Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In entomology, resembling a caterpillar: said of certain larvæ, as those of the saw-fly.
  • In botany, worm-like; shaped like a caterpillar: applied to the spores of certain lichens. Also erucæform.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Shaped like a caterpillar.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin eruca ("caterpillar") + -form

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word eruciform.

Examples

  • S.ch larvae as these latter are examples of the type called _eruciform_ by A.S. Packard (1898) who as well as other writers has laid stress on the series of transitional steps from the campodeiform to the eruciform type afforded by the larvae of the Coleoptera.

    The Life-Story of Insects 1902

  • A. Lameere has indeed, while admitting the adaptive character of insect larvae generally, argued (1899) with much ingenuity that the eruciform or vermiform type must have been primitive among the Endopterygota, believing that the original environment of the larvae of the ancestral stock of all these insects must have been the interior of plant tissues.

    The Life-Story of Insects 1902

  • A fact of much importance in the transformations of beetles as pointed out by Brauer (1869) is that in a few families, the first larval instar is campodeiform, while the subsequent instars are eruciform.

    The Life-Story of Insects 1902

  • Hence the preliminary armoured and active instar is necessary in order to reach the feeding place; this journey accomplished, the eruciform condition is at once assumed.

    The Life-Story of Insects 1902

  • It seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that the active, armoured campodeiform grub differing less from its parent than an eruciform larva differs from its parent, is as a larval type more primitive than the caterpillar or maggot.

    The Life-Story of Insects 1902

  • Coleoptera which as we have seen (pp. 50 _f. _) display a most interesting variety of larval structure, the legless, eruciform larva characterises families in which the imago shows the greatest specialisation, while in the same life-story, as in the case of the oil-beetles (pp. 56-7), the newly-hatched grub may be campodeiform, changing to the eruciform type as soon as it finds itself within reach of its host's rich store of food.

    The Life-Story of Insects 1902

  • The caddis-larva is as a rule of the eruciform type, but with well-developed thoracic legs, and with hook-like tail-appendages; by means of the latter it anchors itself to the extremity of its curious

    The Life-Story of Insects 1902

  • For reasons which we will not pause here to discuss, we have always regarded the eruciform type of larva as the highest.

    Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872

  • Turning to eruciform types of larva, we find the _caterpillar_ (fig. 1

    The Life-Story of Insects 1902

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.