Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Biology A lidlike structure covering an opening, especially.
- noun A bony plate that covers and protects the gills of most bony fishes.
- noun A horny or calcareous plate attached to the foot of most larval and many adult gastropods, used to close the aperture when the animal retracts into its shell.
- noun A covering at the top of the spore capsule of most mosses, falling off when mature spores are released.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A lid or cover; in natural history, a part, organ, or structure which forms a lid, flap, or cover.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The lid of a pitcherform leaf.
- noun The lid of the urnlike capsule of mosses.
- noun Any lidlike or operculiform process or part.
- noun The fold of integument, usually supported by bony plates, which protects the gills of most fishes and some amphibians; the gill cover; the gill lid.
- noun The principal opercular bone in the upper and posterior part of the gill cover.
- noun The lid closing the aperture of various species of shells, as the common whelk. See
Illust. ofGastropoda . - noun Any lid-shaped structure closing the aperture of a tube or shell.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A covering flap or
lidlike structure in plants and animals, such as agill cover
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a hard flap serving as a cover for (a) the gill slits in fishes or (b) the opening of the shell in certain gastropods when the body is retracted
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The snail in the middle with the aperture of its shell sealed with an operculum is Pomatias elegans.
Archive 2009-09-01 AYDIN 2009
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The snail in the middle with the aperture of its shell sealed with an operculum is Pomatias elegans.
A 19th century painting of terrestrial gastropods AYDIN 2009
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In the case of P. elegans, the foot has to come out first to move the operculum, which is attached to the foot, out of the way.
Sleeping Haplotrema concavum AYDIN 2008
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In the case of P. elegans, the foot has to come out first to move the operculum, which is attached to the foot, out of the way.
Archive 2008-03-01 AYDIN 2008
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These latter filaments do not appear externally, and indeed a membrane, termed the operculum (Fig. 2, op), is developed from the front of each series of branchial apertures, Fig. 3.
The Common Frog 1874
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You can see the snail's operculum deep inside the aperture.
Archive 2009-03-01 AYDIN 2009
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Well, I think it's a Batillaria minima; I found it among Batillaria minima and the microsculpture of its shell, its operculum and the morphology of its head look like those of Batillaria minima.
Archive 2009-05-01 AYDIN 2009
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Car passes the living room, an operculum widens into sluice — red filigree arches and gray fish mouth cleaves the heel of air — and seals again within its glistened sleeve.
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Ammonites had an operculum (pl. opercula) as well.
French masterclass 2007
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You can see the snail's operculum deep inside the aperture.
Busycon sinistrum AYDIN 2009
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