Malacostraca is the second largest of the six classes of crustaceans just behind hexapods, containing about 40,000 living species, divided among 16 orders. Its members, the malacostracans, display a great diversity of body forms and include crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill, prawns, woodlice, amphipods, mantis shrimp, tongue-eating lice and many other less familiar animals. They are abundant in all marine environments and have colonised freshwater and terrestrial habitats. They are segmented animals, united by a common body plan comprising 20 body segments, and divided into a head, thorax, and abdomen.
Mysida is an order of small, shrimp-like crustaceans in the malacostracan superorder Peracarida. Their common name opossum shrimps stems from the presence of a brood pouch or "marsupium" in females. The fact that the larvae are reared in this pouch and are not free-swimming characterises the order. The mysid's head bears a pair of stalked eyes and two pairs of antennae. The thorax consists of eight segments each bearing branching limbs, the whole concealed beneath a protective carapace and the abdomen has six segments and usually further small limbs.
Eucarida is a superorder of the Malacostraca, a class of the crustacean subphylum, comprising the decapods, krill, and Angustidontida. They are characterised by having the carapace fused to all thoracic segments, and by the possession of stalked eyes.
Lophogastrida is an order of malacostracan crustaceans in the superorder Peracarida, comprising shrimp-like animals that mostly inhabit the relatively deep pelagic waters of the oceans throughout the world.
The superorder Peracarida is a large group of malacostracan crustaceans, having members in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial habitats. They are chiefly defined by the presence of a brood pouch, or marsupium, formed from thin flattened plates (oostegites) borne on the basalmost segments of the legs. Peracarida is one of the largest crustacean taxa and includes about 12,000 species. Most members are less than 2 cm (0.8 in) in length, but the largest is probably the giant isopod which can reach 76 cm (30 in). The earliest known perecaridian was Oxyuropoda ligioides, a fossil of which has been found dating to the Late Devonian of Ireland.
Eumalacostraca is a subclass of crustaceans, containing almost all living malacostracans, or about 40,000 described species. The remaining subclasses are the Phyllocarida and possibly the Hoplocarida. Eumalacostracans have 19 segments. This arrangement is known as the "caridoid facies", a term coined by William Thomas Calman in 1909. The thoracic limbs are jointed and used for swimming or walking. The common ancestor is thought to have had a carapace, and most living species possess one, but it has been lost in some subgroups.
Diastylidae is one of the eight most commonly recognised families of crustaceans of the order Cumacea. They are marine creatures especially common around the 30th parallel north.
Bodotriidae is a family of crustaceans belonging to the order Cumacea. Bodotriids have a worldwide distribution in shallow and deep waters. There are over 380 described species in over 30 genera, being the most diverse cumacean family. Their external morphology differs from other cumaceans by a combination of traits that independently are not unique to the family: the telson is fused to the last abdominal segment, the dorsal part of the mandible has a boat shape (naviculoid), exopods exist on the third maxilliped and the first peraeopod, and there is a uropodal endopod with one or two articles.
Gynodiastylidae is one of the eight most commonly recognised families of crustaceans of the order Cumacea. They are especially prevalent in the southern hemisphere, with some types described from Japan, Thailand and the Persian Gulf. Most are found at less than 100 metres (330 ft) depth.
Leuconidae is a family of marine hooded shrimp. The family was established by Georg Ossian Sars in his 1878 study of Mediterranean cumaceans.
Nannastacidae is a family of crustaceans belonging to the order Cumacea. They have no free telson. The endopods of the uropods are present on one segment. There are exopods on the maxillipeds and generally one on pereopods 1–4 in males and 1–2 in females. In the females the second antenna is much shorter than the first. It contains the following genera:
Bodotria scorpioides is a species of crustacean belonging to the order Cumacea. They are found in the East Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. B. scorpioides does not possess a free telson. The first thoracic somite is too short to be seen from above, the second is longer. Both males and females have exopods on the first pereopods only.
Bodotria is a genus of crustaceans which belong to the family Bodotriidae. It includes the following species:
The Mysidacea is a group of shrimp-like crustaceans in the superorder Peracarida, comprising the two extant orders Mysida and Lophogastrida and the prehistoric Pygocephalomorpha. Current data indicate that despite their external similarities, the three orders are not closely related, and the taxon Mysidacea is not used in modern taxonomy.
Phylogeny of Malacostraca is the evolutionary relationships of the largest of the six classes of crustaceans, containing about 40,000 living species, divided among 16 orders. Its members display a great diversity of body forms. Although the class Malacostraca is united by a number of well-defined and documented features, which were recognised a century ago by William Thomas Calman in 1904, the phylogenetic relationship of the orders which compose this class is unclear due to the vast diversity present in their morphology. Molecular studies have attempted to infer the phylogeny of this clade, resulting in phylogenies which have a limited amount of morphological support. To resolve a well-supported eumalacostracan phylogeny and obtain a robust tree, it will be necessary to look beyond the most commonly utilized sources of data.
Mihai Băcescu was a Romanian zoologist.
Crustaceans belong to the subphylum Crustacea, and form a large, diverse group of arthropods including decapods, 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 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.
An oostegite is a large, flexible plate-like flap extending medially from the coxae of the pereiopods in some female crustaceans. It forms part of the marsupium or brood pouch of members of the superorder Peracarida, from the class Malacostraca.
Zimmeriana is a genus of gynodiastylid cumacean. It is found from New South Wales to Western Australia, and in Japan. It contains 6 species, as of March, 2017.
