Laurasiatheria is a large group of placental mammals. The name comes from the area where advanced mammals evolved. This was on the northern supercontinent of Laurasia, roughly corresponding to Eurasia today plus North America. When Pangaea broke up, it split first into Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south.
Members of the group include shrews, hedgehogs, pangolins, bats, whales, most hoofed mammals, and carnivorans, and others.
The Laurasiatheria is defined by DNA sequence analysis. The group does not share any obvious anatomical features. It includes these living orders:
There are various ideas as to how these groups are related to each other, and no tree of descent is agreed by experts so far.
Mysticeti
The Mysticeti are one of the two suborders of the Cetacea. They are often called baleen whales, or 'whalebone whales' or 'great whales'.
Baleen whales have baleen plates made of keratin.
The difference is connected with feeding. Baleen whales strain plankton out of the water, whereas the Odontoceti (toothed whales) eat larger prey.
The suborder contains four families and fourteen species.
Baleen whales do not have teeth, except as embryos. Fossil adult baleen whales did have teeth, but modern adults have only baleen. The embryo teeth are replaced by baleen, which look like a curtain of long plates hanging down from the top of the whale's mouth. Those plates might be 12 feet long, and a foot or more wide. Looking at them from the outside, they look like straight knives hanging down, but from the inside, they are like a big toothbrush or comb. Baleen is made of keratin, a tissue also found in mammalian hair and nails.
A baleen whale uses its baleen to eat. In order to feed, a baleen whale opens its mouth widely and scoops in dense shoals of plankton and other small prey (such as krill, copepods, small fish and sometimes birds that happen to be near the shoals), together with a large volume of water.
The whale then partly shuts its mouth and presses its tongue against its upper jaw, forcing the water to pass out sideways through the baleen, thus sieving out the prey which it then swallows.
Baleen whales are generally larger than toothed whales, and females are larger than males. The group includes the largest living animal species, the blue whale.
Although they are very heavy, baleen whales are able to jump completely out of the water. Humpback whales are known for their jumping skills, but other baleen whales also jump out from the water with their body or beat it loudly with their fins. Nobody knows for sure why the whales do this. It may be a type of communication.
The oldest true fossils of baleen are only 15 million years old, but baleen rarely fossilizes, and scientists believe it originated considerably earlier than that. Genetic evidence from DNA sequence analysis supports this idea.
Baleen-related skull modifications have been found in fossils from considerably earlier. Baleen is believed to have evolved around thirty million years ago, possibly from a hard, gummy upper jaw, like the one a has. In fact, it resembles baleen closely at the microscopic level. Many early baleen whales also had teeth, but these were probably used only peripherally, or perhaps not at all (again like Dall's porpoise, which catches squid and fish by gripping them against its hard upper jaw).
From the 11th to the late 20th centuries, baleen whales were hunted for their oil and baleen. Their oil can be made into margarine and cooking oils. Baleen was used to stiffen corsets, as parasol ribs, and to crease paper.
Erinaceidae
Erinaceidae is a family in the mammalian order Eulipotyphla. It contains the well-known hedgehogs of Eurasia and Africa and the moonrats of South-east Asia. This family was once in the order Insectivora, but that order is not used anymore.
Erinaceids are generally shrew-like in form, with long snouts and short tails, but they are much larger than shrews. All but one species have five toes in each foot (in some cases with strong claws for digging) and they have large eyes and ears. Hedgehogs have hair modified into sharp spines to form a protective covering over the upper body and flanks, while gymnures have only normal hair. Most species have anal scent glands, but these are far better developed in gymnures, which can have a powerful odor.
Erinaceids are omnivorous, with the major part of their diet consisting of insects, earthworms, and other small invertebrates. They also eat seeds and fruit, and occasionally bird's eggs, along with any carrion they come across. Their teeth are sharp and suited for impaling invertebrate prey. The dental formula for erinaceids is: upper=2-3.1.4.3; lower=3.1.2-4.3.
Hedgehogs are nocturnal, but gymnures are less so. Many species live in simple burrows, while others build temporary nests on the surface from leaves and grass, or shelter in hollow logs or similar hiding places. Erinaceids are solitary animals outside the breeding season, and the father plays no role in raising the young.
Female erinaceids give birth after a gestation period of around six to seven weeks. The young are born blind and hairless, although hedgehogs begin to sprout their spines within 36 hours of birth.
There are 10 genera and 24 species of erinaceid.
Macropus
Macropus is a marsupial genus that belongs to the family Macropodidae. It has 14 species. The genus includes all land kangaroos, wallaroos and several species of wallaby.
Soricomorpha
The Soricomorpha ("shrew-form") was a proposed biological group in the class of mammals. It includes all the shrews, solenodons and moles. It is divided into 4 families, one extinct. The other three families are the shrews, solenodons and moles. This followed the discovery, from sequence analysis, that the old order Insectivora was polyphyletic. That meant it was not a single clade.
The proposal was discarded when it was discovered that a larger grouping was monophyletic, and formed an natural clade of insectivores. That is the new order Eulipotyphla.
Peter and the Wolf
Peter and the Wolf is a composition by Sergei Prokofiev. It was written in 1936 after his return to Russia, then part of the Soviet Union. It is a children's story. Prokofiev got the idea from Natalya Sats, who led the Moscow State Musical Theater for Children. The idea was to introduce children to the different musical instruments in the orchestra. For this reason, each character in the story has a particular instrument and a musical theme:
(The hunters' theme is actually introduced by the woodwinds)
In addition, there is a narrator telling the story.
In 1946, Walt Disney produced an animated version of Peter and the Wolf. There are some differences to the original work, for example the animals are given names. It was released on video tape in the 1990s.
Israel national football team
The Israel National Football Team is the national football team of Israel and is controlled by the Israel Football Association.
They Play in Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem, Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa, and in Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv. Israel had one World Cup appearance in 1970.
Top 12 Israeli players with most national apperances.
Bold players are active players.
Metroid
"Metroid" is the first game in the "Metroid" series and stars the character Samus Aran. She later appears in all of the later games.