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ladybird beetle

(Encyclopedia)ladybird beetle or ladybug, member of a cosmopolitan beetle family with over 4,000 species, including 350 species in the United States. Ladybird beetles are mostly under 1⁄4 in. (6 mm) long and are ...

platypus

(Encyclopedia)platypus plătˈəpəs [key], semiaquatic egg-laying mammal, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, of Tasmania and E Australia. Also called duckbill, or duckbilled platypus, it belongs to the order Monotremata (s...

Bougainville

(Encyclopedia)Bougainville bo͞oˈgənvĭl, Fr. bo͞ogăNvēlˈ [key], volcanic island (1990 est. pop. 154,000), c.3,880 sq mi (10,050 sq km), SW Pacific, largest in the Solomon Islands chain. With Buka and smaller...

Pacific Ocean

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Pacific Ocean, largest and deepest ocean, c.70,000,000 sq mi (181,300,000 sq km), occupying about one third of the earth's surface; named by the explorer Ferdinand Magellan; the southern part i...

eel

(Encyclopedia)eel, common name for any fish in the order Anguilliformes, and characterized by a long snakelike body covered with minute scales embedded in the skin. Eels lack the hind pair of fins, adapting them fo...

Druze

(Encyclopedia)Druze or Druse dro͞oz [key], religious community of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, with important overseas branches in the Americas and Australia. The religious leadership prefers the name Muwah...

coin

(Encyclopedia)coin, piece of metal, usually a disk of gold, silver, nickel, bronze, copper, aluminum, or a combination of such metals, stamped by authority of a government as a guarantee of its real or exchange val...

hare

(Encyclopedia)hare, name for certain herbivorous mammals of the family Leporidae, which also includes the rabbit and pika. The name is applied especially to species of the genus Lepus, sometimes called the true har...

George, Henry

(Encyclopedia)George, Henry, 1839–97, American economist, founder of the single tax movement, b. Philadelphia. Of a poor family, his formal education was cut short at 14, and in 1857 he emigrated to California; t...

penguin

(Encyclopedia)penguin, originally the common name for the now extinct great auk of the N Atlantic and now used (since the 19th cent.) for the unrelated, generally antarctic diving birds of the Southern Hemisphere. ...