--- Forwarded Message from "Francois Crompton-Roberts" <[log in to unmask]> ---

>From: "Francois Crompton-Roberts" <[log in to unmask]>
>Organization: University of London
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 11:49:15 +0000
>Comments: Sender has elected to use 8-bit data in this message. If problems arise, refer to postmaster at sender's site.
>Subject: Re: special German character sought
>Reply-to: Francois C-R <[log in to unmask]>
>Priority: normal
>In-reply-to: <[log in to unmask]>

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> What a colleague is looking for is the character that is used in
> German textbooks to indicate plurals of nouns that form plurals by
> adding an umlaut. It's just a dash (an en-dash, for those in the
> know) with a dieresis. Anybody got one? We'll take Mac or PC. Heck,
> we'll even take an em-dash!

What software is this for? I would imagine you could try 
overstriking. Alternatively you might try your hand at hand-coding it 
in PostScript--after all it's only two filled circles and a line!

> The same colleague is trying to find out what a "Xenusion" is,
> having seen it in a German "Animals A to Z" children's book some
> years back. He is creating a foreign language game. There was no
> picture. I guess it must be some kind of strange animal. (Well, hey,
> maybe that's what it is!)  Any insights would be gratefully
> appreciated.

I'd never heard of it either but FastSearch (www.alltheweb.com) leads 
me to discover that it's one of the earliest arthropods (that's the 
family of mosquitoes), dating back to the Cambrian period (the first 
part of the primary era). It must have been one of the very first 
animals!

"The fossil species might have had individual weights ranging between
100 mg in the case of Luolishania longicruris (the weight of an
Epiperipatus biolleyi of similar size, Monge-Nájera and Morera 1994)
and more than 5000 mg in the case of the 20 cm long Xenusion "
(http://www.biologia.ucr.ac.cr/~rbt/revistas/48-2/06.%20monge.htm)

The thought of an 8-inch creepy-crawlie isn't too appealing, thank 
goodness theyre extinct!

François C-R