The marsh rice rat is a semiaquatic North American rodent in the family Cricetidae. It is found mostly in the eastern and southern United States, from New Jersey and Kansas south to Florida and northeasternmost Tamaulipas, Mexico; its range previously extended further west and north, where it may have been a commensal in corn-cultivating communities. It usually occurs in wet habitats such as swamps and saltmarshes. Weighing about 40 to 80 g (1.4 to 2.8 oz), the marsh rice rat is a medium-sized rodent that resembles the common black and brown rat. The upperparts are generally gray-brown, but reddish in many Florida populations. The hindfeet show several specializations for life in the water. The skull is large and flattened and is short at the front. John Bachman discovered the marsh rice rat in 1816 and it was formally described in 1837. Several subspecies have been described since the 1890s, mainly from Florida, but there is disagreement over their validity. The marsh rice rat is active during the night and builds nests of sedge and grass and occasionally runways. It has a diverse diet that includes plants, fungi, and a variety of animals. Litters of generally three to five young are born after a pregnancy of about 25 days, mainly during the summer. Several animals prey on the marsh rice rat, including the barn owl, and it usually lives for less than a year in the wild. It is infected by many different parasites and harbors a hantavirus that also infects humans. Read the rest of this article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_rice_rat> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1471: Wars of the Roses: The Yorkists under Edward IV defeated the Lancastrians near the town of Barnet, killing Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Barnet> 1865: Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot U.S. President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Abraham_Lincoln> 1978: Thousands of Georgians demonstrated in Tbilisi against an attempt by the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_Georgian_demonstrations> 1994: In an American friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, two United States Air Force aircraft mistakenly shot down two United States Army helicopters, killing 26 people. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Black_Hawk_shootdown_incident> 1999: A storm dropped an estimated 500,000 tonnes of hailstones in Sydney and along the east coast of New South Wales, causing about A$2.3 billion in damages, the costliest natural disaster in Australian insurance history. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Sydney_hailstorm> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: asterism (n): 1. A small group of stars that forms a visible pattern but is not an official constellation. 2. A rarely used typographical symbol (⁂, three asterisks arranged in a triangle), used to call attention to a passage or to separate sub-chapters in a book. 3. (mineralogy) A star-shaped figure exhibited in some crystals by reflected light or by transmitted light <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/asterism> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over; One thing unshaken stays: Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover; Whereby decays Each thing save one thing: — mid this strife diurnal Of hourly change begot, Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal, And changes not. --James Branch Cabell <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Branch_Cabell>