sapro-, sapr-, sap- +

Having foul breath.

1. Any organism that lives off dead or decaying organic material.
2. An organism that obtains its nutrients from non-living organic matter, usually dead and decaying plant or animal matter, by absorbing soluble organic compounds.

Since saprotrophs cannot make food for themselves, they are considered a type of heterotroph.

The term heterotroph, which is used in the definition above, refers to an organism that is unable to synthesize nutrients from inorganic compounds and therefore is dependent on complex organic molecules from external sources for growth.

The terms saprophyte, saprobe, and saprozoite denote saprotrophic plants, microbes and fungi, and animals respectively; but the boundaries are blurred in actual usage, with saprophyte being more widespread and traditional than the others.

Obtaining nourishment from dead or decaying organic matter.

Absorbing nutrients from dead or decaying organic matter.

Those organisms living in or on rotting wood.

A reference to organisms living in or on rotting wood.

Applied to animals living on dead or decaying matter; saprophagous: Such saprozoic organisms obtain their nourishment by ingesting broken down organic and inorganic substances, like some protozoans and nematodes do.

A saprozoic lifeform feeds on organic material in solution, rather than on solid organic material.

An animal that lives on dead or decaying organic matter: A saprozoite an be any organism, such as a protozoan, that absorbs its food from soluable organic matter, as from dead animal substances, dung, or from dead plants.

An animal disease that requires both a vertebrate host and a nonanimal (food, soil, plant) source or developmental location for the culmination of its life cycle.

Examples include:

• Botulism, a paralytic, often fatal illness, caused by ingestion of food contaminated with a preformed toxin.
• Coccidioidomycosis, an infection which is limited to the lungs and caused by inhalation of spores.
• Ascariasis, infestation of the gastrointestinal tract that may produce diarrhea and anorexia.
• Tungiasis, a disease caused by the chigoe flea, the female of which penetrates the human skin, often under the toenail, where she becomes greatly distended with eggs, causing a painful ulcer and inflammation.

Putrescence of a wound (rotting and becoming putrid; decomposed and foul-smelling).

The lowest water saturation rate with decomposing organic substances (saprobity) in any body of water.

An organism that consumes decaying animal matter: In her biology book, Alice read about zoosaprophages that fed on dead animals and their liquid secretions.