Meaning & use
detritivore
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Meaning
nouncountablebiology
An animal that eats dead plant and animal remains and waste, such as fallen leaves, which returns nutrients to the soil.
Grammar: Countable: a detritivore, many detritivores.
Patterns
- a detritivore of something
An earthworm is a detritivore that pulls dead leaves into the soil.
Woodlice and millipedes are common detritivores in the leaf litter of a forest.
Without detritivores, dead material would pile up on the forest floor.
Word forms
| plural | detritivores |
|---|
Common combinations
- soil detritivore
- The soil detritivore breaks leaves into smaller pieces.
- role of detritivores
- The role of detritivores is to recycle nutrients.
- aquatic detritivore
- Some snails are aquatic detritivores that clean the bottom of ponds.
- detritivore and decomposer
- A detritivore and a decomposer work together in a compost pile.
- feed as a detritivore
- The beetle larvae feed as detritivores in rotting logs.
Synonyms and how they differ
- detritus feeder
- Detritus feeder is a plainer phrase with the same meaning, often used in school textbooks.
- decomposer
- A decomposer, such as a fungus, breaks matter down chemically outside the body, whereas a detritivore swallows it first.
- scavenger
- A scavenger eats dead animals or leftovers, usually larger pieces, while a detritivore eats fragments of rotting material.
Word family
Commonly confused: detritivore or decomposer? detritivore or herbivore?
detritivore vs decomposer
Decomposers such as fungi and bacteria digest matter externally; detritivores ingest it.
detritivore vs herbivore
A herbivore eats living plants, while a detritivore eats dead material.
Practice
Which organism is best described as a detritivore?
Choose one answer.
An earthworm ingests dead plant matter, so it is a detritivore. The hawk is a predator, the rabbit a herbivore and the bee feeds on living flowers.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “detritivore”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.