moulting
Sign in to save260px|thumb|A dragonfly in its radical final moult, metamorphosing from an aquatic nymph to a winged adult. In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is a process by which an animal casts off parts of its body to serve some beneficial purpose, either at specific times of the year, or at specific points in its life cycle.
Research
7,824 papers- The moulting arthropod: a complete genetic toolkit review.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2024
- Practices and issues of moulting programs for laying hens: a review.British poultry science · 2022
- Convergence of biannual moulting strategies across birds and mammals.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018
- Social recapitulation: moulting can restore social tolerance in aggressive spiderlings.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023
- An appraisal of moulting on post-moult egg production and egg weight distribution in white layer hens; meta-analysis.British poultry science · 2018
via PubMed
Article
11 sectionsContents
- Examples
- In birds
- Forced moulting
- In reptiles and amphibians
- In arthropods
- In dogs
- In guinea pigs, hamsters and rabbits
- Gallery
- See also
- References
- External links
260px|thumb|A dragonfly in its radical final moult, metamorphosing from an aquatic nymph to a winged adult. In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is a process by which an animal casts off parts of its body to serve some beneficial purpose, either at specific times of the year, or at specific points in its life cycle.
In medieval times, it was also known as "mewing" (from the French verb "muer", to moult), a term that lives on in the name of Britain's Royal Mews where the King's hawks used to be kept during moulting time before becoming horse stables after Tudor times.