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myrmecophily

British  
/ ˌmɜːmɪˈkɒfɪlɪ /

noun

  1. symbiosis with ants

  2. pollination of plants by ants

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The fossil was encased in a piece of amber from India and is the oldest known example of a kind of social parasitism known as myrmecophily.

From New York Times

With enough replicates, a picture emerges of what usually happens as these beetles crawl along the evolutionary path, from free-living to an advanced state of myrmecophily.

From Scientific American

What both pselaphines and aleocharines show is that species that exhibit an advanced state of myrmecophily tend to demonstrate analogous elaborate morphological and behavioural modifications.

From Scientific American

They radiated extensively in the very habitats dominated by ants, we think by exploiting the same defensive preadaptations that make these beetles so prone to myrmecophily.

From Scientific American

That the same regions of the body have been co-opted suggests that some shared ancestral precursor structure may exist there—a gland, some bristles—which can be readily modified into a device for myrmecophily.

From Scientific American