Malacostraca Sentence Examples

The science of insects began with Aristotle, who included in a class "Entoma" the true insects, the arachnids and the myriapods, the Crustacea forming another class ("Malacostraca") of the "Anaema" or "bloodless animals."

Under the heading Crustacea the Entomostraca have already been distinguished not only from the Thyrostraca or Cirripedes, but also from the Malacostraca, and an intermediate group of which the true position is still disputed.

The choice is open to maintain the last as an independent subclass, and to follow Claus in calling it the Leptostraca, or to introduce it among the Malacostraca as the Nebaliacea, or with Packard and Sars to make it an entomostracan subdivision under the title Phyllocarida.

All these marks may fail, and then the species must be proved to be Malacostracan by other evidence than the number of its segments; but if some exceptions exhibit fewer, none of the Malacostraca exhibits more than 19 (+ 1 or + 2) segments, unless the Nebaliidae be included.

In the various groups of the Entomostraca, on the other hand, the terms thorax and abdomen, though conveniently employed for purposes of systematic description, do not imply any homology with the regions so named in the Malacostraca.

Thus, in the thoracic limbs of the Malacostraca, the endopodite generally forms a walking-leg while the exopodite becomes a swimmingbranch or may disappear altogether.

In the Malacostraca, the antennules are often biramous, but there is considerable doubt as to whether the two branches represent the endopodite and exopodite of the other limbs, and three branches are found in the Stomatopoda and in some Caridea.

In the Malacostraca they are chiefly sensory, the endopodite forming a long flagellum, while the exopodite may form a lamellar " scale," probably useful as a balancer in swimming, or may disappear altogether.

It is highly characteristic of the Malacostraca, however, that the trunk-limbs are divided into two sharply defined tagmata corresponding to the thoracic and abdominal regions respectively, the limit between the two being marked by the position of the male genital openings.

In the primitive Malacostraca the gills were probably, as in the Phyllopoda and in Nebalia, the modified epipodites of the thoracic limbs, and this is the condition found in some Schizopoda.

It is among the Malacostraca, however, and especially in the Decapoda, that the " gastric mill " reaches its greatest perfection.

In the Malacostraca, an elongated heart with numerous segmentally arranged ostia is found only in the aberrant group of Stomatopoda and in the transitional Phyllocarida.

In the other Malacostraca the heart is generally abbreviated, and even where, as in the Amphipoda, it is elongated and tubular, the ostia are restricted in number, three pairs only being usually present.

In the Malacostraca it is absent in the adult, or persists only in a vestigial condition, as in some Decapoda and Schizopoda.

In the Malacostraca the sessile eyed groups are certainly less primitive than some of those with stalked eyes, and among the Entomostraca also there is some evidence pointing in the same direction.

In certain divisions of the Malacostraca more specialized organs are found which have been regarded as auditory.

It is characteristic of the Malacostraca that the position of the genital apertures is constantly different in the two sexes, the female openings being on the sixth, and those of the male on the eighth thoracic somite.

This modification is especially found in the Malacostraca.

It is most typically developed in the most specialized Decapoda, the Brachyura, while the more primitive groups of Malacostraca, the Euphausiidae, Penaeidea and Stomatopoda, retain the primitive order of appearance C FIG.

With the Malacostraca the case is little better.

There is considerable reason for believing that the Ceratiocaridae, which are found from the Cambrian onwards, were allied to the existing Nebalia, and may possibly include the forerunners of the true Malacostraca, but nothing is definitely known of their appendages.

For the Malacostraca, it is generally admitted that the Leptostraca (Nebalia, &c.) provide a connecting-link with the base of the Phyllopod stem.

Latreille, who, in the beginning of the 19th century, divided the class into Entomostraca and Malacostraca.

The remaining groups are dealt with under the headings Entomostraca and Malacostraca, the annectent group Leptostraca being included in the former.

The name Thyrostraca, meaning doorshells or valve-shells, is preferred as agreeing in termination with the titles of the other two divisions, the Malacostraca and Entomostraca.

Among the Malacostraca some Schizopoda, the Cumacea, Tanaidacea, Isopoda and Amphipoda (sometimes grouped all together as Peracarida) have a marsupium or brood-pouch formed by overlapping plates attached to the bases of some of the thoracic legs.

The more primitive forms (Entomostraca) are anomomeristic, presenting great variety as to number of somites, form of appendages, and tagmatic grouping; the higher forms (Malacostraca) are nomomeristic, showing in front of the telson twenty somites, of which the six hinder carry swimmerets and the five next in front ambulatory limbs.