epipsammon
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The community of microscopic species (e.g., diatoms) that attach themselves to grains of sand.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The benthic microflora of marine sands includes bacteria, blue-green bacteria (cyanobacteria), autotrophic flagellates, and diatoms. Those attached to sand grains are generally known as epipsammon (Fig. 4.1)."
- "These groups are 1) the epipsammon, or surface-dwelling, generally motile macrofauna; 2) the endopsammon, or burrowing species that are too large to live in interstitial spaces; and 3) the mesopsammon, or interstitial fauna. The epipsammon is limited to a few groups such as fish or birds which are strong or speedy enough to exploit this turbulent environment."