Trophophoresy
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A form of trophobiosis in which one creature carries another creature to another location to farm it (harvest food from it, often after feeding it) there. uncountable
"The mealybug-tending ant A. epedana is an obligate coccidiphile with trophophoretic queens. Trophophoresy is defined as the behavior of a foundress queen transporting a trophobiont on her mating flight for the establishment of a new mealybug "herd" in her new colony."
Example
More examples"The mealybug-tending ant A. epedana is an obligate coccidiphile with trophophoretic queens. Trophophoresy is defined as the behavior of a foundress queen transporting a trophobiont on her mating flight for the establishment of a new mealybug "herd" in her new colony."
Etymology
From tropho- + phoresy. Coined by John S. LaPolla in 2002.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.