Oligophagy refers to the eating of only a few specific foods, and to monophagy when restricted to a single food source.[1] The term is usually associated with insect dietary behaviour.[2] Organisms may exhibit narrow or specific oligophagy where the diet is restricted to a very few foods or broad oligophagy where the organism feeds on a wide variety of specific foods but none other.[3]
Polyphagy, on the contrary, refers to eating a broad spectrum of foods. In the insect world it refers usually to insects that feed on plants belonging to different families.
- ^ Sikkim sees surge in butterfly biodiversity - The Hindu
- ^ Oligophagy on Dictionary.com. Accessed on 9 January 2010.
- ^ Huffaker & Gutierrez Ecological Entomology, pg 201.