Definition of "ostracod" [ostracod]

• Any of various minute, chiefly freshwater crustaceans of the subclass Ostracoda, having a bivalve carapace. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Lü et al. (2004) originally named this taxon Nemegtia, but that turned out to be preoccupied by an ostracod from the Nemegt Formation (shades of 'Ingenia')."
• "Steve's microfossil search achieved success: he found a fossil ostracod!"
• "The first act began in Japan fifty years ago, when Osamu Shimomura studied the self-luminous small crustacean ostracod Cypridina."