endopodite

Also en·do·pod

[en-dop-uh-dahyt]

noun

Zoology.

1. the inner or medial branch of a two-branched crustacean leg or appendage.

Other Word Forms

• endopoditic adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of endopodite¹

1865–70; endo- + -podite < Greek pod- (stem of poús ) foot + -ite ¹

Example Sentences

The standard trilobite limb is segmented into three distinct portions — a walking leg, or endopodite, and a gill structure, the exopodite, are connected to the body by a spiny food-processing section, the protopodite.

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Instead of having a spiny, triangular protopodite for processing food, they had a smooth, rounded structure attached to a short, flexible fingerlike endopodite that was just half the length of the creature’s other walking legs.

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The jaws have the gnathobasic endites developed at the expense of the rest of the limb, the endopodite and exopodite persisting only as sensory “palps” or disappearing altogether.

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General Morphology of Appendages.—Amid the great variety of forms assumed by the appendages of the Crustacea, it is possible to trace, more or less plainly, the modifications of a fundamental type consisting of a peduncle, the protopodite, bearing two branches, the endopodite and exopodite.

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In many cases, one of the branches, generally the endopodite, is more strongly developed than the other.

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