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onager
a Persian variety of the wild ass, Equus hemionus
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Onager
(Equus hemionus onager), a perissodactylous animal of the genus Equus; a subspecies of the Asiatic wild ass (E. hemionus). Sometimes the name “onager” is used as a synonym for the Asiatic wild ass.
Onager
a type of large catapult used in ancient Greece and Rome between the fourth century B.C. and the fifth century A.D. in besieging and defending forts. It hurled stones, barrels containing an incendiary mixture, and other projectiles weighing 30–500 kg at an angle of elevation of up to 45° over distances of 350–1,000 m.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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