| 释义 |
livebearer, n. Zool.
Brit. |ˈlʌɪvbɛːrə|, U.S. |ˈlaɪvˌbɛrər|
[‹ live adj.1 + bearer n., probably after livebearing adj. at live adj.1 and n. Special uses.]
1. A fish which has internal fertilization and gives birth to live young; spec. any of numerous small, chiefly freshwater American toothcarps of the family Poeciliidae, many of which (such as guppies, swordtails, mollies, platies, and gambusias) are popular in aquaria.
1924Amateur Aquarist & Reptilian Rev. 1 45/2, I hope to give a brief account of the habits and most successful methods of breeding and raising the commoner species of Live-bearers. 1952G. F. Hervey & J. Hems Freshwater Trop. Aquarium Fishes viii. 95 With the live-bearers there is hardly any difficulty in breeding. In fact, the difficulty is to prevent them breeding when you do not want them to. 1993Aquarist & Pondkeeper Oct. 40 Among the bony fishes, the 510 or so livebearers are scattered across 14 families. They include such diverse species as some Scorpionfish, Oil and Kelpfishes, Mosquitofish and, perhaps the most intriguing of all, the Coelacanth. 2001Trop. Fish Hobbyist June 152/3 The merry widow is Phallichthys amates, a poecilid livebearer from Central America.
2. An animal that bears live young rather than laying eggs; esp. a viviparous (or ovoviviparous) reptile.
1942Fauna Sept. 83 All rattlesnakes, therefore, are..live bearers, although not in the sense of mammalian reproduction, for there is no placental attachment to the parent. 1964Amer. Naturalist 98 35 Embryologically, the two methods of reproduction are not as distinct as they might seem, for in the live-bearers the developing embryo is nourished by a yolk and not wholly through the blood stream of the parent. The term ‘ovoviviparous’ is often used for such snakes. 1981Evolution 35 782/1 Since most mammals are live-bearers, males are associated with the embryos only so long as they remain associated with the female. 1997Jrnl. Herpetol. 31 64/1 As predicted, the live-bearers [sc. lizards] had higher reproductive success in the cold climate than did the egg-layers. |