(Encyclopedia) bighorn or Rocky Mountain sheep, wild sheep, Ovis canadensis, of W North America, formerly plentiful in mountains from SW Canada to N Mexico. Indiscriminate hunting, disease, and…
(Encyclopedia) bear, large mammal of the family Ursidae in the order Carnivora, found almost exclusively in the Northern Hemisphere. Bears have large heads, bulky bodies, massive hindquarters, short…
(Encyclopedia) catechucatechukătˈəch&oomacr; [key] or cutch, extract from the heartwood of Acacia catechu, a leguminous tree of the pulse family, native to India and Myanmar. Catechu is a fast…
(Encyclopedia) pelican, common name for a large, gregarious aquatic bird of warm regions, allied to the cormorants and gannets. Pelicans are heavy-bodied, long-necked birds with large, flat bills.…
(Encyclopedia) Plessy v. Ferguson, case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896. The court upheld an 1890 Louisiana statute mandating racially segregated but equal railroad carriages, ruling that…
(Encyclopedia) water moccasin or cottonmouth, highly venomous snake, Ancistrodon piscivorus, of the swamps and bayous of the S United States. Like the closely related copperhead, it is a pit viper…
(Encyclopedia) Schulz, Charles M. (Charles Monroe Schulz), 1922–2000, American cartoonist, b. Minneapolis, Minn. Creator of the syndicated comic strip Peanuts (1950–2000), one of the world's most…
(Encyclopedia) Uluru–Kata Tjuta National Park, 327,647 acres (132,566 hectares), SW Northern Territory, central Australia. This Anangu-owned park, leased to the Australian government by the…
(Encyclopedia) Angell, James BurrillAngell, James Burrilljāmz bûrˈəl ānˈjəl [key], 1829–1916, American educator, editor, and diplomat, b. Scituate, R.I., grad. Brown, 1849, and studied abroad. He…
In recent years astronomers have discovered that our solar system is a great deal more crowded than we imagined. In 2004 alone, a dozen new moons circling Saturn were identified. Today's…
