• Honeyeater

    Origin

    From honey + eater.

    Full definition of honeyeater

    Noun

    honeyeater

    (plural honeyeaters)
    1. (zoology, ornithology) Any of the many Australasian birds of the family Meliphagidae, which have a tongue adapted for obtaining nectar from flowers.
      • 1985, Hugh A. Ford, David C. Paton, Chapter 12: Habitat Selection in Australian Honeyeaters, with Special Reference to Nectar Productivity, Martin L. Cody (editor), Habitat Selection in Birds, 376,For all honeyeaters combined and White-naped Honeyeaters, the only other common species, there is actually a negative correlation between abundance and nectar productivity....
      • 1999, Karen van Rheede van Oudtshoorn, Margaretha W. van Rooyen, Dispersal Biology of Desert Plants, page 23,The spiny-cheeked honeyeater has a more generalized diet and the gastrointestinal tract is similar structurally and proportionally to other honeyeaters.
      • 2008, Les Christidis, Walter Boles (editors), Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds, page 190,The adopted sequence of genera of Australian honeyeaters follows that implied by the phylogeny of Driskell and Christidis (2004).

    Synonyms

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