query: taxon_rank hagryphus
supports: Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is an ionic salt called calcium carbonate or CaCO. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite shells (coccoliths) shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores. Flint (a type of chert unique to chalk) is very common as bands parallel to the bedding or as nodules embedded in chalk. It is probably derived from sponge spicules or other siliceous organisms as water is expelled upwards during compaction. Flint is often deposited around larger fossils such as Echinoidea which may be silicified (i.e. replaced molecule by molecule by flint). The Triassic is a geologic period and system which spans 50.9 million years from the end of the Permian Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period Mya. The Triassic is the first period of the Mesozoic Era. Both the start and end of the period are marked by major extinction events. The Triassic was named in 1834 by Friedrich von Alberti, after the three distinct rock layers ("tri" meaning "three") that are found throughout Germany and northwestern Europered beds, capped by marine limestone, followed by a series of terrestrial mud- and sandstonescalled the "Trias". Hagryphus ( `` Ha 's griffin '' ) , is an oviraptorosaurian theropod dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Period of what is now Utah . The lion ("Panthera leo") is one of the big cats in the genus "Panthera" and a member of the family Felidae. The commonly used term African lion collectively denotes the several subspecies in Africa. With some males exceeding in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in sub-Saharan Africa and in India (where an endangered remnant population resides in Gir Forest National Park). In ancient historic times, their range was in most of Africa, including North Africa, and across Eurasia from Greece and southeastern Europe to India. In the late Pleistocene, about 10,000 years ago, the lion was the most widespread large land mammal after humans: "Panthera leo spelaea" lived in northern and western Europe and "Panthera leo atrox" lived in the Americas from the Yukon to Peru. The lion is classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), having seen a major population decline in its African range of 3050% over two decades during the second half of the twentieth century. Lion populations are untenable outside designated reserves and national parks. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are the greatest causes of concern. Within Africa, the West African lion population is particularly endangered. Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade Dinosauria that first appeared during the Triassic. Although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is the subject of active research, the current scientific consensus places their origin between 231 and 243 million years ago. They became the dominant terrestrial vertebrates after the TriassicJurassic extinction event 201 million years ago. Their dominance continued through the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and ended when the CretaceousPaleogene extinction event led to the extinction of most dinosaur groups 66 million years ago. In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms (taxon), normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (Greek: , "grýphn", or , "grýpn", early form "", "grýps") is a legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion; the head and wings of an eagle; and an eagle's talons as its front feet. Because the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle the king of birds, the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature. The griffin was also thought of as king of all creatures. Griffins are known for guarding treasure and priceless possessions.
  Adrienne Mayor, a classical folklorist, proposes that the griffin was an ancient misconception derived from the fossilized remains of the "Protoceratops" found in gold mines in the Altai mountains of Scythia, in present-day southeastern Kazakhstan, or in Mongolia, though this hypothesis has been strongly contested as it ignores pre-Mycenaean accounts.
  In antiquity it was a symbol of divine power and a guardian of the divine. The TriassicJurassic extinction event marks the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods, , and is one of the major extinction events of the Phanerozoic eon, profoundly affecting life on land and in the oceans. In the seas, a whole class (conodonts) and 34% of marine genera disappeared. On land, all pseudosuchians (non-ornithodiran archosaurs) other than crocodylomorphs (Sphenosuchia and Crocodyliformes), some remaining therapsids, and many of the large amphibians became extinct. The Paleogene (or ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Neogene Period Mya. It is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era of the present Phanerozoic Eon. The Paleogene is most notable for being the time during which mammals diversified from relatively small, simple forms into a large group of diverse animals in the wake of the CretaceousPaleogene extinction event that ended the preceding Cretaceous Period.  Protoceratops (from Greek "proto-/-" "first", "cerat-/-" "horn" and "-ops/-" "face", meaning "First Horned Face") is a genus of sheep-sized (1.8 m long) herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur, from the Upper Cretaceous Period (Campanian stage) of what is now Mongolia. It was a member of the Protoceratopsidae, a group of early horned dinosaurs. Unlike later ceratopsians, however, it was a much smaller creature that lacked well-developed horns and retained some primitive traits not seen in later genera. The Cretaceous is a geologic period and system that spans 79 million years from the end of the Jurassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Paleogene Period Mya. It is the last period of the Mesozoic Era. The Cretaceous Period is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation "Kreide" (chalk). A clade (from , "klados", "branch") is a group of organisms that consists of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants, and represents a single "branch" on the "tree of life". Eagle is a common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae; it belongs to several groups of genera that are not necessarily closely related to each other. A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences. All communication (and data processing) is achieved through the use of symbols.Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a blue line might represent a river. Numerals are symbols for numbers. Alphabetic letters may be symbols for sounds. Personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose may symbolize love and compassion. The variable 'x', in a mathematical equation, may symbolize the position of a particle in space.
candidates: branch class family form genus group series
answer: genus