text:
Excalibur

Excalibur is the mythical sword of King Arthur that may possess magical powers or be associated with the rightful sovereignty of Britain. Traditionally, the sword in the stone that is the proof of Arthur's lineage and the sword given to him by a Lady of the Lake are not the same weapon, even as in some versions of the legend both of them share the name of Excalibur. Several similar swords and other weapons also appear within Arthurian texts, as well as in other legends.

Forms and etymology
The name Excalibur ultimately derives from the Welsh Caledfwlch (Breton Kaledvoulc'h, Middle Cornish Calesvol), which is a compound of caled, hard, and bwlch, breach, cleft. Caledfwlch appears in several early Welsh works, including the prose tale Culhwch and Olwen (c. 11th–12th century). The name was later used in Welsh adaptations of foreign material such as the Bruts (chronicles), which were based on Geoffrey of Monmouth. It is often considered to be related to the phonetically similar Caladbolg, a sword borne by several figures from Irish mythology, although a borrowing of Caledfwlch from the Irish Caladbolg has been considered unlikely by Rachel Bromwich and D. Simon Evans. They suggest instead that both names "may have similarly arisen at a very early date as generic names for a sword". In the late 15th to early 16th-century Middle Cornish play Beunans Ke, Arthur's sword is called Calesvol, which is etymologically an exact Middle Cornish cognate of the Welsh Caledfwlch. It is unclear if the name was borrowed from the Welsh (if so, it must have been an early loan, for phonological reasons), or represents an early, pan-Brittonic traditional name for Arthur's sword.

Welsh author Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his Latin chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain, c. 1136), Latinised the name of Arthur's sword as Caliburnus (possibly influenced by the Medieval Latin spelling calibs of Classical Latin chalybs, from the Greek (χάλυψ), steel). Most Celticists consider Geoffrey's Caliburnus to be derivative of a lost Old Welsh text in which bwlch (Old Welsh bulc[h]) had not yet been lenited to fwlch (Middle Welsh vwlch or uwlch). Geoffrey Gaimar, in his Old French chronicle Estoire des Engleis (1134–1140), mentions Arthur and his sword: "this Constantine was the nephew of Arthur, who had the sword Caliburc" ("Cil Costentin, li niès Artur, Ki out l'espée Caliburc"). In Wace's Roman de Brut (c. 1150–1155), composed in Old French, the sword is called Caliburn (Chaliburne, Caliburne, Calibuerne), Calabrum, Callibourc, Calabrun, Chalabrun, and Escalibor (with additional variant spellings such as Chalabrum, Calibore, Callibor, Caliborne, Calliborc, Escallibore found in various continental manuscripts). Various other spellings in the later medieval Arthurian literature have included Calibourch, Calibourn, Calibourne, Caliburc, Escaliber, Escalibur, Excalibor, and finally the familiar Excalibur.

The Sword in the Stone and the Sword in the Lake
Romance tradition elaborates on how Arthur came into possession of Excalibur. In Robert de Boron's c. 1200 French poem Merlin, the first known tale to mention the "sword in the stone" motif, Arthur obtained the British throne by pulling a sword from an anvil sitting atop a stone that appeared in a churchyard on Christmas Eve. In this account, as foretold by Merlin, the act could not be performed except by "the true king", meaning the divinely appointed king or true heir of Uther Pendragon. (As Thomas Malory related in his English-language Arthurian compilation, the 15th-century Le Morte d'Arthur, "whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England." ) The scene is set by different authors at either London (historical Londinium) or generally in the land of Logres, and might have been inspired by a miracle attributed to the 11th-century Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester. After many of the gathered nobles try and fail to complete Merlin's challenge, the teenage Arthur, who up to this point had believed himself to be biological son of Ector and went there as a squire to his foster brother Kay, succeeds effortlessly. Arthur first achieves this feat by accident while unaware of the contest and unseen. He then returns the sword to its place in the anvil on a stone, and later repeats the act publicly as Merlin comes to announce his true parentage.

The identity of this sword as Excalibur is made explicit in the Prose Merlin, a part of the 13th-century Lancelot-Grail cycle of French romances also known as the Vulgate Cycle. Eventually, in the cycle's finale Vulgate Mort Artu, when Arthur is at the brink of death, he enigmatically orders his surviving knight Griflet to cast Excalibur into a nearby lake. After two failed attempts to deceive Arthur, since Griflet felt that such a great sword should not be thrown away, he finally does comply with the wounded king's request. A woman's hand emerges from the lake to catch Excalibur, after which Morgan appears to take Arthur to Avalon. This motif then became attached to Bedivere (or Yvain in the chronicle Scalacronica), instead of Griflet, in the English Arthurian tradition.

However, in the subsequent Post-Vulgate Cycle variants of the Merlin and the Merlin Continuation, written soon afterwards, Arthur's sword drawn from the stone is unnamed. Furthermore, the young Arthur promptly breaks it in his duel against King Pellinore very early in his reign. On Merlin's advice, Arthur then goes with him to be given the actual Excalibur by a Lady of the Lake in exchange for a later boon for her (some time later, she arrives at Arthur's court to demand the head of Balin). In the Post-Vulgate Mort Artu, it is this sword that is eventually hurled into the pool at Camlann (or actually Salisbury Plain where both cycles locate the battle, as do the English romances) by Griflet in the same circumstances as told in the story's Vulgate version. Malory included both of these stories in his now-iconic Le Morte d'Arthur while naming each of the swords as Excalibur: both the first one (from the stone) soon shattered in combat in the story taken from the Post-Vulgate Merlin Continuation, and its replacement (from the lake) thrown away by Bedivere in the end.

Other roles and attributes
In the Welsh tales, Arthur's sword is known as Caledfwlch. In Culhwch and Olwen, it is one of Arthur's most valuable possessions and is used by Arthur's warrior Llenlleawg the Irishman to kill the Irish king Diwrnach while stealing his magical cauldron. Though not named as Caledfwlch, Arthur's sword is described vividly in The Dream of Rhonabwy, one of the tales associated with the Mabinogion (as translated by Jeffrey Gantz): "Then they heard Cadwr Earl of Cornwall being summoned, and saw him rise with Arthur's sword in his hand, with a design of two chimeras on the golden hilt; when the sword was unsheathed what was seen from the mouths of the two chimeras was like two flames of fire, so dreadful that it was not easy for anyone to look."

Geoffrey's Historia is the first non-Welsh text to speak of the sword. Geoffrey says the sword was forged in Avalon and Latinises the name Caledfwlch as Caliburnus. When his influential pseudo-history made it to continental Europe, writers altered the name further until it finally took on the popular form Excalibur. Its role was expanded upon in the Vulgate Cycle and in the Post-Vulgate Cycle which emerged in its wake. Both of these prose cycles incorporated the Prose Merlin, however the Post-Vulgate authors left out the original Merlin continuation from the earlier cycle, choosing to add an original account of Arthur's early days including a new origin for Excalibur. In some versions, Excalibur's blade was engraved with phrases on opposite sides: "Take me up" and "Cast me away" (or similar). In addition, it said that when Excalibur was first drawn in combat, in the first battle testing Arthur's sovereignty, its blade shone so bright it blinded his enemies.

In Chrétien de Troyes' late 12th-century Old French Perceval, Arthur's nephew and best knight Gawain carries Excalibur, "for at his belt hung Escalibor, the finest sword that there was, which sliced through iron as through wood" ("Qu'il avoit cainte Escalibor, la meillor espee qui fust, qu'ele trenche fer come fust" ). This statement was probably picked up by the author of the Estoire Merlin, or Vulgate Merlin, where the author asserts that Escalibor "is a Hebrew name which means in French 'cuts iron, steel, and wood ("c'est non Ebrieu qui dist en franchois trenche fer & achier et fust"; the word for 'steel' here, achier, also means 'blade' or 'sword') and comes from medieval Latin aciarium, a derivative of acies 'sharp', so there is no direct connection with Latin chalybs). It is from this fanciful etymological musing that Thomas Malory got the notion that Excalibur meant 'cut steel' (the name of it,' said the lady, 'is Excalibur, that is as moche to say, as cut stele).

In the Post-Vulgate version, used in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur for the second Excalibur, the sword's scabbard is also said to have powers of its own, as any wounds received while wearing it would not bleed at all, thus preventing the wearer from ever bleeding to death in battle. For this reason, Merlin chides Arthur for preferring Excalibur over its sheath, saying that the latter is the greater treasure. The scabbard is, however, soon stolen from Arthur by his half-sister Morgan le Fay in revenge for the death of her beloved Accolon, he having been slain by Arthur with Excalibur in a duel involving a false Excalibur (Morgan also secretly makes at least one duplicate of Excalibur during the time when the sword is entrusted to her by Arthur earlier in the different French, Iberian and English variants of that story). During Morgan's flight from the pursuit by Arthur, the sheath is then thrown by her into a deep lake and lost. This act later enables the death of Arthur, deprived of its magical protection, many years later in his final battle. In Malory's telling, the scabbard is never found again. In the Post-Vulgate, however, it is recovered and claimed by another fay, Marsique, who then briefly gives it to Gawain to help him fight Naborn the Enchanter (a Mabon figure).

As mentioned above, Excalibur is wielded also by Gawain in some French romances, including the Vulgate Lancelot. The Prose Merlin also uniquely tells of Gawain killing the Roman leader Lucius with Excalibur. This is, however, in contrast to most versions, where Excalibur belongs solely to Arthur. A few texts, such as the English Alliterative Morte Arthure and one copy of the Welsh Ymddiddan Arthur a'r Eryr, tell of Arthur using Excalibur to kill his son Mordred (in the first of these, he also uses it to kill Lucius). In the Iberian post-Arthurian romance Florambel de Lucea, Morgan later gifts Excalibur (Esclariber) to the eponymous hero. Another late Iberian romance, Tirant lo Blanch, features Arthur who was brought back to life by Morgan and then wandered the world for a long time while mad and able to talk only when having Excalibur in his hands. Finally, Morgan finds her brother imprisoned in the contemporary (15th-century) Constantinople, where she restores him to his mind by making him gaze upon his reflection in Excalibur's blade.

Similar weapons

The challenge of drawing a sword from a stone (placed on the river just outside Camelot) also appears in the later Arthurian story of Galahad, whose achievement of the task indicates that he is destined to find the Holy Grail, as also foretold in Merlin's prophecies. This powerful yet cursed weapon, known as the Adventurous Sword among other names, has also come from Avalon; it is first stolen and wielded by Balin until his death while killing his own brother, then is briefly taken up by Galahad, and eventually is used by Lancelot to give his former friend Gawain a mortal wound in their long final duel. In the Old French Perlesvaus, Lancelot pulls other weapons from stone on two occasions. In the Post-Vulgate Merlin, Morgan creates the copies of Excalibur itself as well as of its scabbard.

In Welsh mythology, the Dyrnwyn ("White-Hilt"), one of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain, is said to be a powerful sword belonging to Rhydderch Hael, one of the Three Generous Men of Britain mentioned in the Welsh Triads. When drawn by a worthy or well-born man, the entire blade would blaze with fire. Rhydderch was never reluctant to hand the weapon to anyone, hence his nickname Hael "the Generous", but the recipients, as soon as they had learned of its peculiar properties, always rejected the sword. There are other similar weapons described in other mythologies as well. Irish mythology features Caladbolg, the sword of Fergus mac Róich, which was also known for its incredible power and was carried by some of Ireland's greatest heroes. The name, which can also mean "hard cleft" in Irish, appears in the plural, caladbuilc, as a generic term for "great swords" in Togail Troi ("The Destruction of Troy"), a 10th-century Irish translation of the classical tale. A sword named Claíomh Solais, which is an Irish term meaning "sword of light", or "shining sword", appears in a number of orally transmitted Irish folk-tales. The Sword in the Stone has an analogue in some versions of the story of Sigurd, whose father, Sigmund, draws the sword Gram out of the tree Barnstokkr where it is embedded by the Norse god Odin. Apart from legendary swords, the only real ancient Sword in the Stone which still exists nowadays is kept since the medieval ages in the Chapel of Saint Galgano at Montesiepi in Tuscany, Italy; it is associated with the 12th-century Italian legend of that saint in the tale of "Tuscany's Excalibur".

Arthur's other weapons
A number of different swords and other weapons have been also associated with Arthur. In the Alliterative Morte Arthure, Clarent is the royal sword of peace meant for knighting and ceremonies as opposed to battle, which Mordred stole and then used to kill Arthur at Camlann. The Prose Lancelot of the Vulgate Cycle mentions a sword called Sequence (also Secace or Seure) as borrowed from Arthur by Lancelot. In the Vulgate Merlin, Arthur captures Marmiadoise (Marmydoyse), the marvelous sword of Hercules, from the latter's descendant King Rions. Marmiadoise's powers (such as causing wounds that would never heal) are in fact so superior compared to those of Excalibur that Arthur gives his old sword to Gawain.

Early-Arthurian Welsh tradition knew of a dagger named Carnwennan and a spear named Rhongomyniad that belonged to him. Carnwennan ("little white-hilt") first appears in Culhwch and Olwen, where Arthur uses it to slice the witch Orddu in half. Rhongomyniad ("spear" + "striker, slayer") is also mentioned in Culhwch, although only in passing; it appears as simply Ron ("spear") in Geoffrey's Historia. Geoffrey also names Arthur's shield as Pridwen; in Culhwch, however, Prydwen ("fair face") is the name of Arthur's ship while his shield is named Wynebgwrthucher ("face of evening").

Excalibur as a relic
Historically, a sword identified as Excalibur (Caliburn) was supposedly discovered during the exhumation of Arthur's purported grave at Glastonbury Abbey in 1191. On 6 March 1191, after the Treaty of Messina, either this or another claimed Excalibur was given as a gift of goodwill by the English king Richard I of England (Richard the Lionheart) to his ally Tancred, King of Sicily. It was one of a series of symbolic Arthurian acts by the Anglo-Norman monarchs, such as their association of the crown of King Arthur with the crown they won from the slain Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Excalibur


text:
Eight-bar blues

In music, an eight-bar blues is a common blues chord progression. Music writers have described it as "the second most common blues form" being "common to folk, rock, and jazz forms of the blues". It is often notated in time signature or time with eight bars to the verse.

Overview
Early examples of eight-bar blues standards include: One variant using this progression is to couple one eight-bar blues melody with a different eight-bar blues bridge to create a blues variant of the standard 32-bar song: "I Want a Little Girl" (T-Bone Walker) and "Great Balls of Fire" (Jerry Lee Lewis)(
 * "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do" (Sara Martin, 1922)
 * "Trouble in Mind" (Chippie Hill, 1926)
 * "How Long Blues" (Leroy Carr, 1928)
 * "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" (Bessie Smith, 1929)
 * "It Hurts Me Too" (Tampa Red, 1940)
 * "Key to the Highway" (Big Bill Broonzy, 1941)
 * "Worried Life Blues" (Big Maceo, 1941)

Eight-bar blues progressions have more variations than the more rigidly defined twelve bar format. The move to the IV chord usually happens at bar 3 (as opposed to 5 in twelve bar); however, "the I chord moving to the V chord right away, in the second measure, is a characteristic of the eight-bar blues."

In the following examples each box represents a 'bar' of music (the specific time signature is not relevant). The chord in the box is played for the full bar. If two chords are in the box they are each played for half a bar, etc. The chords are represented as scale degrees in Roman numeral analysis. Roman numerals are used so the musician may understand the progression of the chords regardless of the key it is played in.

"Eight-bar blues chord progression":
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; width:250px;"

 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|V7
 * width=25%|IV7
 * width=25%|IV7
 * I || V7 IV7 ||I ||V7
 * }
 * }
 * }

"Worried Life Blues" (probably the most common eight-bar blues progression):
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; width:250px;"

 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|IV
 * width=25%|IV
 * I ||V ||I IV||I V
 * }
 * }
 * }

"Heartbreak Hotel" (variation with the I on the first half):
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; width:250px;"

 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|I
 * IV ||IV ||V ||I
 * }
 * }
 * }

J. B. Lenoir's "Slow Down" and "Key to the Highway" (variation with the V at bar 2):
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; width:250px;"

 * width=25%|I7
 * width=25%|V7
 * width=25%|IV7
 * width=25%|IV7
 * I7 ||V7 ||I7 ||V7
 * }
 * }
 * }

"Get a Haircut" by George Thorogood (simple progression):
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; width:250px;"

 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|I
 * IV || IV ||V ||V
 * }
 * }
 * }

Jimmy Rogers' "Walkin' By Myself" (somewhat unorthodox example of the form):
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; width:250px;"

 * width=25%|I7
 * width=25%|I7
 * width=25%|I7
 * width=25%|I7
 * IV7 ||V7 ||I7 ||V7
 * }
 * }
 * }

Howlin Wolf's version of "Sitting on Top of the World" is actually a 9 bar blues that adds an extra "V" chord at the end of the progression. The song uses movement between major and dominant 7th and major and minor fourth:
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; width:250px;"

 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|I7
 * width=25%|IV
 * width=25%|iv
 * I7 ||V ||I7 IV ||I7 V
 * }
 * }
 * }

The first four bar progression used by Wolf is also used in Nina Simone's 1965 version of "Trouble in Mind", but with a more uptempo beat than "Sitting on Top of the World":
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; width:250px;"

 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|I7
 * width=25%|IV
 * width=25%|iv
 * I VI7||ii V||I IV||I V
 * }
 * }
 * }

The progression may be created by dropping the first four bars from the twelve-bar blues, as in the solo section of Bonnie Raitt's "Love Me Like a Man" and Buddy Guy's "Mary Had a Little Lamb":
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; width:250px;"

 * width=25%|IV7
 * width=25%|IV7
 * width=25%|I7
 * width=25%|I7
 * V7 ||IV7 ||I7 ||V7
 * }
 * }
 * }

There are at least a few very successful songs using somewhat unusual chord progressions as well. For example, the song "Ain't Nobody's Business" as performed by Freddie King at least, uses a I–III–IV–iv progression in each of the first four bars. The same four bar progression is used by the band Radiohead to make up the bulk of the song "Creep".
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; width:250px;"

 * width=25%|I
 * width=25%|III
 * width=25%|IV
 * width=25%|iv
 * I ||vi ||ii ||V7
 * }
 * }
 * }

The same chord progression can also be called a sixteen-bar blues, if each symbol above is taken to be a half note in or  time. Examples are "Nine Pound Hammer" and Ray Charles's original instrumental "Sweet Sixteen Bars".

title: Eight-bar blues


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Echidna (disambiguation)

Echidnas are Australian egg-laying mammals also known as spiny anteaters.

Echidna may also refer to:

 * Echidna (mythology), monster in Greek mythology and namesake of the mammal
 * (42355) Typhon I Echidna, the natural satellite of the asteroid 42355 Typhon
 * ECHIDNA, high-resolution neutron powder diffractometer at Australia's research reactor OPAL
 * Echidna (Re:Zero), a character in the light novel series Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World
 * Echidna, character in the video game The Bouncer

Taxonomic genera

 * Echidna (fish), a genus of moray eels
 * Echidna, a junior homonym referring to the mammals commonly known as echidnas
 * Echidna, junior homonym for a genus of African snakes now treated as Bitis

title: Echidna (disambiguation)


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Talk:Echidna

Untitled
A picture would be nice. (Kwaku)

Shouldn't this page be titled "Echidna" not "Echidnas"? Would that fix the disambiguation issue with the page titled "Echidna"? -- User:Echidna

The Monotreme page lists Zaglossus bartoni as another living species of Echidna. Could someone more knowledgable than I either add them here, or delete them there? GTBacchus 01:07, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

When does Knuckles ever dig? He climbs and glides, but I've never seen him dig...

Yeah he does, like in sonic battle advance. ~ fran

Could we have a better picture of Knuckles? --81.208.161.29 16:13, 12 May 2007 (UTC) echidnas are moslty mexican mostly —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.24.126.50 (talk) 16:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Dispute Distribution Description
Currently the article says: The echidna's distribution across Australia is the largest of any mammal (Parker, Janet 'Echidna Love Trains').

However I question the validity of this statement, the marsupial family of Kangaroo are also distributed across the mainland, New Guinea (Papua), and Tasmania.211.30.95.182 03:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
 * most kangaoo species have a limited distribution, no one kangaroo species is found everywhere in Australia.--nixie 04:04, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Add the word "species" to the end of the sentence in the article being discussed, and you have made rhe point more clear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.68.94.95 (talk) 04:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

News story from MSNBC?
In case you haven't heard, there's a new MSNBC story that talks about an group of scientists who explored the Foja mountains in Indonesia, and found an abundance of animals. Some are new species, some are species of animals that are rare or endangered - the article specifically mentions the Long-beaked Echidna.

Here's the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11114156 It should be safe to assume that a reference to this article or event will be added to this page sometime in the future, correct? I'd edit it myself, but I'm not really an expert on the subject, article, or story, so I'd be uncomfortable making such an addition.

PS: I made one minor edit... Knuckles the Echidna can only glide, not fly. ;)  ---TheInvisMan, 03:05 PM EST, Feb. 07, 2006

 * The article doesn't say that they found a new species of Long-beak, all its says is that the Long-beaks weren't afraid of people. If there is a new species announced then it'll get added when it is publihed.--nixie 00:43, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Yo how do you pronounce it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.166.130.80 (talk • contribs).
 * Eh-kid-nah - UtherSRG (talk) 22:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

PBS Newshour
I was watching the newshour on PBS the other night and the explorers from the new guinea exploration team said they had found a new species of monotreme. They called it a giant echidna and said it weighed around 15 lbs. I have done some research on this though and the giant echidna is listed as an extinct species. So is this a new species or a "living fossil"? If anyone finds more info I would appreciate them if they would say something. I will do what research I can find and add it as I get it.208.65.105.38 03:43, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Oops I wasn't signed in when I made the above post.L337wm2007 03:45, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Good question. Can you dig up if they called it by a scientific name at all? They might have just been saying it was a giant echidna - a very large echidna - as opposed to calling it the Giant Echidna. - UtherSRG (talk) 03:49, 15 March

2006 (UTC)

So here it is I found the official transcript of this particular PBS program. I decided to just copy paste as I am still a little unsure on my ability to make links. I really hope this isn't plagerism.

JEFFREY BROWN: Then there is also was a very strange-looking animal called a giant echidna?

BRUCE BEEHLER: Yes.

Some people call them spiny anteaters. The echidna group is part of an ancient group of mammals called the monotremes. There are only -- there are somewhere between five and six species. They are egg-laying mammals. They are the only mammals on Earth that lay eggs.

And they have all sorts of other weird habits. This -- this little guy -- well, he is not so little -- he weighs about 15 pounds -- creeps around on the ground. Using his long beak, he -- he pokes into the soft earth to gather up earthworms. And he also burrows in the ground when he seems -- he gets fearful of predators or things like that. And he has got -- but he also has these porcupine-like spines all over his back. He's a weird one. There's no question about it.

So in reply he used no scientific name... I didn't think he did so 1. No scientific name yet or 2. It's just not in this info.L337wm2007 04:08, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Check the Western Long-beaked Echidna... it weighs in at 16.5 kg... that's about 36 pounds. So the critter he's discussing isn't so big. Just cut and paste the web address for the transcript and I'll look it over. - UtherSRG (talk) 04:27, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june06/lostworld_3-10.html here it is hope it helps :)L337wm2007 14:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Ah ha! If you click on the Slide Show, then go to image # 7, you'll see that the image is the same as the one inthe article and they label it s Z. bruijni, which is the Western Long-beaked Echidna, not a new species. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:03, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

well don't I feel a little silly.... thanks for the help though I will tell my zoology class.L337wm2007 02:37, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

spiny anteater
This term is increasingly rare in the land of the echidna (Australia), it is valuable to have it included, but I do not think that the name ought not be seen as interchangable.

If you ask about spiny anteaters you are likely to hear 'what? Oh, you mean echidnas.'—Dananimal 05:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually a lot of people seem to either think that the spiny anteater is an entirely different species or they have it completely wrong (isn't that a porcupine?) it should be included just for reference sake.L337wm2007 18:44, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Can you provide some citation for the porcupines being called spiny anteaters? - UtherSRG (talk) 18:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Plenty of historic references to them being called "spiny anteaters". See http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/27141516?searchTerm=%22spiny+anteater%22, and http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/26088528?searchTerm=%22spiny+anteater%22 and http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/15971223?searchTerm=%22spiny+anteater%22

Eregli bob (talk) 06:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Well actually I have never seen someone write it, but I have had several people ask me this sadly enough. I have also had many people not believe me when I corrected them. L337wm2007 15:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The things some say about animals... *Sigh* I don't know why, but I always get sort of angry when I hear inaccuracies about animals. Dora Nichov 07:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Simple solution here, based on Eregli bob's note: add a phrase in the intro "sometimes called 'spiny anteater' outside its native Australia and New Guinea" set off with commas. Makes the point that the term is still sometimes used without suggesting it's common where the animal actually lives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.68.94.95 (talk) 04:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe it should also be made clear that echidnas are not actually anteaters, despite this seemingly increasingly more common nickname. It mentions that they are not closely related but there is no real evidence to show that echidnas have descended from anteaters at all, even those that do eat termites and ants. It's more likely that they diverted from ancient marsupials instead. I'm not sure if that level of technical information really belongs in the intro but it should be made apparent somewhere that there is no direct relationship between echidnas and anteaters at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shippley.3 (talk • contribs) 21:55, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

 * The first paragraph includes the words "they are not closely related to the true anteaters of the Americas". I would hope that's enough. HiLo48 (talk) 23:24, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

 * I definitely saw that but just figured that it could use some more expounding upon. Just in case, I made an edit to the "Tachyglossus" section with some information about how their and some ancient marsupials' fossil records further disprove the relationship. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shippley.3 (talk • contribs) 02:54, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Intro
I think the intro is quite dull and overly biological, and would like to add a reference to Knuckles the Echidna to make it a little more interesting -- but that seems to offend many people, who revert that edit almost instantly. I fail to see how it's any less relevant than the name's origins in Greek mythology, though, or indeed many other boring things in that cluttered intro. I mean, he is surely the only famous echidna. 81.170.11.105 19:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, I can see what you mean, if you are not interested in biology. So, what if someone would look for information about Knuckles, where would they look here at wikipedia? I think either here: Knuckles the Echidna or here Knuckles. What people do you expect to show up here? And I would think people interesed in the species of this genus, not so direct in Knuckles the Echidna because they would look at the other places. And for that reason, I would think Knuckles the Echidna does not belong in the introduction. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 19:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

New photo?
I found this photo on the most recent article from a different language, should it replace the current taxobox image? The colours are better, but I am unsure of detail. --liquidGhoul 02:30, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

 * The current one shows face and feet better, we should keep it. There's already an image from the side in the article. Femto 11:04, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Yeah, that's what I was leaning towards, but it is a nice photo. --liquidGhoul 12:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Pokemon Reference?
I wish to ask your opinions about this: The Pokemon Cyndaquil, bears a resemblance to the echidna, as well as having a similar-sounding name.

It could just be the sleep deprivation talking, but can anyone explain to me how "Cyndaquil" sounds anything, even remotely, like "echidna"?

Not a major concern, just something I thought of when I read the article. 58.106.209.10 06:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I just edited that part out. -iopq 09:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

 * ... Whoa...  Now that you mention it, Cyndaquil does look kind of like an echidna...  I'm sure it's meant to resemble a hedgehog or a porcupine, but, seriously, this guy could be right...  --Luigifan 12:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Sandslash, if it curled up, would look like that balled up echidna, wouldn't it? 69.133.11.119 (talk) 18:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

 * Surprised no one mentioned Sandslash before now. Probably because its prior form (Sandshrew) looks like an armadillo, I suppose...  Or something.  ~ Joseph Collins  [ U | T | C ] 03:11, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Picture gallery
Could someone add in a picture gallery? --Pezzar 07:58, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Obtaining one of these
Where can I get one of these animals? I really really like them and would love to have one of these. Michaeldrayson 15:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * They are protected in Australia, so you cant have them as pets, maybe in rehabilitation you can keep them where they wouldn't survive in the wild. http://www.echidna.edu.au/monotremes/echidna_rescue.html also read the wed page. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 07:27, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Genre?
According to the article "It is the only surviving genre in the latter..." I presume that this should be genus, and am changing it unless someone has a valid objection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.188.128.146 (talk) 03:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That is fine, genus is singular and genera is plural for those that don't know. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 07:30, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Genus/Species?
Erm, were we just going to leave it at family and not finish classifying it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.140.218.179 (talk) 02:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Read closer. This is not one species, but a whole family. There are 2 extant genera and 1 extinct genera in the family, with a totla of 4 extant and 4 extinct species. All 8 are echidnas. - UtherSRG (talk) 02:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

"bizarre penis"
Apparently so. As a male hominid, I guess I should count my blessings... yep, just the one.--Shirt58 (talk) 12:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Sonic the Hedgehog & Knuckles the Echidna
Seems like a there should be a reference to Knuckles (from the Sonic games). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.128.150.97 (talk) 00:52, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

i agree 67.86.119.65 (talk) 03:05, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I also agree! My first encounter with the word "echidna" was from a Sonic the Hedgehog 3. 206.53.59.77 (talk) 18:54, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Reproductive behavior
Any justification for deleting my edit below? Was related to me several times on a recent tour, there are a number of web notes of this. (I placed the tag myself).

 * ==Breeding behavior==
 * A female in estrus will attract a number of male suitors. As the female moves about the mails will follow in trail, forming a echidna train several males (rarely over a dozen). At some point the female will halt and the males will walk in a circle about her. As the males grow tired they will drop out one by one until only one remains. It is this suitor that the female will then accept.

- Leonard G. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leonard G. (talk • contribs)

 * Heresay is far from reliable. Yes, you fact tagged it, but still, it's just heresay. Leave it off until you can cite a verifiable and reliable source that this is typical behavior in the wild, and not just in a nature center. - UtherSRG (talk) 18:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

 * Well, if I went out and got video of this somebody would probably accuse me of original research, right? ;-) - Leonard G. (talk) 20:34, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. - UtherSRG (talk) 22:27, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

 * I think if you got video footage of this, there are echidna researchers out there who would be much more interested! --.../Nemo (talk) 23:22, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

 * it is mentioned on the ABC (Aust. Broadcasting Comm.) article "Echidna Love Trains" currently in "External Links" David Woodward (talk) 02:07, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

 * Also mentioned on the Pelican Lagoon Research Centre monotreme pages. http://www.echidna.edu.au/monotremes/definition.html#breed Research done by Dr Peggy Rismuller and her team. Dr Peggy has been studying echidnas since the mid 80s. Dewhitton (talk) 03:58, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Poisonous?
I read in a book a while ago (I think the title was "Venomous Creatures") that echidnas were considered poisonous, not because of their own venom, but because they make a habit of rubbing poisonous frogs on their quills. They have some sort of natural immunity to the poison, and the poison on their quills protects them from predators. I don't have any online source for this, and I've long since lost the book in question, but there must be some source out there describing this curious behavior. Lurlock (talk) 15:29, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

 * Googling "Echidna poison" turns up a number of sources (e.g. this one) that suggest that, while having a poison gland similar to that of their monotreme cousin the platypus, its venom isn't poisonous. But it also sounds like there's something of a story to be told there.  Can't see anything immediately about frogs, but this behaviour does sound rather unlikely.  Still, the natural world is full of stranger things.  Cheers, --P LUMBAGO  15:36, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

 * That behavior has been recorded in hedgehogs. I'm not aware of it being present in echidnas however. Albertonykus (talk) 06:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Puggle?
I was under the impression that 'puggle' is an incorrect term, and a common misconception among overseas visitors. This word is virtually unknown in Australia, and I've never heard a baby echidna called this before. I've also never seen it mentioned in any literature originating from Australia. Can we get a source?

I've also often read that a baby PLATYPUS is called a 'puggle' on international websites etc, but I've never heard this term in Australia either. Whatever the case, it's not mentioned in the Platypus article.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.200.181 (talk) 15:47, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

 * I am about to update the article to correct the use of 'puggle'. Citation showing it to be incorrect: http://australianet.com/tlf/faq.shtml#echidnas
 * --.../Nemo (talk • Contributions) 03:55, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

 * I am confused. Clearly baby echidnas are called puggles. Some people do call them that, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. What does it mean for the term to be incorrect? As far as I can see, this is saying that some people (biologists? Australians? webmasters of sites about echidnas?) do not use the term and do not like that it is derived from the name of a brand of toys. Why do these people get to decide on what English usage is correct? (I have no connection with echidnas and have never needed to refer to their offspring at all; my interest in this question concerns linguistic prescription and its motives.) Marnanel (talk) 03:14, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

 * Linguistically, yes, the term has begun to be commonly used, and indeed, personally, I think it's quite likely that 'puggle' will become the common term. But as it stands, the etymology of this usage is very new and not formally established - hence "incorrect". Since wikipedia should reflect what has been and what is, but not set the trend for what will happen next, I think this conservatism should reflect that 'puggle' is, technically, a trademark name and it's use in this context is in error (or at the least, a relatively new term). I note that the error was apparently corrected, but the error has propagated whilst the correction has not. (also: I've not been able to find an exact citation on either, but neither have I found any reference to 'puggle' in this context prior to 2000 or so). Perhaps the wording in the Monotreme page would satisfy us both? To quote: 'Infant echidnas are sometimes known as "puggles", alluding to their similarity in appearance to the Australian children's toy designed by Tony Barber' ?  --.../Nemo (talk • Contributions) 13:06, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Sonic the Hedgehog has nothing to do with this article
I can understand that while Knuckles is a notable echidna, he definately does not deserve a whole section about him. Change the section to 'Notable Echidnas'. He does not deserve a picture on this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.199.116.175 (talk) 23:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed; the current link is preferable. He doesn't even well-represent echidnas anyway. MXVN (talk) 05:21, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, knuckles deserves to be shot. Though, he could be used as a mascot to hel educate people on the dwindling numbers of long-beaked echidnas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.238.225.106 (talk) 14:20, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I think saying he should be shot is a bit much. Unless it's some kind of figurative thing that I'm not understanding, he's a fictional character. He's not doing anything. 12.17.177.164 (talk) 23:03, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Sir David's Long-beaked Echidna
Sir David's Long-beaked Echidna is described as "recently discovered". This phrase will age and so, following the Manual of Style, should be avoided and replaced by a more precise and absolute expression. When was it discovered? Old Father Time (talk) 21:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The article Sir David's Long-beaked Echidna contains several dates, but none appears to refer to an authenticated record of a live animal – or does "recently discovered" refer to the description from a damaged specimen in 1961? I have tentatively replaced "recently discovered" by "described in 1961". If anyone wishes to replace this by a reference to a live sighting, please do so. Old Father Time (talk) 20:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Echidna egg photo
Could someone add a photo of an Echidna egg?Francisco Valverde (talk) 18:55, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Relationship to true anteaters
First 2 remarks copied from user_talk:UtherSRG by topic starter.

Dear UtherSRG, could you please explain why you reverted my change in the echidna article? True anteaters are as closely related to echidnas as you and I (both us and true anteaters being placentals while echidnas are monotremes), and I suppose you don't consider yourselves close enough related to echidnas to mention it. Scarabaeoid (talk) 18:32, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, we're as closely related, but of course distantly related. We, though, are of no mention. But the name similarity deserves a mention. To say that echidnas are not related to anteaters is patently false, as you admit. They are related, it's just a very distant relationship. We shouldn't give false information. The truth is that there is a relationship, it's just a distant one, which was what the article said before your edit. I said as much in the edit summary. - UtherSRG (talk) 04:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Theoretically you're right, but such reasoning would make it a good thing to point out that butterflies are not flies that live of butter! Are there other contributors with an opinion on this? Scarabaeoid (talk) 10:04, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You're talking about this edit, aren't you? Well, then UtherSRG is right, though the point may be a bit pedantic: "only distantly related" is more precise wording than "not related". The sentence isn't very sensible either way, though: there's no intrinsic reasons why an animal that eats ants should be closely related to anteaters. Ucucha 16:15, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe the reason that sentence is there is because one of the echidna's common names is the "spiny anteater". With that name, I think it's important to have something denoting the relationship. - UtherSRG (talk) 04:24, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Nat Geo as source
It's not clear which, if any, species they are describing in the June 2010 issue

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2010/06/foja-mountains/white-text

FX (talk) 15:35, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I guess Zaglossus attenboroughi. Ucucha 06:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Cerebral Cortex of Echidna
"Neocortex makes up half of the echidna's brain, compared to one-third of a human brain.[ref name=bbc121119/]"

is incorrect, in the text, as well as the source. Human Brain is much more neocortex, 80% or more. I will find a reference for this and return. meanwhile, absurd claim that Echidna is more advanced than human is removed from page

Rustin — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.167.227.53 (talk) 16:59, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

 * You seem to have misunderstood the test in the article. It did not "claim that Echidna is more advanced than human", it simply spoke about relative sizes of parts of the brain, so I have restored your deletion. If you do find a better source for this area of detail about the echidna, please share it here, but do be careful editing the article without such information. HiLo48 (talk) 22:55, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

 * I'm not the original poster above, but This research paper might be of some relevance. It does not mention echidnas, but it does state that the neocortex makes up 80% of the volume of the human brain (this article says 76%, but isn't peer reviewed, and doesn't give a source). So the "compared to one-third of a human brain" half of the sentence, at least, would be appear to be incorrect - perhaps the BBC journalist misunderstood something? Anaxial (talk) 20:13, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

 * I've identified a further peer-reviewed source backing up the 80% figure, and, furthermore, stating that there are no primate species in which the neocortex makes up less than half the brain. I did also find a NY Times article about echidnas backing up the claim in the BBC piece, but this seems to contradict the available scientific evidence, and appears to come from the same source. I will therefore amend the page accordingly. Anaxial (talk) 09:31, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Spines
Article as it stands doesn't explain what spines are for. Seeing as they are a distinctive and recognisable feature of the animal, it would be desirable to have some reference to the function of the spines (and perhaps how they are different from spines of hedgehogs and spiny anteaters). Bilby4 (talk) 04:19, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Penile Spines
I believe the article should explain the purpose of the penile spines in regards to echidna mating. It seem strange to include them in the discussion without explaining what they are and what they do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Collins.1116 (talk • contribs) 01:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Threats
When concerning how to help echidnas, it seems that teaching people how to help them seems a bit much. It would probably be best to not mention handling echidnas at all to prevent people from trying to help them directly, which would probably do more harm then good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Collins.1116 (talk • contribs) 01:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Penis Use
For clarity's sake, it may need to be established what is meant by "During mating, the heads on one side "shut down" and do not grow in size; the other two are used to release semen into the female's two-branched reproductive tract. Each time it has sex, it alternates heads in sets of two." Whether this mean it switches during each mating season or instance of mating is a little unclear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Collins.1116 (talk • contribs) 01:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Expansion of Evolution section
The section mentions the divergence of platypus-echidna and that this might imply that echidnas came from water-foraging ancestors. However, I feel that this could use a little more explanation of the evidence, such as their anatomical and physiological traits such as: as aquadynamic streamlining, dorsally projecting hind limbs acting as rudders, and locomotion founded on hypertrophied humeral long-axis rotation, which provides a very efficient swimming stroke. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shippley.3 (talk • contribs) 22:05, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

At the end of the section it mentions how olviparous reproduction may have given monotremes an advantage over marsupials however it can be expanded. This advantage can in part lead to the observed associated adaptive radiation of echidnas and expansion of the niche space, which together contradict the fairly common assumption of halted morphological and molecular evolution that continues to be associated with monotremes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shippley.3 (talk • contribs) 22:22, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The description section says echidnas are small mammals, but when I checked the source it states they are medium-sized mammals (and that was referring to the smaller short-beaked variety). I'm changing that to say medium-sized to be in line with the source 124.168.178.29 (talk) 03:45, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I find this section highly problematic (and the article as a whole of rather low quality): The writing is confusing and there is a lot of speculation that is, at best, written in a potentially misleading manner. I think particularly of the claims of a close connection between monotremes (possibly also mammals in general) and birds/reptiles. If monotremes were non-mammals or if mammals descended from birds, e.g., this would turn the current accepted wisdom on its head. 80.226.24.12 (talk) 00:26, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Evolution section
Earlier today I deleted the last paragraph of the section, explaining why in my edit summary. NewYorkYankee reverted the deletion, saying, "The paragraph is cited. If it contains errors, you should point them out and look for consensus on the Talk page." Very well. I deleted the paragraph because it is full of nonsense about the relationship between echidnas and birds and reptiles. There is no meaningful relationship. Echidnas are mammals, and therefore synapsids; their history diverges from the history of reptiles and birds, which are diapsids, around 350 million years ago. The earliest birds didn't appear until around 150 million years ago, so the idea of echidnas being derived from birds is completely inconsistent with modern understanding (as well as inconsistent with the earlier paragraphs in this section). As for the sources that are cited here, I don't believe they support the statements made in the paragraph, but in any case the first one is quite old (1993), and the second is a primary research study dealing with a very difficult and rather controversial topic -- the sex chromosomes in monotremes are extraordinarily complex. (The second reference says interesting things about the evolution of sex chromosomes, but it does not claim to shed any light on the overall evolutionary history of monotremes.) Looie496 (talk) 19:12, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The text was introduced in several edits on 17 November 2014 by an editor who has not been active since then. Should anything be done with the other text (after your removal is restored)? Johnuniq (talk) 23:16, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your willingness to work through the process. I agree that the paragraph is dubious, although I'm not a subject matter expert. Can anything of this information be salvaged, or can you write a better paragraph? NewEnglandYankee (talk) 01:19, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I know a certain amount about the evolution of mammals, but very little about echidnas, so I'm not really competent to add material or fix it. I think probably something about sex chromosomes and their relationship to bird and reptile sex chromosomes does belong in the article, but I'm not capable of doing anything about it.  In other words, an expert could probably find something to salvage here, but not me. Looie496 (talk) 02:26, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Then, unless someone comes forward to defend the text as written, or an expert appears, I think I'm seeing consensus that you were right in the first place. I withdraw my comment. NewEnglandYankee (talk) 02:34, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've removed it again. I notice that the edits were made by a student as part of a class assignment -- a common way that articles get broken.  The student also added some other material to the Evolution section, but I don't see any major problems with it. Looie496 (talk) 18:13, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

'True Anteaters'?
If you eat ants, you are an anteater. Why the distinction? KägeTorä - (影虎) ( もしもし！ ) 09:50, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

 * Because the word 'anteater' does not mean "an animal that eats ants", but is, instead, a specific kind of animal. The word for "animal that eats ants" is myrmecophage. Anaxial (talk) 15:25, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Ears
Why is the section about the ears under Diet? Shouldn't it be under Anatomy or something? 89.17.134.9 (talk) 10:56, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I moved it to Description in any case. Feel free to move it elsewhere, just not back to diet. o,0 ~ 89.17.134.9 (talk) 11:21, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Darwinist propaganda
"Echidnas evidently evolved..." states the article. yet there is NO EVIDENCE for "evolution", it's only a theory. 06:37, 27 August 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.250.171.53 (talk)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 January 2018
Echidnas evidently evolved between 20 and 50 million years ago, descending from a platypus-like monotreme.[3] This ancestor was aquatic, but echidnas adapted to life on land.[3] Echidnas are able to find the wae by spitting on the non-believers, and are linked to their queens. 64.201.166.121 (talk) 14:49, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — KuyaBriBri Talk 15:22, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Meme in the article
Not sure how long it's going to take for someone to notice that under the "in popular culture" heading, someone put "& Knuckles" at the end of the list of Archie comic echidnas. (It already stated Knuckles was there and the way it's worded is an obvious reference to the meme). Obviously I can't fix it because the page is protected, so I'm guessing that happened before the page was protected.

Bobby19456 (talk) 02:25, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

 * Done. Glad you noticed.--Quisqualis (talk) 05:49, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

True?
The lead tells us echidnas "are not closely related to the true anteaters of the Americas". What makes the American ones the true ones? In both cases, anteater is a colloquial, common name. It's not the scientific one, where some real truth could validly be assigned. I see no problem in removing the word "true", and it would remove the hint of American-centrism presently there. HiLo48 (talk) 22:29, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * This American-centrism is also reflected in Anteater (disambiguation), but not in the articles Aardvark and Pangolin, so I support the suggestion. Bahudhara (talk) 03:24, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I have no opinion on this, but let me just give a point to the 'True Anteaters' section above. Looie496 (talk) 15:14, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I read that before I posted, and was none the wiser. HiLo48 (talk) 02:12, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Added a reference to Xenarthra to help give context for anteaters. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 01:53, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Anatomy
The section that was headed "Classification" has very little on classification, and a lot on echidna anatomy, so I have changed the title. Some broader reorganization of the article might be a good idea, rather than grouping anatomy and physiology, taxonomy, and lifespan together. Vicki Rosenzweig (talk) 01:56, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

″Fully grown females can weigh up to 4.5 kilograms (9.9 lb), the males 25% larger, up to 6 kilograms (13 lb).″ The reference for this information only mentions "about 4.5 kg" and "about 6 kg" (not "up to", and no % comparison). Also, 6kg is 33% larger than 4.5kg. (4.5kg is 25% smaller). 51.6.34.252 (talk) 22:08, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree. I've now updated the article. Thanks! - UtherSRG (talk) 13:22, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you UtherSRG. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 51.6.34.252 (talk • contribs)

Contentious edits
Recent edits by IP editors 193.119.106.181 / 203.219.171.186 have repeatedly re-added contentious material to the Echidna article, despite being reverted by several editors.

One claim is that " The word can also derive from echinus'', the Latin word for "hedgehog" ". However, according to Wiktionary, the Latin word for hedgehog is erinaceus; while echinus gives "hedgehog; sea urchin", it seems that this Latin term is derived from Ancient Greek, and primarily relates to sea urchins, rather than hedgehogs.

The fossil record of monotremes is very sparse, and to link vague terms such as "platypus-like monotreme" to Steropodon and Steropodontidae, and "echidna-like monotremes" to Kryoryctes implies a level of certainty regarding these species as being the direct ancestors of echidnas that is not supported by the linked articles, or by the ref by Phillips et al. Bahudhara (talk) 01:39, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
 * @Bahudhara: Please check recent edits. I'm not qualified to know their merit but will take admin action if the IP repeatedly adds material without engaging in discussion here, if the material is disputed. Johnuniq (talk) 02:51, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Size
Lots of interesting information. I was wondering about average length and height (metric). Am I missing it somewhere? 49.176.210.120 (talk) 11:50, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Echidna


text:
Edward Waring

Edward Waring (c. 1736 – 15 August 1798) was a British mathematician. He entered Magdalene College, Cambridge as a sizar and became Senior wrangler in 1757. He was elected a Fellow of Magdalene and in 1760 Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, holding the chair until his death. He made the assertion known as Waring's problem without proof in his writings Meditationes Algebraicae. Waring was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1763 and awarded the Copley Medal in 1784.

Early years
Waring was the eldest son of John and Elizabeth Waring, a prosperous farming couple. He received his early education in Shrewsbury School under a Mr Hotchkin and was admitted as a sizar at Magdalene College, Cambridge, on 24 March 1753, being also Millington exhibitioner.

His extraordinary talent for mathematics was recognised from his early years in Cambridge. In 1757 he graduated BA as senior wrangler and on 24 April 1758 was elected to a fellowship at Magdalene. He belonged to the Hyson Club, whose members included William Paley.

Career
At the end of 1759 Waring published the first chapter of Miscellanea Analytica. On 28 January the next year he was appointed Lucasian professor of mathematics, one of the highest positions in Cambridge. William Samuel Powell, then tutor in St John's College, Cambridge opposed Waring's election and instead supported the candidacy of William Ludlam. In the polemic with Powell, Waring was backed by John Wilson. In fact Waring was very young and did not hold the MA, necessary for qualifying for the Lucasian chair, but this was granted him in 1760 by royal mandate. In 1762 he published the full Miscellanea Analytica, mainly devoted to the theory of numbers and algebraic equations. In 1763 he was elected to the Royal Society. He was awarded its Copley Medal in 1784 but withdrew from the society in 1795, after he had reached sixty, 'on account of [his] age'. Waring was also a member of the academies of sciences of Göttingen and Bologna. In 1767 he took an MD degree, but his activity in medicine was quite limited. He carried out dissections with Richard Watson, professor of chemistry and later bishop of Llandaff. From about 1770 he was physician at Addenbrooke's Hospital at Cambridge, and he also practised at St Ives, Huntingdonshire, where he lived for some years after 1767. His career as a physician was not very successful since he was seriously short-sighted and a very shy man.

Personal life
Waring had a younger brother, Humphrey, who obtained a fellowship at Magdalene in 1775. In 1776 Waring married Mary Oswell, sister of a draper in Shrewsbury; they moved to Shrewsbury and then retired to Plealey, 8 miles out of the town, where Waring owned an estate of 215 acres in 1797

Work
Waring wrote a number of papers in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, dealing with the resolution of algebraic equations, number theory, series, approximation of roots, interpolation, the geometry of conic sections, and dynamics. The Meditationes Algebraicae (1770), where many of the results published in Miscellanea Analytica were reworked and expanded, was described by Joseph-Louis Lagrange as 'a work full of excellent researches'. In this work Waring published many theorems concerning the solution of algebraic equations which attracted the attention of continental mathematicians, but his best results are in number theory. Included in this work was the so-called Goldbach conjecture (every even integer is the sum of two primes), and also the following conjecture: every odd integer is a prime or the sum of three primes. Lagrange had proved that every positive integer is the sum of not more than four squares; Waring suggested that every positive integer is either a cube or the sum of not more than nine cubes. He also advanced the hypothesis that every positive integer is either a biquadrate (fourth power) or the sum of not more than nineteen biquadrates. These hypotheses form what is known as Waring's problem. He also published a theorem, due to his friend John Wilson, concerning prime numbers; it was later proven rigorously by Lagrange.

In Proprietates Algebraicarum Curvarum (1772) Waring reissued in a much revised form the first four chapters of the second part of Miscellanea Analytica. He devoted himself to the classification of higher plane curves, improving results obtained by Isaac Newton, James Stirling, Leonhard Euler, and Gabriel Cramer. In 1794 he published a few copies of a philosophical work entitled An Essay on the Principles of Human Knowledge, which were circulated among his friends.

Waring's mathematical style is highly analytical. In fact he criticised those British mathematicians who adhered too strictly to geometry. It is indicative that he was one of the subscribers of John Landen's Residual Analysis (1764), one of the works in which the tradition of the Newtonian fluxional calculus was more severely criticised. In the preface of Meditationes Analyticae Waring showed a good knowledge of continental mathematicians such as Alexis Clairaut, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, and Euler. He lamented the fact that in Great Britain mathematics was cultivated with less interest than on the continent, and clearly desired to be considered as highly as the great names in continental mathematics—there is no doubt that he was reading their work at a level never reached by any other eighteenth-century British mathematician. Most notably, at the end of chapter three of Meditationes Analyticae Waring presents some partial fluxional equations (partial differential equations in Leibnizian terminology); such equations are a mathematical instrument of great importance in the study of continuous bodies which was almost completely neglected in Britain before Waring's researches. One of the most interesting results in Meditationes Analyticae is a test for the convergence of series generally attributed to d'Alembert (the 'ratio test'). The theory of convergence of series (the object of which is to establish when the summation of an infinite number of terms can be said to have a finite 'sum') was not much advanced in the eighteenth century.

Waring's work was known both in Britain and on the continent, but it is difficult to evaluate his impact on the development of mathematics. His work on algebraic equations contained in Miscellanea Analytica was translated into Italian by Vincenzo Riccati in 1770. Waring's style is not systematic and his exposition is often obscure. It seems that he never lectured and did not habitually correspond with other mathematicians. After Jérôme Lalande in 1796 observed, in Notice sur la vie de Condorcet, that in 1764 there was not a single first-rate analyst in England, Waring's reply, published after his death as 'Original letter of Dr Waring' in the Monthly Magazine, stated that he had given 'somewhere between three and four hundred new propositions of one kind or another'.

Death
During his last years he sank into a deep religious melancholy, and a violent cold caused his death, in Plealey, on 15 August 1798. He was buried in the churchyard at Fitz, Shropshire.

title: Edward Waring


text:
Eden Phillpotts

Eden Phillpotts (4 November 1862 – 29 December 1960) was an English author, poet and dramatist. He was born in Mount Abu, India, was educated in Plymouth, Devon, and worked as an insurance officer for ten years before studying for the stage and eventually becoming a writer.

Life
Eden Phillpotts was a great-nephew of Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter. His father Henry Phillpotts was a son of the bishop's younger brother Thomas Phillpotts. James Surtees Phillpotts the reforming headmaster of Bedford School was his second cousin.

Eden Phillpotts was born on 4 November 1862 at Mount Abu in Rajasthan. His father Henry was an officer in the Indian Army, while his mother Adelaide was the daughter of an Indian Civil Service officer posted in Madras, George Jenkins Waters.

Henry Phillpotts died in 1865, leaving Adelaide a widow at the age of 21. With her three small sons, of whom Eden was the eldest, she returned to England and settled in Plymouth.

Phillpotts was educated at Mannamead School in Plymouth. At school he showed no signs of a literary bent. In 1879, aged 17, he left home and went to London to earn his living. He found a job as a clerk with the Sun Fire Office.

Phillpotts' ambition was to be an actor and he attended evening classes at a drama school for two years. He came to the conclusion that he would never make a name as an actor but might have success as a writer. In his spare time out of office hours he proceeded to create a stream of small works which he was able to sell. In due course he left the insurance company to concentrate on his writing, while also working part-time as assistant editor for the weekly Black and White magazine.

Eden Phillpotts maintained a steady output of three or four books a year for the next half century. He produced poetry, short stories, novels, plays and mystery tales. Many of his novels were about rural Devon life and some of his plays were distinguished by their effective use of regional dialect.

Eden Phillpotts died at his home in Broadclyst near Exeter, Devon, on 29 December 1960.

Personal life
Phillpotts was for many years the President of the Dartmoor Preservation Association and cared passionately about the conservation of Dartmoor. He was an agnostic and a supporter of the Rationalist Press Association.

Phillpotts was a friend of Agatha Christie, who was an admirer of his work and a regular visitor to his home. She dedicated her 1932 novel Peril at End House to Phillpotts, and in her autobiography, she expressed gratitude for his early advice on fiction writing and quoted some of it. Jorge Luis Borges was another Phillpotts admirer. Borges mentioned him numerous times, wrote at least two reviews of his novels, and included him in his "Personal Library", a collection of works selected to reflect his personal literary preferences.

Writings
Phillpotts wrote a great many books with a Dartmoor setting. One of his novels, Widecombe Fair (1913), inspired by an annual fair at the village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor, provided the scenario for his comic play The Farmer's Wife (1916). It went on to become a 1928 silent film of the same name, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was followed by a 1941 remake, directed by Norman Lee and Leslie Arliss. It became a BBC TV drama in 1955, directed by Owen Reed. Jan Stewer played Churdles Ash. The BBC had broadcast the play in 1934.

He co-wrote several plays with his daughter Adelaide Phillpotts, The Farmer's Wife and Yellow Sands (1926); she later claimed their relationship was incestuous. Eden is best known as the author of many novels, plays and poems about Dartmoor. His Dartmoor cycle of 18 novels and two volumes of short stories still has many avid readers despite the fact that many titles are out of print.

Philpotts also wrote a series of novels, each set against the background of a different trade or industry. Titles include: Brunel's Tower (a pottery) and Storm in a Teacup (hand-papermaking). Among his other works is The Grey Room, the plot of which is centred on a haunted room in an English manor house. He also wrote a number of other mystery novels, both under his own name and the pseudonym Harrington Hext. These include: The Thing at Their Heels, The Red Redmaynes, The Monster, The Clue from the Stars, and The Captain's Curio. The Human Boy was a collection of schoolboy stories in the same genre as Rudyard Kipling's Stalky & Co., though different in mood and style. Late in his long writing career he wrote a few books of interest to science fiction and fantasy readers, the most noteworthy being Saurus, which involves an alien reptilian observing human life.

Eric Partridge praised the immediacy and impact of his dialect writing.

Works
Novels
 * The End of a Life (1891)
 * Folly and Fresh Air (1891)
 * A Tiger's Club (1892)
 * A Deal with the Devil (1895)
 * Some Every-day Folks (1895)
 * My Laughing Philosopher (1896)
 * Down Dartmoor Way (1896)
 * Lying Prophets: A Novel (1897)
 * Children of the Mist (1898)
 * Sons of the Morning (1900)
 * The Good Red Earth (1901)
 * The River (1902)
 * Old Delabole (1903)
 * The Golden Fetich (1903)
 * The American Prisoner (1904)
 * The Farm of the Dagger (1904)
 * The Secret Woman (1905)
 * The Poacher's Wife (1906) AKA Daniel Sweetland (1906)
 * The Sinews of War: A Romance of London and the Sea (1906) with Arnold Bennett
 * Doubloons (1906) with Arnold Bennett
 * The Portreeve (1906)
 * The Whirlwind (1907)
 * The Human Boy Again (1908)
 * The Mother (1908)
 * The Virgin in Judgment (1908) AKA A Fight to Finish (1911)
 * The Statue: A Story of International Intrigue and Mystery (1908) with Arnold Bennett
 * The Three Brothers (1909)
 * The Fun of the Fair (1909)
 * The Haven (1909)
 * The Flint Heart: A Fairy Story (1910)
 * The Thief of Virtue (1910)
 * The Beacon (1911)
 * Demeter's Daughter (1911)
 * The Three Knaves (1912)
 * The Forest on the Hill (1912)
 * The Lovers: A Romance (1912)
 * Widecombe Fair (1913)
 * The Joy of Youth (1913)
 * The Old Time Before Them (1913)
 * Faith Tresilion (1914)
 * The Master of Merripit (1914)
 * Brunel's Tower (1915)
 * The Green Alleys: A Comedy (1916)
 * The Human Boy and the War (1916)
 * The Banks of Colne: (the Nursery) (1917)
 * The Girl and the Faun (1917)
 * The Spinners (1918)
 * From the Angle of Seventeen (1912)
 * Evander (1919)
 * Storm in a Teacup (1919)
 * Miser's Money (1920)
 * Eudocia (1921)
 * The Grey Room (1921)
 * The Bronze Venus (1921)
 * Orphan Dinah (1920)
 * The Red Redmaynes (1922)
 * Pan and the Twins (1922)
 * Number 87 (1922)
 * The Thing at Their Heels (1923)
 * Children of Men (1923)
 * Cheat-the-boys; a Story of the Devonshire Orchards (1924)
 * Redcliff (1924)
 * The Treasures of Typhon (1924)
 * The Lavender Dragon (1924)
 * Who Killed Diana? (1924)
 * Circé's Island (1924)
 * A Voice from the Dark (1925)
 * The Monster (1925)
 * George Westover (1926)
 * The Marylebone Miser (1926) AKA Jig-Saw (1926)
 * Cornish Droll: A Novel (1926)
 * The Miniature (1926)
 * The Jury (1927)
 * Arachne (1928)
 * The Ring Fence (1928)
 * Tryphena (1929)
 * The Apes (1929)
 * The Three Maidens (1930)
 * Alcyone (a Fairy Story) (1930)
 * "Found Drowned" (1931)
 * A Clue from the Stars (1932)
 * The Broom Squires (1932)
 * Stormbury, A Story of Devon (1932)
 * The Captain's Curio (1933)
 * Bred in the Bone (1933)
 * Witch's Cauldron (1933)
 * Nancy Owlett (1933)
 * Minions of the Moon (1934)
 * Ned of the Caribbees (1934)
 * Portrait of a Gentleman (1934)
 * Mr. Digweed and Mr. Lumb: A Mystery Novel (1934)
 * The Oldest Inhabitant: A Comedy (1934)
 * A Close Call (1936)
 * The Owl of Athene (1936)
 * The White Camel: A Story of Arabia (1936)
 * The Anniversary Murder (1936)
 * The Wife of Elias: A Mystery Novel (1937)
 * Wood-nymph (1937)
 * Farce in Three Acts (1937)
 * Portrait of a Scoundrel (1938)
 * Saurus (1938)
 * Lycanthrope, the Mystery of Sir William Wolf (1938)
 * Dark Horses (1938)
 * Golden Island (1938)
 * Thorn in Her Flesh (1939)
 * Tabletop (1939) with Arnold Bennett
 * Monkshood (1939)
 * Chorus of Clowns (1940)
 * Goldcross (1940)
 * Awake Deborah! (1941)
 * Ghostwater (1941)
 * The Deed Without a Name (1942)
 * Pilgrims of the Night (1942)
 * A Museum Piece (1943)
 * Flower of the Gods (1943)
 * The Changeling (1944)
 * The Drums of Dombali (1945)
 * They Were Seven: (A Mystery) (1945)
 * Quartet (1946)
 * The Fall of the House of Heron (1948)
 * Address Unknown (1949)
 * The Waters of Walla (1950)
 * Through a Glass Darkly (1951)
 * George and Georgina: A Mystery Story (1952)
 * His Brother's Keeper (1953)
 * The Widow Garland (1955)
 * Connie Woodland (1956)
 * Giglet Market (1957)
 * There Was an Old Man (1959)

Short Fiction Books
 * My Adventure in the Flying Scotsman; a Romance of London and North-Western Railway Shares (1888)
 * The Human Boy (1899)
 * Loup-garou! (1899)
 * Summer Clouds and Other Stories (1893)
 * Fancy Free (1901)
 * The Striking Hours (1901)
 * The Transit of the Red Dragon: And Other Tales (1903)
 * Knock at a Venture (1905)
 * The Unlucky Number (1906)
 * The Folk Afield (1907)
 * Tales of the Tenements (1910)
 * The Judge's Chair (1914)
 * The Human Boy and the War (1916)
 * Chronicles of St. Tid (1918)
 * Black, White, and Brindled (1923)
 * Up Hill, Down Dale: A Volume of Short Stories (1925)
 * Peacock House and Other Mysteries (1926)
 * It happened Like That, a New Volume of Short Stories (1928)
 * Brother Man (1928)
 * The Torch and Other Tales (1929)
 * Cherry Gambol and Other Stories (1930)
 * They Could Do No Other: A Volume of Stories (1932)
 * Once upon a Time (1936)
 * The Hidden Hand (1952)

Poetry
 * Up-Along and Down-Along (1905)
 * Wild Fruit (1911)
 * The Iscariot (1912)
 * Delight and Other Poems (1916)
 * Plain Song (1917)
 * A Shadow Passes [Observations and Poems] (1918)
 * As the Wind Blows (1920)
 * A Dish of Apples (1921)
 * Pixies' Plot (1922)
 * Thoughts in Prose and Verse (1924)
 * Cherry-Stones (1924)
 * A Harvesting (1924)
 * Brother Beast (1928)
 * Goodwill (1928)
 * For Remembrance (1929)
 * A Hundred Sonnets (1929)
 * A Hundred Lyrics (1930)
 * Becoming (1932)
 * Song of a Sailor Man: A Narrative Poem (1933)
 * Sonnets from Nature (1935)
 * A Dartmoor Village (1937)
 * Miniatures (1942)
 * The Enchanted Wood (1948)
 * One Thing and Another [Essays and poems.] (1954)

Plays
 * The Prude's Progress: A Comedy with Jerome K. Jerome (1895)
 * A Golden Wedding: An Original Comedy in One Act (1899)
 * A Breezy Morning (1904)
 * A Pair of Knickerbockers (1900)
 * Curtain Raisers (1912)
 * The Shadow; A Play in Three Acts (1913)
 * The Mother: A Play in Four Acts (1914)
 * The Secret Woman; A Play in Five Acts (1914)
 * The Angel in the House: A Comedy in Three Acts (1915)
 * The Farmer's Wife (1916)
 * Arachne; A Play (1920) By Adelaide Eden Phillpotts
 * St. George and the Dragons: A Comedy in Three Acts (1919) AKA *The bishop's night out (1929)
 * The Market-Money. A Play in One Act (1923)
 * Bed Rock: A Comedy in Three Acts (1924)
 * Devonshire Cream: A Comedy in Three Acts (1925)
 * A Comedy Royal (1925) Dramatization of Eudocia (1921)
 * Yellow Sands (1926)
 * Blue Comet (1927)
 * The Runaways: A Comedy in Three Acts (1928)
 * Three Short Plays: The Market-money; Something to Talk about; The Purple Bedroom (1928)
 * Buy a Broom: A Comedy in Three Acts (1929)
 * Jane's Legacy: A Folk Play in Three Acts (1931)
 * The Good Old Days: A Comedy in Three Acts (1932) with his daughter
 * Bert: A Play in One Act (1932)
 * A Cup of Happiness: A Comedy (1933)
 * At the 'bus-stop: A Duologue for Two Women (1943)
 * The Orange Orchard (1951) Based on The Waters of Walla

Nonfiction
 * In Sugar-Cane Land (1890)
 * My Garden (1906)
 * Dance of the Months. [Sketches of Dartmoor and poems.] (1911)
 * My Shrubs (1915)
 * My Devon Year (1916)
 * One Hundred Pictures from Eden Phillpotts / Selected by L.H. Brewitt (1919)
 * A West Country Pilgrimage (1920) [Essays and verse.]
 * A West Country Sketch Book (1928) Essays from Dance of the Months and A West Country Pilgrimage with one new essay.
 * Essays in Little (1931)
 * Handmade Paper: Its Method of Manufacture as Described in the Novel "Storm in a Teacup" (1932)
 * A Year with Bisshe-Bantam (1934)
 * A Mixed Grill (1940) Essays.
 * From the Angle of 88 (1951)
 * Selected Letters (1984)

Omnibus

 * Three plays: The shadows; The mother; The secret woman (1913)
 * Circe's Island and The Girl & The Faun (1925)
 * The Complete Human Boy. Comprising "The Human Boy," "The Human Boy Again," "The Human Boy and the War," "The Human Boy's Diary," "From the Angle of Seventeen," Etc. (1930)
 * West Country Plays (1933) [Buy a Broom and A Cup of Happiness.]
 * The Book of Avis: A Trilogy Comprising Bred in the Bone, Witch's Cauldron, A Shadow Passes [1936]

title: Eden Phillpotts


text:
Ecuador–United States relations

Ecuador and the United States maintained close ties based on mutual interests in maintaining democratic institutions; combating cannabis and cocaine; building trade, investment, and financial ties; cooperating in fostering Ecuador's economic development; and participating in inter-American organizations. Ties are further strengthened by the presence of an estimated 150,000-200,000 Ecuadorians living in the United States and by 24,000 U.S. citizens visiting Ecuador annually, and by approximately 15,000 U.S. citizens living in Ecuador.

Relations between the two nations have been strained following Julian Assange's bid to seek political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London following repeated claims that the US government was pursuing his extradition  due to his work with Wikileaks. Ecuador first offered political asylum to Julian Assange in November 2010. Which he then invoked by entering their London Embassy in June 2012. This was then revoked in 2019, following negotiations between the Moreno administration and the British Government. Relations have since improved following the ouster of Rafael Correa from office as President of Ecuador.

History
Both nations were early signatories of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (the Rio Treaty) of 1947, the Western Hemisphere's regional mutual security treaty. However, under the Correa administration, Ecuador denounced the treaty in February 2014, a legal prerequisite by which Ecuador would leave the treaty in 2016. Ecuador shares U.S. concern over increasing narcotrafficking and international terrorism and has energetically condemned terrorist actions, whether directed against government officials or private citizens. The government has maintained Ecuador virtually free of coca production since the mid-1980s and is working to combat money laundering and the transhipment of drugs and chemicals essential to the processing of cocaine.

According to CIA critic and former CIA agent who was stationed in Ecuador Philip Agee, the CIA carried out extensive operations and political manipulation in Ecuador in the early 1960s.

Ecuador and the U.S. agreed in 1999 to a 10-year arrangement whereby U.S. military surveillance aircraft could use the airbase at Manta, Ecuador, as a Forward Operating Location to detect drug trafficking flights through the region. The arrangement expired in 2009; former president Rafael Correa vowed not to renew it, and since then the Ecuador has not had any foreign military facilities in the country.

In fisheries issues, the United States claims jurisdiction for the management of coastal fisheries up to 200 mile (370 km) from its coast, but excludes highly migratory species; Ecuador, on the other hand, claims a 200-mile (370-km) territorial sea, and imposes license fees and fines on foreign fishing vessels in the area, making no exceptions for catches of migratory species. In the early 1970s, Ecuador seized about 100 foreign-flag vessels (many of them U.S.) and collected fees and fines of more than $6 million. After a drop-off in such seizures for some years, several U.S. tuna boats were again detained and seized in 1980 and 1981.

The U.S. Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act then triggered an automatic prohibition of U.S. imports of tuna products from Ecuador. The prohibition was lifted in 1983, and although fundamental differences between U.S. and Ecuadorian legislation still exist, there is no current conflict. During the period that has elapsed since seizures which triggered the tuna import ban, successive Ecuadorian governments have declared their willingness to explore possible solutions to this problem with mutual respect for longstanding positions and principles of both sides. The election of Rafael Correa in October 2006, has strained relations between the two countries and relations have since been fraught with tension. Rafael Correa was heavily critical of U.S. foreign policy whilst in office. In April 2011, relations between Ecuador and the United States soured particularly after Ecuador expelled the U.S. ambassador after a leaked diplomatic cable was shown accusing president Correa of knowingly ignoring police corruption. In reciprocation, the Ecuadorian ambassador Luis Gallegos was expelled from the United States.

In 2013, when Ecuador unilaterally pulled out of a preferential trade pact with the United States over claiming the U.S. used it as blackmail in regards to the asylum request of Edward Snowden, relations between Ecuador and the United States reached an all-time low. The pact offered Ecuador US$23 million, which it offered to the U.S. for human rights training. Tariff free imports had been offered to Ecuador in exchange for drug elimination efforts.

Julian Assange applied for Ecuadorian citizenship on 16 September 2017, which Ecuador granted on 12 December 2017. However, this development was not announced until 25 January 2018.

In April 2019, Assange was arrested by the Metropolitan Police. President of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, stated that he had 'violated the terms of his asylum'. British Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt stated that the British and Ecuadorian governments had been co-operating since Moreno's inauguration and aimed to resolve the situation. Assange extradition to the United States was denied, due to a combination of his ill health and the nature of the US carceral system.

The relations with the United States improved significantly during the presidency of Lenin Moreno since 2017. In February 2020, his visit to Washington was the first meeting between an Ecuadorian and U.S. president in 17 years. In June 2019, Ecuador had agreed to allow US military planes to operate from an airport on the Galapagos Islands.

Education
American schools in Ecuador:
 * Colegio Americano de Quito
 * Inter-American Academy of Guayaquil
 * Academia Cotopaxi - American International school

 * Alliance Academy International

title: Ecuador–United States relations


text:
Eight-ball

Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes, big ones and little ones, or rarely highs and lows ) is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls (a and fifteen s). The object balls include seven solid-colored balls numbered 1 through 7, seven striped balls numbered 9 through 15, and the black 8 ball. After the balls are scattered with a shot, a player is assigned either the group of solid or striped balls once they have legally pocketed a ball from that group. The object of the game is to legally pocket the 8-ball in a "called" pocket, which can only be done after all of the balls from a player's assigned group have been cleared from the table.

The game is the most frequently played discipline of pool, and is often thought of as synonymous with "pool". The game has numerous variations, mostly regional. It is the second most played professional pool game, after nine-ball, and for the last several decades ahead of straight pool.

History
The game of eight-ball arose around 1900 in the United States as a development of pyramid pool, which allows any eight of the fifteen object balls to be pocketed to win. The game arose from two changes made, namely that the 8 ball must be pocketed last to win, and that each player may pocket only half of the other object balls. By 1925, the game was popular enough for the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company to introduce purpose-made ball sets with seven, seven , one , and the cue ball, which allowed spectators to more easily see which suit each ball belonged to. (Such colors became standard in the later British-originating variant, blackball.) The rules, as officially codified in the Billiard Congress of America's rule book, were periodically revised in the years following.

Standardized rules of play
American-style eight-ball rules are played around the world by professionals and in many amateur leagues. Nevertheless, the rules for eight-ball may be the most inconsistent of any billiard game, as there are several competing sets of "official" rules.

The World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), the governing body of pool which has continental and national affiliates around the world, promulgates standardized rules as Pool Billiards – The Rules of Play. These are used for amateur and professional play.

Meanwhile, many amateur leagues – such as the American Poolplayers Association (APA) and its affiliate the Canadian Poolplayers Association (CPA), the Valley National Eight-ball Association (VNEA) and the BCA Pool League (BCAPL) – use their own rulesets which have slight differences from WPA rules and from each other. Millions of individuals play casually, using informal "house rules" which vary not only from area to area but even from venue to venue.

Equipment
The regulation size of the table's playing surface is 9 by, though exact dimensions may vary slightly by manufacturer. Some leagues and tournaments using the World Standardized Rules may allow smaller sizes, down to 7 by. Early 20th-century 10 by models are occasionally also still used. WPA professional competition generally employs regulation tables, while the amateur league championships of various leagues, including BCAPL, VNEA, and APA, use the seven-foot tables in order to fit more of them into the hosting venue.

There are seven numbered 1 through 7, seven  numbered 9 through 15, an, and a. The balls are usually colored as follows:
 * {|class="wikitable" style="font-size:90%"

!1 !9 !2 !10 !3 !11 !4 !12 !5 !13 !6 !14 !7 !15 !8 !•
 * bgcolor="gold" width=20px| ||solid yellow ||
 * bgcolor="white" width=5px| ||bgcolor="gold" width=5px| ||bgcolor="white" width=5px| ||yellow stripe
 * bgcolor="blue" | ||solid blue ||
 * bgcolor="white"| ||bgcolor="blue"| ||bgcolor="white"| ||blue stripe
 * bgcolor="red" | ||solid red ||
 * bgcolor="white"| ||bgcolor="red"| ||bgcolor="white"| ||red stripe
 * bgcolor="purple" | ||solid purple ||
 * bgcolor="white"| ||bgcolor="purple"| ||bgcolor="white"| ||purple stripe
 * bgcolor="orangered" | ||solid orange ||
 * bgcolor="white"| ||bgcolor="orangered"| ||bgcolor="white"| ||orange stripe
 * bgcolor="forestgreen" | ||solid green ||
 * bgcolor="white"| ||bgcolor="forestgreen"| ||bgcolor="white"| ||green stripe
 * bgcolor="maroon" | ||solid maroon ||
 * bgcolor="white"| ||bgcolor="maroon"| ||bgcolor="white"| ||maroon stripe
 * bgcolor="black" | ||solid black ||
 * bgcolor="white" colspan=3| ||, white
 * }

Special sets designed to be more easily discernible on television substitute pink for the dark purple of the 4 and 12 and light tan for the darker maroon of the 7 and 15 balls, and these alternative-color sets are now also available to consumers.

Setup
To start the game, the s are placed in a triangular rack. The base of the rack is parallel to the (the short end of the pool table) and positioned so the apex ball of the rack is located on the. The balls in the rack are ideally placed so that they are all in contact with one another; this is accomplished by pressing the balls together toward the apex ball. The order of the balls should be random, with the exceptions of the 8-ball, which must be placed in the center of the rack (i.e., the middle of the third row), and the two back corner balls, one of which must be a stripe and the other a solid. The cue ball is placed anywhere the breaker desires behind the.

Break
One person is chosen by some predetermined method (e.g., coin toss,, or win or loss of previous game or match) to shoot first, using the cue ball to the object-ball rack apart. In most leagues, it is the breaker's opponent who racks the balls, but in some, players break their own racks. If the breaker fails to make a successful break—usually defined as at least four balls hitting cushions or an object ball being pocketed—then the opponent can opt either to play from the current position or to call for a and either re-break or have the original breaker repeat the break.

If the 8 ball is pocketed on the break, then the breaker can choose either to the 8 ball and play from the current position or to re-rack and re-break; but if the cue ball is also pocketed on the break (colloquially referred to as a "scratch") then the opponent is the one who has the choice: either to re-spot the 8 ball and shoot with  behind the, accepting the current position, or to re-break or have the breaker re-break.

Turn-taking
A player (or team) continues to shoot until committing a or failing to legally pocket an object ball (whether  or not); thereupon it is the turn of the opposing players. Play alternates in this manner for the remainder of the game. Following a foul, the incoming player has anywhere on the table, unless the foul occurred on the break shot, as noted previously.

Selection of the target group
The table is "open" at the start of the game, meaning that either player may shoot at any ball. It remains open until one player legally pockets any called ball other than the 8 after the break. That player is assigned the group, or suit, of the pocketed ball – 1 to 7 (solids) or 9 to 15 (stripes) –and the other suit is assigned to the opponent. Balls pocketed on the break, or as the result of a foul while the table is still open, are not used to assign the suits. Once the suits are assigned, they remain fixed throughout the game. If any balls from a player's suit are on the table, the player must hit one of them first on every shot; otherwise a foul is called and the turn ends. After all balls from the suit have been pocketed, the player's target becomes the 8 for the remainder of the game.

Pocketing the 8 ball
Once all of a player's (or team's) group of object balls are pocketed, the player attempts to sink the 8 ball. In order to win the game, the player first designates which pocket the 8 ball will be pocketed into and then successfully pockets the 8 ball into that pocket. If the player knocks the 8 ball off the table, the player loses the game. If the player pockets the 8 ball and commits a foul or pockets it into another pocket than the one designated, the player loses the game. Otherwise (i.e., if the 8 ball is neither pocketed nor knocked off the table), the shooter's turn is simply over, even if a foul occurs. In short, a world-standardized rules game of eight-ball, like a game of nine-ball, is not over until the "" is no longer on the table. The rule has been increasingly adopted by amateur leagues.

Winning
A player wins the game if that player legally pockets the 8 ball into a designated pocket after all of their object balls have been pocketed. Because of this, it is possible for a game to end with only one of the players having shot, which is known as "running the table" or a "denial"; conversely, it's also possible to win a game without taking a shot; such a scenario may occur if the opposing player illegally pockets the 8 ball on any shot other than the break (such as sinking the 8 ball in an uncalled pocket, knocking the 8 ball off the table, sinking the 8 ball when a player is not yet on the black ball, or sinking both the 8 ball and the cue ball off a single shot). The rules on what happens when the 8 ball is pocketed off the break vary by the rules in question.

Fouls
The general rules of pool apply to eight-ball, such as the requirements that the cue ball not be pocketed and that a cushion be hit by any of the balls after the cue ball has struck an object ball. Fouls specific to eight-ball are:
 * The shooter fails to strike one of their own object balls (or the 8 ball when it is the legal ball) with the cue ball, before other balls are contacted by the cue ball. This excludes "" shots, where the cue ball strikes one of the shooter's and one of the opponent's object balls simultaneously.
 * If an attempt is made to pocket a ball, and the ball hits the pocket, bounces out and lands on the ground, the ball is placed in the pocket and the game continues.
 * The shooter shoots the black 8 ball without designating the pocket to opposite team members or the match referee in advance.
 * The shooter deliberately pockets the opponent's balls while shooting the 8 ball.
 * On the break shot, no balls are pocketed and fewer than four balls reach the cushions, in which case the incoming player can demand a re-rack and take the break or force the original breaker to re-break, or may take ball-in-hand behind the and shoot the balls as they lie.

United Kingdom
The British version of eight-ball, known internationally as either blackball or simply eight-ball, has evolved into a separate game, retaining significant elements of earlier pub versions of the game, with additional influences from English billiards and snooker. It is popular in amateur and professional competition in the UK, Ireland, Australia and some other countries.

The game uses unnumbered, solid-colored object balls, typically red and yellow, with one black 8 ball. They are usually 2 in or 2+1/16 in in diameter, the latter being the same size as the balls used in snooker and English billiards. Tables are usually 7 ft long, and feature pockets with rounded cushion openings, like snooker tables. Smaller 6 ft tables are sometimes used in places where a larger table would be too large.

The rules of blackball differ from standard eight-ball in numerous ways, including the handling of fouls, which may give the opponent two shots, racking (the 8 ball, not the apex ball, goes on the spot), selection of which group of balls will be shot by which player, handling of balls and s, and many other details.

Internationally, the World Pool-Billiard Association and the World Eightball Pool Federation both publish rules and promote events. The two rule sets differ in some details regarding the penalties for fouls.

Chinese eight-ball (Heyball)
The version of eight-ball played in China uses rules that are essentially the same as standard WPA rules; and the game is played with standard 2+1/4 in solids-and-stripes balls. However, the tables are constructed similarly to 9 ft snooker tables, with rounded pocket openings, napped cloth and flat-faced rail cushions. This results in some differences in gameplay approach. The variant arose in the mid-1980s and 1990s as eight-ball gained popularity in China, where snooker was the most popular cue sport at the time. With standard American-style pool tables rare, Chinese players made do with playing eight-ball on small snooker tables. It has since become the most popular cue sport in China, and the major tournaments have some of the largest prize money in pool.

Eight-ball rotation
The hybrid game eight-ball rotation is a combination of eight-ball and rotation, in which the players must pocket their balls (other than the 8, which remains last) in numerical order. Specifically, the solids player starts by pocketing the 1 ball and ascends to the 7 ball, and the stripes player starts by pocketing the 15 ball and descends to the 9 ball.

Backwards eight-ball
Backwards eight-ball, also called reverse eight-ball, is a variant in which, instead of shooting the cue ball at an object ball to force the object ball into a pocket, the player strikes the object ball with their cue so it s off the cue ball and into a pocket, in a fashion similar to Russian pyramid.

title: Eight-ball