Squat lobster

Squat lobsters are dorsoventrally flattened crustaceans with long tails held curled beneath the cephalothorax. They are found in the two superfamilies Galatheoidea and Chirostyloidea, which form part of the decapod infraorder Anomura, alongside groups including the hermit crabs and mole crabs. They are distributed worldwide in the oceans, and occur from near the surface to deep sea hydrothermal vents, even occurring above water in caves . More than 900 species have been described, in around 60 genera. Some species form dense aggregations, either on the sea floor or in the water column, and a small number are subject to commercial fishery.

The two main groups of squat lobsters share most features of their morphology. They resemble true lobsters in some ways, but are somewhat flattened dorsoventrally, and are typically smaller. Squat lobsters vary in carapace length (measured from the eye socket to the rear edge), from 90 millimetres (3.5 in) in the case of Munidopsis aries, down to only a few millimetres in the case of Galathea intermedia and some species of Uroptychus. As in other decapod crustaceans, the body of a squat lobster may be divided into two main regions: the cephalothorax (itself made up of the cephalon, or head, and the thorax), and the pleon or abdomen.

The cephalothorax is made of 13 body segments (somites), although the divisions are not obvious and are most easily inferred from the paired appendages. From front to back, these are, the two pairs of antennae, six pairs of mouthparts (mandibles, maxillae, maxillules and three pairs of maxillipeds), five pairs of pereiopods. The cephalothorax is covered with a thick carapace, which may extend forwards in front of the eyes to form a rostrum; this is highly variable among squat lobsters, being vestigial in Chirostylus, wide and often serrated in some genera, and long, narrow, and flanked with "supraorbital spines" in others. The degree of ornamentation on the surface of the carapace also varies widely, and there are almost always at least a few setae (bristles), which can be iridescent in some members of the Galatheidae and Munididae. A pair of compound eyes also project on stalks from the front of the carapace; these are made up of ommatidia with square facets, which is typical of the "reflecting superposition" form of eye. Many deep-sea species have reduced eyes, and reduced movement of the eyestalks. In the families Munididae and Galatheidae, there is often a row of setae close to the eyes, forming "eyelashes".

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