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Poecilia vandepolli is a poeciliid fish native to Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. It is one of the most common fish in its range, inhabiting fresh, brackish, salt, and hypersaline waters. It is variable in size and color, with males ranging from 2.6 to 5.3 cm (1.0 to 2.1 in) and females from 3.2 to 9.6 cm (1.3 to 3.8 in), and coloration varying from grayish-brown to yellow or orange. Marine fish are generally larger, stronger, and more colorful than freshwater specimens. Males' ability to develop an intense orange coloration makes the species attractive to aquarists. Forming shoals near the surface, it feeds on algae, detritus, and aquatic invertebrates, and is preyed on by other fish and birds. Females produce live fry; successful reproduction depends on shelter availability for fry. The species is drawn to freshwater habitats, which disappear each dry season, killing freshwater populations; these habitats are recolonized from the sea when the rains return. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Erin Scavino

... that Erin Scavino (pictured) has said that she can get ambassadors fired through art?
... that critics compared Escape from Ever After to the Paper Mario series?
... that Pete Pedro, known as the "Flying Fragment", led U.S. college football in touchdowns?
... that more than half of the airplanes at Southbridge Municipal Airport were destroyed when a tornado passed through in 2011?
... that Marvin Leonard Colker spent 30 years creating the first catalogue of Trinity College Dublin's medieval Latin manuscripts?
... that the South Korean TV character Han Ji-pyeong was praised for breaking negative stereotypes of orphans in Korean dramas who age out of foster care?
... that the Museum of Modern Art purchased Arthur Osver's Melancholy of a Rooftop after he solicited them to view his paintings?
... that the Regional Workers' Federation of Chile made anarchism a national force?
... that the Lowell E. Walter House has a garden in the floor of its living room?

In the news

Navi Pillay

South African jurist Navi Pillay (pictured) is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
American software engineer Margaret Hamilton dies at the age of 90.
Henri B. Kagan and Kensō Soai are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.
Paramount Skydance completes its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal valued at $110 billion, becoming Skydance Corporation.

On this day

October 12: Thanksgiving in Canada (2026); Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples' Day in the United States (2026)

The Space Building after its collapse

1406 – Chen Yanxiang, the only person from Indonesia known to have visited dynastic Korea, reached Seoul after having set out from Java four months before.
1798 – The Peasants' War began in Overmere, Southern Netherlands, with peasants taking up arms against the French occupiers.
1917 – First World War: New Zealand troops suffered more than 2,000 casualties, including more than 800 deaths, in the First Battle of Passchendaele, making it the nation's largest loss of life in one day.
1979 – Typhoon Tip, the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded, reached a worldwide record-low sea-level pressure of 870 mbar (25.69 inHg) in the western Pacific Ocean.
2013 – Twelve people were killed in an apartment-building collapse (pictured) in Medellín, leading to new construction laws being passed in Colombia.

Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth (d. 1758)
Sohei Kamiya (b. 1977)
Josh Hutcherson (b. 1992)
Alex Salmond (d. 2024)

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From today's featured list

Statue of Sam Mbakwe

There have been 16 governors of Imo State, located in the South East geopolitical zone of Nigeria. Imo State has been governed by a succession of military governors, administrators, and elected governors since its formation on 3 February 1976, when it was carved out of the former East Central State, which covered much of the Igbo-speaking area until its division in 1976. During that period, Ukpabi Asika served as administrator until 1975, followed by Anthony Ochefu until the state's dissolution. From its creation, Imo State was governed by military appointees. With the advent of the Second Nigerian Republic, Sam Mbakwe (statue pictured) of the Nigerian People's Party served as the first civilian governor from October 1979 to December 1983. Since the return of democracy under the Fourth Nigerian Republic in 1999, all of Imo's governors have been elected. The incumbent governor is Hope Uzodimma of the All Progressives Congress, who has been in office since his election in March 2019. (Full list...)

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The assassination of Inejirō Asanuma took place at Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo, Japan, on 12 October 1960. Asanuma, the chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, was delivering a televised election speech when the 17-year-old ultranationalist Otoya Yamaguchi rushed onto the stage and stabbed him with a wakizashi, a traditional Japanese short sword. Asanuma suffered a punctured aorta and died en route to hospital. Yamaguchi was arrested at the scene, but hanged himself in detention three weeks later. The assassination sparked widespread protests and weakened the Socialist Party. This photograph, capturing Yamaguchi attempting to make a second stab of Asanuma, was taken by Yasushi Nagao of the Mainichi Shimbun and won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Photography.

Photograph credit: Yasushi Nagao

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