oviposit
/ˌəʊvɪˈpɒzɪt
/verb (oviposits, ovipositing, oviposited) [no object] Zoology
(Especially of an insect) lay an egg or eggs: larger females have the potential to oviposit on a greater number of hosts...
- Examples include butterflies ovipositing on host plants, beetles and flies on dung pats, parasitoid wasps on insect hosts, and many insects on seeds or fruit.
- Potential egg layers were given 10 days in the oviposition chambers to oviposit.
- Females oviposit and larvae develop solely in the fruit.
Derivatives
oviposition
- The dissection of larvae revealed that multiple ovipositions into a single host did not occur in our experiments.
- These are either the time until the first oviposition on a patch, or the time between ovipositions.
- It is known, for example, that male crickets transfer substances in their ejaculates that stimulate egg production and oviposition in females.
Origin
Early 19th century: from ovi- 'egg' + Latin posit- 'placed' (from the verb ponere).