water flea

water flea

n.1. Any of various small chiefly freshwater branchiopod crustaceans of the order Cladocera, having a bivalve carapace and typically swimming with jerking flealike motions, and including the daphnias. Also called cladoceran.2. Any of various other small aquatic crustaceans, such as some copepods, that swim with a similar motion.

water flea

n (Animals) any of numerous minute freshwater branchiopod crustaceans of the order Cladocera, which swim by means of hairy branched antennae. See also daphnia

wa′ter flea`

n. any tiny freshwater branchiopod crustacean of the order Cladocera, as the daphnia. [1575–85]

water flea

Any of various small aquatic crustaceans, mostly of microscopic size, having especially long antennae that are used for swimming. Water fleas are an important source of food for many fish.

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	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 wormscyclopscopepod, copepod crustacean - minute marine or freshwater crustaceans usually having six pairs of limbs on the thorax; some abundant in plankton and others parasitic on fishgenus Cyclops - copepod water fleas
	2.	water flea - minute freshwater crustacean having a round body enclosed in a transparent shell; moves about like a flea by means of hairy branched antennaedaphniabranchiopod, branchiopod crustacean, branchiopodan - aquatic crustaceans typically having a carapace and many pairs of leaflike appendages used for swimming as well as respiration and feedinggenus Daphnia - water fleas

Translations

Wasserflohdafnia