Crustaceology
| Crustacea Temporal range: 511–0 Ma Cambrian to Recent |
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| Abludomelita obtusata, an amphipod | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Clade: | Pancrustacea |
| Subphylum: |
Crustacea Brünnich, 1772 |
| Classes and subclasses | |
Remipedia
Cephalocarida
Maxillopoda
Crustaceans (Crustacea /krʌˈsteɪʃə/) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill, woodlice and barnacles. The crustacean group is usually treated as a subphylum, and thanks to recent molecular studies it is now well accepted that the crustacean group is paraphyletic, and comprises all animals in the Pancrustacea clade other than hexapods. In other words, some crustaceans are more closely related to insects and other hexapods than they are to certain other crustaceans.
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.
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