Terminology
- Carrion
- "Carrion" is simply the scientific term for dead animals.
- Desertification
- "Desertification" is the extreme deterioration of land in arid and dry sub-humid areas due to loss of vegetation and soil moisture. (from Wikipedia)
- Digitigrade
- Animals that are "digitigrade" walk on their toes. This is opposed to other animals that walk on the entire foot (called "plantigrade"), or animals that walked on the very tips of their toes which are almost always hooves (called "unguligrade"). All canids are digitigrade.
- Extant
- An "exant" orgainism or taxa is one that still exists (i.e. it is not extinct).
- Extinct
- An "extinct" orgainism or taxa is one that no longer exists anywhere on Earth (i.e. it is not extant).
- Extirpated
- When an organism no longer exists in part of it's range but still exists somewhere else, it is said to be "extirpated" from the area where it no longer occurs. This is also sometimes called "local extinction".
- Specific Name
- In scientific names, the second half of a species' name (a Latin binomial) is called the "specific name". For example the scientific name for the Gray Wolf is Canis lupus. In this case, lupus is the specific name.
- Tribe
- Biological "tribes" are classifications that sub-divide families. They are not part of the main taxonomic ranks (Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species). Canidae is divided into tribe Vulpini (Fox-like canids or "true" foxes), tribe Canini (Dog-like canids or "true" dogs), and a few leftover basal canids that don't have a tribe.
