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9640_5 | In 427, Gunderic and the Vandals captured the island. Geiseric, son of Gunderic, governed Mallorca and used it as his base to loot and plunder settlements around the Mediterranean until Roman rule was restored in 465.
Middle Age and Modern history
Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
In 534, Mallorca was recaptured by the Eastern Roman Empire, led by Apollinarius. Under Roman rule, Christianity thrived and numerous churches were built.
From 707, the island was increasingly attacked by Muslim raiders from North Africa. Recurrent invasions led the islanders to ask Charlemagne for help.
Islamic Mallorca
In 902, Issam al-Khawlani(es)(ca) () conquered the Balearic Islands, and it became part of the Emirate of Córdoba. The town of Palma was reshaped and expanded, and became known as Medina Mayurqa. Later on, with the Caliphate of Córdoba at its height, the Muslims improved agriculture with irrigation and developed local industries. |
9640_6 | The caliphate was dismembered in 1015. Mallorca came under rule by the Taifa of Dénia, and from 1087 to 1114, was an independent Taifa. During that period, the island was visited by Ibn Hazm. However, an expedition of Pisans and Catalans in 1114–15, led by Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, overran the island, laying siege to Palma for eight months. After the city fell, the invaders retreated due to problems in their own lands. They were replaced by the Almoravides from North Africa, who ruled until 1176. The Almoravides were replaced by the Almohad dynasty until 1229. Abu Yahya was the last Moorish leader of Mallorca.
Medieval Mallorca |
9640_7 | In the ensuing confusion and unrest, King James I of Aragon, also known as James the Conqueror, launched an invasion which landed at Santa Ponça, Mallorca, on 8–9 September 1229 with 15,000 men and 1,500 horses. His forces entered the city of Medina Mayurqa on 31 December 1229. In 1230 he annexed the island to his Crown of Aragon under the name Regnum Maioricae.
Modern era
From 1479, the Crown of Aragon was in dynastic union with that of Castile. The Barbary corsairs of North Africa often attacked the Balearic Islands, and in response, the people built coastal watchtowers and fortified churches. In 1570, King Philip II of Spain and his advisors were considering complete evacuation of the Balearic islands. |
9640_8 | In the early 18th century, the War of the Spanish Succession resulted in the replacement of that dynastic union with a unified Spanish monarchy under the rule of the new Bourbon Dynasty. The last episode of the War of Spanish Succession was the conquest of the island of Mallorca. It took place on 2 July 1715 when the island capitulated to the arrival of a Bourbon fleet. In 1716, the Nueva Planta decrees made Mallorca part of the Spanish province of Baleares, roughly the same to present-day Illes Balears province and autonomous community. |
9640_9 | 20th century and today
A Nationalist stronghold at the start of the Spanish Civil War, Mallorca was subjected to an amphibious landing, on 16 August 1936, aimed at driving the Nationalists from Mallorca and reclaiming the island for the Republic. Although the Republicans heavily outnumbered their opponents and managed to push inland, superior Nationalist air power, provided mainly by Fascist Italy as part of the Italian occupation of Majorca, forced the Republicans to retreat and to leave the island completely by 12 September. Those events became known as the Battle of Majorca.
Since the 1950s, the advent of mass tourism has transformed the island into a destination for foreign visitors and attracted many service workers from mainland Spain. The boom in tourism caused Palma to grow significantly. |
9640_10 | In the 21st century, urban redevelopment, under the so‑called Pla Mirall (English "Mirror Plan"), attracted groups of immigrant workers from outside the European Union, especially from Africa and South America.
Archaeology
A 3,200-year-old well-preserved Bronze Age sword was discovered by archaeologists under the leadership of Jaume Deya and Pablo Galera on the Mallorca Island in the Puigpunyent from the stone megaliths site called Talaiot. Specialists assumed that the weapon was made when the Talaiotic culture was in critical comedown. The sword will be on display at the nearby Majorca Museum.
Palma |
9640_11 | The capital of Mallorca, Palma, was founded as a Roman camp called Palmaria upon the remains of a Talaiotic settlement. The turbulent history of the city had it subject to several Vandal sackings during the fall of the Western Roman Empire. It was later reconquered by the Byzantines, established by the Moors (who called it Medina Mayurqa), and finally occupied by James I of Aragon. In 1983, Palma became the capital of the autonomous region of the Balearic Islands. Palma has a famous tourist attraction, the cathedral, Catedral-Basílica de Santa María de Mallorca, standing in the heart of the City looking out over the ocean. |
9640_12 | Climate
Mallorca has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa), with mild and relatively wet winters and hot, bright, dry summers. Precipitation in the Serra de Tramuntana is markedly higher. Summers are hot in the plains, and winters are mild, getting colder and wetter in the Tramuntana range, where brief episodes of snow during the winter are not unusual, especially in the Puig Major. The two wettest months in Mallorca are October and November. Storms and heavy rain are not uncommon during the Autumn.
Geography |
9640_13 | Geology
Mallorca and the other Balearic Islands are geologically an extension of the fold mountains of the Betic Cordillera of Andalusia. They consist primarily of sediments deposited in the Tethys Sea during the Mesozoic era. These marine deposits have given rise to calcareous rocks which are often fossiliferous. The folding of the Betic Cordillera and Mallorcan ranges resulted from subduction of the African plate beneath the Eurasian plate with eventual collision. Tectonic movements led to different elevation and lowering zones in the late Tertiary period, which is why the connection to the mainland has been severed at the current sea level. |
9640_14 | The limestones, which predominate throughout Mallorca, are readily water-soluble, and have given rise to extensive areas of karst. In addition to limestone, dolomitic rocks are mainly present in the mountainous regions of Mallorca; the Serra de Tramuntana and the Serres de Llevant. The Serres de Llevant also contain marl, the more rapid erosion of which has resulted in the lower elevations of the island's southeastern mountains. Marl is limestone with a high proportion of clay minerals. The eroded material was washed into the sea or deposited in the interior of the island of the Pla de Mallorca, bright marls in the north-east of the island and ferrous clays in the middle of Mallorca, which gives the soil its characteristic reddish colour.
Regions |
9640_15 | Mallorca is the largest island of Spain by area and second most populated (after Tenerife in the Canary Islands).
Mallorca has two mountainous regions, the Serra de Tramuntana and Serres de Llevant. Both are about in length and occupy the northwestern and eastern parts of the island respectively.
The highest peak in Mallorca is Puig Major, at , in the Serra de Tramuntana. As this is a military zone, the neighbouring peak at Puig de Massanella is the highest accessible peak at . The northeast coast comprises two bays: the Badia de Pollença and the larger Badia d'Alcúdia. |
9640_16 | The northern coast is rugged and has many cliffs. The central zone, extending from Palma, is a generally flat, fertile plain known as Es Pla. The island has a variety of caves both above and below the sea – two of the caves, the above sea level Coves dels Hams and the Coves del Drach, also contain underground lakes and are open to tours. Both are located near the eastern coastal town of Porto Cristo. Small uninhabited islands lie off the southern and western coasts; the Cabrera Archipelago is administratively grouped with Mallorca (in the municipality of Palma), while Dragonara is administratively included in the municipality of Andratx. Other notable areas include the Alfabia Mountains, Es Cornadors and Cap de Formentor. The Cap de Formentor is one of the places where the tourists can enjoy the pleasure of its beach which is golden and very thin.
World Heritage Site
The Cultural Landscape of the Serra de Tramuntana was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011. |
9640_17 | Municipalities
The island (including the small offshore islands of Cabrera and Dragonera) is administratively divided into 53 municipalities. The areas and populations of the municipalities (according to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Spain) are:
Culture
Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria
Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria () was the architect of tourism in the Balearic Islands. He first arrived on the island in 1867, travelling under his title "Count of Neuendorf". He later settled in Mallorca, buying up wild areas of land in order to preserve and enjoy them. Nowadays, a number of trekking routes are named after him.
Ludwig Salvator loved the island of Mallorca. He became fluent in Catalan, carried out research into the island's flora and fauna, history, and culture to produce his main work, Die Balearen, a comprehensive collection of books about the Balearic Islands, consisting of 7 volumes. It took him 22 years to complete. |
9640_18 | Nowadays, several streets or buildings on the island are named after him (ie. Arxiduc Lluís Salvador).
Chopin in Mallorca
The Polish composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin, together with French writer Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (pseudonym: George Sand), resided in Valldemossa in the winter of 1838–39. Apparently, Chopin's health had already deteriorated and his doctor recommended that he go to the Balearic Islands to recuperate, where he still spent a rather miserable winter.
Nonetheless, his time in Mallorca was a productive period for Chopin. He managed to finish the Preludes, Op. 28, that he started writing in 1835. He was also able to undertake work on his Ballade No. 2, Op. 38; two Polonaises, Op. 40; and the Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39. |
9640_19 | Literature
French writer Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (pseudonym: George Sand), at that time in a relationship with Chopin, described her stay in Mallorca in A Winter in Majorca, published in 1855. Other famous writers used Mallorca as the setting for their works. While on the island, the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío started writing the novel El oro de Mallorca, and wrote several poems, such as La isla de oro.
The poet Miquel Costa i Llobera wrote in 1875 his famous ode, the Pine of Formentor, as well as other poems concerning old Mallorcan traditions and fantasies. Many of the works of Baltasar Porcel take place in Mallorca.
Agatha Christie visited the island in the early 20th century and stayed in Palma and Port de Pollença. She would later write the book Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories, a collection of short stories, of which the first one takes place in Port de Pollença, starring Parker Pyne. |
9640_20 | Jorge Luis Borges visited Mallorca twice, accompanied by his family. He published his poems La estrella (1920) and Catedral (1921) in the regional magazine Baleares. The latter poem shows his admiration for the monumental Cathedral of Palma.
Nobel prize winner Camilo José Cela came to Mallorca in 1954, visiting Pollença, and then moving to Palma, where he settled permanently. In 1956, Cela founded the magazine Papeles de Son Armadans. He is also credited as founder of Alfaguara.
The English writer and poet Robert Graves moved to Mallorca with his family in 1946. The house is now a museum. He died in 1985 and his body was buried in the small churchyard on a hill at Deià. Ira Levin set part of his dystopian novel This Perfect Day in Mallorca, making the island a centre of resistance in a world otherwise dominated by a computer. |
9640_21 | Music and dance
The Ball dels Cossiers is the island's traditional dance. It is believed to have been imported from Catalonia in the 13th or 14th century, after the Aragonese conquest of the island under King Jaime I. In the dance, three pairs of dancers, who are typically male, defend a "Lady," who is played by a man or a woman, from a demon or devil. Another Mallorcan dance is Correfoc, an elaborate festival of dance and pyrotechnics that is also of Catalan origin. The island's folk music strongly resembles that of Catalonia, and is centered around traditional instruments like the xeremies (bagpipe) and guitarra de canya (a reed or bone xylophone-like instrument suspended from the neck). While folk music is still played and enjoyed by many on the island, a number of other musical traditions have become popular in Mallorca in the 21st century, including electronic dance music, classical music, and jazz, all of which have annual festivals on the island. |
9640_22 | Art
Joan Miró, a Spanish painter, sculptor, and ceramicist, had close ties to the island throughout his life. He married Pilar Juncosa in Palma in 1929 and settled permanently in Mallorca in 1954. The Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Mallorca has a collection of his works. Es Baluard in Palma is a museum of modern and contemporary art which exhibits the work of Balearic artists and artists related to the Balearic Islands.
Film
The Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival is the fastest growing Mediterranean film festival and has taken place annually every November since 2011, attracting filmmakers, producers, and directors globally. It is hosted at the Teatro Principal in Palma de Mallorca
Mallorcan cartographic school |
9640_23 | Mallorca has a long history of seafaring. The Majorcan cartographic school or the "Catalan school" refers to a collection of cartographers, cosmographers, and navigational instrument makers who flourished in Mallorca and partly in mainland Catalonia in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Mallorcan cosmographers and cartographers developed breakthroughs in cartographic techniques, namely the "normal portolan chart", which was fine-tuned for navigational use and the plotting by compass of navigational routes, prerequisites for the discovery of the New World.
Cuisine
In 2005, there were over 2,400 restaurants on the island of Mallorca according to the Mallorcan Tourist Board, ranging from small bars to full restaurants. Olives and almonds are typical of the Mallorcan diet. Among the foods that are typical from Mallorca are sobrassada, arròs brut (saffron rice cooked with chicken, pork and vegetables), and the sweet pastry ensaïmada. Also Pa amb oli is a popular dish. |
9640_24 | Herbs de Majorca is a herbal liqueur.
Language
The two official languages of Mallorca are Catalan and Spanish, the former being the autochthonous language. The local dialect of Catalan spoken in the island is Mallorquí, with slightly different variants in most villages. Education is bilingual in Catalan and Spanish, with some teaching of English.
In 2012, the then-governing People's Party announced its intention to end preferential treatment for Catalan in the island's schools to bring parity to the two languages of the island. It was said that this could lead Mallorcan Catalan to become extinct in the fairly near future, as it was being used in a situation of diglossia in favour of the Spanish language. , with the most recent election in May 2015 sweeping a pro-Catalan party into power, the People's Party policy was dismantled, making this outcome unlikely. |
9640_25 | Population
Mallorca is the most populous island in the Balearic Islands and the second most populous island in Spain, after Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, being also the fourth most populous island in the Mediterranean after Sicily, Sardinia and Cyprus. It had an officially estimated population of 896,038 inhabitants at the start of 2019.
Economy
Since the 1950s, Mallorca has become a major tourist destination, and the tourism business has become the main source of revenue for the island. With thousands of rooms available Mallorca's economy is largely dependent on its tourism industry. Holiday makers are attracted by the large number of beaches, warm weather, and high-quality tourist amenities. Due to the climate and diversity in roads, Majorca attracts a lot of cyclists. |
9640_26 | The island's popularity as a tourist destination has steadily grown since the 1950s, with many artists and academics choosing to visit and live on the island. The number of visitors to Mallorca continued to increase with holiday makers in the 1970s approaching 3 million a year. In 2010 over 6 million visitors came to Mallorca. In 2013, Mallorca was visited by nearly 9.5 million tourists, and the Balearic Islands as a whole reached 13 million tourists. In 2017, ten million tourists visited the island. The rapid growth of the tourism industry has led to some locals protesting the effects of mass tourism on the island.
Mallorca has been jokingly referred to as the 17th Federal State of Germany, due to the high number of German tourists. |
9640_27 | Attempts to build illegally caused a scandal in 2006 in Port Andratx that the newspaper El País named "caso Andratx". A main reason for illegal building permits, corruption and black market construction is that communities have few ways to finance themselves other than through permits. The former mayor was incarcerated in 2009 after being prosecuted for taking bribes to permit illegal house building.
Top 10 arrivals by nationality
Data from Institute of Statistics of Balearic Islands
Politics and government
Regional government
The Balearic Islands, of which Mallorca forms part, are one of the autonomous communities of Spain. As a whole, they are currently governed by the Balearic Islands Socialist Party (PSIB-PSOE), with Francina Armengol as their President.
Insular government
The specific government institution for the island is the , created in 1978. |
9640_28 | It is responsible for culture, roads, railways (see Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca) and municipal administration. As of July 2019, (PSIB-PSOE) serves as president of the Insular Council.
Mallorcans |
9640_29 | Some of the earliest famous Mallorcans lived on the island before its reconquest from the Moors. Famous Mallorcans include:
Ramon Llull, a friar, writer and philosopher, who wrote the first major work of Catalan Literature;
Al-Humaydī, Moorish historian, born on the island in 1029.
Abraham Cresques, a 14th-century Jewish cartographer of the Majorcan cartographic school from Palma, believed to be the author of the Catalan Atlas;
Junípero Serra, the Franciscan friar who founded the mission chain in Alta California in 1769.
Miquel Costa i Llobera, a famous Mallorcan poet, who died in 1922.
Joaquín Jovellar y Soler, 19th century military commander.
Antonio Maura, two-time Spanish Prime Minister.
Robert Graves, English writer, lived for many years in Mallorca, buried in a small churchyard on a hill at Deià
Notable residents, alive in modern times |
9640_30 | Eaktay Ahn (1906–1965), founder of the Balearic Symphony Orchestra and composer of the Korean national anthem, lived in Mallorca from 1946 until his death in 1965.
Jeffrey Archer, English novelist, owns a villa in Mallorca
Marco Asensio, Spanish footballer, plays for Real Madrid, was born in Palma, Mallorca.
Miquel Barceló, contemporary painter, created sculptures in Palma Cathedral.
Concha Buika, contemporary flamenco singer. Concha Buika was born on 11 May 1972, in Palma de Mallorca.
Jean Batten, the New Zealand aviatrix, died in Mallorca in 1982.
Conor Benn, British professional boxer, spent twelve years of his childhood living in Mallorca.
Nigel Benn, former British professional boxer who moved with his family to Mallorca following the conclusion of his boxing career.
Maria del Mar Bonet, musician, member of the Catalan language group Els Setze Jutges in the 1960s with brother Joan Ramon Bonet.
Samuel Bouriah, better known as DJ Sammy, dance artist and producer. |
9640_31 | Faye Emerson and Anne Lindsay Clark, divorcees of Elliott Roosevelt and John Aspinwall Roosevelt (US Officials and sons of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) respectively, retired to Mallorca in 1965. Emerson died in Deià in 1983.
Sheila Ferguson, resident, a former member of the Three Degrees.
Rudy Fernández basketball player.
Curt Flood, baseball player, purchased a bar in Palma, Majorca after leaving the Washington Senators in 1971.
Antònia Font, contemporary pop band in the Mallorcan dialect of Catalan.
Toni Kroos, footballer for Real Madrid and German national football team.
Cynthia Lennon (1939–2015), former wife of John Lennon, lived and died in Mallorca.
Jorge Lorenzo professional motorcycle road racer, won the world 250cc Grand Prix motorcycle title in 2006 and 2007, and the 2010, 2012 & 2015 MotoGP World Championships.
Colm Meaney, Irish actor, resides in the town of Sóller.
Joan Mir, professional motorcycle road racer and 2020 MotoGP World Champion. |
9640_32 | Carlos Moyá, former world No.1 tennis player and coach of Rafael Nadal.
Xisco Muñoz, former footballer and coach (FC Dinamo Tbilisi, Watford F.C), was born in Manacor.
Rafael Nadal, 21-time major champion and former world No. 1 tennis player, lives in Manacor.
Miguel Ángel Nadal, Rafael Nadal's uncle, former Spanish international footballer.
John Noakes, former British TV presenter, lived in Andratx.
Jean Emile Oosterlynck, the Flemish painter, lived in Mallorca from 1979 until his death in 1996.
Hana Soukupova, supermodel, owns a villa in Mallorca.
José María Sicilia, painter, resides in the town of Sóller.
Jørn Utzon, an architect best known for designing the Sydney Opera House, designed and built two houses in Mallorca, Can Lis and Can Feliz.
Agustí Villaronga (born 1953), filmmaker, born in Palma. |
9640_33 | Transportation
Palma de Mallorca Airport
Mallorca rail network
Palma de Mallorca Metro
Ferrocarril de Sóller
Mallorca bus system (TIB)
A trackless train is in operation in several tourist areas.
Water transport
There are approximately 79 ferries between Mallorca and other destinations every week, most of them to mainland Spain.
Baleària
to the Balearic Islands from Dénia, Valencia and Barcelona
Trasmediterránea
Mainland-Baleares: regular lines, in both directions, from:
Barcelona to Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza and Mahón.
Valencia to Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza and Mahón.
Gandia to Palma de Mallorca and Ibiza.
Cycling
One of Europe's most popular cycling destinations, Mallorca cycling routes such as the popular 24 km cycle track (segregated cycle lane) which runs between Porto Cristo and Cala Bona via Sa Coma and Cala Millor are must rides.
Gallery
See also
Gymnesian Islands
Observatorio Astronómico de Mallorca
RCD Mallorca – local association football club
Notes
References |
9640_34 | External links
Accés Mallorca - Large tourist guide with a lot of information about history and cultural heritage of Mallorca
Islands of the Balearic Islands
Mediterranean islands |
9641_0 | Arthur Stuart Michael Cummings OBE (born Leeds, Yorkshire, 1 June 1919, died London, 9 October 1997) was a British newspaper cartoonist. He was known as Michael Cummings and signed his work simply Cummings.
Early life
Cummings's mother was an artist, while his father, A. J. Cummings, was political editor of the Liberal News Chronicle daily newspaper of London. He was educated at The Hall, Hampstead, London, Gresham's School, in Norfolk, then at the Chelsea School of Art, London. He also liked reading.
During the Second World War, he worked for the Air Ministry and became a major contributor to the training journal Aircraft Recognition. |
9641_1 | Work |
9641_2 | Cummings was initially a supporter of the Labour Party and contributed illustrations for the pro-Labour magazine Tribune. He later joined the Daily Express; he would subsequently draw most of his work for that newspaper and The Sunday Express. His move to these publications also coincided with Cummings's moving to the political right. In a discussion of Cummings's political views, Robert Allen and John Frost described him as a Conservative. They added that Cummings "obviously reveres Mrs Thatcher, intensely dislikes Tony Benn (and takes credit for being the first cartoonist to note his wild stare), has no time at all for Ted Heath, and so on". Cummings saw himself as "a rude little boy speaking out at the awkward moment", but to many of his critics he was a reactionary. Common targets of Cumming's pen were the Labour Party, left-leaning town councils, trade unions, student activists, and immigration. Cummings was also opposed to communism, and his cartoons frequently satirized both |
9641_3 | the Soviet Union and Maoist China. |
9641_4 | Controversy
In 1965, Cummings drew a cartoon depicting Lyndon B. Johnson being entangled in a thorn tree with the head of a black man, while a British politician wearing blinkers watered a plant with the head of a black child. The tree carried three labels on its branches marked "Little Rock", "Malcolm X" and "Harlem Riots". The cartoon was an expression of Cummings's opposition to allowing black people to immigrate to Britain, believing such immigration would cause US-style race riots. This cartoon drew complaints from a group of Oxford students. They made an unsuccessful complaint to the British Press Council, stating that the cartoon distorted "historical, political and social realities to express a view which is not merely the lowest taste, but is a direct and calculated insult to coloured peoples both in Britain and America". |
9641_5 | During The Troubles in Northern Ireland, Cummings repeatedly caricatured Irish people as diminutive, stupid, and murderous. In October 1971, Cummings drew a cartoon titled "Father O'Brezhnev, Missionary to Ulster", which depicted Leonid Brezhnev as a Roman Catholic Priest who was supplying weapons to the IRA. On 17 October 1971, National Union of Journalists members on the Scottish Daily Express objected strongly to Cummings's cartoon. The NUJ members described it as anti-Catholic, and expressed fears it would worsen sectarianism in Glasgow. The NUJ members stopped the presses in protest, and over 350,000 copies of the Daily Express were lost. The International Press Institute later criticized the NUJ's action, stating that their refusal to print the Cummings cartoon was "a serious threat to freedom of expression, all the more deplorable because the threat comes from journalists." On the 29th May 1982, The Irish Times published an interview with Cummings, during which the reporter |
9641_6 | took issue with his depiction of the Irish. Cummings responded that he had a "cartoonist's licence" to depict the Irish as "extremely violent, bloody-minded, always fighting, drinking enormous amounts, getting roaring drunk". Cummings also added that the Provisional IRA's violent acts did tend to "make them look rather like apes, though that's rather hard luck on the apes". This caused several writers to accuse Cummings of promoting anti-Irish prejudices. |
9641_7 | Reception
Cummings's work was praised by Gerald Nabarro. In his autobiography, NAB 1: Portrait of a Politician, Nabarro described Cummings as a "great artist" who "adds vivacity and insight to every political situation he depicts." Amongst his fellow cartoonists, "Vicky" in particular hated Cummings, claiming – according to the journalist James Cameron – that "he was the only man entitled to draw with a Post Office nib": "He also despised his political attitudes and said he was a time-server."
Honours
1983 – Officer of the Order of the British Empire
Notes
References
Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004)
Cummings at the Oxford DNB
External links
The British Cartoon Archive has a database of over 4,000 cartoons by Cummings
1919 births
1997 deaths
British cartoonists
People educated at Gresham's School
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts
Anti-black racism
Anti-Irish sentiment |
9642_0 | Shatsk National Natural Park () is a national park of Ukraine which was established in 1983 and aimed to preserve, reconstitute and to use effectively Volyn Polissia natural complexes and objects of special environmental, recreational, educational and aesthetic value. The park is located on the territory of Shatsk Region in northwest part of Volyn Oblast. The general area of the park is , of which are handed over for its permanent use. Lesia Ukrainka, Volyn State University is a scientific curator. Two ecological paths, Svitiazianka and Lisova Pisnia, are working in the Shatsk NNP. |
9642_1 | General
The Shatskyi Lakes group is one of the biggest in Europe. On its territory there are more than thirty lakes of varying sizes. Their total area is almost 70 square kilometers. They constitute one of the biggest European groupings of lakes. Among them is Svitiaz, the deepest lake in Ukraine, with an area of 28 square kilometers and a depth of . The water reserve is 310 million cubic meters; 180.8 million cubic meters of them are kept in Svitiaz.
The majority of lakes are joined to each other by soil-reclamation canals of Soviet or earlier times, or natural channels.
As long as the main European watershed goes through Shatsk Region, surplus water from them periodically replenishes basins of the Baltic and the Black seas via the Bug and the Vistula, the Prypiat and the Dnieper rivers accordingly.
Forests occupy 52.5% of general park area, grasslands 7.3%, marshes 2.8%, and water reservoirs 14.2%. The rest of the area is taken by farms and roads. |
9642_2 | According to the Ramsar Water and Moor Protection agreement, the Shats'k lakes' lands which are situated between the Prypiat and the western Bug are considered to be one of the most important areas in Ukraine. In this territory, migrating birds can find places for their reproduction as well as food and rest on their way from the north to warmer countries.
The SNNP, together with the local administration, manage the main nature protection tasks. Due to these achievements, the park was included in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves (as West Polesie Transboundary Biosphere Reserve) within the frameworks of the UNESCO "Man and the Biosphere Programme" on April 30, 2002. By this act, the Shats'k lakes were referred to as some of the most precious complexes of the Earth. In Ukraine, Svitiaz Lake is considered to be one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Ukraine.
Lakes |
9642_3 | Svitiaz Lake
Svitiaz Lake is of karst origin; it was formed due to progradation of chalk rocks and subsequent huge cenotes. Nowadays the length of the lake is 9.3 km, its width is 4.8 km, and its surface is more than 27 square kilometers. The lake is fed by either artesian springs or precipitation.
Water in Svitiaz is extremely transparent (in sunny weather a submerged white circle is visible to a depth of 8 m), clean and soft. It is determined that it is rich in silver ions and glycerol.
Along the lakeside, especially in the area of the tract "Hriada" and hotel "Shatski Lakes", Svitiaz is mostly shallow and on sunny days warms up quickly. On a clean sandy bottom one can go a half or even two hundred meters until the water reaches the chest of an adult man. However, the depth of two meters has an area of 1.2 square kilometers, up to three meters – 7.2, up to five meters – 10.6, to ten meters – 4.2, more than ten – 5.3 square kilometers. |
9642_4 | Therefore, Svitiaz is mainly a very deep lake. Yet by already mentioned "shallow" "Hriada" there are underwater pits: Vovcha – 20 meters, Ohriadna – 15, Kamin – 14, and Verteneva – 17 meters. The maximum depth of the lake is 58.4, and the average – 7 meters.
The lake has an island near the deepest place in Svitiaz – the Holodnetska cavity (58.4 m). One of the legends tells that all the Polissia used to be a sea with whales. When the sea dried out and only the deepest places remained, it became Svitiaz now and its whale became an island.
At the beginning of 1970, several European rabbits were settled there for the experiment. In a short time they quickly multiplied and practically destroyed all vegetation. They did not pose a threat only to the highest island trees – giant poplars which had very rough bark. In order to save the island, foresters had to kill them. |
9642_5 | The island is one of the few places in Ukraine where Bufo calamita toads live. There is also mass bird nesting, many species of which are rare. During nesting, visiting the island is prohibited.
In Svitiaz and other lakes of the park, the use of motor boats that may pollute water with fuel or oils is prohibited.
Flora and fauna
In the Shatsk Lakes territory, 1180 species of plants belonging to 124 families are found. Among them there are 795 species of higher vascular plants and 112 bryophytes. 332 vertebrate species have been noted in the park: 55 mammals, 241 birds, 7 amphibians, and 29 fish (11 families). |
9642_6 | Pine and blueberry forests dominate the territory of the park. Alder and birch forests grow in the lowlands. Fauna is represented by typical woodlands species: elk, wild boar, roe deer, rabbits, squirrels. Otter, badger, polecat, marten are rarer. In the waters of the park are about 30 species of fish: Common roach, Common bream, Northern pike, carp, two catfish species (the introduced Channel catfish and the native Wels catfish), European eel and others.
Three major faunal types are represented within Shatsk National Park: forest, wetland and synanthropic. In proportion, the first and second types dominate.
The composition of the forest complex includes a third of the mammals and more than a half of the entire fauna in the park. Most characteristic representatives of a forestry complex are: |
9642_7 | Mammals
De Selys Longchamps, Apodemus sylvaticus L., Dryomys nitedula Pall. and Glis glis L., Sciurus vulgaris L., Erinaceus, europeus L, Talpa europaea L., Sorex araneus L., Sorex caecutiens Laxm.S. minutua L., Crocidula suaveolens Palb. and C. leucodon Herman, Vespertilio serotinus Schreb., Mustela putorius L., Martes martes L., Mustela erminea L., Lepus europaeus Pallas, Vulpes vulpes L., Sus scrofa L., Capreolus capreolus L., Alces alces L.; |
9642_8 | birds – Columba palumbus L., Streptopelia turtur L., Accipiter gentilis L. and A. nisus L., Buteo buteo L., Strix aluco L. and Asio otus L., Cuculus canorus L., Caprimulgus europaeus L., Upupa epops L., Jynx torquilla L., Dryocopus martius L., Dendrocopus major L., Dendrocopos medius L. and D. minor L., Lullula arborea L., Anthus trivialis L., Troglodytes troglodytes L., Erithacus rubecula L., Luscinia luscinia L., Oenanthe oenanthe L., Turdus merula L., T. philomeios- L. and T. pilaris L., Sylvia curruca L., Phylloscopus trochilus L., Ph. collybitus Vieill. and Ph. sibilatrix Bechst., Ficedula hypoleuca Pall. and Musticapa striata Pall., Parus montanus L., Sitta europaea L., erthia familiaris L., Emberiza citrinella L., Fringilla coelebs L., Acanthis cannabina L., Sturmis vulgaris L., Oriolus oriolus L., Garrulus glandarius L., Corvus cornix L., С. corax L. and other. |
9642_9 | The wet-land complex (lakes’ waters, marshes, wet meadows) contains approximately of one-third of all the Park warm-blooded (about 30 mammals species and 60 birds). The most characteristic representatives are:
mammals – mole, common shrew, white-toothed shrew, ermine, vole (Arvicola terrestris L.) and Microtus agrestis L.;
Birds
Podiceps cristatus L., Ardea cinerea L., Cygnus olor Gm., Anas platyrhynchos L., A. querquedula L, Aythia fuligula L., Porzana porzana L., P. parva Scop., Rallus H L., Fulica atra L., V. vanellus L., Tringa totanus L., G. gallinago L., Scolopax rusticola L., L. Limosa L., Larus ridibundus L., Sterna hirundo L. and Chlidonias nigra L., Circus aeruginosus L., Motacilla alba L. and M. flava L., Anthus pratensis L., R. riparia L., Lanius excubitor L., Locustella fluviatilis Wolf., Acrocephalus schoenodaenus L., A. palustris Bechst., A. scirpaceus Herrn. and A. arundinaceus L., Emberiza schoeniclus L., P. pica L., hooded crow and others. |
9642_10 | The synatrophic complex (farmland, settlements) consists of the smallest amount of warm-blooded, only about 20% of the total amount in the Park. The most characteristic representatives are: |
9642_11 | Mammals
Mus musculus L. and Apode- mus agrarius Pall., Microtus arval- is Pall., Rattus norvegicus Berktnhout, Erinaceus eiiropaeus L., Talpa europaea L., Plecotus aiiritus L., Muscardinus avellanarius L. and Gris gris L., Lepus europaeus Pall., Mustela nivalis L., Mustela putorius L., Martes foina (Erxleben);
birds – P. perdix L., C. ciconia L., Columba livia Gm., Streptopelia decaocto Friv., Athene noctua Scop., Strix aluco L., A. apus, Alauda arvensis L., Motacilla alba L., swallows: Hirimdo rustica L. and Delichon urbica L., Luscinia luscinia L., Phoenicurus ochruros Gm., thrushes: Turdus merula L. and Turdus philomelos Brehm, warblers: Sylvia borin Bodd. and S.atricapilla L., Serinus сапала L., Ch. chloris L., C. carduelis L., linnet, sparrows: Passer domesticus L. and P. montanus L., Sturnus vulgaris L., magpie, rook (Corvus frugilegus L.), jackdaw (C. monedula L.) and others. |
9642_12 | Functional zones
In order to perform its tasks and in accordance with the general plan and the Ukrainian Law "About the Nature Reserve Fund of Ukraine", the park's territory is divided into four functional zones. The zones were pointed out by taking into consideration such factors as a level of the natural complexes preservation, a landscape type, traditional economic activities, a state of flora and fauna objects, cultural and aesthetic values of the objects. The distinguished zones are the following:
a sanctuary zone (10.5%) is to protect and restore the most precious natural complexes; it is regulated by the nature reserve's requirements; |
9642_13 | a zone of the regulated recreation (26.5%) is to provide people's short time rest and sanitation as well as sightseeing; it is allowed to arrange tourists paths and ecological lanes; it's prohibited to cut woods and to fish for the industrial purposes, to hunt and perform other activities that might cause a negative influence on the nature protection complexes and other objects of the sanctuary zone. On this territory there are two ecological lanes – "Sv- itiazianka" and "Lisova Pi- snia", two recreation posts – "Peremut" and "Turyst" and two information posts in this zone.
a zone of the stationary recreation (2.0%) is for the placing of the hotels, motels, camps and other objects that provide the park visitors service. In this zone there are three youth recreation camps, a holiday hotel "Shatski Ozera", a sanatorium "Lisova Pisnia", six educational institutions and 77 rest houses basis. |
9642_14 | an economic zone (61%) – in its frames traditional Economic activities are carried out; they are aimed to fulfill the tasks given to the Park; on this area there are settlements and the Park's community service objects that function with the respect of the general nature protection requirements. |
9642_15 | On the territory of the SNNP different scientific investigations are conducted to prevent any possible deterioration of the ecological situation in the Shats'k lakes district. The Park's scientific department also works in the frames of the "Nature Chronicle Program for the Sanctuaries and Nature National Parks". |
9642_16 | Rare plants and animals
The Green Book of Ukraine includes 14 plant communities among them rare for Ukraine pine forests with undergrowth of juniper communities featuring spruce, located on the southern edge of the range, as well as rare for Polissia leucobryum pine forest, bearberry pinery, thorny ground-pinery, arctic dwarf birch grouping and others.
Red Book of Ukraine indicates categories depending on the state and degree of threat to the population:
– (0) – extinct species, any information about their stay in the wild is absent after repeated searches conducted in common areas or other prominent locations and possible places of spread,
– (1) endangered species under threats of extinction, preservation of them is unlikely if the pernicious effect of factors that affect their condition continues,
– (2) – vulnerable species which in the near future can be categorized disappearing, if effect of factors that affect their condition continues, |
9642_17 | – (3) – rare species of small populations, which are not classified as endangered or vulnerable, although they are in danger,
– (4) – undetermined species known as endangered or rare, but reliable information that would allow to determine to which of these categories they belong is absent,
– (5) – insufficiently known species which could be possibly be attributed to one of the above categories, but in the absence of other reliable information question remains not determined,
– (6) – recovered species, which populations not cause concern thanks to the measures taken for their protection, however, is not to be used and require constant monitoring.
27 species of plants belongs to the Red Book: |
9642_18 | Aldrovanda vesiculosa L. – (3)
Betula humilis Schrank. – (3),
Cephalanthera rubra Rich. – (2),
Neottia nidus avis Rich. – (3),
Botrychium lunaria Sw. – (2),
Diphasiastrum camplanatum Holub. – (2),
Liparis loeselii Rich. – (2),
Oxycoccus microcarpus Turcz ex Rupr. – (1)
Orchis coriophora L. (3),
Listera ovata L. – (3),
Cypripedium calceolus L. – (2),
Epipactis palustris L. – (3),
Epipactis atrorubens Schult. – (3)
Epipactis helleborine L. – (3)
Lycopodium inundatum L. (3),
Lilium martagon L. – (3),
Platanthera bifolia Rich. – (3),
Cladium mariscus (L.) Pohl – (2)
Carex davalliana Smithjg-(2)
Carex umbrosa Host. – (2),
Dactylorhiza incarnata L. 1 (3),
Dactylorhiza maculata L, – (3)
Dactylorhiza majalis Hunt. – (3),
Dactylorhiza fuchsii (Druce). – (3),
Lycopodium annotinum L. – (3),
Drosera anglica Huds. – (2),
Drosera intermedia Naune. – (2),
Pinguicula vulgaris L. (2),
Scheuchzeria palustris L. (2).
33 species of vertebrates: |
9642_19 | Neomys anomalus Cabrera – (3)
Lutra lutra L. – (2),
Mustela erminea L. – (4),
Meies meles L. – (2),
Pelecanus onocrotalus L. – (2),
Ardeola ralloides L. – (2),
Ciconia nigra L. – (2),
Cygnus bewikii Yarr. – (3),
Aythya nyroca Guld. g (2)
Bucephala clangula L. – (3),
Somateria mollissima L. – (3),
Oxyura leucocephala L. – (4),
Pandion haliaetus L. – (3),
Milvus milvus L, – (1)
Circus cyaneus L. – (1)
Circatus ferox Gmelin. – (3),
Aquila pomarina Ch. L. Brehm – (3)
Aquila chrysaetos L. – (3),
Haliaetus albicilla L. – (2),
Falco cherrug Gray. – (3),
Grus grus L. – (2),
Haematopus ostralegus L. – (3),
Tringa stagnatilis Beehst – (2)
Himantopus himantopus L. – (2),
Numenius arquata L. – (2),
Numenius phaeopus L. – (2),
Hydroprogne caspia L. – (3),
Bubo bubo L. – (2),
Lanius excubitor L. (4),
Acrocephalus paludicola L. (3),
Regulus ingicapillus L. – (4). |
9642_20 | Vacation
In summer Shatsk’ population (6.3 thousand people) increases threefold. The number of people in the area (in winter 17.3 thousand) increases to 40 thousand and more.
See also
Seven Natural Wonders of Ukraine
Svitiaz
References
Sources
Шацький національний природний парк. Історія та сьогодення / В. Мельник, О. Бірюліна; Шацький нац. прир. парк, Проект Програми розвитку ООН/Глобального екологічного фонду "Зміцнення управління та фінансової стійкості національної системи природоохоронних територій в Україні". – Луцьк: Волиньполіграф, 2010. – 130 с.
Шацьке поозер'я: краєзнавчі штрихи з минулого і сьогодення / В. Мельник. – Луцьк: Волиньполіграф, 2010. – 40 с.
Основи заповідної справи: Навчальний посібник / Ю. М. Грищенко – Рівне: РДТУ, 2000. – 239 с.
Red Book of Ukraine
Parks in Ukraine
National parks of Ukraine
Protected areas established in 1983
1983 establishments in Ukraine
Ramsar sites in Ukraine
Geography of Volyn Oblast |
9643_0 | Wunderpus photogenicus, the wunderpus octopus, is a small-bodied species of octopus with distinct white and rusty brown coloration. 'Wunderpus' from German “wunder” meaning ‘marvel or wonder’.
Due to the appearance and behavior of the wunderpus, it is frequently confused with its close relative, the mimic octopus. The wunderpus octopus was not discovered until the 1980s and was only officially described in detail in 2006. The wunderpus octopus is important commercially to the underwater photography, dive and tourism communities, especially throughout Indonesia. The wunderpus is also valued as an expensive ornamental marine species for the home aquarium.
Appearance |
9643_1 | An adult wunderpus octopus displays an individually unique pattern of white spots and bands over a rusty brown background. Even though each body pattern is unique to the individual, generally all wunderpus octopuses display a circular pattern of about six white spots at the posterior lip of its mantle, head and neck area. Some of these spots are fused.
As the wunderpus ages, their body patterns become more complex. Each body is consistently covered in a brownish-red coloration, both dorsally and ventrally, with white lateral bands and markings along their arms, mantle, head and eye stalks. Underneath, their suckers are a yellowish-cream color. The wunderpus has relatively smooth skin with papillae throughout body. |
9643_2 | The wunderpus is also known for its ability to mimic other sea animals. The wunderpus can change its color patterns when disturbed or threatened. This quick-change artist is able to change its appearance, both color and shape, in a quick draw in order to get out of harm's way. The change of its color patterns allows the wunderpus to either blend in with its surroundings or mimic a venomous species to scare its threat away. The ability to change patterns and impersonate other species has evolved to ensure the survival of the wunderpus. |
9643_3 | Photo identification
Cephalopods are difficult to track over time and distance due to many factors. Researchers usually use naturally occurring injuries and/or scars to identify individuals but this technique does not work for long term identification. An octopus is able to regenerate limbs and heal in a relatively short amount of time. Researchers can also use external tags to help track individuals but octopuses are able to remove external tags from their body making them tough to track. Other methods of tracking and identification include methods like tattooing but that puts the organism at risk so photo-identification is the best way to track this species. |
9643_4 | Due to the naturally occurring body color and patterns that the wunderpus exhibits, these color markings are often used as a method to identifying individuals. Photo identification allows for individuals or populations of a species to be identified and tracked without physically handling them. In order for photo-identification to successfully work, the body color and pattern must vary across individuals but remain constant over time. Each individual of the wunderpus exhibits unique white markings over a reddish-brown background, making photo identification the perfect method to track them over time. Being able to track an individual or population of a specific species like the wunderpus octopus, helps scientists study aspects like intraspecific behavioral interaction, survivorship, migration patterns and population estimates. Such observations and data sets facilitate our understanding of this under-documented species. |
9643_5 | Chromatophores
Chromatophores, in the case of cephalopods, are neuromuscular organs that contain pigment and function differently than in most other animals. The chromatophores react to stimuli and facilitate interaction with their environment. Each organ contains an elastic sac containing pigment which is attached to the radial muscle of the octopus. When the octopus becomes aroused, the radial muscles contract which expands the chromatophores. In contrast, when the octopus is in a relaxed state, the chromatophores will retract into the elastic sac.
As these chromatophores interact with their environment, it enables the octopus to select, at any time, a particular body pattern. This enables it for instance to camouflage itself and hide from their predators. Another function of their chromatophores is intraspecific communication which facilitates their signalling to one another. |
9643_6 | Juvenile and para-larvae octopuses also have chromatophores called founder chromatophores, which are also sac-like organs that contain pigments in their skin. The founder chromatophores are prominent in juveniles and become more masked as the octopus approaches adulthood. The founder chromatophores are found along the ventral mantle and funnel of the para-larvae and it makes it easy to identify cephalopod para-larvae due to is distinct patterns. The founder chromatophores produce unique patterns in hatchlings and make them easy to identify. |
9643_7 | Anatomy
The wunderpus has small, subraocular eyes on top of elongated stalks protruding from its mantle. Over each eye is a conical papilla. The thin-walled mantle of the wunderpus has weak musculature and wide aperture. The head has a distinct neck area and is Y-shaped with the eye on each branch of the ‘Y’. The head of a male wunderpus is wider than its mantle and for female wunderpus, their mantle is wider than their head. For females, this is due to the large ovary in their mantle. They have gill with 6-7 lamellae per demibranch present. |
9643_8 | The wunderpus has a relatively small body and a flexible hydrostatic skeleton. Their funnel organ is generally W-shaped and adjacent to the short-lateral arms. The dorsal arms of the wunderpus are the shortest, while the ventral or lateral arms are the longest. For males, the third right arm is hectocotylized and lack functional tips. The arms are an important appendage because the octopus relies on it for aggression, display, locomotion and prey capture. Each arm is typically thin, elastic and triangular in cross-section. The width of each arm increases as you move down away from the mouth, towards a quarter of the arm length. Webs develop of the ventro-lateral edge of the arms and are present the entire length of the arms. This is what allows them to make a “net” out of their arms to capture prey. Their webs, like their arms, are also thin and elastic. Their suckers on their arms are smaller and more spaced than most cephalopods and they lack enlarged suckers in both sexes. |
9643_9 | Inside the wunderpus is a short, robust intestine. Due to the short nature of the intestine, it is relatively wide. The wunderpus has a crop with a distinct diverticulum and elongated anal flaps. The wunderpus lack an interbranchial water pore system. They have a stylet located above the heart, that is short and made of chitin. In the mouth parts of the octopus there are posterior salivary glands. The beak has a small upper hood and a rounded lower hood. The rostrum is bluntly hooked and there are seven teeth and two marginal plates with the radula for chewing.
Distribution |
9643_10 | The wunderpus is found in shallow waters from Bali and Sulawesi north to the Philippines and east to Vanuatu. A popular spot for the wunderpus , documented by dive photographers, is in the volcanic sand plain near the Lembeh Strait. These soft-bodied octopuses are benthic creatures, living along the bottom sediments in relatively shallow waters (no deeper than ). The wunderpus prefers a habitat with soft sediment substrates that allows them to burrow under the substrate or other organisms to seek shelter. Populations of the wunderpus can vary and be as dense as up to 5 individuals per or as little as not even being able to be spotted. |
9643_11 | Life history
Little is actually known and documented about the behavior and life history of the wunderpus and this could partially be due to their life style choice of solitude. There is little to no social behavior exhibited in the wunderpus octopus. Of the few specific postures and behavioral patterns that have been observed of the wunderpus , it is believed that they are impersonators of other animals. There are studies that suggest that the wunderpus is known to impersonate animals like the lionfish and the banded sea krait. The banded white markings of the wunderpus , allow it to be able to mimic the stripes and spines of the lionfish. It has also been documented that the wunderpus will burrow six of their arms, leaving two free to mimic the appearance of the banded sea krait. Both organisms the wunderpus has been documented impersonating are venomous, suggesting that the wunderpus does this behavior to ward off potential predators. |
9643_12 | Reproduction
In male wunderpus , their reproductive organ (penis) is relatively short but strong. They have a spermatophore storage sac located sub-terminally in the mantle, that takes up about 50% of the mantle’s length. This storage sac is broad and translucent allowing the spermatophores to be seen through the thin sac wall. The spermatophores are ‘unarmed’ and are usually in counts of 25-30 in these translucent storage sacs.
The female wunderpus has a large sub-terminal ovary with 4 follicular folds. The female will produce around 2,000 mature small, stalked eggs within a single female brood. The female will carry her eggs in her arms and they typically die shortly after their offspring hatch. Wunderpus hatchlings become water column swimmers and move around with their tiny finger-like arms rather than benthic organisms. |
9643_13 | Mating in the wunderpus involves the male mounting the female to insert its short hectocotylized arm into the mantle of the female. Typically in different octopus species in the mating ritual, the males hectocotylized arm is longer which allows more distance between the male and female.
Feeding
The wunderpus feed from dusk to dawn on small crustaceans and fishes. They have two prime feeding strategies. The first method is the “probing” method, where the wunderpus will extend their arms to crevices and holes to look for prey. When prey is encountered, they use their arms and suckers to hold onto the prey and remove it from its burrow. The second method of feeding requires them to flare their arms and webs over coral and sand to trap their prey and this method is called “web-casting”. When the wunderpus does this, it almost looks like an opened umbrella. |
9643_14 | While feeding, the wunderpus will retract back into its shelter to feed so they are not exposed to predators while feeding. The wunderpus is a favorite in the home aquarium trade and in captivity, where they display a different feeding behavior. In the wild, they typically feed in the low light of the dusk, but in captivity they have been observed feeding during the day. |
9643_15 | Predation
The wunderpus is known to display an interspecific aggressive foraging behavior. Using its right dorsolateral arm or its dorsal and dorsolateral arms, the wunderpus forms a loop around the mantle opening of the other octopus. Studies have found that the wunderpus exhibit this aggressive behavior on its close relative the mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus). Using its longest arm to form the loop around its opponent, its begins to tighten the loop, constricting it like a snake would constrict its prey. This aggressive display of asphyxiation doesn’t immediately choke its opponent but instead prevents the flow of water into the mantle and out of the funnel. This flow of water is important because it’s what carries water over the gill to oxygenate their blood. Without this replenishment, the octopus will gradually deplete its oxygen and ultimately die. This constriction over the mantle also prevents their opponent from releasing its ink. |
9643_16 | Cephalopods are constantly at risk of predation due to their soft bodies, which provide no protection against elements and predators like fish. Most cephalopods are equipped with the ability to ink to deter their predators but unfortunately for the Wunderpus , they have a reduced ink sac and are unable to release ink. When attacked, the Wunderpus is capable of releasing an arm, allowing it to escape from its predators. It will later regenerate its lost limb. It is unknown what the specific predators of the wunderpus octopus are, but it is believed that they are likely preyed upon by aggressive mantis shrimps, flounders and scorpion fishes.
References
External links
Side by side comparisons between the mimic octopus and Wunderpus
Discussion of the captive husbandry of the Wunderpus by Richard Ross
Octopodidae
Molluscs described in 2006 |
9644_0 | Arkansas PBS (sometimes shortened to AR PBS) is a state network of PBS member television stations serving the U.S. state of Arkansas. It is operated by the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, a statutory non-cabinet agency of the Arkansas government operated through the Arkansas Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which holds the licenses for all of the public television stations based in the state. The commission is managed by an independent board of university and education officials, and gubernatorial appointees representing each of Arkansas's four congressional districts. Along with offering television programs supplied by PBS and various independent distributors, the network produces public affairs, cultural and documentary programming as well as sports events sanctioned by the Arkansas Activities Association (AAA). |
9644_1 | The broadcast signals of the six full-power and five low-power translator stations that make up the Arkansas PBS network cover almost the entire state, as well as portions of the neighboring states of Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana that have overlapping access to PBS programming through locally based public television stations; its programming is distributed via a thirteen-site microwave interconnection relay system around the state, which covers most of Arkansas, as well as parts of surrounding states. |
9644_2 | Arkansas PBS also provides online education programs for classroom use and teacher professional development through ArkansasIDEAS (in collaboration with the Arkansas Department of Education), livestreams of state government and board proceedings and other government activities through the Arkansas Citizens Access Network (AR-CAN), and audio reading services for the blind and visually impaired through the Arkansas Information Reading Service for the Blind (AIRS); it also maintains the state's Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) infrastructure to disseminate emergency alerts to Arkansas residents. The main offices, production facilities and network operations of Arkansas PBS are based out of the R. Lee Reaves Center for Educational Telecommunications, located adjacent to the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
History |
9644_3 | Incorporation and development |
9644_4 | Arkansas PBS traces its history to June 4, 1954, when the Arkansas Educational Television Association (AETA) was created as a voluntary committee representing 90 organizations lobbying the Arkansas General Assembly to fund and develop a non-commercial educational television service and to file applications with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reserve broadcast television frequencies in selected cities throughout Arkansas for non-commercial use. Following a two-year legislative study to assess the need for educational television programming in Arkansas, on March 8, 1961, the Arkansas General Assembly approved Act of Arkansas, Acts 1961, No. 198 (as amended under Arkansas Code § 6-3-101 to 6-3-113), which created the Arkansas Educational Television Commission as an independent statutory corporation and aimed to develop a statewide public television service that would "provide instructional, educational television for schools and the general public […] and to help with |
9644_5 | the preservation of the public peace, health and safety." The legislative language indicated that such a service was necessitated to help prevent the spread of communism in the state, as "counter-measures to such subversive influences [were] necessary to the continued existence of constitutional democracy." The bill—signed by Governor Orval Faubus—tasked the commission with providing educational television programming to Arkansans on a coordinated statewide basis, with the cooperation of the state's educational, government and cultural agencies, and allocated funding for the planning and operation of an educational station to serve Little Rock and other areas of Central Arkansas. |
9644_6 | Longtime State Senator R. Lee Reaves (D–Warren) was appointed to serve as founding executive director of the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, Arkansas State Teachers College president Dr. Silas Snow was appointed as the commission's chairman, and Fred Schmutz was appointed as program director. The commission board was to have eight members appointed by the governor for a seven-year term, including two members from the state education system (one of whom must be a public education official, and one of whom employed with an Arkansas college or university), representing each of the state's congressional districts. The process of bringing public television to Arkansas began on May 22, 1963, when the AETC applied for a construction permit to build an educational television station on VHF channel 2 in Little Rock; the FCC granted the channel 2 permit to the commission on July 28, 1965. Subsequently, on September 23, 1963, Donrey Media donated the construction permit for defunct |
9644_7 | NBC affiliate KFOY-TV (channel 9) in Hot Springs to the AETC for $150,000, funded in part through a $100,000 gift from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The permit was not used, but the channel 9 allocation was relocated to Arkadelphia and designated for noncommercial use in 1965. |
9644_8 | KETS in Little Rock was finally able to sign on the air over channel 2 on December 4, 1966; it was the first educational television station to sign on in Arkansas, and the nation's 124th non-commercial educational television station to sign on. (The station operated under special temporary authority until the FCC granted the AETC a permanent license for KETS on June 22, 1967.) Channel 2 operated from studio facilities located at the Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) in Conway, which leased the land near the campus on which the broadcast facilities were built; construction funds were appropriated to the commission through the Arkansas General Assembly and by a grant from local public utility provider Conway Corporation. (The building, which was dedicated to Reaves on December 5, 1981, underwent expansions in 1994, to provide expanded storage, tape library and office space, and in 2001, to provide expanded studio space and digital services.) KETS's |
9644_9 | transmitter and broadcast antenna were located west-southwest of Redfield, per an agreement with ABC affiliate KATV (channel 7), which leased use of its transmission tower and former transmitter to the AETC for a nominal annual fee. |
9644_10 | For its first four years of operation, KETS carried programming from PBS forerunner National Educational Television (NET). Despite color television broadcasts becoming the norm, KETS had initially broadcast its programming exclusively in black-and-white. The station maintained limited hours of operation, exclusively airing Monday through Friday, during its early years; its initial programming, through a cooperative agreement with the Arkansas Department of Education, was focused primarily on instructional telecourse lectures and course subjects for use in Arkansas schools and attributable for college credit during the morning and afternoon from August through May; NET programming also aired during the late afternoon and early evening year-round. On October 5, 1970, KETS—like the full-power repeaters it would sign on in later years—became a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which was founded the previous year as an independent entity to supersede and assume many |
9644_11 | of the functions of the predecessor NET network. In 1972, the station upgraded its equipment to become capable of broadcasting programs in color. From KETS's sign-on through the 1980s, the network acted as an educational resource for public school and college educators through the use of instructional videos with teacher guides and supplements for grade school classrooms, college telecourses and GED education for adults. |
9644_12 | Expansion into a statewide network
After six years of serving only Central Arkansas through KETS, in early 1972, the Arkansas Educational Television Commission commenced plans to construct a network of additional transmitters connected by a microwave relay system. On September 15, the AETC filed applications to build four satellite stations and one translator to expand KETS's educational programming to approximately three-quarters of the state, to serve Arkadelphia on VHF channel 9 (filed on July 15, 1974, and granted on February 28, 1975), Fayetteville on VHF channel 13 (filed on March 8, 1974, and granted on July 10, 1975), Jonesboro on UHF channel 19 (granted on July 8, 1974), and Mountain View on VHF channel 6 (re-filed on April 22, 1977, and granted on March 15, 1979). In 1973, the Arkansas General Assembly approved the plan and associated funding to expand educational television programming to the entire state through KETS. |
9644_13 | The four satellites that joined KETS to form the Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN) were launched between 1976 and 1980; the three initial repeaters among KETS's four original satellite stations launched over the span of five months starting in the Fall of 1976. KETG (channel 9) in Arkadelphia was the first to sign on the air on October 29, 1976, providing public television service to southwestern Arkansas from a transmitter near Gurdon; less than two months later, on December 9, KAFT (channel 13) in Fayetteville—transmitting from atop Sunset Mountain (near Winslow)—debuted as the network's third station, servicing most of Northwest Arkansas including nearby Fort Smith. (Around that time, the AETC also launched a low-power translator station, K13MV, in Eudora, servicing portions of far southeastern Arkansas.) The AETC launched its fourth full-power station on January 13, 1977, when KTEJ (channel 19) in Jonesboro signed on from a transmitter in Bono, extending its reach |
9644_14 | into portions of northeastern Arkansas as well as adjacent border areas of western Tennessee and the Missouri Bootheel. By 1979, AETN expanded its broadcast schedule to offer additional programming for general audiences during the evenings and on weekends, broadcasting daily from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. The last of the original satellites to debut was KEMV (channel 6) in Mountain View, which signed on June 21, 1980, to provide service to north-central Arkansas as well as parts of extreme south-central Missouri from a transmitter located just east of Fox. |
9644_15 | Raymond Ho replaced the retiring Reaves as executive director in June 1981; his tenure saw AETN increase production of local programming, and Ho and the network become embroiled in political conflicts with state legislators. In addition to lobbying state officials for additional legislative funding, Ho significantly expanded fundraising for the network through public and private donations. (The "Festival 84" spring pledge drive, for example, raised $519,000, an increase of 162 percent over the $198,000 raised in the previous year's "Festival" event.) To aid these efforts, in 1984, the AETN Foundation (now the Arkansas PBS Foundation) was established as an independent endowment trust for the network's public and private fundraising efforts, soliciting and receiving permanent endowment donations to help support the network and commission's operations; it is presided by the eight AETC commissioners and seven at-large elected lay members. The AETN Foundation superseded Friends of AETN |
9644_16 | (founded in 1976) as its funding trust, restructuring that organization as a volunteer and public relations support entity. AETN also became an early adopter of the fledgling second audio program standard in October 1984, when it entered into a partnership with the Arkansas Division of Services for the Blind to transmit the Arkansas Information Reading Services for the Blind (AIRS) radio reading service on its main SAP subcarrier; the AIRS service provides audio transcriptions of local and national newspapers, magazines and books for blind and visually impaired Arkansans. (The AIRS feed was later made available on the network's DT4 subchannel when AETN began digital broadcasts in April 2004.) |
9644_17 | Among the programs that Ho developed at AETN was the weekly state news and affairs show Arkansas Week, modeled as a local version of PBS's Washington Week in Review. In 1986, the program received criticism from lawmakers and threats of legislative action by the Assembly's Review and Advise Subcommittee of the Legislative Council against AETN because of two recurring panelists, Arkansas Democrat political reporters John Robert Starr and Meredith Oakley, for their criticism of public officials. State Sen. Knox Nelson (D–Pine Bluff) opined that AETN was to focus on educational content and not politics and expressed concern that it was "becoming a propaganda system that woud be used to promote political philosophies." In a memo to the Assembly, Ho responded that Arkansas Week was structured to feature general discussion on the week's state news and would not be a forum for personal attacks on lawmakers or other individuals. (Ho resigned in August 1986 to become executive director of |
9644_18 | Maryland Public Television.) |
9644_19 | In October 1992, Ralph Forbes, a former American Nazi Party member and self-described "Christian supremacist" who ran as an independent U.S. House candidate for the state's 3rd congressional district in that year's elections, filed a lawsuit against the AETC in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, after he was denied a request to appear in an AETN-sponsored Congressional debate after qualifying to appear on the ballot, claiming he was entitled to participate under the First Amendment and federal equal time rules. After ruling in favor of the AETC, Forbes filed an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which reversed the lower court's decision in September 1996, ruling that AETN (as the debate's sponsor) created a limited public forum from which all qualifying candidates had a presumptive right of access and could not be excluded (even based on viability grounds as AETN officials determined) unless for a particularly exceptionary reason. |
9644_20 | Concerned that the Eighth Circuit's ruling could result in fewer political and controversial social issue-based debates and diminished political coverage by public broadcasters, the AETC appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court; on May 18, 1998, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the AETC, 6–3, in Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Ralph P. Forbes, affirming that government-run stations do not run afoul of the First Amendment in exercising "viewpoint-neutral […] journalistic discretion," that state-owned public broadcasters were not required to invite all ballot-qualified third-party or fringe candidates to participate in their debates, and that state employees can exclude candidates outside the two major parties without violating their free speech rights. |
9644_21 | The network began maintaining a 24-hour daily schedule in 1994, when it added a tertiary feed of instructional programming during the overnight hours; daytime instructional programs were replaced with an expanded schedule of PBS children's programming as a result. By this time, AETN had begun providing distance learning via broadcast, satellite, the Internet and, by 2003, compressed video to provide educational professional development as well as access for students to a wide variety of educational courses for classroom use. In April 2001, AETN began installation of a digital satellite distribution network to replace its interconnected microwave distribution system, in an effort to modernize transmission relays between KETS and its four full-power satellite stations. |
9644_22 | Much of south-central and southeastern Arkansas remained underserved by AETN, receiving only fringe reception from nearby transmitters or defaulting to receiving the network on cable and satellite, though national PBS programming was often available from Louisiana Public Broadcasting satellite KLTM-TV in Monroe. AETN would finally gain broadcast coverage in that region on May 17, 2006, when AETN launched KETZ (channel 12) in El Dorado as its sixth and final full-power satellite, operating from a transmitter in Huttig and broadcasting exclusively as a digital service from its launch. The addition of KETZ provided the network over-the-air coverage to about 76% of available Arkansas television households. (The five analog transmitters eventually converted to digital by June 2009, joining KETZ, as part of the national digital transition.) On September 6, 2006, AETN, in conjunction with the Arkansas Department of Education and PBS TeacherLine, launched ArkansasIDEAS ("Internet Delivered |
9644_23 | Education for Arkansas Schools"), an online learning management and professional development resource formed through the creation of the Arkansas Online Professional Development Initiative, which provides TeacherLine's instructional courses and workshops to certified educational employees of Arkansas public schools. The service, which is attributable to the state's professional development requirement for educators, is wholly funded by the ADE and is provided free of charge to state school districts. |
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