filter-feeding
adjective Zoology
(Of an aquatic animal) feeding by filtering out plankton or nutrients suspended in the water.The current can make diving difficult but also acts as a conveyor-belt, supplying all those filter-feeding creatures with food....
- Positively associated with these differences are differences in growth rate and abundance of filter-feeding invertebrates (mussels, barnacles).
- Unlike filter-feeding ducks, which raise self-feeding chicks, lesser flamingos must feed their young for the first ten to twelve weeks of their lives.
Derivatives
filter-feeder
- Tadpoles tend to school, and be filter-feeders.
- Because they are filter-feeders, pollutants in the water will accumulate in the tissue of mussels until they reach a toxic level killing the organism.
- Alternatively, it may simply have been adapted as a wading filter-feeder on rocky or uneven bottoms.