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Great Barrier Reef. / 18.283°S 147.700°E / -18.283; 147.700. The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, [1] [2] composed of over 2,900 individual reefs [3] and 900 islands stretching for over 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres (133,000 sq mi).
- 34,870,000 ha (86,200,000 acres)
- 1981 (5th Session)
- Natural: vii, viii, ix, x
- Off the east coast of the Queensland mainland, Australia
The ocean is the body of salt water that covers ~70.8% of the Earth. [8] In English, the term ocean also refers to any of the large bodies of water into which the world ocean is conventionally divided. [9] Distinct names are used to identify five different areas of the ocean: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Antarctic/Southern, and Arctic.
- 3.688 km (2 mi)
- 1,370,000,000 km³ (328,680,479 cu mi) (97.5% of Earth's water)
- 361,000,000 km² (139,382,879 sq mi) (71% of Earth's surface area)
- List of countries by length of coastline
Oceania (UK: / ˌ oʊ s i ˈ ɑː n i ə, ˌ oʊ ʃ i-,-ˈ eɪ n-/ OH-s(h)ee-AH-nee-ə, - AY-, US: / ˌ oʊ ʃ i ˈ æ n i ə,-ˈ ɑː n-/ OH-shee-A(H)N-ee-ə) is a geographical region comprising Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, at the centre of the water hemisphere, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of about 9,000,000 ...
- History and Naming
- Description
- Classification
- Palaeobiology
- See Also
In 2002, during an expedition to the coal mines of Cerrejón in La Guajira launched by the University of Florida and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, large thoracic vertebrae and ribs were unearthed by the students Jonathon Bloch and Carlos Jaramillo. More fossils were unearthed over the course of the expedition, eventually totaling 186 foss...
Size
Based on the size of the vertebrae, Titanoboa is the largest snake in the paleontological record. In modern constrictors like boids and pythonids, increased body size is achieved through larger vertebrae rather than an increase in the number of bones making up the skeleton, allowing for length estimates based on individual bones. Based on comparison between the undistorted Titanoboa vertebrae and the skeleton of modern boas, Head and colleagues found that the analyzed specimens fit a position...
Anatomy
Many of the fossils of Titanoboa are incomplete or undescribed, consisting primarily of thoracic vertebrae that were located before the cloaca. It possesses the same characteristics as other boids and especially Boa, such as a short, posteriorly-pointing prezygapophyseal process on these vertebrae. However, Titanoboa's are distinct due to being very robust and with a uniquely T-shaped neural spine. The neural spine also has an expanded posterior margin and a thin, blade-like anterior process....
Titanoboa is placed in the family Boidae, a family of snakes containing the "constrictors", that evolved during the Late Cretaceous in what is now the Americas. They are a widely distributed group, with six subfamilies found on nearly every continent, with Titanoboa being in the subfamily Boinae based on vertebrae morphology. All known boines are f...
Habitat
Due to the warm and humid greenhouse climate of the Paleocene, the region of what is now Cerrejón was a coastal plain covered by wet tropical forests with large river systems, which were inhabited by various freshwater animals. Among the native reptiles are three different genera of dyrosaurs, crocodylomorphs that survived the KPG extinction event independently from modern crocodilians. The genera that coexisted alongside Titanoboa included the large, slender-snouted Acherontisuchus, the medi...
Diet
Initially, Titanoboa was thought to have acted much like a modern anaconda based on its size and the environment it lived in, with researchers suggesting that it may have fed on the local crocodylomorph fauna. However, in the 2013 abstract, Jason Head and colleagues noted that the skull of this snake displays multiple adaptations to a piscivorous diet, including the anatomy of the palate, the tooth count, and the anatomy of the teeth themselves. These adaptations are not seen in other boids,...
Climate implications
In the 2009 type description, Head and colleagues correlate the gigantism observed in Titanoboa with the climate conditions of its environment. As a poikilothermic ectotherm, Titanoboa's internal temperature and metabolism were heavily dependent on the ambient temperature, which would in turn affect the animal's size. Accordingly, large ectothermic animals are typically found in the tropics and decrease in size the further one moves away from the equator. Following this correlation, the autho...
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations,[c] commonly as ASEAN,[d] is a political and economic union of 10 states in Southeast Asia. Together, its member states represent a population of over 600 million over a land area of 4.5 million km2 (1.7 million sq mi).[13] The bloc generated a purchasing power parity (PPP) gross domestic product (GDP ...
Taiwan,[II][k] officially the Republic of China (ROC),[I][l] is a country[27] in East Asia.[o] It is located at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. The territories controlled by the ...
Into Temptation is an independent drama film written and directed by Patrick Coyle. It tells the story of a prostitute—played by Kristin Chenoweth (pictured) —who confesses to a Catholic priest ( Jeremy Sisto) that she plans to kill herself. The priest attempts to find her, and in doing so involves himself in the darker side of society.
