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gopher

(Encyclopedia)gopher or pocket gopher, name for the burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae, found in North America and Central America. The gopher is gray, buff, or dark brown. Its combined head and body length ...

hummingbird

(Encyclopedia)hummingbird, common name for members of the family Trochilidae, small, strictly New World birds, related to the swifts, and found chiefly in the mountains of South America. Hummingbirds vary in size f...

spruce

(Encyclopedia)spruce, any plant of the genus Picea, evergreen trees or shrubs of the family Pinaceae (pine family) widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere. The needles are angular in cross section, rather tha...

sun grebe

(Encyclopedia)sun grebe, common name for a tropical, mainly aquatic bird of the family Heliornithidae. Sun grebes, also called finfoots, are remarkable for their colorful, puffy-toed, webbed feet, which may serve a...

mint, in botany

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Spearmint Mentha spicata mint, in botany, common name for members of the Labiatae, a large family of chiefly annual or perennial herbs. Several species are shrubby or climbing forms or, rarely...

termite

(Encyclopedia)termite or white ant, common name for a soft-bodied social insect of the infraorder Isoptera. Originally classified in as a separate order, termites are genetically related to cockroaches and are now ...

gene pool

(Encyclopedia)gene pool, the total of all genes in a population of a particular species. See genetics. ...

sea lettuce

(Encyclopedia)sea lettuce, common name for algal species of the genus Ulva. See seaweed; Chlorophyta. ...

psilocybin

(Encyclopedia)psilocybin sĭlˌəsīˈbən [key], perception-altering substance found in some species of mushroom. See hallucinogenic drug. ...

butterwort

(Encyclopedia)butterwort, common name for several species of the plant genus Pinguicula of the north temperate zone and the mountains of tropical America. It is a member of the family Lentibulariaceae (bladderwort ...