Any member of the crustacean family Calanidae, small copepods that are among the most abundant animals in the ocean and form the base of marine food webs.
Scientific naming from the Greek genus name 'Calanus,' derived from 'kalamos' (reed) because these tiny creatures were thought to resemble reeds when viewed collectively in water.
Calanids are so numerous that they might be the most successful animals on Earth by sheer biomass—a single copepod is tiny, but trillions of them feed the whales and fish that feed us.
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