Hippoidea

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Hippoidea
Temporal range: Maastrichtian–Recent
Blepharipoda.jpg
Blepharipoda occidentalis
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Suborder: Pleocyemata
Infraorder: Anomura
Superfamily: Hippoidea
Latreille, 1825
Families

Hippoidea is a superfamily of decapod crustaceans known as mole crabs or sand crabs. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Ecology

Hippoids are adapted to burrowing into sandy beaches, a habit they share with raninid crabs, and the parallel evolution of the two groups is striking. [4] In the family Hippidae, the body is almost ovoid, the first pereiopods have no claws, and the telson is long, none of which are seen in related groups. [5] Unlike most other decapods, sand crabs cannot walk; instead, they use their legs to dig into the sand. [6] Members of the family Hippidae beat their uropods to swim. [6]

Apart from the polar regions, hippoids can be found on beaches throughout the world. Larvae of one species have also been found in Antarctic waters, despite the lack of suitable sandy beaches in the Antarctic. [7]

Classification

Alongside hermit crabs and allies (Paguroidea), squat lobsters and allies (Galatheoidea) and the hairy stone crab (Lomis hirta, Lomisoidea), Hippoidea is one of the four groups that make up the infraorder Anomura. [8] Of the four, Hippoidea is thought to be the most basal, with the other three groups being more closely related to each other than to Hippoidea. [9]

The fossil record of sand crabs is sparse, [10] but extends back to the Cretaceous period. [4] Sand crabs are placed in three families (exclusively fossil taxa are marked †): [11] [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crab</span> Crustacean

Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the world's oceans, in freshwater, and on land, are generally covered with a thick exoskeleton, and have a single pair of pincers on each arm. They first appeared during the Jurassic period, around 200 million years ago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Decapoda</span> Order of crustaceans

The Decapoda or decapods are an order of crustaceans within the class Malacostraca, and includes crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, and prawns. Most decapods are scavengers. The order is estimated to contain nearly 15,000 extant 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 fossils of the group date to the Devonian.

<i>Emerita</i> (crustacean) Genus of crustaceans

Emerita is a small genus of decapod crustaceans, known as mole crabs, sand fiddlers, or sand crabs. These small animals burrow in the sand in the swash zone and use their antennae for filter feeding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pleocyemata</span> Suborder of crustaceans

Pleocyemata is a suborder of decapod crustaceans, erected by Martin Burkenroad in 1963. Burkenroad's classification replaced the earlier sub-orders of Natantia and Reptantia with the monophyletic groups Dendrobranchiata (prawns) and Pleocyemata. Pleocyemata contains all the members of the Reptantia, as well as the Stenopodidea, and Caridea, which contains the true shrimp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Achelata</span> Infraorder of crustaceans

The Achelata is an infra-order of the decapod crustaceans, holding the spiny lobsters, slipper lobsters and their fossil relatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anomura</span> Infraorder of crustaceans

Anomura is a group of decapod crustaceans, including hermit crabs and others. Although the names of many anomurans include the word crab, all true crabs are in the sister group to the Anomura, the Brachyura.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carcinisation</span> Evolution of crustaceans into crab-like forms

Carcinisation is a form of convergent evolution in which non-crab crustaceans evolve a crab-like body plan. The term was introduced into evolutionary biology by L. A. Borradaile, who described it as "the many attempts of Nature to evolve a crab".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astacidea</span> Infraorder of crustaceans

Astacidea is an infraorder of decapod crustaceans including lobsters, crayfish, and their close relatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thalassinidea</span> Infraorder of crustaceans

Thalassinidea is a former infraorder of decapod crustaceans that live in burrows in muddy bottoms of the world's oceans. In Australian English, the littoral thalassinidean Trypaea australiensis is referred to as the yabby, frequently used as bait for estuarine fishing; elsewhere, however, they are poorly known, and as such have few vernacular names, "mud lobster" and "ghost shrimp" counting among them. The burrows made by thalassinideans are frequently preserved, and the fossil record of thalassinideans reaches back to the late Jurassic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eucarida</span> Superorder of crustaceans

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hairy stone crab</span> Species of crustacean

The hairy stone crab is a crab-like anomuran crustacean that lives in the littoral zone of southern Australia from Bunbury, Western Australia, to the Bass Strait. It is the only species in the family Lomisidae. It is 1.5–2.5 cm (0.6–1.0 in) wide, slow-moving, and covered in brown hair which camouflages it against the rocks upon which it lives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albuneidae</span> Family of crustaceans

Albuneidae is a little-known family of specialized burrowing sand crabs. There are 50 extant species as well as nine fossil species that have been described. Fossil specimens have been described from the Cretaceous, Miocene and Oligocene.

<i>Albunea</i> (crustacean) Genus of crustaceans

Albunea is a genus of mole crab within the Albuneidae. Little is known about this group's biology. A. groeningi is named after Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pylochelidae</span> Family of crustaceans

The Pylochelidae are a family of hermit crabs. Its members are commonly called the 'symmetrical hermit crabs'. They live in all the world's oceans, except the Arctic and the Antarctic, at depths of 2,000 m (6,600 ft). Due to their cryptic nature and relative scarcity, only around 60 specimens had been collected before 1987, when a monograph was published detailing a further 400.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aeglidae</span> Family of crustaceans

The Aeglidae are a family of freshwater crustaceans currently restricted to South America. They are the only anomurans to be found in fresh water except for a single hermit crab species, Clibanarius fonticola, on Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu. They live between 20° S and 50° S, at altitudes between 320 and 3,500 m (1,050–11,480 ft).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crustacean larva</span> Crustacean larval and immature stages between hatching and adult form

Crustaceans may pass through a number of larval and immature stages between hatching from their eggs and reaching their adult form. Each of the stages is separated by a moult, in which the hard exoskeleton is shed to allow the animal to grow. The larvae of crustaceans often bear little resemblance to the adult, and there are still cases where it is not known what larvae will grow into what adults. This is especially true of crustaceans which live as benthic adults, more-so than where the larvae are planktonic, and thereby easily caught.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hippidae</span> Family of crustaceans

Hippidae is a family of decapod crustaceans, currently known by the English name as either mole crab or sand crab, and by an earlier English name as sand bug. They are closely related to the family Albuneidae, with which they are usually joined in the superfamily Hippoidea. The family Hippidae comprises the three genera Emerita, Hippa and Mastigochirus. They burrow into sand, and are found throughout the world, except the Arctic and Antarctic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galatheoidea</span> Superfamily of crustaceans

The Galatheoidea are a superfamily of decapod crustaceans comprising the porcelain crabs and some squat lobsters. Squat lobsters within the three families of the superfamily Chirostyloidea are not closely related to the squat lobsters within the Galatheoidea. The fossil record of the superfamily extends back to the Middle Jurassic genus Palaeomunidopsis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blepharipodidae</span> Family of crustaceans

Blepharipodidae is a family of sand crabs (Hippoidea), comprising the two genera Blepharipoda and Lophomastix. They are distinguished from the other families in the superfamily Hippoidea by the form of the gills, which are trichobranchiate (filamentous) in Blepharipodidae, but phyllobranchiate (lamellar) in Albuneidae and Hippidae. Fossils belonging to the genus Lophomastix have been found in rocks dating back to the Eocene.

<i>Albunea carabus</i> Species of crustacean

Albunea carabus is a rare species of "sand crab" or "mole crab" in the family Albuneidae. It lives in shallow, turbulent waters in sandy areas of the tropical eastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

References

  1. Sunil Israel; T. Senthil Murugan; V. P. Venugopalan; T. Subramoniam; N. Munuswamy; G. van der Velde (2006). "Larval development in the sand crab, Emerita emeritus (L., 1767) (Anomura, Hippoidea) reared in the laboratory". Crustaceana . 79 (4): 441–458. doi:10.1163/156854006777554857.
  2. Sand Fleas (Mole Crabs or Sand Crabs) Prime surf fishing bait
  3. http://www.baymoon.com/~ilga/crabs/ Archived 2016-10-18 at the Wayback Machine All About Mole Crabs
  4. 1 2 René H. B. Fraaije. "The first record of albuneid crabs (Crustacea, Decapoda) from the Cretaceous" (PDF). Bulletin of the Mizunami Fossil Museum . 29: 69–72. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-02-07. Retrieved 2007-09-01.
  5. J. Maxwell; D. Cowles; H. Helmstetler (2006). "Key to Infraorder Anomura". Walla Walla University. Archived from the original on September 30, 2008. Retrieved January 4, 2009.
  6. 1 2 Zen Faulkes; Dorothy H. Paul (February 1, 1997). "Digging in sand crabs (Decapoda, Anomura, Hippoidea): interleg coordination". Journal of Experimental Biology . 200 (4): 793–805. doi:10.1242/jeb.200.4.793. PMID   9318562.
  7. Sven Thatje; Veronica Fuentes (2003). "First record of anomuran and brachyuran larvae (Crustacea: Decapoda) from Antarctic waters" (PDF). Polar Biology . 26 (4): 279–282. Bibcode:2003PoBio..26..279T. doi:10.1007/s00300-002-0476-6. S2CID   19299892.
  8. Joel W. Martin; George E. Davis (2001). An Updated Classification of the Recent Crustacea (PDF). Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. p. 132. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-05-12. Retrieved 2009-12-14.
  9. Marcos Pérez-Losada; Carlos G. Jara; Georgina Bond-Buckup; Megan L. Porter; Keith A. Crandall (2002). "Phylogenetic position of the freshwater anomuran family Aeglidae" (PDF). Journal of Crustacean Biology . 22 (3): 670–676. doi:10.1651/0278-0372(2002)022[0670:PPOTFA]2.0.CO;2. S2CID   53621613. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-10-31. Retrieved 2007-09-01.
  10. Christopher B. Boyko (2004). "A new genus of fossil sand crab (Anomura: Albuneidae) from the Oligocene of Italy". Palaeontology . 47 (4): 933–936. Bibcode:2004Palgy..47..933B. doi: 10.1111/j.0031-0239.2004.00391.x .
  11. Christopher B. Boyko (2002). "A worldwide revision of the Recent and fossil sand crabs of the Albuneidae Stimpson and Blepharipodidae, new family (Crustacea, Decapoda, Anomura, Hippoidea)" (PDF). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History . 272: 1–396. doi:10.1206/0003-0090(2002)272<0001:AWROTR>2.0.CO;2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-07-05. Retrieved 2007-09-01.
  12. Sammy De Grave; N. Dean Pentcheff; Shane T. Ahyong; et al. (2009). "A classification of living and fossil genera of decapod crustaceans" (PDF). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology . Suppl. 21: 1–109. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-06.