How to Use phylum in a Sentence
phylum
noun-
The siphonophores are an order of organisms in the Cnidaria phylum that look like lumps or spirals of string.
—Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 28 Aug. 2023
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Then there are the bryozoans, a phylum of animals all its own.
—Joanna Klein, New York Times, 31 Mar. 2020
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And a new phylum is just what Higgins and Kristensen had on the lab table before them.
—Adrienne Mason, Smithsonian, 2 Mar. 2018
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Think of loungewear as the kingdom of clothing, whereas sweats are a phylum, and a Juicy Couture-revival velour suit is a species.
—Sarah Spellings, Vogue, 23 Dec. 2020
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Not every species in our phylum has a backbone, after all!
—Christie Wilcox, Discover Magazine, 3 Sep. 2015
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The scientists named the phylum mirusviruses, for the Latin word mirus, meaning surprising or strange.
—Diana Gitig, Ars Technica, 25 Apr. 2023
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Above the size of L rotifers, however, farmers switch phylum and feed their charges crustaceans called brine shrimps, the smallest of which clock in at 400 microns.
—The Economist, 23 Jan. 2021
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Certain types of microbes in the soil seemed to speed plant flowering time, the team found, while others, such as members of the Proteobacteria phylum, slowed it down.
—Quanta Magazine, 16 June 2015
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Our phylum is Chordata, which includes any animal with a spinal cord.
—Mindy Weisberger, CNN, 12 May 2023
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The pair decided to build a museum dedicated to the phylum of spineless sea creatures.
—Amanda Arnold, Smithsonian, 21 Dec. 2017
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The hundreds of species belonging to the phylum Tardigrada are so hardy that many could be here long after other life on Earth has perished, enduring as long as the sun continues to shine.
—NBC News, 14 Oct. 2019
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Such hydrozoans form a subgroup of Cnidaria, a phylum whose members also include jellyfish and coral.
—Meghan Bartels, Scientific American, 3 May 2023
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The phylum has existed for at least 520 million years, through multiple mass extinctions.
—Ben Panko, Smithsonian, 14 July 2017
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The phylum has existed for at least 520 million years, through multiple mass extinctions.
—Ben Panko, Smithsonian, 14 July 2017
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And discovering an organism different enough to warrant its own phylum comes only to a rare few.
—Adrienne Mason, Smithsonian, 2 Mar. 2018
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Among the parasitic infections that affect humans, a large portion are caused by various species of nematodes, a phylum of worms.
—Jerome Groopman, The New Yorker, 5 Dec. 2022
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In each kingdom, there are subcategories: phylum, class, order, family, genus and species.
—Mindy Weisberger, CNN, 12 May 2023
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The California lake is just one of several extreme locales where researchers have spotted nematodes, the phylum all eight worm species belong to.
—Scottie Andrew, CNN, 27 Sep. 2019
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This analysis revealed a new phylum of DNA viruses that are shaped like herpesviruses and infect eukaryotes but share a key enzyme with large and giant viruses.
—Diana Gitig, Ars Technica, 25 Apr. 2023
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For the smallest fry these are often rotifers, a phylum of tiny animals discovered in the late 17th century by early microscopists.
—The Economist, 23 Jan. 2021
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One type of bacterium from the Verrucomicrobia phylum, Akkermansia muciniphila, seemed to play a role in a healthy aging process, the researchers say, possibly by increasing the amounts of secondary bile acids in the gut.
—Eva Frederick, Science | AAAS, 29 July 2019
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These phyla all feature specific sets of anatomical structures that distinguish them from the others, and only a few of these structures are included in more than one phylum.
—Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 27 Sep. 2022
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Parasitic life styles exist in all major animal groups, with the single exception of echinoderms, the phylum containing starfish and sea urchins.
—Jerome Groopman, The New Yorker, 5 Dec. 2022
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Cephalopods, which include octopi, cuttlefish, and squid, belong to the Mollusca phylum, are chiefly identified by their tentacles.
—Colin Dickey, New Republic, 21 Sep. 2017
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Horsehair worms, part of the taxonomic phylum Nematomorpha, are parasitic worms that resemble long thin strands of hair (hence their nickname).
—Ben Panko, Smithsonian, 27 Sep. 2017
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Tardigrades is its phylum within the Ecdysozoa superphylum, which includes insects, crustaceans, arachnids and more.
—Fox News, 14 July 2017
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That related phylum within the animal kingdom includes lobsters, crabs, spiders and many insects with exoskeletons.
—Kate Golembiewski, Discover Magazine, 8 June 2023
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Instead, the overhundreds had healthy microbiomes, many with a lot of bacteria from a particular phylum called Verrucomicrobia.
—Eva Frederick, Science | AAAS, 29 July 2019
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Scientists previously suspected that tardigrades may be closely related to the phylum of arthropods, which includes insects and spiders.
—Ben Panko, Smithsonian, 27 July 2017
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After mapping the genetic sequences geographically, the team found that the new phylum, Taraviricota (named after the Tara Oceans expedition) was more abundant in temperate and tropical waters.
—Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 Apr. 2022
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'phylum.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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