dimorphic
adjective
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Dimorphism varies greatly in the animal kingdom. Among mammals, the male is generally larger than the female, but other differences in appearance tend to be modest. But birds are usually noticeably dimorphic, with the male being the more colorful sex; when we imagine a pheasant, a mallard, a cardinal, or a peacock, we're almost always picturing the male rather than the female. Among spiders the situation is often reversed. The golden orb-weaver spider, for example, is spectacularly dimorphic: the female may be 20 times the size of the male, and she usually ends up eating him, sometimes even while he's mating with her. Many sea creatures, including many fish, take care of gender problems by simply changing from one sex into the other.
Examples of dimorphic in a Sentence
Dawn Pettinelli, Hartford Courant, 7 Feb. 2024
Enlarge / Histoplasma capsulatum is a species of parasitic, yeast-like dimorphic fungus that can, if inhaled, cause a type of lung infection called histoplasmosis.
—Mark Takahashi, Ars Technica, 27 Sep. 2023
However, these behaviors have only been tested in a handful of size dimorphic spiders.
—Seriously Science, Discover Magazine, 15 Dec. 2017
That variability itself and the behavioral overlap between the sexes—aggressive females and empathetic males and even men and women who display both traits—suggest that brains cannot be lumped into one of two distinct, or dimorphic, categories.
—Lydia Denworth, Scientific American, 1 Sep. 2017
The canines are sexually dimorphic, being larger in males.
—Darren Naish, Scientific American Blog Network, 3 June 2017
How will understanding the role of doublesex in sexually dimorphic insect traits help us understand phenotypic variation in other animals, even humans?
—Smithsonian, 22 Mar. 2017
Dictionary Entries Near dimorphic
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“Dimorphic.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dimorphic. Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.
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dimorphic
adjective
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