amphipod

noun

1. Any species of the taxonomic order Amphipoda of small, shrimp-like crustaceans.

   “1905, Mabel Elizabeth Smallwood, The Salt-marsh Amphipod: Orchestia Palustris, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, page 18, Most of these are quite large, made by the small marsh mammals, but some are small and seem to be much used by the amphipods.”

   “Laboratory feeding assays employing the common antarctic planktivorous fish Pagothenia borchgrevinki demonstrated that live amphipods are consumed by fish, while amphipod-sea butterfly pairs are consistently rejected.”

   “We have managed just once, briefly, to send humans to that depth in a sturdy diving vessel, yet it is home to colonies of amphipods, a type of crustacean similar to shrimp but transparent, which survive without any protection at all.”