stego-

Also stegano‑.

Covered; hidden.

Greek stegē, covering; steganos, covered or enclosed.

Steganography is a form of secret writing in which the existence of the message is hidden (for example, invisible inks or microdots). Other terms in these combining forms occur in the names of animals: the order of the pelicans is the Steganopodes (Greek pous, pod‑, foot), so named because they have webbed feet; a stegosaur, of the genus Stegosaurus, is a dinosaur of the Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods, covered with a double row of large bony plates or spines along the back; Stegomyia is the old genus name of tropical mosquitoes responsible for dengue, encephalitis, and yellow fever.