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.
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The snail in the middle with the aperture of its shell sealed with an operculum is Pomatias elegans.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You can see the snail's operculum deep inside the aperture.
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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.
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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.
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You can see the snail's operculum deep inside the aperture.
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