raptorialadj.n.

1827 N. A. Vigors & T. Horsfield in Trans. Linn. Soc. 15 177 The first order..is the Raptorial Order, or the Birds of Prey.

1854 R. Owen Struct. Skeleton & Teeth in Orr's Circle Sci.: Org. Nature I. 226 Raptorial birds take a horizontal position when suspended in the air.

1892 W. H. Hudson Naturalist in La Plata 158 Bringing a raptorial insect and a firefly together.

1931 T. A. Coward Life of Birds vi. 46 The flesh-eating or raptorial birds kill birds which we call useful as well as those which are troublesome.

1968 Nature 14 Dec. 1098/1 Declining populations of raptorial and fish-eating birds.

1979 B. J. Meggers Prehist. Amer. (ed. 2) 75 The most spectacular aspect of Chavín culture is its art style, which features ornate and highly stylized felines, serpents, and raptorial birds.

1997 Aquatic Microbial Ecol. 12 153 P[eridiniopsis] berolinense is a raptorial species [of dinoflagellate] that attacks its prey by peduncle-feeding.

1839 W. Jardine Nat. Hist. Birds Great Brit. & Ireland (Naturalist's Libr.: Ornithol. II) II. 53 With raptorial or predacious manners.

1870 H. A. Nicholson Man. Zool. I. xl. 219 In others the first pair of legs are greatly developed, and form powerful raptorial organs, as in the Mantis.

1933 Condor 35 19 Erroneous impressions obscure the true proportions of one prey species to another in raptorial diets.

1973 Nature 20 July 179/2 Planktonic crustacea exhibit selective feeding behaviour ranging from passive size selection in Daphnia to raptorial feeding in cyclopoid copepods.

1993 E. N. K. Clarkson Invertebr. Palaeontol. & Evol. (ed. 3) xi. 389/2 The mantis-shrimp,..is a marine predator with a distended abdomen and modified raptorial thoracopods.

1854 Times 6 July 12/1 No case of the real raptorial character..until the attempt of Mr. Carden, of Barnane, on the fair Saxon with whom he was smitten.

1892 Times 25 July 14/2 This coquetting with a raptorial policy of acquirement by one so highly placed as Sir Thomas Farrer is a sign of the times.

1916 Sci. Progress 11 245 ‘Canto di cigno’..—a droll metaphor having regard to Spallanzani's raptorial countenance.

1955 W. Gaddis Recognitions ii. vii. 620 At that instant the room was pierced by a raptorial cry like that of the bird descending.

1989 W. Deverell Mindfield 109 His eyes were pulled north, up the street,..watching him, raptorial, predacious.

1856 F. Fleming Southern Afr. 379 The largest variety of Raptorials is..found among the Falcons.

1877 E. L. L. Arnold Summer Holiday in Scand. viii. 185 Though the raptorials..are so vigorously suppressed, game, as far as our experiences went, was not very numerous.

1920 in M. Roberts W. H. Hudson (1924) xiv. 191 He should have been called Hawk Hudson or something like that, for he is more like a splendid raptorial every day.

1935 Jrnl. Ecol. 23 43 Ectoparasites..are often noticeable on the large birds, raptorials and ravens.

1994 Limnol. & Oceanogr. 39 400/1 Among the planktonic cladocerans, two fundamentally different feeding modes are developed. For raptorials,..the size ration between predator and prey is reported to be 1 : 1 to 17 : 1.

1883 Zoologist 7 324 The record of the year, raptorially, closed with the death of a fine young Sea Eagle.

1972 Chesapeake Sci. 13 Suppl. S178 Feeds as a filter feeder on small particles and raptorially on larger particles.

1994 Nature 28 July 261/1 When one was spotted winging raptorially down the corridor, it was time to go into hiding for the morning.

2001 G. E. Budd in A. Yu. Zhuralev & R. Riding Ecol. Cambrian Radiation xviii. 419 The frontal appendages of Kerygmachela..could hardly have been used raptorially and are more likely to have had a sensory function.