James Dwight Dana FRS FRSE was an American geologist, mineralogist, volcanologist, and zoologist. He made pioneering studies of mountain-building, volcanic activity, and the origin and structure of continents and oceans around the world.
The Decapoda or decapods are an order of crustaceans within the class Malacostraca, including many familiar groups, such as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp and prawns. Most decapods are scavengers. The order is estimated to contain nearly 15,000 species in around 2,700 genera, with around 3,300 fossil species. Nearly half of these species are crabs, with the shrimp and Anomura including hermit crabs, porcelain crabs, squat lobsters making up the bulk of the remainder. The earliest fossil decapod is the Devonian Palaeopalaemon.
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.
Grapsus grapsus is one of the most common crabs along the western coast of the Americas. It is known as the red rock crab, or, along with crabs such as Percnon gibbesi, as the Sally Lightfoot crab.
Portunidae is a family of crabs which contains the swimming crabs.
Tuerkayana hirtipes is a species of terrestrial crab.
Leptograpsus variegatus, known as the purple rock crab, is a marine large-eyed crab of the family Grapsidae, found in southern subtropical Indo-Pacific Oceans. It grows to around 50 millimetres (2.0 in) shell width. It is the only species in the genus Leptograpsus.
The Sesarmidae are a family of crabs, previously included in the Grapsidae by many authors. Several species, namely in Geosesarma, Metopaulias, and Sesarma, are true terrestrial crabs. They do not need to return to the sea even for breeding.
The Cymothoidae are a family of isopods in the suborder Cymothoida found in both marine and freshwater environments. Cymoithoids are ectoparasites, usually of fish, and they include the bizarre "tongue-biter", which attaches to a fish's tongue, causing it to atrophy, and replaces the tongue with its own body. Ceratothoa oestroides is one of the most devastating ectoparasites in Mediterranean aquaculture. Around 40 genera and more than 380 species of cymothoid are recognised. Species of the Cymothoidae are generally found in warmer waters and rarely in the cool and cold climates.
Percnon gibbesi is a species of crab. It is one of at least two species commonly called "Sally Lightfoot", and is also referred to as the nimble spray crab or urchin crab. It has been described as "the most invasive decapod species to enter the Mediterranean".
Pachygrapsus marmoratus is a species of crab, sometimes called the marbled rock crab or marbled crab, which lives in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and parts of the Atlantic Ocean. It is dark violet brown, with yellow marbling, and with a body up to 36 millimetres (1.4 in) long. A semiterrestrial omnivore, it feeds on algae and various animals including mussels and limpets.
Grapsus is a genus of lightfoot crabs, comprising the following species:
Hemigrapsus is a genus of varunid crabs comprising thirteen species native almost exclusively in the Pacific Ocean, but two have been introduced to the North Atlantic region.
Oregonia is a genus of crabs, comprising two extant species and one fossil species: It is classified in the family Oregoniidae under the spider crab superfamily Majoidea.
Neohelice granulata is a species of crab in the family Varunidae, and the only species in the genus Neohelice. In 2009, it was estimated that N. granulata was the sixth most studied species of crab.
Crustaceans form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, 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. Some crustaceans are more closely related to insects and the other hexapods than they are to certain other crustaceans.
Paragrapsus is a genus of crabs from South Eastern Australia, containing the following species:
Davusia glabra commonly called the shiny bait crab., Sowrie crab or Sourie crab is the sole species of crab in the genus Davusia. It lives around the low tide area on rocky ocean shores on the eastern coast of Australia, in crevices and rock pools and on rock platforms. The distribution is stated differently in different sources, either from Queensland as far south as the NSW-Victorian border in one source but including to Wilson’s Promontory in another. The carapace is grey to fawn with very small green spots, resulting in Davusia glabra having a greenish appearance. The width of the carapace is around 30-40 mm across, and is smooth without hair, slightly wider than long, with 3 distinct spines at each edge
Lauren Elizabeth Hughes is an Australian carcinologist and curator. She specialises in the study of amphipods.
