Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Feeding on decaying organic matter.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Feeding on putrid matter; habitually eating decaying substances; specifically, of or pertaining to the Saprophaga.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Zoöl.) Feeding on carrion.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Feeding on
dead ordecaying organic matter
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective (of certain animals) feeding on dead or decaying animal matter
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From sapro- + -phagous.
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Examples
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The wide range of trophic resources consumed by Geotrupidae dung beetles and the generally accepted saprophagous habits of the Scarabaeoidea ancestors suggest that the consumption of acorns constitutes a faculty that takes advantage of previous morphological adaptations.
PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jos? R. Verd? et al. 2010
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