All articles starting with P
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Pterioidea
Pterioidea (Gray, 1847) is a superfamily of epifaunal marine bivalves including pearl oysters (Pinctada) and winged oysters (Pteria), with four traditional families, a 470-million-year fossil record, and molecular evidence that all families except Pulvinitidae are non-monophyletic.
Pteriomorphia
Pteriomorphia, also called pteriomorph bivalves, is an infraclass of marine Bivalvia (named by Beurlen, 1944) holding mussels, scallops, oysters, and ark shells; five WoRMS orders, Ordovician fossil record, mostly monomyarian and byssate.
Pteris
Pteris is a genus of brake ferns comprising 200 to 349 species across all continents except Antarctica. It is scientifically significant for its arsenic-hyperaccumulating species, Pteris vittata.
Pteris vittata
Pteris vittata, Chinese brake or ladder brake fern (Pteridaceae), first discovered natural arsenic hyperaccumulator, native to the Old World tropics, used for phytoremediation of arsenic-contaminated soils and groundwater.
Pterobranchia
Pterobranchia, pterobranch hemichordates including graptolites (Graptolithina), are tiny colonial marine deuterostomes secreting collagenous tubaria; only 27 extant species (Rhabdopleura, Cephalodiscus) exist, but their fossil record anchors Ordovician biostratigraphy.
Pterocarpus
Pterocarpus (padouk, narra, red sanders) is a pantropical legume tree genus in Fabaceae, tribe Dalbergieae, with winged indehiscent pods and red resin; prized timbers include P. indicus, P. soyauxii, and endangered P. santalinus.
Pterocarpus macrocarpus
Pterocarpus macrocarpus, Burma padauk, pradoo, thnong: a deciduous Fabaceae timber tree native to Indochina, 10-30 m tall, with red termite-resistant heartwood, winged pods, and EU Annex D trade controls.
Pterocarpus santalinus
Pterocarpus santalinus (red sandalwood, red sanders) is an Endangered Fabaceae tree endemic to southern India's Eastern Ghats, CITES Appendix II since 1995, yielding claret-red heartwood and the dye santalin for furniture, medicine, and instruments.
Pterocarya
Pterocarya (wingnuts), genus of six Juglandaceae tree species native from Türkiye and Iran to East Asia; Cenozoic relict with Caucasus–East Asia disjunction, winged nutlets in pendulous catkins, and Miocene divergence from Juglans.
Pterocles
Pterocles, also called sandgrouse, is a genus of 14 desert bird species (Temminck, 1815) in family Pteroclidae, order Pterocliformes; males carry water to chicks in absorbent belly feathers, and the genus may be paraphyletic with Syrrhaptes.
Pterodactyl Ascender
The Pterodactyl Ascender was an American single-seat canard flying-wing ultralight sold in kit form from 1981, designed by Jack McCornack and powered by a Cuyuna engine.
Pterodactylus
Pterodactylus, also called pterodactyl, is a small Late Jurassic pterosaur from Solnhofen, Germany; Pterodactylus antiquus was the first pterosaur discovered (1784) and named, with a ~45 cm wingspan, and is not a dinosaur.
Pterodroma
Pterodroma (gadfly petrels), genus Bonaparte 1856 in Procellariidae; about 29-33 petrel species of Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans; cryptic Macaronesian taxa and Round Island hybridization; threatened remote-island seabirds.
Pterois volitans
Pterois volitans, the red lionfish (Linnaeus, 1758), is an Indo-Pacific venomous scorpionfish, sibling of P. miles, hybrid in origin, and the dominant invasive lionfish of the western Atlantic since 1985.
Pteromalidae
Pteromalidae (Dalman, 1820), pteromalid wasps, a formerly huge family of chalcidoid parasitoid Hymenoptera with about 3,600 species; shown polyphyletic and split into many families by the 2022 Burks et al. reclassification.
Pteromys
Pteromys, Eurasian flying squirrels, is a genus of small gliding squirrels (Sciuridae, Pteromyini) named by Georges Cuvier in 1800, with two extant species, the Siberian flying squirrel Pteromys volans and the Japanese flying squirrel Pteromys momonga.
Pteronotus
Pteronotus (mustached bats, naked-backed bats), Gray 1838, a Neotropical Mormoopidae bat genus from the southwestern US to southern Brazil and the Caribbean; revised from 6 to 16 extant species in 2016, origin about 16 Ma.
Pterophoridae
Pterophoridae, the plume moths (Pterophoroidea, Latreille 1802), are cleft-winged moths with a T-shaped resting posture; over 1,000 species worldwide, larvae feed on about 900 host plants.
Pterophyllum
Pterophyllum is a genus of three South American freshwater cichlids known as angelfishes, disc-shaped fish with tall triangular fins; P. scalare is among the most popular tropical aquarium fish.
Pteropus
Pteropus, the flying foxes, is a genus of about 59 large, non-echolocating Old World fruit bats including the world's largest bats, widespread across the Indo-Pacific, mostly island endemics, and heavily threatened, with 71% of large Old World fruit bats IUCN-listed as threatened.
Pteropus alecto
Pteropus alecto, the black flying fox (Temminck, 1837), is Australia's largest flying-fox, a fruit bat of northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi; IUCN Least Concern, Hendra and Lyssa virus carrier.
Pteropus giganteus
Pteropus giganteus, the Indian flying fox, now formally Pteropus medius Temminck 1825, is a large South Asian fruit bat (600–1600 g, 1.2–1.5 m wingspan), Nipah virus reservoir, IUCN Near Threatened since 2024.
Pteropus poliocephalus
Pteropus poliocephalus, the grey-headed flying-fox, is Australia's only endemic flying-fox, a Vulnerable large fruit bat of the southeast coast that pollinates and disperses seeds of eucalypts and rainforest trees and increasingly roosts in urban camps.
Pterosaur
Pterosaurs, informally pterodactyls, were flying reptiles related to dinosaurs, living from about 235 to 66 million years ago, flying on skin wings stretched from an elongated fourth finger, and including the largest flying animals ever.
Pterostilbene
Pterostilbene is a plant stilbenoid, specifically 3′,5′-dimethoxy-4′-hydroxystilbene, a resveratrol analog with two methoxy groups, produced by plants as a phytoalexin and found in blueberries, grapes, and mulberries.
Pterostylis
Pterostylis, greenhood orchids (Orchidaceae), an Australasian genus of about 315 accepted species with hooded trap-flowers pollinated by fungus gnats through sexual deception, native from Maluku to New Zealand.
Pterygium
Pterygium (surfer's eye) is a benign wing-shaped fibrovascular growth of conjunctiva onto the cornea, driven by UV exposure, affecting about 8% of people globally, treated by excision with conjunctival autograft.
Pterygium surgery
Pterygium surgery is an ophthalmic procedure that removes a pterygium and resurfaces the defect, usually with a conjunctival autograft, since bare excision alone recurs in up to 88% of eyes.
Pterygopalatine ganglion
Pterygopalatine ganglion, also called sphenopalatine or Meckel's ganglion, is the largest parasympathetic ganglion of the head, in the pterygopalatine fossa; facial nerve fibers synapse there to supply the lacrimal gland and nasal, palatal, and pharyngeal glands.
Pterygoplichthys pardalis
Pterygoplichthys pardalis, Amazon sailfin catfish (syn. Liposarcus pardalis), an armored suckermouth catfish of the Amazon basin; invasive worldwide via aquarium releases, 2n=52, IUCN Least Concern.