vagility

Vagility is the ability of an organism to move and migrate, as in Scientists study a species’ vagility, among other things, to understand a species’ migration habits.

Vagility is literally the ability of an animal or plant species to move. The term is often used to specifically describe the likelihood or probability of success a species would have if it migrated away from its natal habitat or its current living space. The vagility of an animal is normally measured based on how many miles it could travel without dying. 

Many species of birds, for example, will migrate away from one habitat and to another with the seasons, often traveling hundreds of miles as a group and successfully making it back and forth every time. These animals are considered to be highly vagile compared to some low vagility species, such as slow-moving tortoises or amphibians and reptiles that depend on water to live.

Example: This breed of toad has a much higher vagility than lake-bound breeds.

The first records of the term vagility come from around the 1900s. It combines the term vagile, meaning “having freedom of movement,” and the suffix -ity, which forms abstract nouns that express a state, condition, or quality.

When different species are being observed or even discovered for the first time, the vagility of the creature is often studied, along with what habitats they can reasonably survive in. Vagility is an important factor in the study of migrating creatures because it can reveal what the organisms’ patterns might be and how this can be scientifically explained.

What are some words that share a root or word element with vagility? 

• vagile
• vagary
• vagrant
• vagabond

What are some words that often get used in discussing vagility?

• biology
• habitat
• survival
• activity

Vagility is almost always discussed in a biological context.

Pat me on the back y'all, I found myself typing "low vagility" and replaced it with "low capacity for movement in the environment."

— Terry McGlynn (@hormiga) May 7, 2018

Dull and cautious movement of Kaolinonychus coreanus coreanus. Although their gene informations need to be checked, it is noteworthy that they show very high morphological concordance in samples caught more than 200 miles away despite their low vagility like this. pic.twitter.com/M5FATV7I0U

— Dongyoung Kim (@mxmln_dy) October 26, 2020

Updated on February 27, 2023

True or False?

An animal’s vagility refers to its ability to move.