Latest Crustacean Stories
University of Texas at Austin [ Watch the Video Copepod Nauplius Swimming at 10 Degrees C ] Olympic swimmers aren't the only ones who change their strokes to escape competitors. To escape from the jaws and claws of predators in cold, viscous water, marine copepods switch from a wave-like swimming stroke to big power strokes, a behavior that has now been revealed thanks to 3-D high-speed digital holography. Copepods are tiny crustaceans found in nearly every aquatic environment on...
ESA It is not every day that astronauts can claim to return to Earth with a new species of life. But when the astronauts on ESA’s CAVES underground training course returned to the surface they were carrying a special type of woodlouse. CAVES training sends astronauts from all the International Space Station partner nations underground for a week to learn about working in multi-cultural teams under extreme conditions. During their six-night stay in caves in Sardinia, Italy, their...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Anatomically complex brains evolved earlier than previously thought and have changed little over the course of time, according to a new study by University of Arizona neurobiologist Nicholas Strausfeld. The specimen described in the study, which will be published in the October 11 issue of Nature, is the earliest known fossil to show a brain. The three inch long fossil was discovered embedded in mudstones deposited during the...
As any comic book lover knows, when superheroes band together the bad guys fall harder. The strength that comes in numbers is greater than the sum of its parts. The same holds true, researchers have recently learned, when different species of crabs (genus Trapezia) and snapping shrimp (Alepheus lottini) in the central Pacific band together to defend their coral homes from hungry seastars. In these frequent conflicts "one-plus-one doesn't always equal two, sometime it is more," explains...
During an expedition to the Kermadec Trench north of New Zealand in the Pacific Ocean researchers discovered a ‘supergiant’ amphipod measuring 10 times the size of typical amphipods. Typically deep sea amphipods are about an inch long (2-3 centimeters) with the exception of the ‘giant’ amphipod found in Antarctica which can be up to 4 inches long (10 centimeters). But the latest discovery, in the world’s deepest ocean at depths of 23,000 feet, measures an astonishing 13.4 inches...
Researcher narrows down spread of first lobster virus From the Florida Keys to Cuba to the Bahamas and Belize, tourists and locals enjoy the taste of the Caribbean spiny lobster. Family operations and commercial fisheries alike depend on its popularity, so the lobster is important to many local economies. But this crustacean is threatened by a virus called Panulirus argus virus 1 (PaV1). "We know that it can spread between lobsters. They can eat infected tissue and contract it that...
There are many different kinds of crustaceans, ranging from the shellfish Swedish people eat at traditional crayfish parties every August to tiny relatives found in their millions in both freshwater and saltwater. One of the latter, Daphnia pulex, is the first crustacean to have its genome sequenced. A researcher from the University of Gothenburg has made a surprising discovery.The sequencing has been done in an international research network known as the Daphnia Genomics Consortium. The...
By Greg Hand, University of CincinnatiFossilized "snapshots" provide University of Cincinnati paleontologist Carlton E. Brett and colleagues with new insights into the behavior of ancient marine creatures. Brett will present this research March 20 at the regional meeting of the Geological Society of America in Pittsburgh. Few specimens inspire greater thrills among fossil collectors than a complete trilobite. These ancient arthropods "“ relatives of lobsters, spiders and insects "“ went...
A team of scientists has described two cladocerous crustaceans, which could be endemic to the Iberian Peninsula, and which were found in two lagoons, one in the lower basin of the Guadalquivir river, and the other in the grasslands of Extremadura. Both of these arthropods may today inhabit more areas in the Mediterranean region."These two new crustaceans (Leydigia) are a species of living fossil and are very powerful bio-geographic and historical indicators", Miguel Alonso, one of...
The waters surrounding Australia and Japan are home to the greatest variety of aquatic lifeforms, and crustaceans such as crabs, lobsters, crayfish and shrimp are the most common species in the world's seas, according to the findings of the Census of Marine Life.The information, which was disclosed in a series of articles published Monday in the open access journal PLoS ONE, comes from a decade-long effort by more than 360 scientists to catalog species in 25 different regions, ranging from...
Latest Crustacean Reference Libraries
The European Lobster (Homarus gammarus), is a large European clawed crustacean. The natural range of the European Lobster is the eastern Atlantic Ocean from Lofoten Islands in northwestern Norway to the Azores and Morocco. It is also found in the Mediterranean Sea west of Crete and in northwestern parts of the Black Sea. It is not found in the Baltic Sea. It is rarely found deeper than 165 feet, but can be found anywhere from the low tide mark to 500 feet, on hard substrates made of rock or...
The Ghost Shrimp, Pestarella tyrrhena is a species of thalassinidean crustacean that dwells in shallow, sandy tunnels of the ocean floor in the Mediterranean Sea and northern Atlantic Ocean. Initially, the crustacean derived its name from the Tyrrhenian Sea where it inhabited. The crustacean was called formerly Callianassa tyrrhena, but current common terminology for the species is Ghost Shrimp or Mud Shrimp. Fishermen in the Mediterranean have used it as bait for at least 200 years...
The Lagostino, Panulirus argus is a species of spiny lobster inhabiting the waters of the western Atlantic Ocean, from North Carolina down to eastern South America at depths from 100 to 300 feet. They dwell on reefs and in mangrove swamps, or habitats with some sort of cover. More familiar names for the species include Caribbean Spiny Lobster, Florida Spiny Lobster or West Indies Spiny Lobster. Shortened variations of the name could include Lagostino, Crawfish, Crayfish or Bug. The...
The Banded Coral Shrimp, Stenopus hispidus is a decapod crustacean, resembling shrimp. It is classified in the infraorder Stenopodidea. More familiar names for this species include Banded Boxer Shrimp, Banded Prawn, Coral Banded Shrimp and Barber-pole Shrimp. This crustacean looks like a shrimp and even shares the common name shrimp, however, it is not truly shrimp. The shrimp-like crustacean is less than an inch long with red bands wrapping his body, and long, white antennae upon his...
