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Keith, Sir Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Keith, Sir Arthur, 1866–1955, British anatomist, b. Aberdeen, Scotland, educated at the Univ. of Aberdeen, University College, London, and the Univ. of Leipzig. He became conservator of the museum a...

Sigillaria

(Encyclopedia)Sigillaria sĭjĭlârˈēə [key], genus of fossil club moss allied to Lepidodendron, abundant in the Carboniferous period. The thick trunk was rarely branched and was covered for several feet from th...

Simpson, George Gaylord

(Encyclopedia)Simpson, George Gaylord, 1902–84, American paleontologist and zoologist, b. Chicago, Ph.D. Yale, 1926. He became assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural Histor...

Priapulida

(Encyclopedia)Priapulida, phylum consisting of 17 species of predatory, unsegmented marine worms that live in the sand and mud at the sea bottom. The largest are 4 to 6 in. (10–17 cm) long, but the majority of sp...

John Day

(Encyclopedia)John Day, river, 281 mi (452 km) long, rising in several branches in the Strawberry Mts., NE Oreg., and flowing W, then N to the Columbia River. Unnavigable, the river is used to irrigate vegetable fa...

Equisetophyta

(Encyclopedia)Equisetophyta ĕkˌwəsətŏfˈətə [key], small division of the plant kingdom consisting of the plants commonly called horsetails and scouring rushes. Equisetum, the only living genus in this divisi...

Archaeopteryx

(Encyclopedia)Archaeopteryx ärˌkēŏpˈtərĭks [key] [Gr.,=primitive wing], a 150 million-year-old fossil animal first discovered in 1860 in the late Jurassic limestone of Solnhofen, Bavaria, and described the f...

Mojave Trails National Monument

(Encyclopedia)Mojave Trails National Monument, 1.6 million acres (647,000 hectares), SE California. Linking Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave National Preserve, it follows the trails of the Chemehuevi people, a ...

Williston, Samuel Wendell

(Encyclopedia)Williston, Samuel Wendell, 1851–1918, American paleontologist and entomologist, b. Boston, grad. Kansas State Agricultural College (B.S., 1872) and Yale (M.D., 1880; Ph.D., 1885). He taught at Yale ...

Great Pyrenees

(Encyclopedia)Great Pyrenees, breed of large working dog whose fossil remains date its existence in Europe from the Bronze Age (1800–1000 b.c.). It stands from 25 to 32 in. (63.5–81.3 cm) high at the shoulder a...