SUBPHYLUM TRILOBITA (TRILOBITOMORPHA)
A fossil sample of the Trilobita group
Subphylum Chelicerata (Greek: chele, talon; cerata, horns) –
There are about 63,000 described species of Chelicerata. The subphylum represents one of the
major arthropod evolutionary lines and it includes the well-known horseshoe crabs, spiders,
ticks, mites, and some extinct groups
Characteristics
• Bilaterally symmetrical, less than 1mm – 60cm long arthropods varying in body shape from
elongate to almost spherical
• They are triploblastic, with tissues and organs
• Body divided into 2 regions
– Cephalothorax (fused head & thorax)
– Abdomen
An anterior 'prosoma' formed by the acron and six appendage-bearing segments, and wholly or
partly covered by a dorsal carapace, and a posterior 'opisthosoma' without legs and with only
highly modified appendages, if any
• Lack antennae;
• They have simple eyes
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• 2 pairs of mouth appendages – 1st pair chelicerae (frequently fangs), 2nd pair pedipalps
Appendages uniramous; prosomal appendages comprising one pair of chelate, subchelate or style
like 'chelicerae', one pair of chelate, leg-like or feeler-like 'pedipalps', and four pairs of walking
legs, all attached near to the ventral midline and, in some, extended by haemocoelic pressure;
without antennae or jaws.
Only one pair of appendages (the chelicerae) form mouthparts, although medially directed
processes of the basal article of one or more other limbs ('coxal endites') may crush food or
spoon it into the mouth.
• It is divided into 3 classes:
– Class Merostomata,
– Class Arachnida, and
– Class Pycnogonida
Class Merostomata (E. g. Horse-shoe crabs)
Marine chelicerates, common off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Horseshoe crabs are not related to
"true" crabs at all. There are only 4 living species of horse-shoe crabs living in the world's
oceans, and they have not changed much in form in the last 350-400 million years. They have
large dorsal carapace bearing compound eyes. Abdomen terminates in a long tail called the
telson; which is used to turn the animal right side up. It possesses a series of gill plates called
book gills.
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Class Pycnogonida (sea spiders)
Although commonly called sea spiders, they are not related to the arachnids, but like arachnids,
many of them have 4 pairs of long walking legs. All species are marine, with a fossil record
extending back about 500 million years. They are often parasitic on jellyfish, corals, and their
relatives, as young, and predators of slow-moving animals as adults.
Class Arachnida
Arachnids all share a distinctive body plan that unites them and separates them from the other
two groups of chelicerates. There are about 11 orders of arachnids alive today, containing about
74,000 described species.
• Majority of spiders mites ticks and scorpions are harmless or beneficial to humans
• Most are carnivores; they kill their prey by injecting them with venom, and pouring enzymes
over them for extracellular digestion
• Common Orders include • I. Order Araneae (Spiders) • II. Order Acarina (Mites and Ticks) •
III. Order Scorpionida (Scorpions)
I. Order Araneae (Spiders)
• Spiders - largest Order of Arachnids
• Chelicerae modified as fangs with poison glands
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• Spinnerets - conical projections associated with silk glands
– Silk is a protein of different types, produced for different functions
– Functions: Safety Line, movement, egg wrappings.
Spider
II. Order Acarina (Mites and Ticks)
• Many are ectoparasites and haematophagous
• Chelicerae and pedipalps are modified for piercing, biting, anchoring and sucking
• Quite a number are ectoparasites of pets, livestock, and wild animals.
Mite Tick
III. Order Scorpionida • Range from tropical to warm temperate areas • Nocturnal and
cryptic organisms • Chelicerae act as jaws; pedipalps act as claws • Stinger at base of
post-abdomen (tail) • Only a few are venomous and fatal to humans
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Scorpion
NOTE:
Chelicerates include familiar animals such as ticks, spiders’ scorpions and mites. The first pair of
appendages of chelicerates is called chelicerae, the second pedipalps and the rest four pairs are
for walking. Chelicerae are feeding appendages. The body is divided into the prosoma and
opisthosoma. Chelicerates lack antennae, mandibles and maxillae.
Subphylum Crustacea – crabs, lobsters, shrimps, barnacles
The crustaceans can be regarded as highly successful arthropods, and include shrimps, lobsters
and crabs, which are of gastronomic interest, as well as numerous smaller forms. The majority of
crustaceans are marine species; about 97% of all marine arthropods are crustaceans, but some
live in freshwater; they dominate the plankton in both marine and freshwater habitats. Aquatic
crustaceans are extremely valuable because in addition to including many of the larger
arthropods, they are tremendously ecologically important in marine and freshwater food chains.
Several species of crustaceans live above the high tide line on beaches but a comparatively small
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number are terrestrial. They have not been very successful as terrestrial animals because they
have retained a characteristically aquatic physiology and are therefore restricted to damp
environments. Several crustaceans live as parasites. Crustaceans can generally be distinguished
from the other groups of Arthropods by the possession of two pairs of antennae, and by the
presence of biramous limbs. Crustaceans are almost entirely aquatic, with only a few hundreds of
about 40,000 known species living on land; most species have free-swimming planktonic larvae.
The plasticity in the structure of crustaceans has enabled them to swim, burrow, crawl, bore into
wood, live cemented to rock, hunt, browse, suspension and deposit-feed, parasitise most animal
groups, including their own.
Major crustacean characteristics
1. They are predominantly aquatic, with gills for respiration.
2. Possess five pairs of head appendages:
2 pairs of antennae:
• First pair is similar to those of insects;
• Second pair is unique to crustaceans Second pair of antennae have various functions,
including sensation, locomotion or feeding.
Others are mandibles, first maxillae or maxillules, and second maxillae.
3. The body is divided into different tagmata in the different groups, but usually has a
recognizable head, thorax, and abdomen.
4. The head bears
• A pair of compound eyes and
• 3 pairs of mouthparts
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5. Primitively, the first three pairs of thoracic segments have maxillipeds; function in
handling food • 5 pairs of appendages for walking and protection (chelipeds; pincer-like
claws).
6. Abdomen is also highly variable, but primitively large Crustaceans with well-developed
abdomen usually possess six pairs of appendages:
7. Five pairs of structures called swimmerets (=pleopods); one pair of structures called
uropod, Uropod together with the terminal telson form a tail fan than can serve as rudders
during locomotion.
8. Exoskeleton often calcareous.
9. A posterior somite, the telson, contains the anus and bears no appendages.
10. They have a typical arthropod circulatory system with a heart having ostia, sometimes
reduced in small forms.
11. The first, and in various groups, up to seven other trunk segments are fused with the head
to form a cephalothorax.
12. The cephalothorax, and, in some groups, most or all of the body is enclosed in a carapace,
which extends laterally and overhangs the sides of the body.
13. The excretory system contains antennal glands or maxillary glands or both. 10.A median
eye and usually a pair of lateral eyes are present.
14. They are gonochoristic or rarely, hermaphrodite with internal fertilization through
copulation by means of gonopods or penes; location of gonopore is variable but often
thoracic.
15. Eggs usually carried by female or brooded inside specialised pouches; some hatch with
full complement of adult segments but some as nauplius larva.
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The primitive larva of crustaceans is called nauplius larva.
Nauplius larva
Crustacean classes
The following nine classes of the subphylum Crustacea, which were listed in the table in the last
unit, will be discussed very briefly:
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Class Cephalocarida
Small, blind, less than 4mm long; detritus feeding, bottom dwelling. Body divided into head,
thorax and abdomen without cephalothorax or carapace. Usually, hermaphrodite with paired
ovaries and testes sharing common duct.
Class Branchiopoda
A diverse group of mainly freshwater crustaceans. Small to vestigial head appendages (except
antennae); trunk segments are not fused to head; trunk segments with series of similar limbs that
decrease towards posterior; last few segments lack limbs. Limbs bear gills and supported by
hydrostatic pressure. Many are parthenogenetic and eggs are brooded.
Class Ostracoda
Very small, mostly marine, few terrestrial; less than 1mm long, rarely approaching 2mm. Short
oval body enclosed in bivalve often calcareous shell formed by carapace; like some bivalve
molluscs, the shell has adductor muscles for shutting the shell, but unlike them, the shell is shed
at each moult. No external sign of segmentation.
Class Mystacocarida
Minute, less than 1 mm long, elongate, no pigment, marine; distinguished by head which is
divided into small anterior and large posterior portion, and trunk of ten segments; first one bears
a maxilliped even though it is not fused to the head. Head appendages are large and used in
locomotion, trunk appendages are reduced, or are missing; the telson bears a large, pincer-like
furca.
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Class Copepoda
Dominant members of marine plankton and to some extent of that in fresh water as well. About
25% of all species are parasitic on animals ranging from sponges to whales. Most species are less
than 2 mm long; however, one free-living species is about 2 cm and an ectoparasite about 0.3 m
long. Basically, the body comprises a head, with well-developed mouthparts and antennae,
thorax of six segments bearing swimming limbs, abdomen with five segments and no
appendages. Parasitic species show various degrees of bodily degeneration, sometimes including
loss of segmentation and appendages.
Class Branchiura
Small, less than 3 cm long. Periodic ectoparasites of marine and freshwater fish. They are dorso-
ventrally flattened, with cephalothorax of head and first thoracic segment, a pereon of three
segments, and a bi-lobed unsegmented abdomen; the cephalothorax and, in some, much of the
pereon is covered by a large, flat carapace, and bears a pair of compound eyes. Head appendages
are either minute or modified for attachment. All four pairs of thoracic appendages are wholly or
partially incorporated into the cephalothorax and form swimming limbs; abdomen lacks
appendages. The eggs are attached to substratum or vegetation.
Class Cirripedia
The most highly modified of the Crustacea, being either sessile or dwellers in other organisms in
a parasitic manner. They are effectively headless, most lack an abdomen, and there is little or no
evident segmentation.
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The order Rhizocephala resemble a bracket fungus, with a network of fine tubes spreading
through all the tissues of the host and an external sac containing the gonads.
The order Ascothoracica parasitize cnidarians and echinoderms and are the least specialized
anatomically.
Class Malacostraca
By far the largest class, with about 23,000 species, and, it contains the greatest diversity of body
form than all the other classes; just one of its 16 orders, the Decapoda, includes such varied
organisms as crabs, crayfish, shrimps and hermitcrabs. Their main features are: a head, a thorax
with eight segments, and an abdomen with six (or rarely seven) segments; all these regions are
equipped with a full complement of segmental appendages, including the abdomen.
Class Remipedia
Represented by a single blind species only described from a marine cave, very little is known of
its biology. Body is smallish, elongate and translucent, less than 3 cm long. Has a short
cephalothorax of the head and first trunk segment; no carapace; long trunk of over 30 similar
segments; swims upside-down. A pair of rod-like processes in front of antennules.
NOTE:
About 40,000 crustacean species are known, distributed between nine classes, out of which over
75% are marine. The group is made up of crayfish, shrimps, crabs, barnacles, e.t.c. Crustaceans
are distinguished from other arthropods in having two pairs of antennae and biramous
appendages; they use gills for respiration.
Assignment
Briefly describe a named Crustacean under the following headings:
a. Locomotion
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b. Digestive system
c. Gaseous exchange
d. Circulatory system
e. Excretory System
f. Nervous System, and
g. Reproductive system
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