Information: - Birds (Aves), also known as avian dinosaurs, are a group of endothermic vertebrates, characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a lightweight but strong skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at approximately ten thousand, with more than half of these being passerines, sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds. - Ixobrychus is a genus of bitterns, a group of wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae. "Ixobrychus" is from Ancient Greek "ixias", a reed-like plant and "brukhomai", to bellow. - The squacco heron ("Ardeola ralloides") is a small heron, long, of which the body is , with wingspan. It is of Old World origins, breeding in southern Europe and the Greater Middle East. - Egypt (; ', , "Kimi"), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and Saudi Arabia do not share a land border with Egypt. It is the world's only contiguous Afrasian nation. - A sovereign state is, in international law, a nonphysical juridical entity that is represented by one centralised government that has sovereignty over a geographic area. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined territory, one government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood that a sovereign state is neither dependent on nor subjected to any other power or state. - Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art. - A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in size to smallest, they are: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. In geology, areas of continental crust include regions covered with water. - Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. To the east and southeast, Europe is generally considered as separated from Asia by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. Yet the non-oceanic borders of Europea concept dating back to classical antiquityare arbitrary. The primarily physiographic term "continent" as applied to Europe also incorporates cultural and political elements whose discontinuities are not always reflected by the continent's current overland boundaries. - The world is the planet Earth and all life upon it, including human civilization. In a philosophical context, the world is the whole of the physical Universe, or an ontological world. In a theological context, the "world" is the material or the profane sphere, as opposed to the celestial, spiritual, transcendent or sacred. The "end of the world" refers to scenarios of the final end of human history, often in religious contexts. - Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km (11.7 million squaremiles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20.4 % of its total land area. With 1.1 billion people as of 2013, it accounts for about 15% of the world's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos. It contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states (countries), nine territories and two "de facto" independent states with limited or no recognition. - An egret is a bird that is any of several herons, most of which are white or buff, and several of which develop fine plumes (usually milky white) during the breeding season. - The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is "Middle-Eastern" and the derived noun is "Middle-Easterner". The term has come into wider usage as a replacement of the term Near East (as opposed to Far East) beginning in the early 20th century. - The lion ("Panthera leo") is one of the big cats in the genus "Panthera" and a member of the family Felidae. The commonly used term African lion collectively denotes the several subspecies in Africa. With some males exceeding in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in sub-Saharan Africa and in India (where an endangered remnant population resides in Gir Forest National Park). In ancient historic times, their range was in most of Africa, including North Africa, and across Eurasia from Greece and southeastern Europe to India. In the late Pleistocene, about 10,000years ago, the lion was the most widespread large land mammal after humans: "Panthera leo spelaea" lived in northern and western Europe and "Panthera leo atrox" lived in the Americas from the Yukon to Peru. The lion is classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), having seen a major population decline in its African range of 3050% over two decades during the second half of the twentieth century. Lion populations are untenable outside designated reserves and national parks. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are the greatest causes of concern. Within Africa, the West African lion population is particularly endangered. - Afri (singular "Afer") was a Latin name for the inhabitants of Africa, referring in its widest sense to all the lands south of the Mediterranean (Ancient Libya). Latin-speakers at first used "afer" as an adjective, meaning "of Africa". As a substantive, it denoted a native of "Africa", i.e., an African. - Pond herons ( Ardeola ) are herons , typically 40 -- 50 cm long with 80 -- 100 cm wingspan . Most breed in the tropical Old World , but the migratory squacco heron occurs in southern Europe and the Middle East and winters in Africa . These pond herons are stocky species with a short neck , short thick bill , typically buff or brownish back , and coloured or streaked foreneck and breast . In summer , adults may have long neck feathers . Ardeola herons are transformed in flight , looking very white due to the brilliant white wings . Their breeding habitat is marshy wetlands . They nest in small colonies , often with other wading birds , usually on platforms of sticks in trees or shrubs . two to five eggs are laid . These herons feed on insects , fish and amphibians . They are often found on small ponds giving rise to the English name shared by most of the species - The zigzag heron ("Zebrilus undulatus") is a species of heron in the family Ardeidae, also including egrets and bitterns. It is in the monotypic genus Zebrilus. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical swamps. - The herons are the long-legged freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 64 recognised species, some of which are referred to as "egrets" or "bitterns" rather than herons. Members of the genera "Botaurus" and "Ixobrychus" are referred to as "bitterns", and, together with the zigzag heron or zigzag bittern in the monotypic genus "Zebrilus", form a monophyletic group within the Ardeidae. Egrets are not a biologically distinct group from the herons, and tend to be named differently because they are mainly white or have decorative plumes. Although egrets have the same build as herons, they tend to be smaller. Herons, by evolutionary adaptation, have long beaks. - The Old World consists of Africa, Europe, and Asia, regarded collectively as the part of the world known to Europeans before contact with the Americas. It is used in the context of, and contrast with, the New World (Americas). - The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's oceans with a total area of about . It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area. It separates the "Old World" from the "New World". - Bitterns are a classification of birds in the heron family of Pelican order of wading birds. Species named bitterns tend to be the shorter-necked, often more secretive members of this family. They were called "hferblte" in Old English; the word "bittern" came to English from Old French "butor", itself from Gallo-Roman "butitaurus", a compound of Latin "bti" and "taurus". Bitterns form a monophyletic subfamily in the heron family, the Botaurinae. - Asia is Earth's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres and sharing the continental landmass of Eurasia with the continent of Europe. Asia covers an area of , about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its overall large size and population, but also dense and large settlements as well as vast barely populated regions within the continent of 4.4 billion people. - Modern humans ("Homo sapiens", primarily ssp. "Homo sapiens sapiens") are the only extant members of Hominina tribe (or human tribe), a branch of the tribe Hominini belonging to the family of great apes. They are characterized by erect posture and bipedal locomotion; manual dexterity and increased tool use, compared to other animals; and a general trend toward larger, more complex brains and societies. - India, officially the Republic of India ("Bhrat Gaarjya"), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country (with over 1.2 billion people), and the most populous democracy in the world. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast; and Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia. Its capital is New Delhi; other metropolises include Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. - In geography, regions are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and the environment (environmental geography). Geographic regions and sub-regions are mostly described by their imprecisely defined, and sometimes transitory boundaries, except in human geography, where jurisdiction areas such as national borders are defined in law. - Botaurus is a genus of bitterns, a group of wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae. The genus name "Botaurus" was given by the English naturalist James Francis Stephens, and is derived from Medieval Latin "butaurus", "bittern", itself constructed from the Middle English name for the Eurasian Bittern, "Botor". Pliny gave a fanciful derivation from "Bos" (ox) and "taurus" (bull), because the bittern's call resembles the bellowing of a bull. - The Sinai Peninsula or simply Sinai ('; ', ; "") is a peninsula in Egypt, situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, serving as a land bridge between Asia and Africa. It is the only part of Egyptian territory located in Asia. Sinai has a land area of about and a population of approximately 1,400,000 people. The bulk of the peninsula is divided administratively into two of Egypt's 27 governorates (with three more straddling the Suez Canal area). - The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of major rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Rioni, Southern Bug, and Dniester. The Black Sea has an area of (not including the Sea of Azov), a maximum depth of , and a volume of . It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and by the Caucasus Mountains to the east, and features a wide shelf to the northwest. The longest east-west extent is about . - Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, and previously known as the Malagasy Republic, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Southeast Africa. The nation comprises the island of Madagascar (the fourth-largest island in the world), and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Following the prehistoric breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana, Madagascar split from the Indian peninsula around 88million years ago, allowing native plants and animals to evolve in relative isolation. Consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot; over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth. The island's diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife are threatened by the encroachment of the rapidly growing human population and other environmental threats. After reading the paragraphs above, we are interested in knowing the entity with which 'pond heron' exhibits the relationship of 'parent taxon'. Find the answer from the choices below. Choices: - afer - ardeidae - ardeola - area - areas - bird - bittern - botaurus - bulgaria - felidae - gaza - hominina - homo - human - ixobrychus - lion - ostrich - panthera - tiger - zebrilus
ardeidae