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mouse

(Encyclopedia)mouse, name applied to numerous species of small rodents, often having soft gray or brown fur, long hairless tails, and large ears. The chief distinction between these animals and the variety of roden...

Kennedy, Adrienne

(Encyclopedia)Kennedy, Adrienne, 1931–, American playwright, b. Pittsburgh, Pa., as Adrienne Lita Hawkins, grad. Ohio State Univ. (B.A., 1953), studied Columbia (1954–56). Her usually one-act memory plays explo...

typhus

(Encyclopedia)typhus, any of a group of infectious diseases caused by microorganisms classified between bacteria and viruses, known as rickettsias. Typhus diseases are characterized by high fever and an early onset...

bandicoot

(Encyclopedia)bandicoot, small marsupial mammal native to Australia and nearby islands. There are 19 species in eight genera. Bandicoots have long, pointed, shrewlike faces; gray or brown fur; and long, bushy, ratl...

O'Keefe, John

(Encyclopedia)O'Keefe, John, 1939–, British-American neuroscientist, b. New York City, Ph.D. McGill Univ., 1967. O'Keefe has spent his entire career at University College London, beginning as a postdoctoral fello...

squill

(Encyclopedia)squill, common name for two genera of Old World bulbous plants of the family Liliaceae (lily family). The horticulturists' squill is any plant of the genus Scilla, mostly spring-blooming low herbs wit...

muskrat

(Encyclopedia)muskrat, North American aquatic rodent. The common muskrats, species of the genus Ondatra, are sometimes called by their Native American name, musquash. They are found in marshes, quiet streams, and p...

kangaroo

(Encyclopedia)kangaroo, name for a variety of hopping marsupials, or pouched mammals, of the family Macropodidae, found in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea. The term is applied especially to the large kangaroos ...

rickettsia

(Encyclopedia)rickettsia rĭkĕtˈsēə [key], any of an order (Rickettsiales) of very small microorganisms, many disease-causing, that live in vertebrates and are transmitted by bloodsucking parasitic arthropods s...

leptospirosis

(Encyclopedia)leptospirosis lĕpˌtəspīrōˈsĭs [key], febrile disease caused by bacteria of the genus Leptospirae. The disease may affect dogs, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and horses and is also transmissible t...

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