Talk:Altricial

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[edit] What about Precocial?

If one of several altrices is an altrice, is one of several precoces a "precoce?" Earlier I had merged Precoces into Precocial, because I could not figure out what the singular of "precoces" is. — Epastore 05:01, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"Both altricial and precocial come from the same Latin root..." This does not make much sense to me. The Latin word altrix (gen. altricis) is the feminine form of altor "nourisher" (from the verb alere, to feed, nourish) and is not linguistically related to the word praecox (from the verb praecoquere, to boil before, ripen early).