krill
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krill:
see crustaceancrustacean, primarily aquatic arthropod of the subphylum Crustacea. Most of the 44,000 crustacean species are marine, but there are many freshwater forms. The few groups that inhabit terrestrial areas have not been particularly successful in an evolutionary sense; most require
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The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia™ Copyright © 2013, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Krill
commercial name of planktonic marine crustaceans of the orders Euphausiacea (genera Thysanoessa and Euphausia) and Amhipoda (genus Themisto of the order Hyperioidea).
Krill accumulates mainly on the surface of water in the temperate and frigid zones of both hemispheres. It constitutes the food of whales, pinnipeds, pelagic fishes, and birds feeding on plankton. In winter krill sinks to the bottom where it serves as food for benthic fishes. A krill industry producing feed meal, fat, and food pastes has developed in the antarctic.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
krill
[kril] (invertebrate zoology)
A name applied to planktonic crustaceans that constitute the diet of many whales, particularly whalebone whales.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
krill
any small shrimplike marine crustacean of the order Euphausiacea: the principal food of whalebone whales
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005