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From today's featured article

Myuchelys purvisi remains the senior synonym for the Manning River snapping turtle.

The Wells and Wellington affair was a dispute involving the Australian Journal of Herpetology, a scientific journal on the study of amphibians and reptiles published beginning in 1981 by the Australian Herpetologists' League. Richard Wells, a student, served as the editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed periodical, with an editorial board of three researchers. Wells stopped communicating with his board for two years before publishing three unreviewed papers in the journal in 1983 and 1985 which he coauthored with teacher C. Ross Wellington. The papers reorganized the taxonomy of Australia's and New Zealand's amphibians and reptiles, and proposed over 700 changes to their scientific names. The herpetological community brought a case to the ICZN to suppress the new names, but the commission eventually opted not to decide, leaving some of Wells and Wellington's names available. As of 2020, 24 of their specific names remained valid senior synonyms (example pictured). (Full article...)

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In the news

John Magufuli

President of Tanzania John Magufuli (pictured) dies at the age of 61 and is succeeded by his vice-president, Samia Suluhu.
Mathematicians Avi Wigderson and László Lovász share the Abel Prize for their work in complexity theory and graph theory.
In sailing, the America's Cup concludes with Team New Zealand beating Italy's Luna Rossa Challenge.
Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal are jointly awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

On this day

March 18: Feast day of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (Christianity)

Pemex Executive Tower, Mexico City

1241 – First Mongol invasion of Poland: Mongol forces defeated the Polish armies of Sandomierz and Kraków at the Battle of Chmielnik.
1793 – War of the First Coalition: Habsburg and Dutch Republic troops repulsed a series of French assaults after bitter fighting near Neerwinden in present-day Belgium.
1938 – Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas issued a decree expropriating foreign-owned oil reserves and facilities, which were later incorporated into Pemex (headquarters pictured), a state-owned petroleum company.
1977 – The punk group the Clash released their first single, "White Riot", described as their "most controversial song".
1996 – The deadliest fire in Philippine history broke out at a nightclub in Quezon City, causing 162 deaths.

Matthew III Csák (d. 1321)
Charlotte Elliott (b. 1789)
Hiroh Kikai (b. 1945)

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Today's featured picture

Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was an American politician and lawyer who was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, the only president in American history to serve two non-consecutive terms in office (1885–1889 and 1893–1897). His victory in the 1884 presidential election made him the first successful Democratic nominee since the start of the Civil War. He won praise for his honesty, self-reliance, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism, and was renowned for fighting political corruption, patronage, and bossism.

Credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva

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