Mysis relicta
| Mysis relicta | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Crustacea |
| Class: | Malacostraca |
| Order: | Mysida |
| Family: | Mysidae |
| Genus: | Mysis |
| Species: | M. relicta |
| Binomial name | |
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Mysis relicta Lovén, 1862 |
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Mysis relicta is a shrimp-like crustacean in the Mysida order, native to lakes of Northern Europe and to the brackish Baltic Sea.
Mysis is a small, transparent shrimp-like crustacean, of less than 2.5 cm length. It has two pairs of relatively long antennae, associated with rounded antennal plates; large, stalked compound eyes; the thorax covered by a coat-like carapace; a muscular, cylindrical abdomen; and a tail fan featuring a telson with a v-shaped terminal cleft.
Reproducing females bear a prominent brood pouch (marsupium) between their thoracal legs. The pleopods (abdominal legs) of Mysis are reduced, except for a specialized pair of mating legs in males.
The distribution of Mysis relicta is restricted to previously glaciated regions in Northern Europe, including North-West Russia, Finland, Sweden, south-east of Norway, and parts of Germany, Poland and Lithuania.
Previously M. relicta was treated as a circumpolar taxon also present in North America and the Eurasian Arctic. A revision in 2005 divided these circumpolar freshwater Mysis populations into four distinct species. Apart from the North European M. relicta, these include Mysis diluviana in lakes of the United States and Canada, Mysis segerstralei in the circumpolar Arctic, and Mysis salemaai in some European lakes and the Baltic.
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Wikipedia