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From today's featured article

Holotype snout tip of C. cuvieri

Cimoliopterus is a genus of pterosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous. The first known specimen, consisting of the front part of a snout, was discovered in Kent, England, and described as the new species Pterodactylus cuvieri in 1851. It was depicted as models in Crystal Palace Park in the 1850s. In 2013, the species was moved to a new genus, as Cimoliopterus cuvieri. In 2015, a snout discovered in Texas was named as C. dunni, a new species in the genus. C. cuvieri is estimated to have had a wingspan of 3.5 metres (11 ft), and C. dunni is thought to have been similar in size. Cimoliopterus would have been covered in pycnofibres (hair-like filaments), and had extensive wing-membranes, distended by long wing-fingers. They were probably adapted for long-distance oceanic soaring; their fossils have mainly been found in marine settings. They possibly fed while flying by dipping their long jaws into water and catching fish with their interlocking teeth. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Detail from the memorial

... that the First World War Kirkcudbright war memorial depicts a sword-wielding warrior with a sleeping child on his knee (pictured)?
... that a complaint over an allegedly illegal transmitter move led to Texas radio station KFQX-FM being forced off the air for four hours in 1988?
... that future rear admiral Robert Wertheim had a hand in the naming of the MIM-72 Chaparral?
... that Bagenal's Castle was originally thought to have been destroyed, but was rediscovered in 1996 in the premises of a bakery?
... that David Kennedy, co-founder of the agency that came up with Nike's Just Do It campaign, was once gifted 50 pairs of Levi's denims by his employees?
... that White Lake Provincial Park is the only provincial park in Ontario, Canada, with an exceptional provision allowing hydroelectric activity as a non-conforming use?
... that the painter and writer Hilda Vīka was involved in Latvian neopaganism and used Latvian mythology in her works?
... that the non-fiction book Corvus: A Life with Birds focuses on a rook named after a drag queen called "Madame Chickeboumskaya"?

In the news

F. W. de Klerk in 1990

F. W. de Klerk (pictured), the last apartheid-era president of South Africa, dies at the age of 85.
In stock car racing, Kyle Larson wins the NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Kenyans Albert Korir and Peres Jepchirchir win the New York City Marathon men's and women's races.
Daniel Ortega is re-elected as President of Nicaragua.

On this day

November 11: Armistice Day; Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations; Veterans Day in the United States

Signatories of the armistice ending World War I

1215 – The Fourth Lateran Council convened in Rome, during which the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation was defined.
1813 – War of 1812: A British–Canadian force repelled an American attack at the Battle of Crysler's Farm, forcing the United States to give up their attempt to capture Montreal.
1918 – The armistice between the German Empire and the Allies was signed in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne of France (signatories pictured).
1965 – Rhodesia, led by Prime Minister Ian Smith, unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom.
1975 – During a constitutional crisis in Australia, Governor-General John Kerr dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's government and dissolved Parliament for a double-dissolution election.

Fyodor Dostoevsky (b. 1821)
Édouard Vuillard (b. 1868)
Francisco Blake Mora (d. 2011)

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Today's featured picture

Nelly Martyl (1884–1953) was a French opera singer. She sang in the premieres of several operas, including Leborne's La Catalane (1907), Erlanger's La Sorcière (1912), and Massenet's Amadis (1922). Martyl joined the Red Cross as a nurse during the First World War, and served at the Battle of Verdun in 1916, where she was known as la fée de Verdun (the Fairy of Verdun), and at the Second Battle of the Aisne in 1917. She continued as a nurse after the war to help with the 1918 epidemic of Spanish flu. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre with the carte du combattant (signifying service under particular hazard) in 1920.

Photograph credit: Jean Reutlinger; restored by Adam Cuerden

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