filter feeder

American  

noun

1. an aquatic animal that feeds on particles or small organisms strained out of water by circulating them through its system: includes most of the stationary feeders, as clams, oysters, barnacles, corals, sea squirts, and sponges.

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filter feeder Scientific  

1. An aquatic animal, such as a clam or sponge, that feeds by filtering tiny organisms or fine particles of organic material from currents of water that pass through it.

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Etymology

Origin of filter feeder

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

Now, MIT engineers have found that one filter feeder has evolved to sift food in ways that could improve the design of industrial water filters.

From Science Daily • Nov. 25, 2024

Perhaps the oldest-known vertebrate filter feeder is the large armored fish Titanichthys, which lived more than 100 million years before Hupehsuchus.

From Reuters • Aug. 8, 2023

The lancelet is a chordate, fish-like filter feeder that buries itself in marine sands.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022

This structure enables the animal to thrive as a free-swimming filter feeder.

From Scientific American • Feb. 3, 2022

Some argue the first multicellular organism was probably a sedentary filter feeder, like a microscopic sponge.

From Science Magazine • Aug. 30, 2019