Phagy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Biology prefixes and suffixes |
| bio- |
| myco- / -mycete |
| -phag- |
| phyto- / -phyte |
| -vor- |
| zoo- / -zoan |
Phagy or phagia is an ecological or behavioral term that is used to identify particular nutritional systems or feeding behaviors. The suffixes -phagy, -phagous and -phage are used to name different types of phagy or animals that perform it, which include:
- Monophagy — feeding on a single type of food (f.e. a single plant species)
- Oligophagy — feeding on few specific types of food (f.e. a single plant genus)
- Polyphagy — feeding on many kinds of food (f.e. all (or almost all) the species of a single plant family)
- Phytophagy — the eating of plants
- Xylophagy — the eating of wood
- Foliophagy — the eating of leaves
- Oophagy — the eating of eggs
- Rhizophagy — the eating of roots
- Ophiophagy — feeding on snakes
- Hematophagy — feeding on blood
- Coprophagy — feeding on faeces
- Geophagy — feeding on earth
- Bacteriophagous — feeding on bacteria
- Necrophagy — feeding on dead animals
- Saprophagy — feeding on non-living organic material
- See Pica (disorder) for some more.
Phagy can also be used to name eating in a specified manner, normal or abnormal (for example dysphagia, a dysfunction of deglutition).
This word root can also be used as a prefix in other words, such as in phagocytosis (the function of specialized cells that can feed on inorganic or organic matter, including other cells).
The term comes from Greek language phagein, to eat; with Indo-European language roots in bhag.
