Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The spontaneous casting off of a limb or other body part, such as the tail of certain lizards or the claw of a lobster, especially when the organism is injured or under attack.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The reflex throwing off of certain parts of the body, us the rays in starfishes and the legs of some arthropods, which do not, as in fission and budding, develop into new individuals. This property may be of use to animals by enabling them to escape from their captors at the expense of only the part seized.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun spontaneous removal or casting off of a body part (as the tail of a lizard or claw or a lobster) especially when the organism is injured or under attack.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The
spontaneous removal of alimb ,tail etc, especially by someinvertebrates as aself-defense mechanism.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun spontaneous removal or casting off of a body part (as the tail of a lizard or claw of a lobster) especially when the organism is injured or under attack
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Overriding of the molt-inducing stimulus of multiple limb autotomy in the mud crab Rhithropanopeus harrisii by parasitization with a rhizocephalan.
Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009
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Overriding of the molt-inducing stimulus of multiple limb autotomy in the mud crab Rhithropanopeus harrisii by parasitization with a rhizocephalan.
Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009
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Overriding of the molt-inducing stimulus of multiple limb autotomy in the mud crab Rhithropanopeus harrisii by parasitization with a rhizocephalan.
Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009
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They are also odd among salamanders in that some species can drop the tail as a predator-defence mechanism (properly called caudal autotomy), and in that some species have only four toes on the hindfeet.
Archive 2006-06-01 Darren Naish 2006
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Slow-worms are like many other squamates in being able to drop the tail voluntarily by contracting muscles (this is known as caudal autotomy), but they do this more than is usual, with most individuals having autotomised their tails several times.
Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006
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October 26, 2005 22: 46 autotomy: hey logan5, this mix is awesome, thanks for putting it up.
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October 26, 2005 18: 23 autotomy: awesome mix. totally heart the out hud track, it's one of my favs. oh and nice transitioning between tracks, i didn't think it was sloppy at all.
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Iguanas are also capable of loosing their tail autotomy for defense and it will regenerate.
Iguana Project Scott Schmidt 2006
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Iguanas are also capable of loosing their tail autotomy for defense and it will regenerate.
Archive 2006-07-01 Scott Schmidt 2006
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Passive modes of defence are as many and varied as are the active; one of the strangest and most inexplicable of these is that known as spontaneous amputation, technically termed autotomy.
The Human Side of Animals Royal Dixon 1923
jmjarmstrong commented on the word autotomy
JM knows that autotomy is really retail therapy
June 17, 2010