Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
Cassowaries  (Casuarius) are a kind of large bird which cannot fly. They are in a group of flightless birds called the ratites. The ostrich, emu, moa (now extinct) and small kiwi are other ratites.

The cassowary lives in the tropical rainforests of New Guinea and north eastern Australia. They are shy birds living deep in the forest. They may become aggressive, and they may attack people. This makes it hard to learn about them.

A group of cassowaries is called a "shock".

Species of cassowary 
There are three living species of cassowary:
 Southern cassowary, Casuarius casuarius, which lives in Australia , Maluku Islands and New Guinea
 Northern cassowary, Casuarius unappendiculatus, which lives in New Guinea and New Britain. This is also called the Single-wattled cassowary, Gold(en)-neck(ed) cassowary or Blyth's cassowary.
 Dwarf cassowary, Casuarius bennetti, which lives in New Guinea. It weighs up to  and can grow to  tall. It is also called Bennett's cassowary, Mountain cassowary or Mooruk.
Description
The southern cassowary is the largest forest bird in the world, and the second heaviest bird in the world after the ostrich. It is third tallest after the ostrich and emu. Females are bigger and more brightly coloured. Adult southern cassowaries are between  to  tall. Some females may get as big as , and weigh about . They do not have feathers on their necks. The necks are brightly colored in red, blue, purple and yellow. The southern cassowary has two wattles, loose skin, which hangs down from their neck. The northern cassowary has one wattle. The dwarf cassowary has no wattles.
Cassowaries have three toes on each foot. Each has a sharp claw. The middle toe has a claw like a dagger, which is  long. Because a cassowary can kick, this claw is very dangerous and can hurt or kill enemies.  Scientists believe they can run up to .  They can jump up to  and they can swim. There have been reported attacks on people and animals by cassowaries. In April 1926, a cassowary killed a 16-year-old boy near Mossman, Queensland.

The cassowary's wings are small, and their feathers are different from other birds. They are not adapted for flying.

Breeding

Females lay between three and eight large, pale green-blue eggs at a time. These large eggs are about  by  and weigh about 600 grams. Ostrich and emu eggs are bigger. The male sits on the eggs for two months until they hatch. He then looks after the brown-striped chicks for nine months. The female mates with two or three males each year. A cassowary at the Healesville Sanctuary lived for 61 years.
The casque
All three types of cassowary have a horn-like helmet called a casque on the top of their head. The casque is a keratinous skin (like a finger nail) over an inside made of firm, but foam like material. This material can be bent and squeezed but it goes back to its proper shape. The name cassowary comes from two Papuan words meaning "horned head". The reason for the casque is unknown. There are a number of different ideas, such as:
 It may have a sexual purpose as the females casque is larger
 It might be used to push through the thick forest,
 It might be a weapon for fighting other cassowaries
 It might be an extension of the hearing instruments capable of picking up specific lower vibrations that Cassowaries make when they boom in the dense forest, making long distance communication possible despite thick bush.
 It might keep the cassowary's skull safe if they crash into trees.
Biologist Andrew Mack has watched cassowaries and disagreed with many of these ideas. He thinks that the casques play a part in the way cassowaries hear sounds or the way that they make sounds. He discovered that the dwarf Cassowary and southern cassowary make a very low sound. It is the lowest known bird call, like a "boom", which people can only just hear. The southern cassowary sound was measured at 32 hertz, and the dwarf cassowary was even lower at only 23 hertz. The birds live by themselves, they do not live in groups so the "booming sound" might be a way for the birds to communicate (talk) over a long distance in thick rainforest. Some scientists think that this may be how dinosaurs communicated with each other.

Diet
Diet

Their main food is fruit, but they eat other things such as snails, fungi, ferns and flowers. They are important because they spread plant and fruit seeds through the forest. Each cassowary is known to live in an area of up to , so they carry seeds a long way. At least 70 rainforest trees need the cassowary to spread their seeds. Their seeds are too big for other rainforest animals to carry. Seeds from 21 plants have to be eaten and pass through the cassowary or they will not grow. Some seeds are poisonous to all other animals; only the cassowary can eat them. Scientists have worked out that about 150 rainforest plants need the cassowary.
Endangered species 
The southern cassowary is now listed as endangered in Australia. The CSIRO states that approximately 4,400 cassowaries live in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.  Many of the forest places that they like to live in have been cleared for farming and other development. It has been worked out that 75% of rain forest, where cassowaries used to live, have been cleared in Australia. When Cyclone Larry hit the Mission Beach area in 2006 a lot of cassowary forest was flattened. It is thought that 18% of the birds were killed by the storm. Animals such as wild pigs, dogs and cats, have become a big threat to the birds. Motor cars are a big danger to the birds. Scientists say that 70% of known cassowary deaths at Mission Beach, Queensland, were birds killed trying to cross roads.
The northern cassowary in New Guinea is listed as vulnerable. They could easily become an endangered animal unless things are done to protect them. Scientists do not know how many birds there are, but they think there may be anywhere from 2,500 to 9,999 northern cassowaries left.

Saving the cassowary
Many zoos, such as the Australian Reptile Park in Gosford, the Airlie Beach Wildlife Park and the Denver Zoo are trying to breed cassowaries. Cassowaries in zoos have lived for up to 60 years. The first cassowary kept in a zoo was in Amsterdam in 1597. It had been brought back as a present for the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II.

Cassowaries in art and music 
In 2007, Australian singer Christine Anu, made an album called Chrissy's Island Family. This is a collection of songs for children. One of the songs is called Cassowary. It is about Samu, the Wakka Woo cassowary. There is picture book for children, called Sisi and the Cassowary, by Arone Raymond Meeks. It has drawings in traditional aboriginal style to tell a Dreamtime like story.
English natural history writer and artist, John Gould, had drawings of the cassowary in his set of seven books called The Birds of Australia. These were printed in London between 1851 and 1869. The cassowary drawings were completed by Henry Richter. Richter's watercolor painting of the cassowary is in the museum in Melbourne, Victoria.

References

Other websites

 List of cassowary food plants 
Cassowary the Dinosaur Bird of the Australia Rainforest

Birds of Australia
Ratites
Endangered species
Struthioniformes
Birds of Oceania
The Province of Belluno (; ) is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Belluno.

Geography
The province of Belluno has an area of  and is the most northern of the provinces of the Veneto region, and is almost entirely occupied by mountain areas. In the eastern part of the province are the Dolomites, part of the eastern Alps, with high mountains, including the highest point of the province and of the region, the Marmolada () that is  high.

The province is rich in water, with the presence of the wide Piave river that flows through the province from north to south.

The southern part of the province is called Valbelluna, the widest and most populous valley of the province.
The province of Belluno borders to the north with Austria (Tyrol and Carinthia), to the east with the Friuli Venezia Giulia region (Udine and Pordenone provinces), to the south with the Treviso and Vicenza provinces) and to the west and northwest with the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region (Trento and South Tyrol provinces).

Population
, there are 206,856 persons living in the province, for a population density of  inhabitants/km².

Evolution of the population in the Belluno province

Language minorities 
In the province, there are two language minorities, which are now recognized by law:
a Ladin (a Romance language) minority is present in the three communes of Colle Santa Lucia, Livinallongo del Col di Lana and Cortina d'Ampezzo.
a German-speaking minority in the commune of Sappada, Farra d'Alpago and Tambre.

Municipalities 
There are 64 municipalities (or comuni) in the province; they are:
Agordo
 Alano di Piave
 Alleghe
 Alpago
 Arsiè
 Auronzo di Cadore
 Belluno
 Borca di Cadore
 Calalzo di Cadore
 Canale d'Agordo
 Cencenighe Agordino
 Cesiomaggiore
 Chies d'Alpago
 Cibiana di Cadore
 Colle Santa Lucia
 Comelico Superiore
 Cortina d'Ampezzo
 Danta di Cadore
 Domegge di Cadore
 Falcade
 Feltre
 Fonzaso
 Gosaldo
 La Valle Agordina
 Lamon
 Lentiai
 Limana
 Livinallongo del Col di Lana
 Longarone
 Lorenzago di Cadore
 Lozzo di Cadore
 Mel
 Ospitale di Cadore
 Pedavena
 Perarolo di Cadore
 Pieve di Cadore
 Ponte nelle Alpi
 Quero Vas
 Rivamonte Agordino
 Rocca Pietore
 San Gregorio nelle Alpi
 San Nicolò di Comelico
 San Pietro di Cadore
 San Tomaso Agordino
 San Vito di Cadore
 Santa Giustina
 Santo Stefano di Cadore
 Sappada
 Sedico
 Selva di Cadore
 Seren del Grappa
 Sospirolo
 Soverzene
 Sovramonte
 Taibon Agordino
 Tambre
 Trichiana
 Val di Zoldo
 Vallada Agordina
 Valle di Cadore
 Vigo di Cadore
 Vodo di Cadore
 Voltago Agordino
 Zoppè di Cadore
Largest municipalities
The following shows the 10 comuni with the population, and the area and altitude.

Gallery

References

Other websites

 Provincia di Belluno Official site 

Belluno
The Province of Rovigo () is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Rovigo.

Geography
The province of Rovigo has an area of  and is the most southern of the provinces of the Veneto region, and its territory is almost flat, without mountains. The highest point of the province is in the Bergantino comune, to the west of the province; it is only  high.

The province is rich in water, with the presence of the two longest rivers of Italy: the Po and the Adige rivers. Both flow from west to east and into the Adriatic Sea and most of the territory of the province is between these two rivers: the Adige in the north of the province and the Po in the south of it.

The province of Rovigo borders to the northwest with the Province of Verona. The Province of Padua and the Metropolitan City of Venice are to the north. The Province of Mantua (in the Lombardy region) is to the west. The Province of Ferrara (in the Emilia-Romagna region) is to the south. The Adriatic Sea is to the east.
Population
, there are 240,540 persons living in the province, for a population density of  inhabitants/km².

Evolution of the population in the Rovigo province

Municipalities 
There are 50 municipalities (or comuni) in the province; they are:

 Adria
 Ariano nel Polesine
 Arquà Polesine
 Badia Polesine
 Bagnolo di Po
 Bergantino
 Bosaro
 Calto
 Canaro
 Canda
 Castelguglielmo
 Castelmassa
 Castelnovo Bariano
 Ceneselli
 Ceregnano
 Corbola
 Costa di Rovigo
 Crespino
 Ficarolo
 Fiesso Umbertiano
 Frassinelle Polesine
 Fratta Polesine
 Gaiba
 Gavello
 Giacciano con Baruchella
 Guarda Veneta
 Lendinara
 Loreo
 Lusia
 Melara
 Occhiobello
 Papozze
 Pettorazza Grimani
 Pincara
 Polesella
 Pontecchio Polesine
 Porto Tolle
 Porto Viro
 Rosolina
 Rovigo
 Salara
 San Bellino
 San Martino di Venezze
 Stienta
 Taglio di Po
 Trecenta
 Villadose
 Villamarzana
 Villanova del Ghebbo
 Villanova Marchesana

Largest municipalities
The following shows the 10 comuni with the population, and the area and altitude.

Gallery
Gallery

References

Other websites

 Provincia di Rovigo Official site
Oded Fehr (; born 23 November 1970 in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli film and television actor. He acted in The Mummy.

1970 births
Living people
Israeli movie actors
Israeli television actors
Israeli voice actors
Actors from Tel Aviv
A cascade is 
a small splashing waterfall that tumbles down a mountainside in a series of steps.
a series of musical notes.
a series of events which follow each other rapidly, each of which triggers the next.

Cascade may also mean:

Places

North America 
 Cascade Range, a mountain range on the west coast of North America
 Cascade Volcanoes, a grouping of volcanoes on the west coast of North America

Canada 
 Cascade Mountain (Alberta), a mountain in the Bow River Valley of Banff National Park
 Cascade, British Columbia, aka Cascade Falls, a ghost town
United States 
Communities
 Cascade, Colorado, an unincorporated town in El Paso County
 Cascade-Chipita Park, Colorado, a census-designated place
 Cascade, Idaho, a city in Valley County
 Cascade, Iowa, a city in Dubuque County and Jones County
 Cascade, Montana, a town in Cascade County
 Cascade, New Hampshire, a village within the town of Gorham and the city of Berlin
 Cascade, Seattle, Washington, a small neighborhood abutting downtown Seattle
 Cascade, Wisconsin, a village in Sheboygan County
 Cascade-Fairwood, Washington, a census-designated place in King County
 Cascade Locks, Oregon, a city in Hood River County
 Cascade Township, Michigan, a charter township of Kent County
 Cascade Township, Minnesota, in Olmsted County
 Cascade Township, Pennsylvania, in Lycoming County
 Cascade Valley, Washington, a census-designated place in Grant County
Other U.S. locations
 Cascade Highway (Washington), a portion of U.S. Route 2 through the northern Cascades in Washington
 Cascade Highway (Oregon), a portion of Oregon Route 213 running from Silverton to Stayton in Oregon
 Cascade Lakes, a collection of lakes in Oregon
 Cascade Mountain (New York), a mountain in Essex County of New York
 Cascade Park, a Lorain County Metropark in Elyria, Ohio
 Cascade Pass, a mountain pass in Washington
 Cascade Tunnel, a railroad tunnel near Everett, Washington
 Shasta Cascade, a region of northern California

Seychelles 
 Cascade, Seychelles, a district in the Republic of Seychelles

Australia 
 Cascade National Park, a national park in New South Wales

WALES, UK

Cascade, Rhymney Valley,
Technology 
 Ablation cascade, a possible catastrophic orbital event
 Biochemical cascade, a consecutive series of chemical reactions
 Complement cascade or Complement system, a biochemical cascade in the immune system
 MAPK cascade, a process in the action of cancer genes
 Cascade reaction, a consecutive series of chemical reactions within a molecule
 Electron cascade or Electron avalanche, a process in physics
 Quantum cascade laser, a unipolar semiconductor laser
 Event cascade, a problem in event-driven computer programming
 Informational cascade, an economic theory
 Cascading failure, a failure in a system of interconnected parts
 Cascade (chemical engineering), a series of chemical processes
 Cascading rollback, multiple failure after a database rollback
 Cascading Style Sheets specifying the appearance of web information
 Fractional cascading, a data structuring technique for speeding up binary searches
Organizations 
 Boise Cascade, an American pulp and paper company
 Cascade Bicycle Club, a non-profit organization and advocacy group, Seattle, Washington
 Cascade Brewery, a brewer in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
 Cascade College, a private college in Portland, Oregon
 Cascade Communications, a manufacturer of communications equipment
 Cascade Corporation, a manufacturer of Material Handling Equipment in Portland, OR
 Cascade Investments LLC, a private investments and holding company owned by Bill Gates
 Cascade Limited, a subsidiary of Pacific Century Cyberworks (PCCW), a Hong Kong telecommunications company
 Cascade Lacrosse, a sports manufacturer
 Cascade Collegiate Conference, a sports conference in the western United States
 Open CASCADE, a software development company with head office in France
 CASCADE, an EU-funded research project, targeting health risks in food
Music 
 Cascade (album), an album by folk rock band Capercaillie
 "Cascade" (song), a single by Future Sound of London
 Cascade (band), a Japanese Visual Kei band
 Another name for German dance group Cascada

Other 
 Cascade Club and Spa[Cascade Club and Spa], premium health club based in Bangkok Thailand
 Cascade converter, a type of motor-generator
 Cascade (juggling), a juggling pattern
 Resonance cascade, the event that started "The Black Mesa Incident" in the Half-Life game series.
 Cascade virus, a computer virus
 USS Cascade (AD-16), a United States Navy destroyer tender
 A variety of hops found in North America
 Kemble's Cascade, a pattern of stars
 A brand name of detergent by Procter & Gamble
 A variety of Seibel grapes
 Superencryption, or Cascading encryption, when an encrypted message is encrypted again

Related pages
 Cascades (disambiguation)
 Cascade Falls
Dromaeosaurs are a family of bird-like theropod dinosaurs. They include the famous Velociraptor and Deinonychus. They were small to medium-sized feathered carnivores which flourished in the Cretaceous period. 

They are often called raptors, a term popularized by the movie Jurassic Park. They were fast-running predators.

Dromaeosaurs eventually had a world-wide distribution. Isolated teeth suggest they first appeared in the Middle Jurassic, 167 million years ago (mya). But more complete records are not found before about 124 mya in the Lower Cretaceous. They spread to all continents. The group survived until the end of the Cretaceous, 65.5 mya at the K/T extinction event.

Although dromaeosaur teeth have been found in the Middle Jurassic, no dromaeosaurid body fossils have been found this early.

Description
The Dromaeosaur skeleton suggests they were active, fast-running, and closely related to birds.
Dromaeosaurs have a relatively large skull, serrated teeth, narrow snout, and forward-facing eyes with some degree of binocular vision.

Dromaeosaurs, like most other theropods, had an S-curved neck, and their trunk was relatively short and deep. Like other maniraptorans, they had long arms, and relatively large hands with three long fingers ending in large claws.

The dromaeosaur hip structure featured a large 'pubic boot' (part of the hip) projecting beneath the base of the tail. These hip bones were places muscle and tendons attached.

Dromaeosaur feet bore a large, recurved claw on the second toe. Their tails were slender, and mainly used as a counterbalance.

Some, and probably all, dromaeosaurs were covered in feathers, including large, vaned, wing and tail feathers.
Feet 
Like other theropods, dromaeosaurs were bipedal; that is, they walked on their hind legs. Other theropods walked with three toes on the ground, but fossilized footprint tracks show that most dromaeosaurs held the second toe off the ground, with only the third and fourth toes bearing the weight of the animal. The enlarged second toe had an unusually large, curved sickle-shaped claw. It is thought to have been used in capturing prey and, in the smaller species, climbing trees.

One dromaeosaur species, Balaur bondoc, had a first toe which was modified to be in parallel with the second. Both the first and second toes on each foot of B. bondoc were also held retracted and bore enlarged, sickle-shaped claws.
Tail
Dromaeosaurs had long tails. Most of the tail vertebrae bear bony, rod-like extensions, as well as bony tendons in some species. In his study of Deinonychus, Ostrom proposed that these features stiffened the tail so that it could only flex at the base, and the whole tail would then move as a single, rigid, lever. However, one well-preserved specimen of Velociraptor mongoliensis (IGM 100/986) has an articulated tail skeleton which is curved horizontally in an S-shape. This suggests that, in life, the tail could bend from side to side with some degree of flexibility. It has been proposed that this tail was used as a stabilizer and/or counterweight while running. In Microraptor, an elongate diamond-shaped fan of feathers is preserved on the end of the tail. This might have been used as a stabilizer and rudder during gliding.

Size
Size 

Dromaeosaurs were small to medium-sized dinosaurs, ranging from about 0.7 meters in length (2.3 ft, in the case of Mahakala) to over 6m (20 ft, in Utahraptor and Achillobator). Some were larger: undescribed specimens of Utahraptor in the BYU collections may have been up to  long. Large size appears to have evolved at least twice among dromaeosaurs. A possible third lineage of giant dromaeosaurs is shown by isolated teeth on the Isle of Wight, England. The teeth belong to a Utahraptor-sized animal but are more similar in shape to the teeth of velociraptorines.

Mahakala is both the most primitive dromaeosaur ever described and the smallest. This evidence, fits with Microraptor and the troodontid Anchiornis. It suggests the common ancestor of dromaeosaurs, troodontids, and birds – the 'ancestral paravian' – may have been small, around 65 cm in length and 600 to 700 grams mass.

Feathers
Feathers

Fossils show that dromaeosaurs were covered in feathers. Some fossils preserve long feathers on the hands, arms and tail, as well as shorter, down-like feathers on the body.

Other fossils, which do not preserve actual impressions of feathers, still preserve the associated bumps on the forearm bones where long wing feathers would have attached in life. Overall, this feather pattern looks very much like Archaeopteryx.

The first known dromaeosaur with definite evidence of feathers was Sinornithosaurus. This was reported in China by Xu et al. in 1999.
Many other dromaeosaur fossils have been found with feathers covering their bodies, some with fully-developed feathered wings. Microraptor even shows evidence of a second pair of wings on the hind legs. While direct feather impressions are only possible in fine-grained sediments, some fossils found in coarser rocks show evidence of feathers by the presence of quill knobs, the attachment points for wing feathers possessed by some birds. The dromaeosaurids Rahonavis and Velociraptor have both been found with quill knobs, showing that these forms had feathers despite no impressions having been found.

So, it is most likely that even the larger ground-dwelling dromaeosaurs had feathers, since even flightless birds today have  plumage. Relatively large dromaeosaurs, like Velociraptor,  had feathers.

Paleobiology

Claw function
Claw function

There is some discussion about the function of the enlarged "sickle claw" on the second toe. When John Ostrom described it for Deinonychus in 1969, he interpreted the claw as a blade-like slashing weapon, much like the canines of some saber-toothed cats, used with powerful kicks to cut into prey. Adams (1987) suggested that the talon was used to disembowel large ceratopsian dinosaurs. The interpretation of the sickle claw as a killing weapon applied to all dromaeosaurs.

In Manning's interpretation, the second toe claw would be used as a climbing aid when subduing bigger prey and also as stabbing weapon.

Ostrom compared Deinonychus to the ostrich and cassowary. He noted that the bird species can inflict serious injury with the large claw on the second toe. The cassowary has claws up to  long. The seriema also has an enlarged second toe claw, and uses it to tear apart small prey items for swallowing.
The Manning team also compared the curvature of the dromaeosarid "sickle claw" on the foot with curvature in modern birds and mammals. Previous studies had shown that the amount of curvature in a claw corresponded to what lifestyle the animal has: animals with strongly curved claws of a certain shape tend to be climbers, while straighter claws indicate ground-dwelling lifestyles. The sickle-claws of the dromaeosaurid Deinonychus have a curvature of 160 degrees, well within the range of climbing animals. The forelimb claws they studied also fell within the climbing range of curvature.

Paleontologist Peter Mackovicky said that small, primitive dromaeosaurids (such as Microraptor) were likely to have been tree-climbers, but that climbing did not explain why later, gigantic dromaeosaurids such as Achillobator retained highly curved claws when they were too large to have climbed trees.
Group behavior
Deinonychus fossils have been uncovered in small groups near the remains of the herbivore Tenontosaurus, a larger ornithischian dinosaur. This had been interpreted as evidence that these dromaeosaurs hunted in coordinated packs like some modern mammals. However, not all paleontologists found the evidence conclusive, and a study in 2007 by Roach and Brinkman suggests that the Deinonychus may have actually displayed a disorganized mobbing behavior.

The first known extensive dromaeosaur trackway was found in Shandong, China.
The trackway, (made by a large, Achillobator-sized species), showed the sickle-claw was held off the ground. Six individuals of about equal size moved together along a shoreline. The individuals were spaced about one meter apart, and retained the same direction of travel, walking at a fairly slow pace. The trackways are evidence that some species of dromaeosaurs lived in groups. While the trackways clearly do not represent hunting behavior, the idea that groups of dromaeosaurs may have hunted together can not be ruled out.

Flying and gliding
Flying and gliding

The ability to fly or glide has been suggested for at least two dromaeosaur genera. The first, Rahonavis was originally classified as avian bird, but found to be a dromaeosaur in later studies. It may have been capable of powered flight. The forelimbs of Rahonavis were more powerfully built than Archaeopteryx, and show evidence that they bore strong ligament attachments necessary for flapping flight. Luis Chiappe concluded that, given these adaptations, Rahonavis could probably fly but would have been more clumsy in the air than modern birds.
Another species of dromaeosaur, Microraptor, may have been capable of gliding using its well-developed wings on both the fore and hind limbs. A 2005 study by Sankar Chatterjee suggested that the wings of Microraptor functioned like a split-level "biplane", and that it likely employed a style of gliding, in which it would launch from a perch and swoop downward in a 'U' shaped curve, then lift again to land on another tree, with the tail and hind wings helping to control its position and speed. Chatterjee also found that Microraptor had the basic requirements to sustain level powered flight in addition to gliding.

Classification

Relationship with birds

Dromaeosaurs share many features with early birds (clade Avialae or Aves). The nature of their relationship to birds is under discussion.
Mark Norell and colleagues analyzed a survey of coelurosaur fossils and suggested that dromaeosaurs were most closely related to birds, with troodontids as a more distant outgroup. In 2002, Hwang and colleagues suggested that birds (avialans) were better thought of as cousins to the dromaeosaurids and troodontids.

The current consensus among paleontologists agrees with Hwang that dromaeosaurids are most closely related to the troodontids, and together with the troodontids form the clade Deinonychosauria. Deinonychosaurians in turn are the sister taxon to avialans, and therefore the closest relatives of avialan birds.

A consensus of paleontologists has concluded that there is not yet enough evidence to say whether any dromaeosaurs could fly or glide, or whether they evolved from ancestors that could.

Other ideas

At least two schools of researchers have proposed that dromaeosaurs may actually be descended from flying ancestors.
In 2002, Hwang et al. found that Microraptor was the most primitive dromaeosaur. Xu and colleagues in 2003 cited the basal position of Microraptor, along with feather and wing features, as evidence that the ancestral dromaeosaur could glide. In that case the larger dromaeosaurs would be secondarily terrestrial—having lost the ability to glide later in their evolutionary history.

A few researchers, like Larry Martin, believe that dromaeosaurs, along with all maniraptorans are not dinosaurs at all. Martin asserted for decades that birds were unrelated to maniraptorans, but in 2004 he changed his position, and now he agrees that the two are the closest of relatives. Martin believes that maniraptorans are secondarily flightless birds, and that birds evolved from non–dinosaurian archosaurs, so that most of the species formerly called theropods would now not even be classified as dinosaurs.
A challenge to all of these alternative scenarios came when Turner and colleagues in 2007 described a new dromaeosaur, Mahakala, which they found to be the most basal and most primitive member of the Dromaeosauridae, more primitive than Microraptor.

Mahakala had short arms and no ability to glide. Turner et al. also inferred that flight evolved only in the Avialae, and these two points suggested that the ancestral dromaeosaurid could not glide or fly. Based on this cladistic analysis, Mahakala suggests that the ancestral condition for dromaeosaurids is non-flying.

Phylogeny and taxonomy 

The family Dromaeosauridae was named in 1922, with only one new genus Dromaeosaurus. Dromaeosauridae, along with Troodontidae, make up the infraorder Deinonychosauria.

Dromaeosauridae was first defined as a clade by Paul Sereno in 1998, as the most inclusive natural group containing Dromaeosaurus but not Troodon, Ornithomimus or Passer. The various "subfamilies" have also been re-defined as clades.
The subfamilies of Dromaeosauridae is not yet settled. Mahakala, for example, the most primitive dromaeosaur in terms of structure, falls outside any named sub-group. The most basal subfamily of dromaeosaurs is often found to be the Unenlagiinae.

All known dromaeosaur skin impressions come from this group, and all show an extensive covering of feathers and well-developed wings. Some species may have been capable of active flight.
The following classification of the various genera of dromaeosaurids is based on studies by Sereno (2005), Senter (2004), Makovicky et al. (2005), Norell et al. (2006), and Turner et al. (2007).
 Family Dromaeosauridae
 Subfamily Dromaeosaurinae
 Achillobator
 Dromaeosaurus
 Utahraptor
 Subfamily Microraptorinae
 Cryptovolans
 Graciliraptor
 Hesperonychus
 Microraptor
 Subfamily Saurornitholestinae
 Atrociraptor
 Bambiraptor
 Saurornitholestes
 Subfamily Unenlagiinae
 Austroraptor
 Buitreraptor
 Neuquenraptor
 Rahonavis
 Unenlagia
Unenlagia
 Subfamily Velociraptorinae Velociraptorinae is a subfamily of the Dromaeosauridae. It existed from the Late Jurassic period to the end of the Cretaceous period. The Velociraptorinae consists of Velociraptor, Deinonychus, Tsaagan, Saurornitholestes, and Balaur. Teeth belonging to a giant velociraptorine the size of Utahraptor have also been reported from the Isle of Wight, England. In general, velociraptorines tend to have longer, narrower jaws and more slender bodily proportions than the dromaeosaurines.
 Adasaurus
 Balaur
 Deinonychus
 Linheraptor
 Nuthetes
 Tsaagan
 Velociraptor
In popular culture
A Deinonychus appears in John Brosnan's 1984 novel Carnosaur and its movie adaptation though the book itself received little press attention.

Velociraptor, a dromaeosaur, got attention after it was featured in the 1993 Steven Spielberg movie Jurassic Park. However, the size of the Velociraptor in the movie is much larger than the largest members of that genus. Robert Bakker recalled that Spielberg had been disappointed with the dimensions of Velociraptor and so upsized it.
Michael Crichton used the name Velociraptor for the much larger raptor in his novels, on which the first two movies were based. The depiction of the dromaeosaur in the original Jurassic Park movie, while accurate for its time, is now known to have been inaccurate in some respects, such as the lack of feathers. While Jurassic Park III attempted to address this last oversight by adding quill-like structures around the head of some of its dromaeosaurs, they did not resemble the structure or distribution of actual dromaeosaurid feathers known from fossil remains.

Dromaeosaurids also appear in many of The Land Before Time movies, beginning with the third.

References

Other websites
Other websites

 Dromaeosauridae at DinoData.
 The Dromaeosauridae: The Raptors!, from the University of California Berkeley Museum of Paleontology.
 Dromaeosauridae , by Justin Tweet from Thescelosaurus.
 Dinosaurs – Complete and free online edition of the book "Dinosaurs" as written by W. D. Matthew (cited in this article with authorship of the family Dromaeosauridae), and former Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; Originally published in 1915
 Dromaeosauridae , Dinosaur-world reference with in-depth description and pictures of many dromaeosauridae dinosaurs

Theropods
The Province of Treviso () is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Treviso.

Geography
The province of Treviso has an area of  and is formed mainly by plains but there are hills in the northern part. In the border with the Belluno province, there are some mountains over  high, found mainly in the Dolomites, part of the eastern Alps; the highest mountain of the province is Monte Grappa ) that is  high and is on the border with the Belluno and Vicenza provinces.

The province is rich in water; the main river is the Piave river that flows through the province from north to south.

The province of Treviso borders to the north with the Belluno province, to the east with the Friuli Venezia Giulia region (Pordenone province), to the south with the Padua province and the Metropolitan City of Venice, and to the west with the Vicenza province.

Population
, there are 885,447 persons living in the province, for a population density of  inhabitants/km².
Evolution of the population in the Treviso province

Municipalities 
There are 95 municipalities (or comuni) in the province; they are:
Altivole
 Arcade
 Asolo
 Borso del Grappa
 Breda di Piave
 Caerano di San Marco
 Cappella Maggiore
 Carbonera
 Casale sul Sile
 Casier
 Castelcucco
 Castelfranco Veneto
 Castello di Godego
 Cavaso del Tomba
 Cessalto
 Chiarano
 Cimadolmo
 Cison di Valmarino
 Codognè
 Colle Umberto
 Conegliano
 Cordignano
 Cornuda
 Crespano del Grappa
 Crocetta del Montello
 Farra di Soligo
 Follina
 Fontanelle
 Fonte
 Fregona
 Gaiarine
 Giavera del Montello
 Godega di Sant'Urbano
 Gorgo al Monticano
 Istrana
 Loria
 Mansuè
 Mareno di Piave
 Maser
 Maserada sul Piave
 Meduna di Livenza
 Miane
 Mogliano Veneto
 Monastier di Treviso
 Monfumo
 Montebelluna
 Morgano
 Moriago della Battaglia
 Motta di Livenza
 Nervesa della Battaglia
 Oderzo
 Ormelle
 Orsago
 Paderno del Grappa
 Paese
 Pederobba
 Pieve di Soligo
 Ponte di Piave
 Ponzano Veneto
 Portobuffolé
 Possagno
 Povegliano
 Preganziol
 Quinto di Treviso
 Refrontolo
 Resana
 Revine Lago
 Riese Pio X
 Roncade
 Salgareda
 San Biagio di Callalta
 San Fior
San Fior
 San Pietro di Feletto
 San Polo di Piave
 San Vendemiano
 San Zenone degli Ezzelini
 Santa Lucia di Piave
 Sarmede
 Segusino
 Sernaglia della Battaglia
 Silea
 Spresiano
 Susegana
 Tarzo
 Trevignano
 Treviso
 Valdobbiadene
 Vazzola
 Vedelago
 Vidor
 Villorba
 Vittorio Veneto
 Volpago del Montello
 Zenson di Piave
 Zero Branco
Largest municipalities
The following shows the 12 comuni with the population, and the area and altitude.

Gallery

References

Other websites

 Provincia di Treviso Official site 
 Tourism in Treviso website
Venice () was a province in the region of Veneto in Italy.

Venice
The American bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana or Lithobates catesbeianus) is a semi-aquatic frog. It belongs to the family Ranidae, or 'true frogs'. Bullfrogs are native to most of North America, Canada and Mexico. The ones that live in northern America hibernate during winter. However, bullfrogs in southern US states are active all the time. Bullfrogs have been seen in South America, Asia, Western Europe and the Caribbean. These bullfrogs were brought on ships. Many people, including pet owners, have placed bullfrogs outside of their native area. They have done this: on purpose because they no longer want them, to control the pest population, or by accident by catching them in fishing nets.
A female bullfrog can lay up to 20,000 eggs. Bullfrog tadpoles take up to a year to become a young frog. Males will stay behind and take care of the tadpoles. Males are territorial and will attack any animal, including their own kind, if they come near them. Bullfrogs can reduce the mosquito population. They do this by eating most of the mosquito's larvae. Bullfrogs do not move during the day, except if there is food nearby or when threatened.

Bullfrog legs are eaten by humans. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) rates the bullfrog as "Least Concern", which means that they are not an endangered species. However, they are dying because of habitat loss, water pollution, pesticides, and over harvesting.

Taxonomy 
The American bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) is its common name. It is one of 90 species of the genus Rana.
In Quebec, Canada and Louisiana US the bullfrog is called ouaouaron (wa'wa'ron); a word originating in the Wendat language and borrowed in the 17th century. The American bullfrog is also known as Lithobates catesbeianus. The parent family for Rana is Ranidae, or "true frogs". 

The Ranidae is split into nine sub families. Ceratobatrachinae (southeast Asia), Conrauinae (Africa), Dicroglossinae, Micrixalinae (India), Nyctibatrachinae (India), Petropedetinae (Africa), Ptychadeninae (Africa), Raninae (Australia, South America), and Ranixalinae (India). The American bullfrog's genus name comes from the Latin word rana, which means frog.
Bullfrogs were first described in 1802 by George Shaw. Shaw described the bullfrog in his book General Zoology or Systematic Natural History. A bullfrogs call is a slow deep g-r-r-u-u-u-u-m. Young bullfrogs will make a high pitch chirp before going in the water.  Bullfrogs have toxic skin, though it is not harmful to humans. The toxins make it less likely that other animals will eat them.

Adults 
The American bullfrog is the largest of the "true frogs" family. Bullfrogs can reach a length of . Females are larger than males. Bullfrogs can weigh up to . Bullfrogs are either brown or green. They also have darker spots on their back. Bullfrogs have webbed feet for swimming. They can leap up to . Male bullfrogs can be heard roaring when mating with a female. Males also have bigger tympanic membranes which cover their ears. Bullfrogs have brown or gold eyes. They also have broad flat heads and bodies. The mouth of a bullfrog are small and have tiny teeth inside.
Bullfrogs can live up to 4–5 years. There was one captive bullfrog that had lived up to 18years. Males are territorial and will attack any animal, including their own kind, if they come near them. They will jump, wrestle, and even chase any animal away. Bullfrogs are good at hearing. A group of bullfrogs are called an "army".

Bullfrogs are known to have many viruses and bacteria. However, only a few of them are important to nature. Bullfrogs were blamed for an intraerythrocytic virus outbreak in Canada in 1997. They were also blamed for a chytrid fungus that spread into Arizona in 2000. The chytrid fungus is believed to be one of the major causes of the decline in amphibian populations. Many bullfrogs can have parasites including helminths, trematodes, nematodes, protozoans and leeches.
Feeding 
In a 1913 study, it was found that bullfrogs will eat any animal it can overpower and stuff down its throat. Bullfrog stomachs have been found to have rodents, baby muskrats, small turtles, snakes, frogs (including bullfrogs), birds, and a bat, as well as the many invertebrates, such as insects. These studies show the bullfrog's diet is unique among North American Rana. Bullfrogs are also known to eat ducklings and tadpoles. Bullfrogs have teeth on the top of their mouths. Their tongues are capable of flipping their food into their mouths. Bullfrogs will eat at night.
In captivity, pet bullfrogs are given crickets, worms, small fish, rodents, and fruit flies. In the wild they like to eat crayfish, water beetles, snails, and dragon fly larvae. Bullfrogs may eat each other, this makes up of 80% of their diet. In a 1935 study, it was found that smaller bullfrogs eat mostly insects. However, larger bullfrogs eat crayfish, frogs and mice. In an Arizona study in 1988, it was found that bullfrogs there eat invertebrates such as snails and insects. While two other studies, one in 1977 (in New Mexico) and the other in 1993 (in New York), found that bullfrogs in New York eat mostly Ranidae frogs. The study from New Mexico, found that bullfrogs there eat mostly toads. Adults can help decrease the mosquito population by eating most of their larvae.
Bullfrogs will become sexually active after 2–4 years of becoming a frog. Females are attracted to males who have territories that provide the most food. Bullfrogs  mate between early spring to early summer. A male bullfrog grabs the female and begins roaring. A female bullfrog makes an aggressive call. The female lays her eggs in shallow waters. The male releases sperm on the eggs as fertilizer. A female can lay up to 20,000 eggs. The eggs of the bullfrogs are laid on the surface of water. They are then exposed to harmful UV-B radiation. Because of this, many bullfrogs may have abnormal (not normal) development. The eggs hatches after four days. They are called "tadpoles" and live in the water eating algae. Bullfrog tadpoles are larger in length than other tadpoles by other frogs. They become frogs in more than a year. In captivity, they can become frogs in twelve weeks. If a bullfrog tadpole remains as a tadpole for more than a year, it will become larger when it is an adult
. Because of this, they will have a better chance at survival in the wild.
There are many predators such as larger fish, crustaceans, and some birds that eat some of the eggs and tadpoles. Because bullfrog tadpoles are not very active, they are less likely to be eaten by any animal. However, if spotted, bullfrog tadpoles will be eaten by salamanders and invertebrates. When they become adult frogs, the predators become food for the bullfrogs. Males will stay with their tadpoles and protect them. Males will even take their tadpoles, by digging through mud, to other large bodies of water. They do this if the water is drying up. The tadpoles of a bullfrog are not a favorite food source for fish. This is because of their awful taste. This gives bullfrog tadpoles a better chance in surviving than tadpoles of other frogs. Bullfrog tadpoles spend most of their time not swimming. This makes them less noticeable. Tadpoles of a bullfrog have also raised concerns. Their favorite food is algae and while growing up, they consume large amounts of it
. They can also live anywhere where a human house is, if there is water nearby.
Development of tadpoles 

Once the tadpoles become "froglets", they begin hopping out of the water and into land. They loose their tails once they are at this stage. The froglets will stop using their gills and use them as lungs. They begin eating small insects. The froglets will remain near the water where they were laid. If there is a drought, they will search for a new habitat. At the time, froglets become easy prey to larger frogs, reptiles, raccoons, foxes, and birds. Froglets become adult bullfrogs after four months they began hopping on land.
Behavior 
Bullfrogs in southern US states are active all the time. Bullfrogs in northern US states hibernate during the winter time. Mating season begins in spring and ends in early summer. In northern US states, bullfrogs will begin coming out of hibernation. They will begin eating and swimming. During the summer, bullfrogs will spend most of their time in the water. They will feed on mosquito larvae. During the fall, northern US states bullfrogs will begin hibernating. Southern US states bullfrogs will become semi-aquatic. During the winter time, they will continue to be semi-aquatic.

If the weather outside is cold, they will hibernate for a few days. Bullfrogs are active at night. They can be seen hopping around gardens and streets. During the day, they will be near the edge of the water. During the daytime, they become motionless (not moving). They will begin moving if food is nearby, or if they feel threatened.
Conservation status 
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) rates the bullfrog as "Least Concern". This is because they are found almost in every continent. "Least Concern" means that the bullfrog is not an endangered species. There are more bullfrogs in southern United States than there is in the north. However, bullfrogs populations are decreasing because of habitat loss, water pollution, pesticide and over harvesting. In 2012, Mark W. Stone chairman of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, is currently trying to ban the import, sale, and the keeping of bullfrogs in Santa Cruz, California. If the board signs the bill, Santa Cruz will be the first county in the United States to ban bullfrogs. Stone is trying ban bullfrogs because of the bullfrogs appetite. They have been blamed for making many animals become an endangered species in that state.
Bullfrogs compete with other frogs for food, and can even kill their own kind if food is no where to be found. Bullfrogs are considered one of the worst alien invasive species (AIS). The AIS are animals who are able to decrease other species and even make them extinct worldwide. Bullfrogs are responsible for the decline of garter snakes in Mexico. In a laboratory experiment by Alford in 1989, bullfrogs decreased the population of Cope's gray treefrog. The study introduced the bullfrogs with Cope's gray treefrog in a controlled environment.

Human use
Human use 

Bullfrogs are a source of food for Southern United States and the Midwestern United States. People hunt bullfrogs at night near rivers. The bullfrogs' legs are cooked, while their backs are fried. In China, bullfrogs are sold alive for eating. They are then killed and cooked with vegetables. In the state of California, people must have a license to catch bullfrogs for food. In schools, bullfrogs are dissected in biology classes. Usually, this is done in middle school. The dissecting is a method for teaching students the anatomy of a bullfrog. Bullfrogs are also kept as pets. They are kept in aquariums or a terrarium. A terrarium is a tank that is decorated with plants and soil on one side. On the other side, there is water. A bullfrog would need one place for land and another for water.

References

Books

Further reading

Other websites 

 Herps of Texas: Rana catesbeiana
 Bullfrog at allaboutfrogs.com
 Bullfrog recordings 

Frogs of North America
Symbols of Oklahoma
Irritator (say: irr-irr-it-at-or) is a genus of spinosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Brazil, in the Lower Cretaceous. Its fossils are known from the Romualdo Formation. 

Irritator had straight and cone-shaped teeth. Its jaws were low, long and slender, with the nostrils placed well back from the front of the snout (all consistent with fish-eating). Irritator also had a narrow crest made of nasal bones on top of the skull. Irritator's name comes from the English word "Irritation". It was given its name due to the feelings of the scientists who described it when they found that fossil dealers had added plaster to the front of the snout.

References 

Spinosauridae
Cretaceous dinosaurs