phago-, phag-, -phage, -phagi, -phagic, -phagically, -phagia, -phagism, -phagist, -phagic, -phagous, -phagy

(Greek: eat, eating; to consume, to ingest; relationship to eating or consumption by ingestion or engulfing)

xylophagous
Feeding on wood, as an insect larva, or boring into and destroying wood, as a mollusc or crustacean.
xylophagy
The eating of wood as is done by certain insects; such as, termites.

Many xylophagous insects have symbiotic protozoa and/or bacteria in their digestive system which assist in the breakdown of wood cellulose.

The cellulose, or inert carbohydrate which is the chief constituent of the cell walls of plants and of wood, cotton, hemp, paper, etc. that exist in a termite's food is digested by myriads of flagellated protozoans living in the termite's digestive tract.

Without the protozoans in the termites digestive areas, the termites would starve because the cellulose could not be digested without the protozoans.

Other organisms, especially among the groups feeding on decaying wood, apparently derive much of their nutrition from the digestion of various fungi that are growing within the wood fibers.

zoophagy (s) (noun) (no pl)
The feeding on animals or animal matter: The article Marc was reading was about zoophagy and how vultures were known to consume the meat of dead animals.
Two lions in a zoophagous as they are consuming a zebra.
—Word Info image © Copyright, 2006.
zoosaprophage (s) (noun), zoosaprophages (pl)
An organism that consumes decaying animal matter: In her biology book, Alice read about zoosaprophages that fed on dead animals and their liquid secretions.

Related "eat, eating" word units: brycho-; esculent-; esophago-; glutto-; vor-.

Cross references of word families that are related directly, or indirectly, to: "food, nutrition, nourishment": alimento-; broma-; carno-; cibo-; esculent-; sitio-; tropho-; Eating Crawling Snacks; Eating: Carnivorous-Plant "Pets"; Eating: Folivory or Leaf Eaters; Eating: Omnivorous.

Quiz If you would like to take self-scoring quizzes over some of the words in this thematic unit, then click Phago Quizzes, so you can evaluate your knowledge about some of these "eat, eating" words.