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Durrell's vontsira (Salanoia durrelli) is a Madagascan mammal in the family Eupleridae of the order Carnivora. It is most closely related to the brown-tailed mongoose (Salanoia concolor), with which it forms the genus Salanoia. The two are genetically similar, but morphologically distinct, leading scientists to recognize them as separate species. The animal was first known to science after an individual was observed in 2004, and S. durrelli was described as a new species in 2010. A small, reddish-brown carnivore, Salanoia durrelli is characterized by broad feet with prominent pads, reddish-buff underparts, and broad, robust teeth, among other differences from the brown-tailed mongoose. In the only two weighed specimens, the body masses were 600 and 675 g (21.2 and 23.8 oz). S. durrelli is a marsh-dwelling animal that may feed on crustaceans and mollusks. It is found only in the Lac Alaotra area, a threatened ecosystem, and may also be endangered by competition with introduced species. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

111 West 57th Street

... that a Steinway piano showroom at 111 West 57th Street (pictured) in New York City was expanded by 2,850 percent to become one of the tallest buildings in the United States?
... that Karl-Günther von Hase, who served as a German government spokesman under three chancellors, became director of the broadcaster ZDF in 1977?
... that Cambodian leader Hun Sen released four imprisoned dissidents as a "gift" to the United States upon the opening of its new embassy in Phnom Penh?
... that Ingrid Wallberg was the first female architect in Sweden with her own firm?
... that the manager of WVSS at the University of Wisconsin–Stout spent about $6,000 of his own money to buy more than 500 classical music CDs to program the station?
... that Casa Anchieta in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife, was the childhood home of Brazilian missionary Joseph of Anchieta?
... that John Barefoot's catalogue of British Commonwealth revenue stamps grew from 142 to more than 500 pages between its first and tenth editions as new stamps were discovered?
... that pre-Socratic philosophy included some of the earliest attempts to explain the cosmos as an ordered system without reference to the gods?

In the news

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The spacecraft Juno performs a flyby of Jupiter's moon Ganymede (pictured).
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On this day

June 12: Dia dos Namorados in Brazil; Independence Day in the Philippines (1898); Queen's Official Birthday in Tuvalu and the United Kingdom (2021); Loving Day in the United States (1967)

Turkish irregulars in Phocaea

1240 – The Disputation of Paris, in which four rabbis defended the Talmud against Nicholas Donin's accusations of blasphemy, began in the court of King Louis IX.
1775 – Thomas Gage, the governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, offered a general pardon to colonists who remained loyal to Britain.
1914 – As part of the Ottoman Empire's policies of ethnic cleansing, Turkish irregulars (examples pictured) began a six-day massacre of the predominantly Greek town of Phocaea.
1963 – African-American civil-rights activist Medgar Evers was murdered by Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith.

Thomas Farnaby (d. 1647)
Egon Schiele (b. 1890)
Milorad Petrović (d. 1981)

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Today's featured picture

The common blackbird (Turdus merula) is a species of true thrush, in the family Turdidae. It breeds in Europe, Asiatic Russia, and North Africa, and has a number of subspecies across its wide range; a few of the Asian subspecies are sometimes considered to be full species. Depending on latitude, the common blackbird may be resident, partially migratory, or fully migratory. This female northwestern African blackbird (T. m. mauritanicus) was photographed in the Souss-Massa National Park, Morocco. This small, dark subspecies breeds in central and northern Morocco, coastal Algeria and northern Tunisia.

Photograph credit: Charles James Sharp

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