Suchow See Yibin
sucker Any of 80-100 species (family Catostomidae) of freshwater food fishes found mostly in North America. Suckers can be distin¬ guished from minnows by the suck¬ ing mouth, with protrusible lips, on the underside of the head. Generally sluggish, they suck up detritus, invertebrates, and plants from the bottom of lakes and slow streams.
The species vary greatly in size. The lake chubsucker (Erimyzon sucetta) grows to 10 in. (25 cm) long; the big- mouth buffalo fish (Ictiobus cyp- rinellus ) grows to 35 in. (90 cm) and over 70 lbs (32 kg).
suckerfish See remora
suckering Vegetative formation of a new stem and root system from an adventitious bud of a stem or root, either naturally or by human action. Such asexual reproduction is based on the ability of plants to regenerate tissues and parts. Examples of plants that spread by suckers include red
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1838 I sucking louse ► sudden infant death syndrome
raspberry, forsythia, and lilac. Suckering allows horticulturists and agricul¬ turists to reproduce a desired plant over and over without significant variation.
sucking louse Any of more than 400 species (suborder Anoplura, order Phthiraptera) of small, wingless, flat ectoparasitic insects found world¬ wide. They have piercing and sucking mouthparts for extracting their food of mammals’ blood and tissue fluids. The nymphs mature after several molts. Species are host-specific: Pediculus infests humans (see human louse), whereas other sucking lice (genera Haematopinus and Linog- nathus) attack domestic animals, such as hogs, cattle, horses, and dogs.
suckling In mammals, the drawing of milk into the mouth from the nipple of a mammary gland. In human beings, it is referred to as nursing or breast-feeding. The word also denotes an animal that has not yet been weaned—that is, whose access to milk has not yet been withdrawn, a pro¬ cess that gradually accustoms the young to accept an adult diet.
Suckling, Sir John (b. February 1609, Whitton, Middlesex, Eng.—d. 1642, Paris, France) English Cavalier poet, dramatist, and courtier. He inherited his father’s considerable estates at age 18 and became promi¬ nent at court as a gallant and a gamester; he is credited with inventing cribbage. After participating in a foiled plot to rescue the Earl of Strafford from the Tower of London, he fled to France and is believed to have com¬ mitted suicide. He wrote four plays, the best being the lively comedy The Goblins (1638). His reputation as a poet rests on his lyrics, the best of which are easy and natural. His masterpiece is “A Ballad upon a Wed¬ ding,” written in the style and metre of the contemporary street ballad.
Sucre \'sii-kra\ Judicial capital (pop., 2001: 193,873), Bolivia. Founded by the Spanish (c. 1539) on the site of a Charcas Indian village, it became the capital of the Charcas territory of Upper Peru in 1561 and in 1609 the seat of an archdiocese. Many of its colonial churches survive. It was an early scene (1809) of the revolt against Spain. The Bolivian declaration of independence was signed there in 1825, and it became the capital in 1839. An effort to move the capital to La Paz in 1898 precipitated a civil war, which left the two cities sharing capital status. Sucre is also the seat of the national supreme court. It is a growing commercial centre. The University of San Francisco Xavier, one of the oldest universities in South America, was founded there in 1624.
Sucre \'su-kra\ (Alcala), Antonio Jose de (b. Feb. 3, 1795, Cumana, New Granada—d. June 4, 1830, Berruecos, Gran Colombia) Liberator of Ecuador and first president of Bolivia (1826-28). A close ally of Simon Bolivar, Sucre fought in the revolutionary struggles of Venezu¬ ela, Colombia, Gran Colombia (now Ecuador), Peru, and Upper Peru (now Bolivia), defeating royalist forces throughout the region. In 1826 he set up a Bolivian government and briefly served as president, but he soon retired to Gran Colombia. In 1829 he was called back into service to defend Gran Colombia against a Peruvian invasion. He was assassinated in 1830 at age 35. He is remembered as one of the most respected lead¬ ers of the Latin American wars for independence.
sucrose \'su- 1 kros\ or table sugar Organic compound, colourless, sweet-tasting crystals that dissolve in water. Sucrose (C 12 H 22 0 11 ) is a disaccharide; hydrolysis, by the enzyme invertase, yields “invert sugar” (so called because the hydrolysis results in an inversion of the rotation of plane polarized light), a 50:50 mixture of fructose and glucose, its two constituent monosaccharides. Sucrose occurs naturally in sugarcane, sugar beets, sugar-maple sap, dates, and honey. It is produced commercially in large amounts (especially from sugarcane and sugar beets) and is used almost entirely as food. See also sugar.
Sudan Vast tract of open savanna plains, north-central Africa. Extend¬ ing across 2,000,000 sq mi (5,000,000 sq km), it lies between the south¬ ern limits of the Sahara and Libyan deserts and the northern limits of the equatorial rainforests. It extends from the western coast more than 3,500 mi (5,500 km) to the mountains of Ethiopia and the Red Sea. The Sahel comprises the northern reaches.
Sudan \su-'dan\ / The officially Republic of the Sudan Country, northeastern Africa. Area: 966,757 sq mi (2,503,890 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 36,233,000. Capitals: Khartoum (executive), Omdurman (leg¬ islative). Muslim Arab and other ethnic groups live in the northern and central two-thirds of the country, while non-Muslim Dinka, Nuer, and Zande peoples live in the south. Languages: Arabic (official), Dinka, Nubian languages, Beja, Zande, English. Religions: Islam (official; pre¬ dominantly Sunni); also Christianity, traditional beliefs. Currency:
Sudanese dinar. The largest country in n Tr „„„ . Africa, The Sudan encompasses an 5—' 260 ' 4ook m immense plain with the Sahara Desert in the north, sand dunes in the west, semiarid shrub lands in the south-central belt, and enormous swamps and tropical rainforests in the south. The Nile River flows through the entire length of the country. Wildlife includes lions, leopards, elephants, girafFes, and zebras. The Sudan has a developing mixed economy based largely on agriculture. One of the largest irrigation projects in the world provides water to farms between the White Nile and the Blue Nile. Chief cash crops are cotton, peanuts, and sesame; livestock is also important. Major industries include food processing and cotton ginning, and petroleum is the main export. The country is ruled by an Islamic military regime; the head of state and government is the presi¬ dent. Evidence of human habitation dates back tens of thousands of years. From the end of the 4th millennium bc, Nubia (now northern Sudan) peri¬ odically came under Egyptian rule, and it was part of the kingdom of Cush from the 11th century bc to the 4th century ad. Christian missionaries converted the Sudan’s three principal kingdoms during the 6th century ad; these black Christian kingdoms coexisted with their Muslim Arab neighbours in Egypt for centuries, until the influx of Arab immigrants brought about their collapse in the 13th—15th centuries. Egypt had con¬ quered all of the Sudan by 1874 and encouraged British interference in the region; this aroused Muslim opposition and led to the revolt of the MahdI, who captured Khartoum in 1885 and established a Muslim theoc¬ racy in the Sudan that lasted until 1898, when his forces were defeated by the British. The British ruled, generally in partnership with Egypt, until the region achieved independence as The Sudan in 1956. Since then the country has fluctuated between ineffective parliamentary government and unstable military rule. The non-Muslim population of the south began rebellion against the Muslim-controlled government of the north in the early 1980s, leading to famines and the displacement of millions of people; a peace agreement was signed in 2005. Meanwhile, fighting broke out in 2003 between non-Arab Muslims in the Darfur region of western Sudan and government-backed Arab militias; tens of thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced.