oviparous

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English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin oviparus + -ous.

Pronunciation

Adjective

oviparous (not comparable)

  1. Depositing eggs that develop and hatch outside the body as a reproductive strategy.
    Synonym: egglaying
    The echidna is a monotreme, which is the extremely small subset of oviparous mammals.
    • 1643, Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend‎:
      And though it might be thought that all animals who have lungs do cough; yet in cataceous fishes, who have large and strong lungs, the same is not observed; nor yet in oviparous quadrupeds: and in the greatest thereof, the crocodile, although we read much of their tears, we find nothing of that motion.
    • 1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 138:
      Until fairly recently, no female Somniosus had been observed to be carrying embryos, so it was assumed that this was an oviparous species.

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