copepod

Other forms: copepods

Definitions of copepod

1. noun

   minute marine or freshwater crustaceans usually having six pairs of limbs on the thorax; some abundant in plankton and others parasitic on fish
   synonyms: copepod crustacean

   types:

   brit, britt

   minute crustaceans forming food for right whales

   cyclops, water flea

   minute free-swimming freshwater copepod having a large median eye and pear-shaped body and long antennae used in swimming; important in some food chains and as intermediate hosts of parasitic worms that affect man e.g. Guinea worms

   fish louse

   a kind of copepod

   type of:

   crustacean

   any mainly aquatic arthropod usually having a segmented body and chitinous exoskeleton