How to Use pelagic in a Sentence

pelagic

adjective
  • Large pelagic ocean dwellers swim along this reef to hunt prey.
    — John Christopher Fine, sun-sentinel.com, 31 Dec. 2020
  • That affects how much plankton is available for small pelagic fish to eat.
    — Layla Schlack, San Francisco Chronicle, 21 Mar. 2021
  • One third of pelagic sharks and rays are now threatened with extinction.
    — Melissa Cristina Márquez, Forbes.com, 21 Jan. 2026
  • Reef fish lose their habitat, and pelagic fish such as tuna lose an important source of food.
    — National Geographic, 29 Aug. 2016
  • But by far the most climate-friendly seafood is small pelagic fish, such as sardines, herrings, and anchovies.
    — Erik Stokstad, Science | AAAS, 2 Apr. 2018
  • The free-floating creatures eat pelagic gastropods, notably snails.
    — Gary Robbins, San Diego Union-Tribune, 19 Apr. 2023
  • Called pelagic red crabs, the animals look like small lobsters or crawfish and measure one to three inches long.
    — Elaina Zachos, National Geographic, 12 June 2018
  • The bird reserve is home to four species of pelagic seabirds—the greater crested tern, lesser crested tern, sooty tern, and the brown noddy.
    — K A Shaji, Quartz India, 5 May 2020
  • But when the eggs of pelagic-spawning fish hatch, the babies are helpless—no mouth, eyes, gastrointestinal tract, or nervous system.
    — National Geographic, 3 May 2016
  • In other areas, the stocks of small pelagic fish can get dangerously low, and penguins end up competing with fisheries.
    — Elizabeth Warkentin, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Oct. 2021
  • Tropic Fish is known for being a pelagic fishery with a remarkably sustainable footprint.
    — Alissa Fitzgerald, Forbes, 21 Mar. 2025
  • Larger fish like bluegill, panfish, and crappie hide from predators in the sunken branches, allowing pelagic populations to soar.
    — Frederick Dreier, Outside Online, 5 Jan. 2023
  • Researchers also encountered glass squid and spotted a pelagic octopus feeding on a bright red jellyfish.
    — Ashley Vega, PEOPLE, 15 June 2026
  • The large fish, which can grow to seven feet long, eat a variety of species, including small pelagic fish, juvenile tuna and invertebrates.
    — Samuel Sanders, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 Sep. 2024
  • His trips included 16 pelagic trips aboard various commercial and private boats.
    — Ernie Cowan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 Mar. 2024
  • The Glaucus is considered to be a type of pelagic nudibranch that devours bluebottles and stores their stinging agents as defense against predators.
    — Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, 25 Jan. 2023
  • Beginners can explore shallow reefs with abundant marine life, while advanced divers can venture to deeper sites with strong currents and the chance to encounter pelagic species.
    — Jessica Chapel, Condé Nast Traveler, 10 June 2025
  • My research has focused on the migrations of animals that use the deep blue waters, away from the continental shelf (pelagic animals).
    — Daniel Madigan, Discover Magazine, 30 July 2012
  • Only one pelagic cormorant nest was found — and later abandoned by the parents — when researchers typically see 150 nests.
    — Will Houston, The Mercury News, 2 Sep. 2019
  • My obsession has taken me from Florida, chasing pelagic fish to Oregon for pre-historic marvels.
    — Kristtine Fischer, Outdoor Life, 6 May 2020
  • Once the pipe hit bottom, a drill plunged down to 75 meters into pelagic clay and calcareous nannofossil ooze at multiple different sites.
    — Jennifer Frazer, Scientific American, 4 Mar. 2021
  • She's dabbled in everything from research on pelagic invertebrates to animations about beer to podcasts about fake tumbleweed farms.
    — Rose Eveleth, Scientific American, 16 Aug. 2019
  • However, while pelagic sharks thrived, some species faced physiological limits in extremely warm waters.
    — Melissa Cristina Marquez, Forbes, 1 Nov. 2024
  • In the next moments, all around me, lines were tight and various species of fish landed on the deck — lingcod, yellow-eye, black bass, even a mottled, black-and-orange, non-pelagic rockfish with venomous quills.
    — Anchorage Daily News, 27 Apr. 2020
  • His collection includes chocolate porcelain crabs, pelagic red crabs, scarlet sea cucumbers and sea butterflies — all species once rare but now common to the Sonoma coast.
    — Nick Rahaim, SFChronicle.com, 21 June 2019
  • His collection includes chocolate porcelain crabs, pelagic red crabs, scarlet sea cucumbers and sea butterflies — all species once rare but now common to the Sonoma coast.
    — Nick Rahaim, SFChronicle.com, 16 Oct. 2020
  • In fact, none of the species with the longest pelagic larval durations — the eels in the order Anguilliformes — are circumtropical.
    — Christie Wilcox, Discover Magazine, 31 Dec. 2015
  • But Vestergaard became a national hero, especially for fishermen and shipowners, who were fishing more pelagic fish than ever.
    — Regin Winther Poulsen, The Atlantic, 13 Feb. 2021
  • For years, scientists have observed stomach eversion in elasmobranchs and pelagic fishes, especially when they are captured in hook and line fisheries.
    — Melissa Cristina Márquez, Forbes, 2 Mar. 2024
  • For the advanced, channels around the islands work like pelagic highways, attracting more than 3,000 different marine species.
    — Terry Ward, AFAR Media, 11 Sep. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pelagic.' 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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