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Arthropod

Arthropods are the largest phylumof animalsand include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and others. Arthropods are characterised by the possession of a segmentedbody with appendageson each segment. They have a dorsalheart and a ventral nervous system. All arthropods are covered by a hard exoskeletonmade of chitin, a polysaccharide, which provides physical protection and resistance to desiccation. Periodically, an arthropod sheds this covering when it moults. More than 80% of described living animal species are arthropods, with over a million modern species described and a fossil recordreaching back to the late proterozoicera. Arthropods are common throughout marine, freshwater, terrestrial, and even aerial environments, as well as including various symbioticand parasiticforms. They range in size from microscopic plankton(~¼ mm) up to forms several metreslong.

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The crustaceans (Crustacea) are a large group of arthropods, comprising approximately 52,000 described species , and are usually treated as a subphylum . They include various familiar animals, such as lobsters, crabs, shrimp, crayfish and barnacles. The majority are aquatic, living in either fresh water or marine environments, but a few groups have adapted to terrestrial life, such as terrestrial crabs, terrestrial hermit crabs and woodlice. The majority are motile, moving about independently, although a few taxa are parasitic and live attached to their hosts (including sea lice, fish lice, whale lice, tongue worms, and Cymothoa exigua, all of which may be referred to as "crustacean lice"), and adult barnacles live a sessile life — they are attached head-first to the substrate and cannot move independently.

The scientific study of crustaceans is known as carcinology. Other names for carcinology are malacostracology, crustaceology and crustalogy, and a scientist who works in carcinology is a carcinologist, crustaceologist or crustalogist.

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Predation is an interaction between organisms (animals) in which one organism captures and feeds upon another called the prey. Although predation most often refers to carnivory, in ecology it can also include many other types of feeding behaviors including parasitism, parasitoidism, and herbivory.

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Did you know...

...that Pestarella tyrrhena feeds directly on the sediment, and receives nutrition from the debris collected in the debris chambers, as well as from the foraminiferans and algae which live on the walls of the burrow?
...that Valley elderberry longhorn beetles (Desmocerus californicus dimorphus) are stout-bodied?
...that the largest living arthropod is the Japanese spider crab, with a leg span up to 3½ m (12 ft), and some prehistoric arthropods were even larger, such as Pterygotus and Arthropleura?
...that the family Caponiidae is unique among spiders because its members usually have two eyes?
...that Kirill Eskov named a genus from the Linyphiidae spider family discovered by him in 1988 after Marsh Kikimora, a female spirit in Slavic mythology.

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Create article for each family
Ensure all family articles are taxonomically consistent
1. Ensure all articles between the order and family rank are taxonomically consistent
2. Ensure all articles between family and genus rank are taxonomically consistent
Create articles for all species and for needed genera. Many species, however, are virtually undescribed.
Emphasise the identifying aspects of each category. Please concentrate on features that are observable without dissection or microscope, and remember to link to definitions of specialist terms used! (See complete tasklist)

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