Entomophages

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Creatures, such as birds, bats, spiders and certain plants, that regularly eat insects as their main source of food
2. Organisms that live by consuming insects, including many predators and some fungi that capture or infect bugs
3. Species whose diet consists chiefly of insects, ranging from small mammals and reptiles to carnivorous plants

Etymology: Entomophages are creatures that eat insects, and the word is a modern scientific coinage built entirely from Greek parts: "entomon" meaning "insect" (literally "cut into pieces," from the insect's segmented body) and "phagos" meaning "eating." Ancient Greeks had no need for such a term, so it was assembled from classical roots by naturalists writing in Latin-influenced scientific English, and it belongs to the vocabulary of entomology and ecology rather than everyday speech. The "-phage" ending is productive in modern science. It appears in "bacteriophage," a virus that eats bacteria, and in "macrophage," a cell that engulfs and digests debris. In each case the same Greek element is attached to a different prefix to name a new eater. Entomophages therefore sit in a family of technical words that let scientists describe what an organism consumes without relying on a single common name.

Synonyms: insectivore