Zooplankton

ocean life · tiny drifters · animal behavior · food chain

Drifters of the seas. Zooplankton can't swim well enough to fight ocean currents, so they just drift along wherever the water takes them, like tiny passengers on an invisible river.

Hungry little hunters. Unlike phytoplankton that make their own food from sunlight, zooplankton have to eat other organisms to survive, making them consumers in the ocean food web.

Everywhere in water. You can find zooplankton in oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers all around the world, making them one of the most common groups of animals on Earth.

Wildly different shapes. Zooplankton include tiny crustaceans like copepods, jellyfish larvae, fish eggs, and other creatures so small you'd need a microscope to see most of them clearly.

Food for giants. Despite being microscopic, zooplankton are super important because they eat phytoplankton and then get eaten by fish, whales, and other ocean animals, connecting the whole food chain.