phytophagicadj.

1864 B. D. Walsh in Proc. Entomol. Soc. Philadelphia 3 405 Varieties of the above character, i.e. where certain unimportant characters in the insect are correlated with the food-plant.., I propose..to call Phytophagic Varieties.

1864 B. D. Walsh in Proc. Entomol. Soc. Philadelphia 3 411 The difference between what I call a Phytophagic Variety and what I call a Phytophagic Species is simply this:—The former habitually intercross with the normal race, the latter do not.

1894 W. Bateson Materials for Study of Variation xii. 304 (note) That this dimorphism is ‘phytophagic’ is not very likely, but the possibility should be remembered.

1918 Trans. Amer. Entomol. Soc. 44 88 Prof. J. H. Comstock..described the egg and immature form, which at that time Prof. P. R. Uhler considered merely a phytophagic form of arcuata Say.

1955 Q. Rev. Biol. 30 336/1 The population with the specialized host plant was designated as a ‘phytophagic variety’. Walsh postulated that the ‘variety’..might eventually cease to interbreed with the polyphagic stock.

1890 Cent. Dict. Phytophagic, same as phytophagous.

1891 L. O. Howard in Proc. U.S. National Mus. 14 585 No word of opposition has been advanced to the conclusion that Isosoma at least is phytophagic.

1908 Ann. Entomol. Soc. Amer. 1 38 This insect is of interest..[as] the only representative of the genus known to be phytophagic in the larval state, the other species being parasites.

1957 H. J. Deuel Lipids III. ix. 492 The carnivorous green praying mantis (Mantis religiosa), and..the phytophagic short-horned grasshopper (Acrida turrita).

1999 Jrnl. Biogeogr. 26 97 Reductions in macrophyte diversity seem to be reflected palaeoecologically by a decline in the diversity of fossil chironomid assemblages, related to the breakdown of particular host-plant relationships amongst the phytophagic species.