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The Pacific blue-eye (Pseudomugil signifer) is a species of fish in the subfamily Pseudomugilinae native to eastern Australia. Described by Austrian naturalist Rudolf Kner in 1866, it comprises two subspecies that have been regarded as separate species in the past and may be once again with further study. It is a common fish of rivers and estuaries along the eastern seaboard from Cape York in north Queensland to southern New South Wales. The ranges of the two subspecies are divided by the Burdekin Gap in central-north Queensland. A small silvery fish averaging around 3–3.5 cm (1 ¹⁄₈–1 ³⁄₈ in) in total length, the Pacific blue-eye is recognisable by its blue eye ring and two dorsal fins. It forms loose schools of tens to thousands of individuals. It eats water-borne insects as well as flying insects that land on the water's surface, foraging for them by sight. The Pacific blue-eye adapts readily to captivity. (Full article...)

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On this day

January 5: Twelfth Night (Western Christianity)

Australian troops at the Battle of Bardia

1675 – Franco-Dutch War: French troops defeated Austrian and Brandenburg forces at the Battle of Turckheim in Alsace.
1757 – Louis XV of France survived an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, who later became the last person in the country to be executed by being drawn and quartered.
1941 – Second World War: Australian and British troops defeated Italian forces in Bardia, Libya, the first battle of the war in which an Australian Army formation (pictured) took part.
1976 – The Troubles: In response to the killings of six Catholics the night before, South Armagh Republican Action Force gunmen killed ten Protestants in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.
1991 – Georgian troops attacked Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, beginning the First South Ossetia War.

Elizabeth of Russia (d. 1762)
Herbert Swope (b. 1882)
Deepika Padukone (b. 1986)

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Shah Jahan (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666) was the fifth Mughal emperor, reigning from 1628 to 1658. Under his rule, the Mughal Empire reached the peak of its cultural glory. He commissioned many monuments, the best known of which is the Taj Mahal in Agra, in which his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, is entombed. This rosette, or shamsa (sunburst), executed in ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper, forms the frontispiece to the Kevorkian Album, a muraqqa compiled by Shah Jahan, and bears his names and titles. The Arabic tughra inscription in the center translates to: "His Majesty Shihab ud-Din Muhammad Shah Jahan, the King, Warrior of the Faith, may God perpetuate his dominion and sovereignty".

Illustration credit: unknown

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