pleurembolic

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek πλευρά (pleurá, “a rib, a side of something”) + Ancient Greek ἔμβολος (émbolos, “peg, stopper”).

Adjective

pleurembolic (not comparable)

1. (biology) Capable of being withdrawn by a backward movement of the parts from which it protrudes so that it becomes engulfed.
   • 1970, Studies on the Fauna of Curaçao and Other Caribbean Islands:

     Some scattered melanophores in fundus of atrium, a few pigment cells along seminal groove. Male atrium (a) narrow in front, wide behind. Its fundus forms a deep fold which receives seminal groove and functions as pleurembolic penis (p).

   • 2003, Harold Barnes, Oceanography and Marine Biology, →ISBN, page 373:

     The proboscis wall itself is highly muscular and has longitudinal, circular and diagonal muscle layers. It is of the pleurembolic type characteristic of the Buccinacea.

   • 2008, Winston Ponder, David R. Lindberg, Phylogeny and Evolution of the Mollusca, →ISBN, page 346:

     The acrembolic type has appeared independently several times in gastropods, including some heterobranchs, while the pleurembolic proboscis may have appeared only once.