copepod

Everyday

(science) A copepod is a tiny animal with a hard shell and many legs, a relative of crabs and shrimps, that lives in the sea and in fresh water. tree →

In the lessons

Copepods are part of plankton, so they appear in science lessons about food chains in the ocean: they eat tiny plants (algae) and are eaten by fish, whales and other animals. Some are smaller than a grain of rice; there are many thousands of kinds.

Examples

• A copepod is so small you need a microscope to see its legs. tree →
• Copepods eat tiny algae and are eaten by small fish. tree →
• Billions of copepods drift in the ocean as plankton. tree →
• We found copepods in a jar of pond water. tree →
• Copepods are crustaceans, like crabs and lobsters. tree →
• Without copepods, many ocean food chains would collapse. tree →

Note

Countable: one copepod, many copepods. Pronounced «KOH-puh-pod». The «-pod» part comes from Greek for «foot», as in tripod and octopus-like words.