Horny Toad Lizard Facts (Phrynosoma)

The horny toad is actually a lizard (a reptile) and not a toad (an amphibian). The genus name Phrynosoma means toad bodied and refers to the animals flattened, round body. There are 22 species of horned lizard and several subspecies. Fast Facts: Horny Toad Lizard Scientific Name: PhrynosomaCommon Names: Horny toad, horned lizard, short-horned lizard, horntoadBasic Animal Group: ReptileSize: 2.5-8.0 inchesLifespan: 5-8 yearsDiet: CarnivoreHabitat: Deserts and semi-arid parts of North AmericaPopulation: Decreasing to stableConservation Status: Least Concern to Near Threatened Description The horny toad has a squat, flattened body and a blunt nose like a toad, but its life cycle and physiology are that of a lizard. Each species is distinguished by the number, size, and arrangement of the crown of horns on its head. The lizard has spines on its back and tail that are modified reptile scales, while the horns on its head are true bony horns. Horny toads come in shades of red, brown, yellow, and gray and can change their color to a certain extent to camouflage themselves against their surroundings. Most horny toads are less than 5 inches long, but some species reach 8 inches in length. Habitat and Distribution Horny toads live in arid to semi-arid regions of North America, from southwestern Canada through Mexico. In the United States, they occur from Arkansas west to California. They live in deserts, mountains, forests, and grasslands. Diet The lizards are insectivores that prey primarily on ants. They also eat other slow-moving ground-dwelling insects (sow bugs, caterpillars, beetles, grasshoppers) and arachnids (ticks and spiders). The toad either slowly forages or else waits for prey and then catches it with its sticky, long tongue. Horny toads use their sticky tongues to catch prey. Â  ebettini / Getty Images Behavior Horny toads feed early in the day. When ground temperature becomes too hot, they seek shade or dig themselves into the ground to rest (aestivation). In the winter and when temperatures drop in the evening, the lizards brumate by digging into the ground and entering a period of torpor. They may cover themselves completely or leave only their nostrils and eyes exposed. Horny toads have interesting and distinctive methods of self-defense. In addition to camouflage, they use their spines to make their shadows blurry and to deter predators. When threatened, they puff up their bodies so their large size and spines make them harder to swallow. At least eight species can squirt a directed stream of blood from the corners of their eyes up to 5 feet. The blood contains compounds, presumably from the ants in the lizards diet, that are distasteful to canines and felines. Reproduction and Offspring Mating occurs in late spring. Some species bury eggs in the sand, which incubate for several weeks before hatching. In other species, eggs are retained in the females body and the young hatch shortly before, during, or after egg-laying. The number of eggs varies by species. Between 10 and 30 eggs may be laid, with an average clutch size of 15. The eggs are about a half inch in diameter, white, and flexible. Hatchlings are 7/8 to 1-1/8 inches long. They have horns like their parents, but their spines develop later. The hatchlings receive no parental care. Horny toads reach sexual maturity when they are two years old and live between 5 and 8 years. Juvenile horny toads resemble their parents, but are smaller in size. Â  Design Pics / Getty Images Conservation Status Most horny toad species are classified as least concern by the IUCN. Phrynosoma mcallii has a conservation status of near threatened. There is insufficient data to evaluate Phrynosoma ditmarsi or the Sonoran horned lizard, Phrynosoma goodei. Some species populations are stable, but many are decreasing. Threats Humans pose the greatest threat to horny toad survival. The lizards are collected for the pet trade. In areas near human habitation, pest control threatens the lizards food supply. Horny toads are also affected by fire ant invasions, as they are selective about the ant species they eat. Other threats include habitat loss and degradation, disease, and pollution. Sources Degenhardt, W.G., Painter, C.W.; Price, A.H. Amphibians and Reptiles of New Mexico. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1996.Hammerson, G.A. Phrynosoma hernandesi. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2007: e.T64076A12741970. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2007.RLTS.T64076A12741970.enHammerson, G.A., Frost, D.R.; Gadsden, H. Phrynosoma mcallii. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2007: e.T64077A12733969. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2007.RLTS.T64077A12733969.enMiddendorf III, G.A.; Sherbrooke, W.C.; Braun, E.J. Comparison of Blood Squirted from the Circumorbital Sinus and Systemic Blood in a Horned Lizard, Phrynosoma cornutum. The Southwestern Naturalist. 46 (3): 384–387, 2001. doi:10.2307/3672440Stebbins, R.C. A Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians (3rd ed.). Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 2003.

The Making of an Effective Work Team Essay Example

Essays on The Making of an Effective Work Team Essay The paper â€Å"The Making of an Effective Work Team" is a wonderful example of the essay on human resources. A team is a group of people collaborating to reach a shared goal for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. The concept of a work team revolves around the act of people grouping as a team, like in sports, where the aim is uniform. Formulating a work team involves bringing together different personalities to form a unit workforce where the diversity in each individual’s personality, temperament, ego, and character should be harnessed to bring out the best in the team instead of it being a divisive factor. The team cannot function without a central point of authority hence the need to have a team leader or a team manager. The team manager is the one charged with the responsibility of searching and enlisting members to a team.Forming a teamThe process of forming a team undergoes various stages. In team management courses, the stages are listed as forming, storm ing, norming and performing. What the team goes through in the first stage is that the members try to temporarily give up their individuality so as not to be accused of hindering the smooth running of the team's activities. Still, they may do so to avoid confrontations and disagreements. (Lois, 2001) It is at this stage where one is bound to withhold his/her opinion on a certain issue just to avoid running against the popular flow of thought. In the second stage, members can no longer contain their differences after enduring one another in the first stage. Unless utmost care is taken, a team will disintegrate at this stage. The norming stage is reached if only the members are able to successfully solve their differences that arose in the second stage. In order to forge forward, members need to appreciate their differences but are driven forward by hunger to excel and accomplish their common goal. The fourth and final stage is where the fruits of the team’s labor are visible. For a team manager to come up with the most effective team that is bound to last till the accomplishment of the task, there are some issues that he is supposed to put into consideration concerning the members that he is to recruit.MembershipThe team leader is solely responsible for bringing together members of his team. In his search for members he should not look for well-balanced individuals, but rather individuals who balance well with each other. The members should also be committed to the realization of the common goal of the team no matter how long it takes. As such the manager should bear in mind the difference between a group and a team. A team is a group yes, of people with a high level of interdependence directed towards realizing a common goal where else a group is the number of people with a unifying factor. The team manager himself should definitely possess the leadership qualities that are adept with leaders. Basically he is the one responsible for the overall team per formance. The team manager thus decides on the number of members in his team as determined by the amount of work the team intends to carry out. This ensures there are enough manpower and no duplication of roles. In order to be sure of expertise and cross-functionality of the team, the team manager should ensure that the team members are from different sections of the organization, for example, a research on the performance of a certain brand in a market should draw membership from marketing, public relations, and branding personnel so as to complement one another's knowledge. (Lois, 2001)

Aligning Incentives in Medicaid

Question: What challenges in relation to reducing healthcare costs and improving healthcare quality and health outcomes is your state and community facing and how can the federal government help address or mitigate those challenges? Answer: Introduction This report is based on the analysis of the provided case study regarding the various ways used by the states of Colorado, Minnesota and Vermont to reform care delivery and payment systems to improve the quality of the various healthcare services along with the expenses associated with the various activities involved in the healthcare services. This paper focuses on the similar attempts of the state of New York to improve the various aspects related to the healthcare services provided to the citizens of the state. The paper also focuses on the various systems and techniques used in the state to improve the quality of the various healthcare services provided by the various healthcare organisations located across the entire state (Orszag, 2010). Payment and delivery system The payment and delivery system implemented in the state of Colorado named, Accountable Care Collaborative which allows a number of regional care collaborative organisations to have an official contract of collaboration and support for the network of primary medical care providers. This payment and delivery system will also be able to provide positive result for the healthcare industry in New York. This payment and delivery system also allows the integration of the various hospitals in the state along with the healthcare service providers, social workers and specialists. The collaborative partnerships or the coalitions of this payment and delivery system includes the various health homes, home care agencies, behavioural health providers, Nursing facilities and hospitals along with various other stakeholders (Porter, 2009). The delivery and payment system in New York can be funded by a number of funds present in the state such as the Safety Net Performance Provider System Transformati on Fund which could be kept open for all the eligible healthcare service providers and the Public Hospital Transformation Fund which could be kept open to the major public hospital system applicants. The payment and delivery system for the state of New York includes the association of a number of stakeholders along with the Department Of Health. Application to New York The case study describes a number of reforms which are being done in the healthcare industry of the three states of Colorado, Vermont and Minnesota. These reforms can be applied to the state of New York as well due to a number of similarities in the processes of the healthcare industry of the states. The current situation of the healthcare industry in the state of New York requires the collaboration of the various healthcare service providers for the improved quality and standards of the various operations and processes included in the business model of the organisations. The reforms for the three states focus on the financial support for the processes involved in the healthcare industries which is also required according to the current situation of the healthcare industry in the state of New York. The reforms designed by the three states focus on the better access to the information related to the processes of the healthcare industries, which is also beneficial to the healthcare ind ustry of the state of New York. The reforms designed by the states of Colorado, Vermont and Minnesota aim at the long term nature of savings of the various activities included in the industry of healthcare (Dingwall, 2001). Challenges There are a number of challenges in the healthcare industry of the state of New York for the attempts at reducing the costs of the various healthcare activities and improving the quality of the same activities. Close to 64 percent of the healthcare organisations operating in the state of New York predict that the cost of their various healthcare activities are going to increase slightly in the next year and close to 22 percent of the healthcare organisations operating in the state of New York predict that the costs of the various healthcare services provided by them will increase significantly, which poses itself as one of the challenges for the various reforms for the healthcare industry of the state. The federal government can support a number of major and popular healthcare organisations financially to ensure some decrease in the costs of the various healthcare services provided by them. Some of the healthcare organisations expect more funding in the upcoming year for a number of its healthcare activities which in turn causes the healthcare organisations to look for corporate financing. This causes the healthcare industry in the state of New York to experience the challenge of the industry being completely commercialised (Dingwall, 2001). Lessons learnt The biggest lesson for the healthcare reforms can be maintaining transparency in the various stages which allows each and every stakeholder involved in the process to support the reform. The reform of the healthcare services of a state should be done in way to minimise the effort and maximise the positive effects. Another lesson should be for the state government to utilise the funding or resources from the federal government for the healthcare reform in the state, instead of opposing the involvement of the federal government in the name of the federalism. The state government should utilise every possible opportunity to work together with the federal government, which in turn allows the process of reform of the healthcare industry to be a smooth process. The state government can also focus on the feature of exchanging the individual insurance policy associated with the healthcare services (Feng, 2012). Conclusion This paper allowed us to have a greater insight on the various reforms for the healthcare industries of Colorado, Vermont and Minnesota as mentioned in the provided case study. The paper also allows us to identify and analyse the application of the reforms mentioned in the case study to the state of New York. The paper also included a number of early lessons which could be learnt by the state government operating on the reforms in the healthcare industries. The paper also allows us to identify and analyse the various challenges in the process of reforming the healthcare industry in any of the state and the possible solutions for the corresponding challenges by the federal government (Bentley, 2008). References Bentley, T. G., Effros, R. M., Palar, K., Keeler, E. B. (2008). Waste in the US health care system: a conceptual framework. Milbank Quarterly, 86(4), 629-659. Dingwall, R., Allen, D. (2001). The implications of healthcare reforms for the profession of nursing. Nursing Inquiry, 8(2), 64-74. Feng, Z. (2012). Macroeconomic Consequences of Alternative Reforms to the Health Insurance System in the US. Available at SSRN 2037058. Orszag, P. R., Emanuel, E. J. (2010). Health care reform and cost control. New England Journal of Medicine, 363(7), 601-603. Porter, M. E. (2009). A strategy for health care reformtoward a value-based system. New England Journal of Medicine, 361(2), 109-112.