inquiline
English
WOTD – 21 November 2011
Etymology
From Latin inquilīnus (“tenant, lodger”)
Noun
inquiline (plural inquilines)
- (biology) An animal that lives commensally in the nest, burrow, gall, or dwelling place of an animal of another species.
- 2003, Gary J. Blomquist & Ralph W. Howard, “Pheromone biosynthesis in social insects”, in Gary J. Blomquist, Richard G. Vogt, editors, Insect Pheromone Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, page 331:
- The other study […] involved the larvae of the caterpillar Maculinea rebeli, an inquiline of Myrmica schenki.
- 2003, Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Developmental Plasticity and Evolution:
- Queens of socially parasitic inquiline ants reproduce by laying eggs in the colonies of other species.
- 2010, P. J. Gullan, P. S. Cranston, The Insects: An Outline of Entomology, 4th edition, page 332:
- A reproductive female inquiline gains access to a host nest and usually kills the resident queen.
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- (biology) An organism that lives within a reservoir of water collected in the hollow of a plant stem or leaf.
- 1998, Stephen B. Heard, “Capture rates of invertebrate prey by the pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea L.”, in The American Midland Naturalist, volume 139, number 1, page 79-89:
- Captured prey also constitute the resource base for a community of inquiline bacteria, protozoa, and invertebrates that inhabit the water-filled pitchers. For at least two of these inquilines (the pitcher-plant mosquito Wyeomyia smithii Coquillet and the pitcher-plant midge Metriocnemus knabi Coquillet) the availability of captured prey limits individual growth, and ultimately population growth […]
- 2001, J. K. Cronk, M. Siobhan Fennessy, Wetland Plants: Biology and Ecology, page 145:
- The insect and other animal inhabitants of the pitchers, known collectively as the inquilines, may benefit the plants by breaking down prey and making nutrients available for plant absorption.
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Derived terms
French
Italian
Latin
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