Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Plankton that consists of animals, including copepods, rotifers, jellyfish, and the larvae of sessile animals such as coral and sea anemones.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun zoology Free-floating small protozoa, crustaceans (such as krill), etc. and the eggs and larvae from larger animals.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun animal constituent of plankton; mainly small crustaceans and fish larvae

Etymologies

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Examples

  • When phytoplankton explode in population during the blooms, tiny animals called zooplankton - which include krill and other small crustaceans - likewise expand in number as they harvest the phytoplankton.

    Shifting spring: Arctic plankton blooming up to 50 days earlier now 2011

  • One of the model's key assumptions was that bluefin like to spawn in waters full of organisms called zooplankton — waters that satellite data suggest were hit particularly hard by the spill.

    Tuna Fight Muddies Waters Over Damage From BP Spill Jeffrey Ball 2011

  • To her surprise, computer simulations and laboratory experiments at different temperatures involving microscopic ocean plants called phytoplankton and phytoplankton-eating animals called zooplankton showed their populations actually decreased with temperature.

    CBC | Top Stories News 2011

  • Experts say the whales gather each year off Cape Cod to feed off tiny marine creatures called zooplankton.

    Boston.com Top Stories 2011

  • The decline may have occurred when the jellyfish food supply - fish and tiny floating animals called zooplankton - could no longer support their growing appetites, according to a

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

  • Censusing the diverse, spectacular world of sea bugs called zooplankton

    EurekAlert! - Breaking News 2010

  • Soon, however, tiny animals called zooplankton "graze down" the algae, and the population plunges.

    PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010

  • The decline may have occurred when the jellyfish food supply - fish and tiny floating animals called zooplankton - could no longer support their growing appetites, according to a

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

  • Brett believes the reason is those researchers discounted the idea of zooplankton migration, the daily movement down to deeper waters during the daytime to hide from predatory fish.

    unknown title 2009

  • Based on captive breeding, Uye's team has found that the jellyfish are extremely efficient at filtering tiny creatures called zooplankton out of the water.

    National Geographic News 2009

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