Contextualizebeta

demersal

adj

Etymology

From Latin demersus, past participle of dēmergō (“to sink”); compare demersed.

  1. derived from demersus

Definitions

  1. That lives near the bottom of a body of water.

    • Unlike the more demersal (bottom-dwelling) cod, pollock will pursue schools of small fishes at any depth, occasionally driving them to the surface of the water where frantic splashing can be seen as the prey attempt to escape.
    • The young tend to occupy a pelagic habitat, but shift to a more demersal lifestyle with maturity.
    • At a certain age, however, the Cape horse mackerel in the northern Benguela tend to adopt a more demersal lifestyle, thus entering into the bottom dead zone.

  2. Taking place near the bottom of a body of water.

    • demersal fishing [ = groundfishing⁠]

  3. Any demersal organism, especially a groundfish.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for demersal. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA