The smallest unit of meaningful signal or communication in animal behavior; a discrete sign or signal that carries semantic meaning in an animal's system of communication.
From Greek 'epi' (upon) and 'sema' (sign, signal) plus '-eme' (from 'morpheme,' a minimal unit of meaning). Created by analogy with 'morpheme' and 'phoneme' to describe biological signaling.
Linguists borrowed the '-eme' suffix to create words for animal communication—an episememe is to animal signaling what a phoneme is to human speech, showing how language structure concepts apply to nature.
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