Definition: the air-filled cavity within the skull of vertebrates that lies between the outer ear and the inner ear. It is linked to the pharynx (and therefore to outside air) via the Eustachian tube and in mammals contains the three ear ossicles, which transmit auditory vibrations from the outer ear (via the tympanum) to the inner ear
Definition: A taxon is Vulnerable when the best available evidence indicates that it meets any of the criteria A to E for Vulnerable, and it is therefore considered to be facing a high risk of extinction in the wild.
Definition: A forest biome is a terrestrial biome which includes, across its entire spatial extent, densely packed vegetation which strongly limits light penetration to the forest floor.
Definition: forests which are inundated with freshwater, either permanently or seasonally. They normally occur along the lower reaches of rivers and around freshwater lakes
Definition: A wetland that features permanent inundation of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water, generally with a substantial number of hummocks, or dry-land protrusions.
Definition: Forested peatlands including both rain- and groundwater-fed types, commonly recorded in tropical regions with high rainfall. This type of peatland covers around 350,000 km2, primarily in south-east Asia but also occurring in the Everglades in Florida.
Definition: Capable of creating a new organism by combining the genetic material of two gametes, which may come from two parent organisms or from a single organism, in the case of self-fertilizing hermaphrodites.
Definition: Because of the difference in refractive index between air and water (or corneal tissue), a curved cornea is an image-forming lens in its own right. Its focal length is determined by the radius of curvature of the cornea. Many corneal eyes (eg: in land vertebrates) also have lenses, but the lens is flattened and weakened compared with an aquatic lens; most of the refractive power is provided by the cornea. Corneal eyes cannot focus in aquatic habitat.
