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am·phi·pod | \ ˈam(p)-fi-ˌpäd 
\
\Definition of amphipod
: any of a large order (Amphipoda) of small crustaceans (such as the sand flea) with a laterally compressed body
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Examples of amphipod in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web PCBs, for example, have been detected in high levels within tiny ocean crustaceans called amphipods that had consumed plastics.
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Alex Fox, Smithsonian Magazine, "Lobsters Crush Ocean Plastic Into Even Smaller Pieces—and That’s Bad," 22 Apr. 2020 Cusk eels like to eat amphipods, white prawn-like crustaceans that populate the trenches in large numbers.
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Susan Casey, Outside Online, "One Man's Wild Quest to Reach the Bottom of Every Ocean," 22 Oct. 2019 The animal ended up dying from unknown causes about three months after the researchers collected the amphipods.
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Jason Daley, Smithsonian, "These Newly Discovered Shrimp Call a Whale Shark’s Mouth Home," 29 Oct. 2019 Some amphipods are known to swarm creatures that enter their territory, including human scuba divers.
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Jason Daley, Smithsonian, "These Newly Discovered Shrimp Call a Whale Shark’s Mouth Home," 29 Oct. 2019 Some amphipods are tiny, but others, known as supergiants, can grow up to 13 inches long.
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Susan Casey, Outside Online, "One Man's Wild Quest to Reach the Bottom of Every Ocean," 22 Oct. 2019 British researchers collected amphipods (shrimplike crustaceans) from six of the world’s deepest ocean trenches and found that eighty per cent of them had microplastic in their digestive tracts.
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Carolyn Kormann, The New Yorker, "Where Does All the Plastic Go?," 16 Sep. 2019 Yet those giant amphipods and other creatures with exoskeletons seem to fare better at depths.
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Eva Botkin-kowacki, The Christian Science Monitor, "NASA eyes the ocean: How the deep sea could unlock outer space," 23 Aug. 2019 Earlier this year, a study sampled amphipods in six deep-sea trenches, including the Mariana, and found all were ingesting microplastics.
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Sarah Gibbens, National Geographic, "Plastic proliferates at the bottom of world's deepest ocean trench," 13 May 2019
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'amphipod.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for amphipod
The first known use of amphipod was in 1833
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