Crustaceans

Crabs, shrimp, and lobsters are the crustaceans most people recognize first, but they represent only a fraction of the group. The major types of crustaceans also include copepods, barnacles, isopods, amphipods, krill, branchiopods, ostracods, remipedes, mantis shrimps, and many other lineages. Some are large and heavily armored. Others are nearly transparent, microscopic or near-microscopic, permanently … Read more

A crustacean is an arthropod that belongs to the broad evolutionary radiation that includes familiar animals such as crabs, lobsters, shrimp, crayfish, barnacles, copepods, krill, and isopods. The useful part of that definition is not a single visible feature. Crustaceans are recognized by a combination of body-plan traits, including a segmented arthropod body, jointed appendages, … Read more

Crustaceans are arthropods best known through animals such as crabs, shrimp, lobsters, and crayfish, but those familiar forms show only part of the group. The animals conventionally called crustaceans also include copepods drifting through lakes and oceans, barnacles fixed to hard surfaces as adults, krill moving through open water, terrestrial pill bugs beneath logs, tiny … Read more