The short-beaked echidna is one of four living species of echidna. It is
covered in fur and spines, has a distinctive snout to help detect its
surroundings, and uses a specialized tongue to catch insects. Its
extremely strong front limbs and claws allow it to burrow quickly. It
repels predators by curling into a ball and deters them with its spines.
During the Australian winter, it goes into deep torpor and hibernation.
As the temperature increases, it emerges to mate. Female echidnas lay
one egg a year and the mating period is the only time the solitary
animals meet. A newborn echidna grows rapidly on their mother's milk and
is expelled into the mother's burrow when they grow too large for the
mother's pouch. They leave the burrow when they are around six months
old. The species is found throughout Australia and in coastal and
highland regions of eastern New Guinea. It is not threatened with
extinction, but human activities have reduced its distribution in
Australia.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-beaked_echidna>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1509:
Catherine of Aragon married King Henry VIII of England,
becoming the first of his six wives.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Aragon>
1923:
Kitosh, an African labourer, died after having been flogged by
his British employer, in a case that eventually led to reform of the
legal system of the Kenya Colony.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Abraham_murder_case>
1963:
Vietnamese monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death
in Saigon to protest the persecution of Buddhists by Catholic South
Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's administration.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c>
2008:
Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper apologised to the First
Nations for past governments' policies of forced assimilation.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
rheumy:
1. Of, relating to, or made of rheum (“thin or watery discharge of mucus
or serum”); watery.
2. Producing rheum from the mucous membranes; (also figuratively)
especially of the eyes: filled with rheum; watery.
3. (literary, poetic, obsolete) Especially of the air: damp, moist.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rheumy>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
There's reason good, that you good laws should make: Men's
manners ne'er were viler, for your sake.
--Ben Jonson
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ben_Jonson>
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