Word.ws English Dictionary

alloscuta

alloscuta is the plural of alloscutum.

Meaning of alloscutum

Noun

alloscutum (plural alloscuta)

  1. the flexible part of the dorsal body wall behind the rigid scutum in a hard tick, particularly a female — the alloscutum is the part of the body wall that must stretch to accommodate the blood that the tick swallows when it engorges in preparation for laying eggs.
    • Powerful muscle groups are also present in the alloscutum of the female, nymphal, and larval Ixodid ticks, through which the tick is able to redistribute the centre of gravity and regain an upright position when it falls into an upside-down position.2008, Heinz Mehlhorn, Encyclopedia of Parasitology, →ISBN

Questions about alloscuta

What is alloscuta the plural of?
Alloscuta is the plural of alloscutum.

Words near alloscuta in the dictionary

  1. allosauroid
  2. allosauroids
  3. allosaurs
  4. allosaurus
  5. allosauruses
  6. alloscuta
  7. alloscutum
  8. allose
  9. allosecurinine
  10. allosemitic
  11. allosemitism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: alloscuta (page history and authors); alloscutum (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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