multispecies
MUL-tee-SPEE-sheez
Definition
Consisting of, involving, or composed of several distinct biological species.
Etymology
Derived from the Latin 'multus' meaning 'many' and the Latin 'species' meaning 'kind' or 'appearance'. It emerged in modern scientific English to describe complex biological interactions involving more than one type of organism.
In the news
The article references multispecies hunting groups to contrast the complex, cooperative social systems of adult octopuses with the simpler, context-dependent interactions observed in the juvenile study subjects.
Young reef octopuses do not slap every fish that gets close: a 2026 study found arm strikes concentrated in fast, defensive encounters with territorial fish, while interactions with nonterritorial followers lasted more than three times as long as the underwater fight
Read the full article ↗ScienceBlog.com