avicularium

Definitions

noun In zoology, a singular small prehensile process, resembling a bird's head, with a movable mandible, which snaps incessantly, found in many of the Polyzoa. Compare flabellarium, vibracularium.

noun biology A modified zooid, in some colonial bryozoans, in the form of a beak, that prevents other organisms from settling on the colony

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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It is interesting to see two such widely different organs developed from a common origin; and as the moveable lip of the cell serves as a protection to the zooid, there is no difficulty in believing that all the gradations, by which the lip became converted first into the lower mandible of an avicularium and then into an elongated bristle, likewise served as a protection in different ways and under different circumstances.

VII. Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection 1909
The avicularia are believed by Mr. Busk, Dr. Smitt, and Dr. Nitschenaturalists who have carefully studied this groupto be homologous with the zooids and their cells which compose the zoöphyte; the moveable lip or lid of the cell corresponding with the lower and moveable mandible of the avicularium.

VII. Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection 1909
It is not easy to imagine two objects more widely different in appearance than a bristle or vibraculum, and an avicularium like the head of a bird; yet they are almost certainly homologous and have been developed from the same common source, namely a zooid with its cell.

VII. Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection 1909
Mr. Busk, however, does not know of any gradations now existing between a zooid and an avicularium.

VII. Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection 1909