some echinoids, such as Micraster in the chalk of the Cretaceous period, serve as zone or index fossils. Because they are abundant and evolved rapidly, they enable geologists to date the surrounding rocks.

In the Paleogene and Neogene periods (circa 66 to 1.8 Mya), sand dollars (Clypeasteroida) arose. Their distinctive, flattened tests and tiny spines were adapted to life on or under loose sand in shallow water, and they are abundant as fossils in southern European limestones and sandstones. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photos by George Konstantinou

(Echinoderms) Sea urchin fossils from Nicosia - Cyprus

Like all echinoderms, adult sea urchins have fivefold symmetry, but their pluteus larvae feature bilateral (mirror) symmetry, indicating that the sea urchin belongs to the Bilateria group of animal phyla, which also comprises the chordates and the arthropods, the annelids and the molluscs, and are found in every ocean and in every climate, from the tropics to the polar regions, and inhabit marine benthic (sea bed) habitats, from rocky shores to hadal zone depths. The fossil record of the Echinoids dates from the Ordovician period, some 450 million years ago. The closest echinoderm relatives of the sea urchin are the sea cucumbers (Holothuroidea), which like them are deuterostomes, a clade that includes the chordates. (Sand dollars are a separate order in the sea urchin class Echinoidea.)

The euechinoids diversified into new lineages in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, and from them emerged the first irregular echinoids (the Atelostomata) during the early Jurassic.

Photos by George Konstantinou

Fossils of Dama mesopotamica (Persian fallow deer) near Nicosia - Cyprus

See also

Γένεση της Κύπρου, Ελέφαντες, Ιπποπόταμοι και Νεολιθικοί άνθρωποι - Του Γιώργου Κωνσταντίνου - Εφημερίδα πολίτης 31/12/2017

Fossils of Dama mesopotamica (Persian fallow deer) near the village of Xylofagou Cyprus

Family: Cervidae

Persian Fallow Deer were introduced to Cyprus in the pre-pottery Neolithic (Cypro-PPNB), if not earlier. They occur in significant numbers at the aceramic Neolithic sites of Khirokitia, Kalavasos-Tenta, Cap Andreas Kastros, and Ais Yiorkis, and were important through the Cypriot Bronze Age. A Greek legend, related by Aelianus ca 200 AD, recounts how the deer of the Lebanon and Mount Carmel reached Cyprus by swimming the Mediterranean, the head of each animal placed on the back of the deer in front of it.

The Persian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica) is a deer species once native to all of the Middle East, but currently only living in Iran and Israel. It was reintroduced in Israel. It has been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2008. After a captive breeding program, the population has rebounded from only a handful of deer in the 1960s to over a thousand individuals.

Historic

Before the Neolithic era, as humans first began to colonise Europe, Persian fallow deer were found in Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Anatolia. The Anatolian population appear to have co-existed with the normal fallow deer, which still survives there today. They interbred with it freely to form intermediate populations. There is a suggestion that they may have been imported into Egypt as a menagerie animal during the time of the pharaohs. Some writers believe that the deer might have occurred throughout the Middle East in the 16th or 17th century.

The range of the deer has fluctuated between the millennia. During the Natufian period of Israel, some 15,000 to 9,500 years ago, studies in zooarcheology have shown the fallow deer became extinct in southern Israel, while gazelle and especially roe deer proliferated. This is thought to be due to climate change in combination with changing land use patterns and hunting pressure. At the same time the taxon persisted in the north in the Galilee region. During the early Iron Age, fallow deer were an important species sacrificed at the altar on Mount Ebal near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, comprising 10% of the faunal assemblage (many species were sacrificed). Pleistocene fallow deer of the region were larger, extant populations have evolved into smaller animals.

They were introduced to Cyprus by humans some 10,000 years ago, in the pre-pottery Neolithic (Cypro-PPNB), and expanded rapidly as the indigenous megafauna of the island became extinct, such as the endemic dwarf elephant and dwarf hippo species. Despite having cows, sheep, goats, pigs, dogs and cats, it is thought the prehistoric Cypriots managed the deer herds in some way for the next millennia, or may even have domesticated the animal. For six thousand years the deer were one of the main sources of meat for the islands, in marked contrast to the rest of the world; from 7,000 to 4,500 years ago the deer appear to have become possibly the most important economic mainstay of the island, with deer bones amounting to 70% of the animal remains at some sites. They occurred in significant numbers at the aceramic Neolithic sites of throughout Cyprus, such as Khirokitia, Kalavasos-Tenta, Cap Andreas Kastros, and Ais Yiorkis,[citation needed] and were important through the Cypriot Bronze Age. The deer were finally extirpated from the island in the 15th century.

In the Book of Deuteronomy 14:5, the yaḥmur (Hebrew: יַחְמ֑וּר, romanized: yaḥmûr) is listed as the third species of animal that may be eaten. This word has usually been translated as "roe", but in the King James Version it was translated as "fallow deer", and many more species have been named.From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photos by George Konstantinou