Copepod facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Copepod
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Maxillopoda
Subclass: Copepoda
H. Milne-Edwards, 1840

Copepods (meaning "oar feet") are small, shrimp-like crustaceans that swim in seas, lakes, and ponds. Copepods are very important in the food web, and many animals eat them.

There are 10 orders of copepods and over 4500 species; a few orders are free-swimming, but many are parasites (of fish). The free-swimming copepods move through the water in jerky motions by moving their swimming legs.

Wikispecies has information on: Copepoda.

Images for kids

  • Haeckel Copepoda

    Copepods from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur

  • Corycaeus sp.

    Most copepods have a single naupliar eye in the middle of their head, but copepods of the genus Corycaeus possess two large cuticular lenses paired to form a telescope.

  • Juvenile Clupea harengus feeding on copepods macrophotography video

    Slow-motion macrophotography video (50%), taken using ecoSCOPE, of juvenile Atlantic herring (38 mm) feeding on copepods – the fish approach from below and catch each copepod individually. In the middle of the image, a copepod escapes successfully to the left.

  • Mikrofoto.de-ruderfusskrebs10

    Egg sac of a copepod

  • Lernaeolophus sultanus on Pristipomoides filamentosus New Caledonia

    Lernaeolophus sultanus (Pennellidae), parasite of the fish Pristipomoides filamentosus, scale: each division = 1 mm

  • Acanthochondria cornuta on flounder

    Acanthochondria cornuta, an ectoparasite on flounder in the North Sea


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Copepod Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.