Crossword clues for clasper
clasper
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Clasper \Clasp"er\ (kl[.a]sp"[~e]r), n.
One who, or that which, clasps, as a tendril. ``The claspers of vines.''
--Derham.-
(Zo["o]l.)
One of a pair of organs used by the male for grasping the female among many of the Crustacea.
One of a pair of male copulatory organs, developed on the anterior side of the ventral fins of sharks and other elasmobranchs. See Illust. of Chim[ae]ra.
Wiktionary
n. 1 Anything that clasps 2 (context biology English) Any of several appendages, in insects, crustacea and fish, that are used to clasp the female during copulation
Wikipedia
In biology, a clasper is a male anatomical structure found in some groups of animals, used in mating.
Male cartilaginous fish have claspers formed from the posterior portion of their pelvic fin which serve as intromittent organs used to channel semen into the female's cloaca during mating. The act of mating in some fish including sharks usually includes one of the claspers raised to allow water into the siphon through a specific orifice. The clasper is then inserted into the cloaca, where it opens like an umbrella to anchor its position. The siphon then begins to contract expelling water and sperm. Male chimaeras have cephalic claspers (tenacula) on their heads, which are thought to aid in holding the female during mating.
In entomology, it is a structure in male insects that is used to hold the female during copulation (see Lepidoptera genitalia for more).
In the mathematical field of low-dimensional topology, a clasper is a surface (with extra structure) in a 3-manifold on which surgery can be performed.
Usage examples of "clasper".
Little by then surpriz'd me, yet this was the canniest thing upon the coaly Tyne since Harry Clasper out-keel'd the Lad from Hetton-le-Hole.
His left wrist ended in an iron hook, and the other arm had an even stranger termination: as the pirate lord lifted a telescope to his eye, Orlando saw that he gripped the tube with some kind of metal clasper, an object unpleasantly reminiscent of the ravening salad tongs.
The rest of the insect-person extruded itself, hung rigidly horizontal from the lip of the tube by the claspers at the tip of its elongated abdomen, and let itself drop lightly on all fours to the ground.
There was another head-to-head conference, with eight long tail sections sticking out and wobbling, the gauntleted claspers working convulsively.
The four-fingered claspers at their projecting rears were pincers of horn, and the forward manipulating limbs, now revealed, were all tweezers and hooks.
The glass helmet smashed against the corner of a crate, and the claspers relaxed just on the point of crushing his gloved hand between them.
But other nymphs were managing to land right side up or to grab branchlets with their four legs and abdominal claspers and swing themselves around.
He let his fingertips caress the flesh -- past the pectoral fins, the pelvic fin, the thick, firm genital claspers -- until finally (the fish seemed to have no end) they were slapped away by the sweeping tail.
He let his fingertips caress the flesh -- past the pectoral fins, the pelvic fin, the thick, firm genital claspers --until finally (the fish seemed to have no end) they were slapped away by the sweeping tail.
Angling down from its serrated spine, a ferocious array of claspers, pincers, slabbers, clubs, and saws of chitin plate festooned its sides.
And without pause Canker's warrior grasped the lesser creature in its left-flank claspers and commenced to dismember it.
And while she reeled there and tried to recover her senses and balance both, it put out appendages with hooked claspers and snatched her up.
Shuck the fake shell and let's see whatcha got in the claspers department.