Meanings
- uncountableThe eating of hard-shelled foods such as bones or nuts, or prey organisms such as shellfish.
1 more example
2023 Sylvain Marcellini, Melanie Debiais-Thibaud & Frederic Marin (eds) The evolution of biomineralization in metazoans →ISBN DOI 10.3389/978-2-83251-339-2 frontiers Research Topics Among cartilaginous fishes (Chondrichthyes), the consumption of hard prey (durophagy) is most common in the clade of skates and rays. . . which contain only durophagous taxa . . . Durophagy in batoid fishes takes a variety of forms: diets can involve comparatively thin-shelled crustaceans, thick-shelled molluscs and/or prey with softer, tougher exoskeletons (e.g. shrimp or even insects) . . . Hard prey processing has not been extensively surveyed in batoid fishes, but at least two strategies exist . . .: what we will call "chemical durophagy," where predators rely on low stomach pH or chitinase to break down prey exoskeletons . . . and "mechanical durophagy", where predators crush prey before ingestion . . .
Origin
- Latindurus“hard”
- Englishdurophagy
From Latin durus (“hard”) + -phagy.
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
durophagy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/durophagy
“durophagy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/durophagy. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “durophagy,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/durophagy.
Source: durophagy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.