From today's featured article
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 Oryzomys is a genus of semiaquatic rodents in the tribe Oryzomyini living in southern North America and far northern South America. It includes eight species, two of which are widespread: the marsh rice rat (O. palustris, pictured) of the U.S. and O. couesi of Mexico and Central America. Two or three species have gone extinct over the last two centuries and at least one other is endangered. Species of Oryzomys are medium-sized rats with long, coarse fur. The upperparts are gray to reddish and the underparts white to buff. The animals have broad feet with reduced or absent ungual tufts of hair around the claws and, in some species, with webbing between the toes. The habitat includes lakes, marshes, and rivers. Oryzomys species swim well, are active during the night, and eat both plant and animal food. They build woven nests of vegetation; after a gestation period of 21 to 28 days, about four young are born. Species of Oryzomys are infected by numerous parasites and carry at least three hantaviruses, one of which (Bayou virus) also infects humans. The name Oryzomys was established in 1857 by Spencer Fullerton Baird for the marsh rice rat and was soon applied to many other rats. (Full article...)
Part of the Oryzomys series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.
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Did you know...
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From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:
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- ... that the short story Old Love by Jeffrey Archer is a tale about two undergraduates at Oxford in the 1930s and their bitter rivalry ending up in a tragic love story?
- ... that during the Iran–Iraq War, an Iraqi major told his prisoner Aboutorabi, "if Khomeini is like you, I will follow him"?
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- ... that The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky, who had outlined a novel about a writer who dies in a plane crash, died in a plane crash?
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On this day...
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February 24: Independence Day in Estonia (1918); Flag Day in Mexico; National Artist Day in Thailand
- 1809 – After standing only 15 years, London's Drury Lane theatre, the third building of that name, burned down.
- 1826 – The Treaty of Yandabo was signed, ending the First Anglo-Burmese War, the longest and most expensive war in the history of the British Raj.
- 1875 – The steamship SS Gothenburg hit a section of the Great Barrier Reef at low tide and sank northwest of Holbourne Island, Queensland, Australia, with over 100 deaths.
- 1920 – At a meeting of the German Workers' Party, Adolf Hitler outlined its 25-point programme and the party changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
- 1946 – Colonel Juan Perón (pictured), founder of the political movement that became known as Peronism, was elected to his first term as President of Argentina.
More anniversaries: February 23 – February 24 – February 25
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