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Patroon painters

(Encyclopedia)Patroon painters, group of portraitists active in colonial New York from 1715 to 1730. Their work embodied the first clearly American style. The Patroon painters served the Dutch families of New York,...

Braid, James

(Encyclopedia)Braid, James, 1795?–1860, English surgeon and writer on hypnotism and magic. The first to use the term hypnotism instead of mesmerism or animal magnetism, he also demonstrated that it was achieved b...

echidna, in zoology

(Encyclopedia)echidna ĭkĭdˈnə [key] or spiny anteater, animal of the order Monotremata, the egg-laying mammals. A short-legged, grayish brown animal, the echidna is covered with sharp quills and can protect its...

aardwolf

(Encyclopedia)aardwolf ärdˈwo͝olf [key], carnivore of the hyena family. The aardwolf, Proteles cristatus, resembles the true hyena but is smaller and more delicate. It has less powerful teeth and jaws and five i...

Tinbergen, Nikolaas

(Encyclopedia)Tinbergen, Nikolaas, 1907–88, Anglo-Dutch zoologist, b. Netherlands. He received his Ph.D. in 1932 from the Univ. of Leiden, where he became professor of zoology in 1947. In 1949 he joined the facul...

vegetarianism

(Encyclopedia)vegetarianism, theory and practice of eating only fruits and vegetables, thus excluding animal flesh, fish, or fowl and often butter, eggs, and milk. In a strict vegetarian, or vegan, diet (i.e., one ...

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...

invertebrate

(Encyclopedia)invertebrate ĭnˌvûrˈtəbrət, –brātˌ [key], any animal lacking a backbone. The invertebrates include the tunicates and lancelets of phylum Chordata, as well as all animal phyla other than Chor...

venom

(Encyclopedia)venom or zootoxin, any of a variety of poisonous substances produced by animals. In poisonous snakes, venom is secreted in two poison glands, one on each side of the upper jaw, and enters the fang by ...

Knight, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Knight, Charles, 1874–1953, American artist, b. New York City. Knight painted and sculpted animal subjects. He is best known for his murals at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. ...