How to Use water flea in a Sentence

water flea

noun
  • Species like the fishhook water flea and the bloody red shrimp — which could be even worse than invasive carp.
    — Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, Journal Sentinel, 26 Aug. 2022
  • Spice up your mating life with these relationship tips from sharks, lizards and water fleas.
    — Joshua Rapp Learn, Smithsonian, 28 Mar. 2017
  • Bythotrephes, a water flea with a long, spiny tail, eats other zooplankton and competes with fish for food.
    — Jason Treat, Magazine, 17 Nov. 2020
  • The researchers also tested water that had been brewed with the plastic tea bags on water fleas.
    — Aimee Picchi, CBS News, 27 Sep. 2019
  • Staring out of your screen is the eye of a water flea, a largely transparent crustacean that can reach half an inch in length.
    — Discover Magazine, 21 Feb. 2012
  • Other invaders arrived by the same route as the spiny water flea, in the ballast tanks of oceangoing freighters.
    — Tim Folger, National Geographic, 2 Dec. 2020
  • Some of the key species of concern are zebra and quagga mussels, Eurasian water milfoil and spiny water fleas.
    — Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 20 June 2018
  • Their numbers have been decimated by a fierce invasive predator, the spiny water flea.
    — Tim Folger, National Geographic, 2 Dec. 2020
  • Rather than the acidity of the water, carbon dioxide itself seems to be affecting the water fleas.
    — Carl Zimmer, New York Times, 11 Jan. 2018
  • Andrei Savitsky's video of a water flea giving birth to cubs won third place in the competition.
    — Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 Aug. 2021
  • There were few predatory largemouth bass to eat minnows, which ran rampant and ate the water fleas that would otherwise have kept the algae in check.
    — Gregory Barber, Quanta Magazine, 15 Sep. 2025
  • The water flea is actually a crustacean, not a flea, and gets its name from its swimming motion, which resembles the movements of a flea.
    — Matt Nighswander, NBC news, 17 Oct. 2025
  • In the lake’s second equilibrium state, the bass thrived and ate the minnows, allowing more water fleas to survive and gobble up the algae.
    — Gregory Barber, Quanta Magazine, 15 Sep. 2025
  • Euplotes skitters nimbly along surfaces atop cirri like some sort of Close Encounters–class water flea.
    — Jennifer Frazer, Scientific American, 22 May 2021
  • Perch have also been suspending well off the lake bottom to feed on invertebrates such as spiny water fleas, midge larvae and mayfly larvae, rather than minnows.
    — D'arcy Egan, cleveland, 20 Sep. 2019
  • Birdseed and the plants that attract songbirds aren’t a big draw for waterfowl, as most prefer beetles, snails, water fleas and other insects found on the edges of lakes and ponds.
    — Renee Elder, Charlotte Observer, 31 Jan. 2024
  • Peshkin’s own research focuses on the water flea, Latin name Daphnia, an insect barely visible to the naked eye.
    — Karen Weintraub, BostonGlobe.com, 23 June 2018
  • The spiny water flea was first identified in North American in 1984 in Lake Huron.
    — Popular Science, 17 Feb. 2021
  • In 2019, the biologists finally arrived at the optimal formula of mysid shrimp, water fleas and blood worms.
    — Alexander Nazaryan, New York Times, 9 May 2024
  • The next year, in 1982, overseas ships were blamed for bringing into the lakes the spiny water flea that has ravaged native zooplankton and the little fish that depend upon them.
    — Dan Egan, jsonline.com, 2 Sep. 2021
  • In this alternative state, predation is high, so minnow numbers are curbed; this allows water fleas to thrive (which suppresses algae) and bass hatchlings to reach maturity.
    — Quanta Magazine, 18 Nov. 2015
  • Biologists have noticed a distinct diet shift, with perch foraging on invertebrates such as spiny water fleas and midge and mayfly larvae instead of emerald shiner minnows and other small fish.
    — D'arcy Egan, cleveland.com, 13 Sep. 2019
  • The yellow perch seem to be suspending in deeper water, feeding on water fleas and ignoring perch rigs tipped with emerald shiner minnows, historically a slam dunk bait for catching a 30-fish limit of perch.
    — D'arcy Egan, cleveland.com, 9 Aug. 2019
  • As part of their study, the McGill team exposed water fleas, small aquatic organisms formally known as Daphnia magna, to various doses of microplastics and nanoplastics leached from tea bags.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 28 Sep. 2019
  • To test for some of the potential adverse effects of these plastics, the researchers exposed a model organism called a water flea, or Daphnia, to different concentrations of the microplastics leached from the tea bags.
    — Anna Funk, Discover Magazine, 26 Sep. 2019
  • The authors note that populations of small water fleas in the genus Daphnia, an important species in the lake food web, have declined precipitously since use of DDT began.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 15 June 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'water flea.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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