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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!minow
From: minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Help Wombats (from VMS Datatrieve)
Message-ID: <346@decvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Jan-84 21:44:47 EST
Article-I.D.: decvax.346
Posted: Mon Jan 16 21:44:47 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Jan-84 03:13:45 EST
Organization: DEC UNIX Engineering Group
Lines: 88

$ set term/la120/width=80
$ dtr
VAX-11 Datatrieve V2.0
DEC Query and Report System
Type HELP for help 
DTR> help wombat

WOMBAT

                              Wombats, general

      Wombats are native Australian or Tasmanian mammals.  Like many other
      antipodean  animals  they have strange* reproductive habits (less so
      than the platapus which lays green eggs and is a  monotreme).   They
      also  have  constantly  growing incisors allowing (nay, encouraging)
      them to chew  on  bark,  wood,  softer  rocks,  etc.   (Wombats  are
      friendly,loyal,  nocturnal,  and  not over intelligent) (Sir Everard
      Home reports "In captivity it is as a rule amiable,  the  amiability
      being  possibly associated with stupidity." He probably woke it from
      a nap.)

      * strange to us - they wouldn't have it any other way.

                             Wombats, specific

      The family Vombatidae is divided into two groups,  the  naked  nosed
      and  the hairy nosed wombats.  The naked nosed group constitutes the
      genus Vombatuis (or Phascolomis) and includes the  Tasmanian  wombat
      (V.   Ursinus),  from  Tasmania  and  Flinders Island and the common
      Wombat (V.  hirsutus) from south east Australia;  they have  coarse,
      harsh,  blackish  brown  fur,  a  naked area on the muzzle and short
      ears.  The hairy nosed group  contains  Lasiorhinus  latifrons  from
      south  Australia  and wombatula gillespiei from southern Queensland;
      these species have silky grizzled  gray  fur,  a  hairy  muzzle  and
      larger  ears.   The  consequences  of  all this to wombat society is
      further complicated by the question of who has more ribs.


  Additional information available:

  ADVANCED
WOMBAT Subtopic? advanced

WOMBAT

  ADVANCED

                              Wombats, particular

        Dante Gabriel Rossetti had a wombat who slept (during the day) in an
        epergne  on  the dining room table.  He (the wombat) reappeared as a
        dormouse in Rev.  Dodgson's book.

                                Wombats, uses of

        live - conversation piece, alarm clock (third shift)
        dead - doormats;  for food, see Wombats, food?

                                 Wombats, food

        grass, bark, leaves, fungi

                                    Epergne

        Who knows?  ...clearly someplace wombats sleep.

                                   Marsupials

        Include bandicoots (which should be rabbits).  koalas (which  should
        be  bears),  tasmanian wolves (which should be coyotes), and wombats
        (which should be lethargic badgers).  Pogo was a marsupial.

                                 Sexual habits

        are of interest only to other wombats, and then only  between  April
        and June.

                              Wombats Prehistoric

        Pleistocene Giant Wombat was as large as a rhinocerous.

                                 Wombats, food?

        would you want to eat a doormat that ate bark and fungus?
WOMBAT Subtopic? 

Topic? ^Z
DTR> exit