zoophyte
IPA: zˈufaɪt
noun
- (biology, historical) An animal thought to have the characteristics of a plant, later specifically an invertebrate of the (former) group Zoophyta, comprising sponges, corals and sea anemones.
- (biology, historical) A plant believed to have the characteristics of an animal, especially a sensitive plant or vegetable lamb.
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Examples of "zoophyte" in Sentences
- A zoophyte is an animal that visually resembles a plant.
- Certainly in this zoophyte such appeared to be the case.
- Chance had thrown me just by the most precious specimens of the zoophyte.
- But whatever improvement time has made in my health and nerves, it has made none in this wretched zoophyte village.
- We may consider the polypi in a zoophyte, or the buds in a tree, as cases where the division of the individual has not been completely effected.
- The shores are mostly fringed with coral reefs, often half a mile in width, composed of cemented coral fragments, shells, sand, and a growing species of zoophyte.
- I will state one other instance of uniform action, though of a very different nature, in a zoophyte closely allied to Clytia, and therefore very simply organised.
- In these actions we apparently behold as perfect a transmission of will in the zoophyte, though composed of thousands of distinct polypi, as in any single animal.
- In one zoophyte the head itself was fixed, but the lower jaw free: in another it was replaced by a triangular hood, with a beautifully-fitted trap-door, which evidently answered to the lower mandible.
- By this action, the highly elastic axis must be bent at the lower extremity, where it is naturally slightly curved; and I imagine it is by this elasticity alone that the zoophyte is enabled to rise again through the mud.
- The fleshy appendage at the lower extremity of the sea-pen (described at Bahia Blanca) also forms part of the zoophyte, as a whole, in the same manner as the roots of a tree form part of the whole tree, and not of the individual leaf or flower-buds.