adjective
definition
Adapted for sucking; living by sucking.
example
The hummingbirds are suctorial birds.
definition
Capable of adhering by suction.
example
the suctorial fishes
Examples of suctorial in a Sentence
They have a well-developed proboscis which is used as a suctorial organ; some are abyssal, but the majority are either commensals or parasites of Echinoderms.
Pharynx suctorial; branchiae surrounding the body, between the mantle and foot.
The last three families constitute the sub-tribe Porostomata, characterized by the reduction of the buccal mass, which is modified into a suctorial apparatus.
Mandibles present in pupa, vestigial in imago; maxillae suctorial without specialization; first maxillae with lacinia, galea and palp. Prothorax small.
Mandibles rarely present, adapted for piercing; first maxillae with palps; second maxillae forming with hypopharynx a suctorial proboscis.
Biting mandibles; second maxillae incompletely or completely fused; often forming a suctorial proboscis.
This order can be traced with certainty back to the early Jurassic epoch, while the Permian fossil Eugereon, and the living order - specially modified in many respects - of the Thysanoptera indicate steps by which the aberrant suctorial and piercing mouth of the Hemiptera may have been developed from the biting mouth of primitive Isopteroids, by the elongation of some parts and the suppression of others.
The standing of the Trichoptera in a position almost ancestral to the Lepidoptera is one of the assured results of recent morphological study, the mobile mandibulate pupa and the imperfectly suctorial maxillae of the Trichoptera reappearing in the lowest families of the Lepidoptera.
The order must therefore be ancient, and as no evidence is forthcoming as to the mode of reduction of the hind-wings, nor as to the stages by which the suctorial mouth-organs became specialized, it is difficult to trace the exact relationship of the group, but the presence of cerci and a degree of correspondence in the nervuration of the forewings suggest the Mecaptera as possible allies.
There seems no doubt that the suctorial mouth-organs of the Diptera have arisen quite independently from those of the Lepidoptera, for in the former order the sucker is formed from the second maxillae, in the latter from the first.
The specialization of form in the constricted abdomen and in the suctorial " tongue " that characterizes the higher families of the order is correlated with the habit of careful egg-laying and provision of food for the young.
The gobies (Gobius) are small fishes readily recognized by their ventrals (the fins on the lower surface of the chest) being united into one fin, forming a suctorial disk, by which these fishes are enabled to attach themselves in every possible position to a rock or other firm substances.
Muscular fibres connected with the suctorial pharynx are in Limulus inserted into the entosternite, and the activity of the two organs may be correlated.
The mouth is minute and the pharynx is always suctorial, never gizzard-like.
All Arachnida, including Limulus, feed by suctorial action in essentially the same way as Scorpio.
The lampreys are readily recognized by their long, eel-like, scaleless body, terminating anteriorly in the circular, suctorial mouth characteristic of the whole sub-class.
The mandibles are normally five-jointed, with remnants of an outer branch on the second joint, the biting edge varying from strong development to evanescence, the terminal joints or " palp " giving the organ a leg-like appearance and function, which disappears in suctorial genera such as Paracytherois.
Their predaceous, suctorial larvae are the well-known ant-lions (q.v.).
They are abundantly distinct from the Neuroptera and Mecaptera, through the absence of mandibles in the imago, the maxillae - both pairs of which possess the typical inner and outer lobes and jointed palps - forming a suctorial apparatus.
They move their mouths in a suctorial manner, tearing the food with their jaws.
The larvae are carnivorous, with biting or suctorial mouthparts.
In the living Cephalodiscus a zooid can crawl by means of its proboscis over the gelatinous processes of the outer side of the coenoecium, a position which it can assume owing to the very great extensibility of the stalk, the proximal suctorial end of which remains attached to the inner surface of some part of the coenoecium (Andersson, 1907).
Its condition thus recalls the pupal instar of the higher (Endopterygote) Hexapoda; and the Thysanoptera, though few in number, are seen to be of great interest to the student, exhibiting at once a transition between the biting and the suctorial mouth, and the passage from " incomplete " to " complete " metamorphosis.
In 1894, however, Sir Patrick Manson, arguing with greater precision by analogy from his own discovery of the cause of filariasis and the part played by mosquitoes, suggested that the malarial parasite had a similar intermediate host outside the human body, and that a suctorial insect, which would probably be found to be a particular mosquito, was required for its development.