Aristotle's lantern

American  

noun

Zoology.

1. a complex arrangement of muscles and calcareous teeth and plates forming an eversible organ in most echinoids, functioning in mastication.

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Etymology

Origin of Aristotle's lantern

So called from a reference by Aristotle to a sea urchin resembling in shape certain lanterns

Example Sentences

Diagram of one fifth of Aristotle's lantern of Dendraster showing three loops of the circumoral nerve ring, and parts of three radial nerves, the central one partly hidden at its origin by the lantern.

From Project Gutenberg

This shelly mass of prickles, which moves about a living ball, by rolling on its spines, and the armour of which is composed of ten thousand pieces, artistically adjusted and welded together—the sea-urchin, which is popularly called, for some unknown reason, "Aristotle's lantern," wears away the granite with his five teeth, and lodges himself in the hole.

From Project Gutenberg

The whole mouth is a conical box, called by naturalists "Aristotle's lantern."

From Project Gutenberg

Clumsy and ill-shaped as it appears to be in other respects, it has jaws of wonderful design, and known to the ancients as "Aristotle's lantern."

From Project Gutenberg