Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A chemical secreted by an animal, especially an insect, that influences the behavior or physiology of others of the same species, as by attracting members of the opposite sex or marking the route to a food source.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun biology A
chemical secreted by ananimal , especially aninsect that affects thedevelopment orbehavior of other members of the samespecies , functioning often as a means of attracting a member of the opposite sex.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a chemical substance secreted externally by some animals (especially insects) that influences the physiology or behavior of other animals of the same species
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Scientists have long believed that queen pheromones regulate caste development in social insects, but this finding is only the second such discovery in the past 50 years - when the term pheromone was coined by scientists.
PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010
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It is more than 50 years since the term pheromone was proposed to label a category of chemical signals produced by one member of a species that elicit a definite response in another member of the same species.
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It is 50 years since the term pheromone was coined, but the jury is still out as to whether there are genuinely human smells which can elicit the most primitive subconscious urges in those around us.
Now Smell This 2009
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This "locator pheromone" is then smelled by local mosquitoes ready to lay eggs and will attract them inside.
Archive 2005-10-01 2005
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The pheromone is a scent which mosquitoes naturally release in the wild when they find a good egg laying location.
Archive 2005-10-01 2005
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The word pheromone originated from the Greek language from the words pherein "I carry" and hormon "I excite."
Serendip's Exchange 2009
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I assume then that they’ve been exapted to assist in pheromone distribution (that is, the lipids evolved for waterproofing first, and then became co-opted during evolution for pheromone distribution), but I can’t determine this from Shine et al. (2002).
Sea kraits: radical intraspecific diversity, reproductive isolation, and site fidelity Darren Naish 2006
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I assume then that they’ve been exapted to assist in pheromone distribution (that is, the lipids evolved for waterproofing first, and then became co-opted during evolution for pheromone distribution), but I can’t determine this from Shine et al. (2002).
Archive 2006-07-01 Darren Naish 2006
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Male spiders of this south-American species incorporate a chemical known as a pheromone into their silk gift wrap.
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph Murray Wardrop 2012
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In the spirit of facilitating self-organization, oishii is a kind of pheromone trail allowing me and others to find the resources other members of the hive found useful, interesting, humorous, or for some other reason worth visiting again.
ecbrenner commented on the word pheromone
This term was created in 1959 by two scientists to describe a chemical messenger released by the female silk worm moth to attract males.
February 24, 2009