planula
[plan-yuh-luh]
- the ciliate, free-swimming larva of a coelenterate.
Show More
Origin of planula
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for planula
Historical Examples
In Aeginopsis a planula is formed by multipolar immigration.
The planula has its two extremities dissimilar (Bipolaria-larva).
The one group contains the larva of the Cœlenterata or Planula, the other group the larv of all the other forms.
The Works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume III (of 4)Francis Maitland Balfour
The Planula is very probably the ancestral form of the Cœlenterata.
The Works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume III (of 4)Francis Maitland Balfour
This new individual is at first an active free-swimming larva called a planula, which does not resemble either a medusa or polyp.
Elementary Zoology, Second EditionVernon L. Kellogg
planula
- the ciliated free-swimming larva of hydrozoan coelenterates such as the hydra
Show More
Word Origin
C19: from New Latin: a little plane, from Latin plānum level ground
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
planula
[plăn′yə-lə]
- The flat, free-swimming, ciliated larva of a cnidarian.
Show More
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.