klepton

English

Alternative forms

  • kl. (abbreviation)

Etymology

From Ancient Greek κλέπτ(ης) (klépt(ēs), “thief”) + -on, after taxon.

Pronunciation

Noun

klepton (plural kleptons or klepta)

  1. (biology) A species that requires input from another biological taxon (normally from a species which is closely related to the kleptonic species) to complete its reproductive cycle.
    • 2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 157:
      Most kleptons are female, and some don’t use the genes of the male at all, merely deploying his sperm to stimulate the egg into development without fertilising it.

Derived terms

  • gynoklepton
  • kleptogenesis
  • kleptonic
  • synklepton
  • tychoklepton
  • zygoklepton

Translations

Further reading

Anagrams

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.