Belonging to mammals that shed the decidua (uterine lining) during childbirth.
From Latin 'deciduatus,' directly related to 'decidua.' This term became standard in comparative anatomy and mammalogy during the 1800s to distinguish reproductive patterns among different mammal groups.
The classification of animals as 'deciduate' or 'indeciduate' reveals major evolutionary branches—it's one of the key ways scientists sort out which mammals are distant cousins. Whales, for example, are deciduate like their land-mammal ancestors, even though they live in water.
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