Lobsters, woodlice and allies
Lobsters, woodlice and their allies form a very large class that contains two thirds of the world's crustaceans. This includes all the prawns, crabs and crayfish that people eat. However, they aren't all marine creatures. Some members, such as the woodlice and land crabs, live on land for all or part of their life.
Order
Crabs, shrimps and allies (Decapoda)The Decapoda is an order of crustaceans which contains all the familiar species such as hermit crabs, lobsters and prawns. All the members of the group have ten legs, hence the scientific name (deca = ten, pod = foot).
About
The Malacostraca (Greek: "soft shell") are the largest class of crustaceans and include most of the animals that non-experts recognize as crustaceans, including decapods (such as crabs, lobsters and shrimp), stomatopods (mantis shrimp) and euphausiids (krill). They also include the amphipods and the only substantial group of land-based crustaceans, the isopods (woodlice and related species). With more than 22,000 members, this group represents two thirds of all crustacean species and contains all the larger forms. The first malacostracans appeared in the Cambrian.
The classification of crustaceans is currently being debated, and the Malacostraca are regarded by some authors as a class and by others as a subclass.
The phylogeny of this group of organisms is debated . Recent molecular studies (18S and 28S ) have even disputed the monophyly of the Peracarida by removing the Mysida and have firmly disproven the monophyly of the Edriophthalma (Isopoda and Amphipoda) and the Mysidacea (Mysida, Lophogastrida and Pygocephalomorpha).
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Scientific Classification
Phylum: Arthropod (Arthropoda)
Class: Malacostraca
Other Arthropoda
- Barnacles, copepods and allies (Maxillopoda)
- Insects (Insecta)
- Millipedes (Diplopoda)
- Spiders, mites and allies (Arachnida)
Elsewhere on the web
- Malacostraca (animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu)
- Photo gallery of American malostracan species (bugguide.net)
- Facts on malacostracan crustaceans (ucmp.berkeley.edu)
- Malacostraca (wikipedia.org)
Site links
BBC links
© MMIX
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