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The Crustaceans Portal

Crustaceans are invertebrate animals 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. 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. 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).

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, 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. (Full article...)

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Nephrops norvegicus, known variously as the Norway lobster, Dublin Bay prawn, langoustine (compare langostino) or scampi, is a slim, orange-pink lobster which grows up to 25 cm (10 in) long, and is "the most important commercial crustacean in Europe". It is now the only extant species in the genus Nephrops, after several other species were moved to the closely related genus Metanephrops. It lives in the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean, and parts of the Mediterranean Sea, but is absent from the Baltic Sea and Black Sea. Adults emerge from their burrows at night to feed on worms and fish.

Did you know?

... that the crab Dyspanopeus sayi (pictured) may have lived in the Venetian Lagoon for 15 years before it was discovered?
... that the long-nosed spider crab, Libinia dubia, disguises itself by sticking bits of unpalatable seaweed and invertebrates on its carapace?
... that colour markings, considered rare among fossil crabs, have been found on Avitelmessus?
... that the sea anemone Calliactis tricolor is often attached to shells occupied by the hermit crabs Dardanus venosus and Clibanarius vittatus?

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Henri Milne-Edwards (Bruges, October 23, 1800 – Paris, July 29, 1885) was an eminent French zoologist. He was the 27th child of an English father (Wiliam Edwards) and a French mother (Elisabeth Vaux). Henri was born in Bruges, now in Belgium, but then part of the French Republic, and he spent most of his life in France. Henri was brought up in Paris by his older brother William Edwards, a physiologist. After studying medicine in Paris, his passion for natural history prevailed, and he studied the "lower forms" of animal life. He studied under Georges Cuvier and befriended Jean Victoire Audouin. In 1832, Milne-Edwards became professor of hygiene and natural history at the Collège Central des Arts et Manufactures. In 1841, after the death of Audouin, Milne-Edwards succeeded him at the chair of entomology at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1862, he succeeded Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in the long-vacant chair of zoology.

Much of his original work was published in the Annales des sciences naturelles, which he edited from 1834. His Histoire naturelle des Crustacés (1837–1841), long remained a standard work; other works include Histoire naturelle des coralliaires (1858–1860), Leçons sur la physiologie et l'anatomie comparée de l'homme et des animaux (1857–1881), and a work on the elements of zoology, originally published in 1834, but subsequently remodelled, which enjoyed an enormous circulation.

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Credit: Hans Hillewaert

Squilla mantis is a species of spearer mantis shrimp up to 20 cm (8 in) long, which is found and fished in the Mediterranean Sea.

General images

The following are images from various crustacean-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Zoea larva of the European lobster, Homarus gammarus
Image 2Ostracod (from Ostracod)
Image 3Leptostraca such as Nebalia bipes retain the primitive condition of having seven abdominal segments. (from Malacostraca)
Image 4Cancer pagurus (Eucarida: Decapoda) (from Malacostraca)
Image 5Grapsus grapsus, a terrestrial crab (from Malacostraca)
Image 6Ostracod swimming motions (in real time) (from Ostracod)
Image 7Copepods, from Ernst Haeckel's 1904 work Kunstformen der Natur (from Crustacean)
Image 8The large ostracod Herrmannina from the Silurian (Ludlow) Soeginina Beds (Paadla Formation) on eastern Saaremaa Island, Estonia (from Ostracod)
Image 9Body structure of a typical crustacean – krill (from Crustacean)
Image 10Daphnia pulex (Cladocera: Daphniidae) (from Branchiopoda)
Image 11Abludomelita obtusata, an amphipod (from Crustacean)
Image 12Decapods, from Ernst Haeckel's 1904 work Kunstformen der Natur (from Crustacean)
Image 13Squilla empusa,
a mantis shrimp (from Malacostraca)
Image 14Porcellio scaber and Oniscus asellus (Peracarida: Isopoda) (from Malacostraca)
Image 15Eggs of Potamon fluviatile, a freshwater crab
Image 16Norway lobsters on sale at a Spanish market
Image 17Anatomy of Cypridina mediterranea (from Ostracod)
Image 18A shed carapace of a lady crab, part of the hard exoskeleton
Image 19Eryma mandelslohi, a fossil decapod from the Jurassic of Bissingen an der Teck, Germany
Image 20Artemia salina (Anostraca: Artemiidae) (from Branchiopoda)
Image 21Articulated ostracod valves in cross-section from the Permian of central Texas; typical thin section view of an ostracod fossil (from Ostracod)
Image 22Odontodactylus scyllarus (Hoplocarida: Stomatopoda) (from Malacostraca)