Cyclops

Cyclops, the best known and most typical of that group of Crustacea known as the "Copepoda" (q.v.). Cyclops is very common in most English ponds and fresh waters, and may be readily recognised by its large single eye in the middle line towards the front of the head; its five pairs of two-branched swimming feet, usually provided with bristles; and the pair of large bottle-shaped ovisacs carried by the female. The form is also typical: it is cylindrical, bluntly rounded in front, and tapering gradually behind; the tail is two-lobed. Cyclops has a very rapid, darting movement. The species are fairly numerous, but are all small. Cyclops quadricornis is a representative species, and attains on an average a length of about a fifteenth of an inch.