Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The single specimen or illustration designated as the type for naming a species or subspecies or used as the basis for naming a species or subspecies when no type has been selected. Also called type.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A particular individual selected as the type of species, or the only specimen known at the time of publication of the species.
Wiktionary
- n. The single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to be used when the taxon was formally described.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the original specimen from which the description of a new species is made
Etymologies
- holo- + -type (Wiktionary)
Examples
“A holotype is single specimen or "illustration" designated as the type for naming a species or subspecies.”
“Theretairus (Simpson 1926) is known from two specimens (the holotype is a single dentary from Como Bluff), although some consider it to be a juvenile form of Opisthias.”
“MCZ 1102, the holotype skull of Triceratops "eurycepahlus" Shlaikjer 1935 (now considered conspecific with T. horridus).”
“Photograph and line drawing of holotype specimen of Limusaurus inextricabilis (scale bar = 5 cm).”
“Originally described as Megalosaurus parkeri in 1923, the holotype was referred to a new genus in 1964.”
“The holotype of M. acetabulosus is from Mauritius and the new taxon described herein is from La Réunion.”
“They depicted the holotype and paratypes of the species in photographs, and a specimen of the species had been unavailable for preservation and examination.”
“Several holotype specimens are on display and have been available for research.”
“Cope (I'm still strugglingwith the fact he was a Quaker and acted like this) more recently made news in 2007, when news came outthat Cope had sought to make his own remains the holotype specimin forhomo sapiensand that one of his biggest fans,dino guy Robert Bakker (no ego-slouch himself), campaigned hard to make Cope's bones the holotype for all humanity.”
“The holotype measures just under 3 feet in length, and exhibits a brownish coloration with spotted locales of yellowish-white.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘holotype’.
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museum words
words from work
provenance, accession, deaccession, conservation, preparator, registrar, curator, jargon, Oz clip, bell plate, stretcher, ornate and 115 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1459 more...
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Biology
malacological, cladistic, phenetic, phylogenetic, taxonomy, bathypelagic, superfamily, superorder, infraorder, binomen, binominal, quorum sensing and 199 more...
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Speak, Memory
Words gathered while reading Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov.
cracknel, shingly, glaucous, stretcherman, goodish, loden, gutticle, percha, plasticine, instar, wellhole, camera-lucida and 357 more...
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sratsrat's Words
cheezikle, flatten, muliebrity, vitrify, moon, the doom, lucubrate, modern, orthodox, catholic, astronaut, opalexpressivate and 29 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for holotype.
bilby You should have dropped in to say hello! Jul 31, 2009
sratsrat I must have first read this in Darwin, J. Browne's biography. Jul 30, 2009