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sea lily

(Encyclopedia)sea lily, stalked echinoderm of the class Crinoidea. Sea lilies are ancient, having reached their peak in the Middle Mississippian period; about 5,000 fossil species are known. About 80 modern species...

Posse Comitatus Act

(Encyclopedia)Posse Comitatus Act, 1878, U.S. federal law that makes it a crime to use the military as a domestic police force in the United States under most circumstances. The law was designed to end the use of f...

Baker Island

(Encyclopedia)Baker Island, uninhabited island, 1 sq mi (2.6 sq km), central Pacific, near the equator, c.1,650 mi (2,660 km) SW of Honolulu. The arid coral island was discovered in 1832 by Capt. Michael Baker, an ...

Randall, John Ernest, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Randall, John Ernest, Jr., 1924–2020, American ichthyologist, b. Los Angeles, Ph.D. Univ. of Hawaii, Manoa, 1955. A marine taxonomist, he named 30 new genera and hundreds of new species of fish. Par...

Odum, Eugene Pleasants

(Encyclopedia)Odum, Eugene Pleasants, 1913–2002, American ecologist, b. Newport, N.H., Ph.D. Univ. of Illinois, 1939; son of Howard W. Odum. He joined the department of zoology at the Univ. of Georgia in 1940, ev...

Nematomorpha

(Encyclopedia)Nematomorpha nĕmˌətəmôrˈfə [key], small (about 230 species) phylum of pseudocoelomates; the horsehair worms. Most are very slender, elongated creatures found in ponds and streams, whose larvae ...

Aden, Gulf of

(Encyclopedia)Aden, Gulf of äˈdən, āˈ– [key], western arm of the Arabian Sea, 550 mi (885 km) long, lying between Yemen and Somalia; connected with the Red Sea by the Bab el Mandeb. The gulf is on the great ...

Wake Island

(Encyclopedia)Wake Island, atoll with three islets (Wake, Wilkes, and Peale), 3 sq mi (7.8 sq km), central Pacific, between Hawaii and Guam. It is a U.S. military base and scientific research center under the juris...

Wilhelmshaven

(Encyclopedia)Wilhelmshaven vĭlˌhĕlms-häˈfən [key], city (1994 pop. 91,680), Lower Saxony, NW Germany, on Jade Bay, an inlet of the North Sea. It is a major oil port and an industrial center. Manufactures inc...

Texas A&M University

(Encyclopedia)Texas A&M University, main campus at College Station; land-grant and state supported; coeducational; chartered 1871 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, opened 1876. The school gai...