zoea

[zoh-ee-uh]

noun

Zoology.

plural

zoeae, zoeas 

1. any of the free-swimming larva of certain crustaceans, as the crab, having rudimentary legs and a spiny carapace.

zoea

/ zəʊˈiːə /

noun

1. the free-swimming larva of a crab or related crustacean, which has well-developed abdominal appendages and may bear one or more spines

Other Word Forms

• zoeal adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of zoea¹

1820–30; < New Latin, equivalent to Greek zō ( ḗ ) life + New Latin -ea -ea

Word History and Origins

Origin of zoea¹

C20: New Latin, from Greek zōē life

Example Sentences

Accompanied by relatives who helped her into Bucharest’s Children’s Palace, Zoea Baltag, born in 1916, welcomed her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Sunday and declared it the only way to combat the pandemic.

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Known as zoea and no bigger than the head of a pin, the larvae can survive only in the salty waters at the mouth of the Chesapeake, which is in — you guessed it — Virginia.

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Using a handy guide provided, Matthias pointed out the critter was a zoea, a very young crab moving into the next stage of its life, a megalops.

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The Zoea was formerly regarded as a recapitulation of an ancestral form, but there can be no doubt that its peculiarities are the result of secondary modification.

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The various larval forms, especially the nauplius and zoea, were supposed to reproduce, more or less closely, the actual structure of ancestral types.

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