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American Samoa, The National Park of

(Encyclopedia)American Samoa, The National Park of, c.9,000 acres (3,645 hectares), American Samoa, S Pacific Ocean. Comprising areas on the islands of Ofu, Ta'u, and Tutuila, the park features the only paleotropic...

Menteith

(Encyclopedia)Menteith mĕntēthˈ [key], lake, up to 1.5 mi (2.4 km) across, Stirling, central Scotland, near the town of Stirling. Mary Queen of Scots, as a child of five, was hidden at Inchmahome priory on the l...

Kaneohe Bay

(Encyclopedia)Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, on the east coast of Oahu, protected by coral reefs and dotted with islands. The shores of the bay are rimmed with ancient fishponds built by the Hawaiian chiefs. A U.S. marine co...

Bransfield, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Bransfield, Edward, 1795–1852, English sea captain and antarctic explorer. In 1820, Bransfield sailed from Chile to the South Shetland Islands off the N Antarctic Peninsula. After claiming King Geor...

Alexander III, king of Scotland

(Encyclopedia)Alexander III, 1241–86, king of Scotland (1249–86), son and successor of Alexander II. He married a daughter of Henry III of England and quarreled with Henry, and later Henry's son Edward I, over ...

Guadalcanal

(Encyclopedia)Guadalcanal gwädəlkənălˈ [key], volcanic island, c.2,510 sq mi (6,500 sq km), South Pacific, ...

James Bay

(Encyclopedia)James Bay, shallow southern arm of Hudson Bay, c.300 mi (480 km) long and 140 mi (230 km) wide, E central Canada, in Nunavut Territory between Ont. and Que. Numerous rivers flow into the bay; many of ...

monitor, in zoology

(Encyclopedia)monitor, any of various, mostly tropical lizards. A monitor lizard has a heavy body, long head and neck, long tail that comes to a whiplike end, and strong legs with sharp claws. Its slender, forked t...

adaptive radiation

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Adaptive radiation in Hawaiian honey-creepers adaptive radiation, in biology, the evolution of an ancestral species, which was adapted to a particular way of life, into many diverse species, e...

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...