Phoresy

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The biological behavior in which one animal hitches a ride on another to be carried from place to place
2. Hitchhiking by a small organism that attaches itself to a larger animal in order to travel to a new location
3. A form of commensalism where one creature uses a second, larger creature purely as a means of transportation

Etymology: Phoresy is the biological term for one organism hitching a ride on another, such as a mite clinging to a beetle or a pseudoscorpion riding on a fly, without feeding on its host. The word's roots are in Ancient Greek "phorēsis," meaning "wearing" or "bearing," from "phoreō," "I wear, I bear." That sense of carrying something on one's body is exactly what the modern meaning preserves: the rider is being borne along, much like a garment is worn. The Greek word reached modern scientific vocabulary through French "phorésie," and English adopted it from there. The "-phore" element, which appears in many scientific terms for things that carry or bear something, comes from the same Greek verb, so phoresy belongs to a family of coinages built on the idea of bearing.