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Portolá, Gaspar de

(Encyclopedia)Portolá, Gaspar de gäspärˈ dā pôrtōläˈ [key], fl. 1734–84, Spanish explorer in the Far West. After serving in Italy and Portugal, he was sent (1767) to America as governor of the California...

incubator

(Encyclopedia)incubator, apparatus for the maintenance of controlled conditions in which eggs can be hatched artificially. Incubator houses with double walls of mud, a fireroom, and several compartments each holdin...

Ebbers, Bernie

(Encyclopedia)Ebbers, Bernie (Bernard John Ebbers), 1941–, American business executive and white-collar criminal, b. Edmonton, Alta, grad. Mississippi College (1967). After running a small motel chain, he entered...

harvestfish

(Encyclopedia)harvestfish, common name for a fish of the family Stromateidae (butterfish family), a family of fishes with almost circular bodies and small mouths. The butterfish, or dollarfish (genus Peprilus), is ...

kinglet

(Encyclopedia)kinglet, common name for members of a subfamily of five species of Old and New World warblers, similar to the thrushes and the Old World flycatchers. Kinglets are small birds (4 in./10 cm) with soft, ...

surface tension

(Encyclopedia)surface tension, tendency of liquids to reduce their exposed surface to the smallest possible area. A drop of water, for example, tends to assume the shape of a sphere. The phenomenon is attributed to...

tang, in zoology

(Encyclopedia)tang, common name for certain members of the Acanthuridae, a family of mostly small, mainly reef-dwelling tropical fishes with compressed bodies and small mouths and teeth. Other members of the family...

bus

(Encyclopedia)bus [Lat. omnibus=for all], large public conveyance. A horse-drawn urban omnibus was introduced in Paris in 1662 by Blaise Pascal and his associates, but it remained in operation for only a few years....

bush baby

(Encyclopedia)bush baby or bushbaby, name for several small, active nocturnal primates of the Galagidae family, found in forested parts of Africa. Bush babies are also called galagos. The smallest are about 1 ft (3...

backswimmer

(Encyclopedia)backswimmer, common name for water bugs of the cosmopolitan family Notonectidae, so named because they swim upside down, usually near the surface of the water. They have oval bodies and long, oarlike ...