The King Island emu lived on King Island, in the Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. This extinct subspecies, the smallest of all emus, may have exhibited insular dwarfism. It had darker plumage, black and brown, with naked blue skin on the neck, and its chicks were striped like those on the mainland. The behaviour of the King Island emu probably did not differ much from that of the mainland emu. They fed on berries, grass and seaweed. They ran swiftly, and could defend themselves by kicking. Europeans discovered the subspecies in 1802. The French naturalist François Péron wrote about the bird after conducting an interview with a seal hunter, and in 1807 the artist Charles Alexandre Lesueur sketched a head, wing and feathers possibly belonging to this subspecies. In 1804 two live King Island emus were sent to France, where they were kept in the Jardin des plantes until they died in 1822, probably the last of their kind.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Island_emu

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1561 –The spire of Old St Paul's Cathedral in London was destroyed by fire, probably caused by lightning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_St_Paul%27s_Cathedral

1792:

Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver claimed Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest for Great Britain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound

1944:

A United States Navy task group captured German submarine U-505, the first warship to be captured by U.S. forces on the high seas since the War of 1812. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-505

1967:

A chartered aircraft owned by British Midland Airways crashed near Stockport, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom, killing 72 of the 84 passengers and crew on board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockport_air_disaster

1998:

Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Nichols

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

abstemious: 1. Sparing in the indulgence of the appetite or passions. 2. Sparingly used; used with temperance or moderation. 3. Marked by, or spent in, abstinence. 4. (rare) Promotive of abstemiousness. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abstemious

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I don't think the thing is to be well known, but being worth knowing.   --Robert Fulghum https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Fulghum