A Wisdom Archive on Largest Organism - Crustaceans

The relationships of insects are unclear. Although traditionally grouped with millipedes and centipedes, evidence has emerged favoring a relationship with the crustaceans. Apart from some tantalizing Devonian fragments, insects first appear suddenly in the fossil record during the very start of the Late Carboniferous period, Early Bashkirian age, about 350 million years ago. As they are already specialized, and represented by more than half a dozen different orders, their anscestry must be sought ...

Read more here: » Insect: Encyclopedia II - Fossils and evolution

Most mastigoteuthids are rather small, from 3–15 centimetres total mantle length. Their most distinctive features are their extremely elongate tentacles—which retract into membranous lateral sheaths of the fourth (and largest) arms—and their very large ovate fins, which may occupy up to 80% of the mantle length in some species. Unlike most other squid, the club of the mastigoteuthid tentacle is not significantly (usually not at all) broader than the rest of the tentacle and is covered in very small suckers—in some species, inv ...

Read more here: » Whip-lash squid: Encyclopedia II - Whip-lash squid - Description

Aside from representing the bottom few levels of a food chain that leads up to commercially important fisheries, plankton ecosystems play a role in the biogeochemical cycles of many important elements. Of particular contemporary significance is their role in the ocean's carbon cycle. As stated, phytoplankton fix carbon in sunlit surface waters via photosynthesis. Through (primarily) zooplankton grazing, this carbon enters the planktonic foodweb, where it is either respired to provide metabolic energy, or accumulates as biomass or detr ...

Read more here: » Plankton: Encyclopedia II - Plankton - Biogeochemical significance

Krill are crustaceans and have a chitinous exoskeleton made up of three segments: the cephalon (head), thorax, and the abdomen. The first two segments are fused into one segment, the cephalothorax. This outer shell of krill is nearly transparent. Krill feature intricate compound eyes; some species can adapt to different lighting conditions through the use of screening pigments.[Gat05] They have two antennae and several pairs of thor ...

Read more here: » Krill: Encyclopedia II - Krill - Morphology

NOTE: Some classification schemes group Myriapoda and Hexapoda into one subphylum called Uniramia. Arthropods (Phylum Arthropoda) (Greek "jointed feet") are the largest phylum of animals and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and other similar creatures. In approximate statistics, over eighty percent extant (living today) animal species are arthropods, with over a million modern species described and a fossil record reaching back to the early Cambrian. Arthropods are common throughout marine, ... Including:

• Arthropod - Basic arthropod structure
• Arthropod - Arthropod relationships

Read more here: » Arthropod: Encyclopedia - Arthropod

Calanoida Cyclopoida Gelyelloida Harpacticoida Misophrioida Monstrilloida Mormonilloida Platycopioida Poecilostomatoida Siphonostomatoida Copepods are small animals living in the sea and nearly every freshwater habitat. Many of their species are planktonic, but even more are benthic, and some continental species may live in swamps, bogs, springs, ephemeral ponds and puddles, damp moss, or water-filled recesses of plants such as bromeliads and pitcher plants. Many live underg ...

Read more here: » Copepod: Encyclopedia - Copepod