38-579: (Redirected from Yewtree ) Yew Tree may refer to: Yew , any of various coniferous plants Yew Tree, West Bromwich , West Midlands, England Yew Tree Tarn , a lake in the Lake District, England Yew Tree (ward) , an electoral division in Liverpool Yew Tree Colliery , a coalfield in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester Operation Yewtree ,
76-598: A British police investigation into sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile and others See also [ edit ] Yew Tee Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Yew Tree . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yew_Tree&oldid=1169600414 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
114-473: A definition similar to "all theropods closer to birds than to Deinonychus ", with Troodon being sometimes added as a second external specifier in case it is closer to birds than to Deinonychus . Avialae is also occasionally defined as an apomorphy-based clade (that is, one based on physical characteristics). Jacques Gauthier , who named Avialae in 1986, re-defined it in 2001 as all dinosaurs that possessed feathered wings used in flapping flight , and
152-442: A group called Paraves . Some basal members of Deinonychosauria, such as Microraptor , have features which may have enabled them to glide or fly. The most basal deinonychosaurs were very small. This evidence raises the possibility that the ancestor of all paravians may have been arboreal , have been able to glide, or both. Unlike Archaeopteryx and the non-avialan feathered dinosaurs, who primarily ate meat, studies suggest that
190-438: A single seed 4–7 mm ( 5 ⁄ 32 – 9 ⁄ 32 in) long partly surrounded by a modified scale which develops into a soft, bright red berry -like structure called an aril , 8–15 mm ( 5 ⁄ 16 – 19 ⁄ 32 in) long and wide and open at the end. The arils are mature 6–9 months after pollination, and with the seed contained are eaten by thrushes , waxwings and other birds , which disperse
228-406: A sister group, the order Crocodilia , contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria . During the late 1990s, Aves was most commonly defined phylogenetically as all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of modern birds and Archaeopteryx lithographica . However, an earlier definition proposed by Jacques Gauthier gained wide currency in the 21st century, and
266-717: A time, sometimes for years, and rarely for life. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous (one male with many females) or, rarely, polyandrous (one female with many males). Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction . They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents. Most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Many species of birds are economically important as food for human consumption and raw material in manufacturing, with domesticated and undomesticated birds being important sources of eggs, meat, and feathers. Songbirds , parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano (bird excrement)
304-533: Is also relatively distinct with foliage intermediate between Sumatran yew and the other species. The Florida yew, Mexican yew and Pacific yew are all rare species listed as threatened or endangered. Yews typically occur in the understory or canopy of moist temperate or tropical mountain forests. Elevation varies by latitude from 3,000 m (9,800 ft) in tropical forests to near sea level in its northernmost populations. Yews are common in landscape architecture, giving rise to widespread naturalized populations in
342-533: Is called ornithology . Birds are feathered theropod dinosaurs and constitute the only known living dinosaurs . Likewise, birds are considered reptiles in the modern cladistic sense of the term, and their closest living relatives are the crocodilians . Birds are descendants of the primitive avialans (whose members include Archaeopteryx ) which first appeared during the Late Jurassic . According to recent estimates, modern birds ( Neornithes ) evolved in
380-563: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Taxus See text Taxus is a genus of coniferous trees or shrubs known as yews in the family Taxaceae . Yews occur around the globe in temperate zones of the northern hemisphere, northernmost in Norway and southernmost in the South Celebes . Some populations exist in tropical highlands. The oldest known fossil species are from
418-429: Is harvested for use as a fertiliser. Birds figure throughout human culture. About 120 to 130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, and hundreds more before then. Human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry. The first classification of birds
SECTION 10
#1733094516214456-503: Is not considered a direct ancestor of birds, though it is possibly closely related to the true ancestor. Over 40% of key traits found in modern birds evolved during the 60 million year transition from the earliest bird-line archosaurs to the first maniraptoromorphs , i.e. the first dinosaurs closer to living birds than to Tyrannosaurus rex . The loss of osteoderms otherwise common in archosaurs and acquisition of primitive feathers might have occurred early during this phase. After
494-516: Is synonymous to Avifilopluma. † Scansoriopterygidae † Eosinopteryx † Jinfengopteryx † Aurornis † Dromaeosauridae † Troodontidae Avialae Based on fossil and biological evidence, most scientists accept that birds are a specialised subgroup of theropod dinosaurs and, more specifically, members of Maniraptora , a group of theropods which includes dromaeosaurids and oviraptorosaurs , among others. As scientists have discovered more theropods closely related to birds,
532-530: Is used by many scientists including adherents to the PhyloCode . Gauthier defined Aves to include only the crown group of the set of modern birds. This was done by excluding most groups known only from fossils , and assigning them, instead, to the broader group Avialae, on the principle that a clade based on extant species should be limited to those extant species and their closest extinct relatives. Gauthier and de Queiroz identified four different definitions for
570-715: The Late Cretaceous and diversified dramatically around the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago, which killed off the pterosaurs and all non- ornithuran dinosaurs. Many social species preserve knowledge across generations ( culture ). Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and songs , and participating in such behaviour as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking , and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of bird species are socially (but not necessarily sexually) monogamous , usually for one breeding season at
608-660: The Tiaojishan Formation of China, which has been dated to the late Jurassic period ( Oxfordian stage), about 160 million years ago. The avialan species from this time period include Anchiornis huxleyi , Xiaotingia zhengi , and Aurornis xui . The well-known probable early avialan, Archaeopteryx , dates from slightly later Jurassic rocks (about 155 million years old) from Germany . Many of these early avialans shared unusual anatomical features that may be ancestral to modern birds but were later lost during bird evolution. These features include enlarged claws on
646-863: The Western Himalaya and Taxus sumatrana in Malesia are now generally agreed upon, but overlapping ranges in the Eastern Himalaya , China , and subtropical southeast Asia have led to greater confusion, with the species Taxus chinensis , Taxus mairei , and Taxus wallichiana being elucidated only in the 21st century with the aid of molecular phylogenetics . The most distinct is the Sumatran yew ( T. sumatrana , native to Sumatra and Celebes north to southernmost China ), distinguished by its sparse, sickle-shaped yellow-green leaves. The Mexican yew ( Taxus globosa , native to eastern Mexico south to Honduras )
684-476: The laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart , and a strong yet lightweight skeleton . Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5.5 cm (2.2 in) bee hummingbird to the 2.8 m (9 ft 2 in) common ostrich . There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 orders . More than half are passerine or "perching" birds. Birds have wings whose development varies according to species;
722-467: The Early Cretaceous. They are relatively slow-growing and can be very long-lived, and reach heights of 2.5–20 m (8.2–65.6 ft), with trunk girth averaging 5 m (16 ft). They have reddish bark , lanceolate, flat, dark-green leaves 10–40 mm ( 1 ⁄ 2 – 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) long and 2–3 mm ( 3 ⁄ 32 – 1 ⁄ 8 in) broad, arranged spirally on
760-793: The Scythians used its wood to make their bows. All of the yews are very closely related to each other, and some botanists treat them all as subspecies or varieties of just one widespread species; under this treatment, the species name used is Taxus baccata , the first yew described scientifically. Taxus species appear similar. Attempts at taxonomy vary from describing all yews as subspecies of T. baccata , as did RKF Pilger in 1903, to splitting species by even very small morphological differences, as did R. W. Spjut in 2007 with 25 species and over 50 varieties. Some species have traditionally been recognized by geographic distribution, but Asian species have been more difficult to classify. Taxus contorta in
798-557: The United States. There, both T. baccata and Taxus cuspidata are common ornamental shrubs. T. baccata appears throughout Europe and into western Asia. T. cuspidata occurs over much of East Asia, in China, Japan, Korea, and Sakhalin . Taxus brevifolia ranges in the United States from California to Montana and Alaska, while Taxus canadensis appears in the northeastern United States and southeast Canada. Plants of
SECTION 20
#1733094516214836-1080: The World Online recognizes 12 confirmed species: Fossil (extinct) species Commonly reported hybrids Below are cladograms showing the evolutionary relationships between yew species and their global distribution. Austrotaxus Pseudotaxus T. brevifolia T. globosa T. floridana T. canadensis T. cuspidata T. contorta T. baccata T. wallichiana T. Huangshan type T. chinensis T. phytonii T. calcicola T. mairei T. brevifolia T. floridana T. globosa T. wallichiana T. chinensis T. florinii T. calcicola T. phytonii T. sumatrana T. canadensis T. cuspidata T. baccata T. mairei T. contorta T. fuana All species of yew contain highly poisonous taxine alkaloids , with some variation in
874-428: The appearance of Maniraptoromorpha, the next 40 million years marked a continuous reduction of body size and the accumulation of neotenic (juvenile-like) characteristics. Hypercarnivory became increasingly less common while braincases enlarged and forelimbs became longer. The integument evolved into complex, pennaceous feathers . The oldest known paravian (and probably the earliest avialan) fossils come from
912-509: The birds that descended from them. Despite being currently one of the most widely used, the crown-group definition of Aves has been criticised by some researchers. Lee and Spencer (1997) argued that, contrary to what Gauthier defended, this definition would not increase the stability of the clade and the exact content of Aves will always be uncertain because any defined clade (either crown or not) will have few synapomorphies distinguishing it from its closest relatives. Their alternative definition
950-665: The earliest members of Aves, is removed from this group, becoming a non-avian dinosaur instead. These proposals have been adopted by many researchers in the field of palaeontology and bird evolution , though the exact definitions applied have been inconsistent. Avialae, initially proposed to replace the traditional fossil content of Aves, is often used synonymously with the vernacular term "bird" by these researchers. † Coelurus † Ornitholestes † Ornithomimosauria † Alvarezsauridae † Oviraptorosauria Paraves Most researchers define Avialae as branch-based clade, though definitions vary. Many authors have used
988-491: The exact formula of the alkaloid between the species. All parts of the tree except the arils contain the alkaloid. The arils are edible and sweet, but the seed is dangerously poisonous ; unlike birds, the human stomach can break down the seed coat and release the toxins into the body. This can have fatal results if yew 'berries' are eaten without removing the seeds first. Grazing animals, particularly cattle and horses , are also sometimes found dead near yew trees after eating
1026-406: The exception of the yew berries (which however contain a toxic seed); additionally, male and dioecious yews in this genus release cytotoxic pollen, which can cause headaches, lethargy, aching joints, itching, and skin rashes; it is also a trigger for asthma. These pollen granules are extremely small, and can easily pass through window screens. Male yews bloom and release abundant amounts of pollen in
1064-451: The first avialans were omnivores . The Late Jurassic Archaeopteryx is well known as one of the first transitional fossils to be found, and it provided support for the theory of evolution in the late 19th century. Archaeopteryx was the first fossil to display both clearly traditional reptilian characteristics—teeth, clawed fingers, and a long, lizard-like tail—as well as wings with flight feathers similar to those of modern birds. It
1102-518: The hard seeds undamaged in their droppings; maturation of the arils is spread over 2–3 months, increasing the chances of successful seed dispersal. Taxus is the Latin word for this tree and its wood that is used to make javelins . The Latin word is probably borrowed, via Greek τόξον tóxon , from taxša , the Scythian word used for "yew" and "bow" (cognate of Persian تخش Taxš meaning bow) because
1140-413: The leaves, though deer are able to break down the poisons and will eat yew foliage freely. In the wild, deer browsing of yews is often so extensive that wild yew trees are commonly restricted to cliffs and other steep slopes inaccessible to deer. The foliage is also eaten by the larvae of some Lepidopteran insects including the moth willow beauty . All parts of a yew plant are toxic to humans with
1178-523: The only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds . Wings, which are modified forelimbs , gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds , including ratites , penguins , and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds , have further evolved for swimming. The study of birds
Yew Tree - Misplaced Pages Continue
1216-402: The outermost half) can be seen in the evolution of maniraptoromorphs, and this process culminated in the appearance of the pygostyle , an ossification of fused tail vertebrae. In the late Cretaceous, about 100 million years ago, the ancestors of all modern birds evolved a more open pelvis, allowing them to lay larger eggs compared to body size. Around 95 million years ago, they evolved
1254-528: The previously clear distinction between non-birds and birds has become blurred. By the 2000s, discoveries in the Liaoning Province of northeast China, which demonstrated many small theropod feathered dinosaurs , contributed to this ambiguity. The consensus view in contemporary palaeontology is that the flying theropods, or avialans , are the closest relatives of the deinonychosaurs , which include dromaeosaurids and troodontids . Together, these form
1292-452: The same biological name "Aves", which is a problem. The authors proposed to reserve the term Aves only for the crown group consisting of the last common ancestor of all living birds and all of its descendants, which corresponds to meaning number 4 below. They assigned other names to the other groups. Lizards & snakes Turtles Crocodiles Birds Under the fourth definition Archaeopteryx , traditionally considered one of
1330-545: The second toe which may have been held clear of the ground in life, and long feathers or "hind wings" covering the hind limbs and feet, which may have been used in aerial maneuvering. Avialans diversified into a wide variety of forms during the Cretaceous period. Many groups retained primitive characteristics , such as clawed wings and teeth, though the latter were lost independently in a number of avialan groups, including modern birds (Aves). Increasingly stiff tails (especially
1368-491: The spring; completely female yews only trap pollen while producing none. Yews in this genus are primarily separate-sexed, and males are extremely allergenic, with an OPALS allergy scale rating of 10 out of 10. Completely female yews have an OPALS rating of 1, and are considered "allergy-fighting". Bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves ( Latin: [ˈaveːs] ), characterised by feathers , toothless beaked jaws,
1406-411: The stem, but with the leaf bases twisted to align the leaves in two flat rows either side of the stem. The male cones are globose, 3–6 mm ( 1 ⁄ 8 – 1 ⁄ 4 in) across, and shed their pollen in early spring. Yews are mostly dioecious , but occasional individuals can be variably monoecious , or change sex with time. The seed cones are highly modified, each cone containing
1444-461: Was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae . Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system currently in use. Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy . Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the clade Theropoda as an infraclass or a subclass, more recently a subclass. Aves and
#213786