As an old English major, I've enjoyed accumulating a vocabulary of words ending in "vore." Most people know carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore; my hobbies and side interests introduced me to granivore, piscivore, insectivore, and frugivore (plus tangentially-related "locavore") (and hypercarnivore). Yesterday was my first encounter with "detritovore", which I encountered in The Guardian, where they presented the woodlouse as an entry in their annual "Invertebrate of the Year" competition.
Chucky pig. Slater. Monkey pea. Roly-poly. Boat-builder. Butchy boy. Cheeselog. Hobbling Andrew. Wood pig. If there were a prize for the range and joyfulness of a creature’s English-language names, the humble woodlouse would undoubtedly triumph over its million-plus invertebrate rivals.Over centuries of easy cohabitation with humans, it has acquired more than 300 regional names in Britain alone, and many more in other languages (such as Gwrach y Coed, “witch of the wood”, in Welsh).There are lovely words for woodlouse actions too: an animal rolling its body into a neat ball is known as conglobation, or volvation in zoology.
You can read more about the woodlouse at the link. For now I'm just enjoying the new "vore" word [there are lots of others...], and now also "conglobation" and "volvation."
I guess the armadillo also conglobates?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't recommend Googling for "vore" and definitely avoid images.
ReplyDeleteWe call woodlice, "slaters", presumably because of the colour and where you find them.
So of course I immediately did so. Here's the start of the AI explanation:
DeleteVore (short for vorarephilia) is a paraphilia or sexual fetish centered on the fantasy of being consumed by, or personally consuming, another person or creature. It typically involves a character swallowing another person or entity whole and alive, rather than chewing or killing them for food.
To better understand the nuances of this topic, the following sections break down how the concept works, its main types, and other ways the term is used...
Also, I'm sure it's explained in the Grauniad article, which is forever complaining about the number of free articles I've read this year, but detritovores eat detritus.
ReplyDeleteWood Louse is such an unlovely name for a creature as delightful as a Roly Poly.
ReplyDeleteIt was always a doodle bug to me growing up.
ReplyDelete