Crustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 67,000 described species range in size from
Stygotantulus stocki at 0.1 mm, to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span of up to 3.8 m and a mass of 20 kg. Like other arthropods, crustaceans have an exoskeleton, which they moult to grow. They are distinguished from other groups of arthropods, such as insects, myriapods and chelicerates, by the possession of biramous limbs, and by the nauplius form of the larvae. Most crustaceans are free-living aquatic animals, but some are terrestrial, some are parasitic and some are sessile. The group has an extensive fossil record, reaching back to the Cambrian, and includes living fossils such as
Triops cancriformis, which has existed apparently unchanged since the Triassic period. More than 10 million tons of crustaceans are produced by fishery or farming for human consumption, the majority of it being shrimp and prawns.