Many of these can be asked either way round. For example: "What type of food forms the staple diet of a nucivorous animal?"
An alate creature is one that has |
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Wings |
An excaudate or anourous animal is one that has no |
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Tail |
An apodous animal is one that has no |
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Feet |
A catadromous animal is one that has |
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Migrates down rivers to the sea to breed |
A diurnal animal is one that |
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Active during the daytime |
An edentate animal is one that has no |
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Teeth |
A glabrous animal is one that has no |
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Hair or fur |
Common term for a homeothermic animal (cf. polikothermic) |
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Warm blooded |
An oviparous animal is one that |
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Lay eggs |
A palmiped is an animal that has |
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Webbed feet |
Passerine birds are so called because their feet are specially adapted for |
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Perching |
A pinniped is a |
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Mammal with flippers |
A plantigrade animal is one that |
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Walks on flats of feet |
Common term for a polikothermic animal (cf. homeothermic) |
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Cold–blooded |
An ungulate is an animal that has |
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Hooves |
A viviparous animal is one that is |
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Live young |
Sleeping through the summer (the opposite of hibernation) |
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Aestivation |
Person or animal with congenital lack of pigment |
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Albino |
Biliverdin and bilirubin are (respectively) the yellow–orange and green pigments in
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Bile |
Nidification (particularly of birds) |
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Building nests |
Shell of a tortoise, crab or lobster (upper part – see also Plastron) |
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Carapace |
Species able to breed with each other (from the Greek for common) |
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Cenospecies |
Forms the hard parts of joint–footed animals, and insect skeletons |
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Chitin (kye–tin) |
The Latin word for a sewer: the single orifice that serves as the only opening for the digestive, reproductive,
and urinary tracts in amphibians, reptiles, birds, and a few mammals |
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Cloaca |
Common name for albumen |
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Egg white |
Any gland that secretes hormones into the bloodstream |
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Endocrine gland |
The nictitating membrane, or haw (present in some reptiles, birds, sharks, and mammals) is also known as the third |
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Eyelid |
The joint in the hind leg of a quadruped, between the knee and the fetlock – the angle of which points
backwards |
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Hock (or gambrel) |
Animal that has no backbone |
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Invertebrate |
Tough, fibrous protein: the main constituent of rhino horns (and human hair) |
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Keratin |
Sugar found in milk |
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Lactose |
Mammal where the female carries the young in a pouch |
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Marsupial |
The largest cells in the bodies of most animal species |
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Ova |
Scents secreted by animals which act like hormones on others |
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Pheromones |
Lower part of the shell of a tortoise or turtle – also a chest protector in fencing (the sport!) |
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Plastron |
Slowing down of metabolic rates in cold–blooded animals for part of the day or night, to save energy |
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Torpor |
Furcula (from the Latin for "little fork") – a bone in birds' skeletons |
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Wishbone |
Disease caught by man from animals (e.g. ringworm, rabies) |
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Zoonosis |
Animal that looks like a plant (e.g. sea anemone) |
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Zoophyte |