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Trophallaxis
 
 
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Trophallaxis is the transfer of food or other fluids among members of a community
Community

In biological terms, a community is a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment .In human communities, intention, belief, Natural resource, preferences, Need assessment, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the Identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness....
 through mouth-to-mouth (stomodeal
Stomodeum

The stomodeum, also called stomatodeum, is a depression between the brain and the pericardium in an embryo, and is the precursor of the mouth and the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland....
) or anus-to-mouth (proctodeal
Proctodeum

A proctodeum is the back germ layer part of an alimentary canal. It is created during embryogenesis by a folding of the outer body wall....
) feeding. It is most highly developed in social insects such as ant
Ant

Ants are Eusociality insects of the family Formicidae, and along with the related wasps and bees, they belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolution from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and Evolutionary radiation after the rise of flowering plants....
s, termite
Termite

The termites are a group of social insects usually classified at the Taxonomy of Order Isoptera . As truly social animals, they are termed eusocial along with the ants and some bees and wasps which are all placed in the separate Order Hymenoptera....
s, wasp
WAsP

WAsP is a PC program for predicting wind climates, wind resources, and power productions from wind turbines and wind farms. The predictions are based on wind data measured at stations in the same region....
s and bee
Bee

Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants. Bees are a monophyly lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila....
s. The word was introduced by the entomologist William Morton Wheeler
William Morton Wheeler

William Morton Wheeler, Ph.D. was an United States entomologist, myrmecologist and Harvard professor....
 in 1918. The behaviour was used in the past to support theories on the origin of sociality in insects. The French psychologist and entomologist August Forel also believed that food sharing was key to ant society and he used an illustration of it as the frontispiece for his book The Social World of the Ants Compared with that of Man.

In ants, individual colony members store food in their crops and regularly exchange it with other colony members and larvae to form a sort of "communal stomach" for the colony.






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Trophallaxis is the transfer of food or other fluids among members of a community
Community

In biological terms, a community is a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment .In human communities, intention, belief, Natural resource, preferences, Need assessment, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the Identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness....
 through mouth-to-mouth (stomodeal
Stomodeum

The stomodeum, also called stomatodeum, is a depression between the brain and the pericardium in an embryo, and is the precursor of the mouth and the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland....
) or anus-to-mouth (proctodeal
Proctodeum

A proctodeum is the back germ layer part of an alimentary canal. It is created during embryogenesis by a folding of the outer body wall....
) feeding. It is most highly developed in social insects such as ant
Ant

Ants are Eusociality insects of the family Formicidae, and along with the related wasps and bees, they belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolution from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and Evolutionary radiation after the rise of flowering plants....
s, termite
Termite

The termites are a group of social insects usually classified at the Taxonomy of Order Isoptera . As truly social animals, they are termed eusocial along with the ants and some bees and wasps which are all placed in the separate Order Hymenoptera....
s, wasp
WAsP

WAsP is a PC program for predicting wind climates, wind resources, and power productions from wind turbines and wind farms. The predictions are based on wind data measured at stations in the same region....
s and bee
Bee

Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants. Bees are a monophyly lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila....
s. The word was introduced by the entomologist William Morton Wheeler
William Morton Wheeler

William Morton Wheeler, Ph.D. was an United States entomologist, myrmecologist and Harvard professor....
 in 1918. The behaviour was used in the past to support theories on the origin of sociality in insects. The French psychologist and entomologist August Forel also believed that food sharing was key to ant society and he used an illustration of it as the frontispiece for his book The Social World of the Ants Compared with that of Man.

In ants, individual colony members store food in their crops and regularly exchange it with other colony members and larvae to form a sort of "communal stomach" for the colony. In termites and cockroaches, proctodeal trophallaxis is crucial for replacing the gut endosymbionts that are lost after every molt. This should not be confused with coprophagia
Coprophagia

Coprophagia is the consumption of feces, from the Greek language ??p??? copros and fa?e?? phagein . Many animal species practice coprophagia as a matter of course; other species do not normally consume feces but may do so under unusual conditions....
. Some vertebrate
Vertebrate

Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with Vertebras or Vertebral columns. The grouping sometimes includes the hagfish, which have no vertebrae, but are genetically quite closely related to lampreys, which do have vertebrae....
s such as bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s and wolves
Gray Wolf

The grey wolf or gray wolf , also known as the timber wolf or simply wolf, is the largest wild member of the Canidae family. It is an ice age survivor originating during the Late Pleistocene around 300,000 years ago....
 also feed their young through trophallaxis.

Trophallaxis serves as a means of communication
Animal communication

Animal communication is any behaviour on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behaviour of another animal. The study of animal communication, sometimes called zoosemiotics has played an important part in the development of ethology, sociobiology, and the study of animal cognition....
, at least in bees
Bee learning and communication

Honey bees learn and communicate in order to find food sources and for other means....
 and ants. In some species of ants, it may play a role in spreading the colony odour that identifies members.

See Also

  • Ant
    Ant

    Ants are Eusociality insects of the family Formicidae, and along with the related wasps and bees, they belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolution from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and Evolutionary radiation after the rise of flowering plants....
  • Regurgitation
    Regurgitation (digestion)

    File:Flesh fly concentrating food.jpgRegurgitation is the controlled flow of stomach contents back into the esophagus and mouth.Regurgitation is used by a number of species to feed their young....
  • Superorganism
    Superorganism

    A superorganism is an organism consisting of many organisms. This is usually meant to be a social unit of eusociality animals, where division of labour is highly specialised and where individuals are not able to survive by themselves for extended periods of time....