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Spontaneous removal or casting off of a body part (as the tail of a lizard or claw or a lobster) especially when the organism is injured or under attack
Answer for the clue "Spontaneous removal or casting off of a body part (as the tail of a lizard or claw or a lobster) especially when the organism is injured or under attack ", 8 letters:
autotomy
Word definitions for autotomy in dictionaries
WordNet
Word definitions in WordNet
n. spontaneous removal or casting off of a body part (as the tail of a lizard or claw or a lobster) especially when the organism is injured or under attack
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. (context chiefly zoology English) The spontaneous removal of a limb, tail etc, especially by some invertebrates as a self-defense mechanism.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
autotomy \autotomy\ n. 1. spontaneous removal or casting off of a body part (as the tail of a lizard or claw or a lobster) especially when the organism is injured or under attack.
Wikipedia
Word definitions in Wikipedia
Autotomy (from the Greek auto- "self-" and tome "severing") or self amputation is the behaviour whereby an animal sheds or discards one or more of its own appendages , usually as a self-defense mechanism to elude a predator 's grasp or to distract the predator ...