Global InformationCrustacean information
| Crustaceans Temporal range: Cambrian to present
| |
|---|---|
Crab Lobster Crayfish Shrimp Krill Woodlouse Copepod Barnacle | |
Scientific classification
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Clade: | Pancrustacea |
| Subphylum: | Crustacea |
| Groups included | |
| |
| Cladistically included but traditionally excluded taxa | |
| |
Crustaceans are a group of arthropods that are a part of the subphylum Crustacea (/krəˈsteɪʃə/), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthropods including decapods (shrimps, prawns, crabs, lobsters and crayfish), seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, opossum shrimps, amphipods and mantis shrimp.[1] The crustacean group can be treated as a subphylum under the clade Mandibulata. It is now well accepted that the hexapods (insects and entognathans) emerged deep in the Crustacean group, with the completed group referred to as Pancrustacea.[2] The three classes Cephalocarida, Branchiopoda and Remipedia are more closely related to the hexapods than they are to any of the other crustaceans (oligostracans and multicrustaceans).[3]
The 67,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at 0.1 mm (0.004 in), to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span of up to 3.8 m (12.5 ft) and a mass of 20 kg (44 lb). Like other arthropods, crustaceans have an exoskeleton, which they moult to grow. They are distinguished from other groups of arthropods, such as insects, myriapods and chelicerates, by the possession of biramous (two-parted) limbs, and by their larval forms, such as the nauplius stage of branchiopods and copepods.
Most crustaceans are free-living aquatic animals, but some are terrestrial (e.g. woodlice, sandhoppers), some are parasitic (e.g. Rhizocephala, fish lice, tongue worms) and some are sessile (e.g. barnacles). The group has an extensive fossil record, reaching back to the Cambrian. More than 7.9 million tons of crustaceans per year are harvested by fishery or farming for human consumption,[4] consisting mostly of shrimp and prawns. Krill and copepods are not as widely fished, but may be the animals with the greatest biomass on the planet, and form a vital part of the food chain. The scientific study of crustaceans is known as carcinology (alternatively, malacostracology, crustaceology or crustalogy), and a scientist who works in carcinology is a carcinologist.
- ^ Calman, William Thomas (1911). . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 552.
- ^ Rota-Stabelli, Omar; Kayal, Ehsan; Gleeson, Dianne; et al. (2010). "Ecdysozoan Mitogenomics: Evidence for a Common Origin of the Legged Invertebrates, the Panarthropoda". Genome Biology and Evolution. 2: 425–440. doi:10.1093/gbe/evq030. PMC 2998192. PMID 20624745.
- ^ Koenemann, Stefan; Jenner, Ronald A.; Hoenemann, Mario; et al. (2010-03-01). "Arthropod phylogeny revisited, with a focus on crustacean relationships". Arthropod Structure & Development. 39 (2–3): 88–110. Bibcode:2010ArtSD..39...88K. doi:10.1016/j.asd.2009.10.003. ISSN 1467-8039. PMID 19854296.
- ^ "The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 – Meeting the sustainable development goals" (PDF). fao.org. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2018.