Publication details
Kôrovce (Crustacea) Crustaceans
| Title in English | Crustaceans (Crustacea) Crustaceans |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Chapter in a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Crustaceans are originally marine arthropods, both free-living and parasitic. Scientists have described about 67,000 recent species and many fossils. Their ancestors, which bore some of the characteristics of modern crustaceans, appeared in the Lower Cambrian period almost 570 million years ago. Crustaceans live in various waters, both marine and freshwater, surface and underground, and some have permanently left the aquatic environment. In terms of their taxonomic position, crustaceans are often referred to as a subphylum of the phylum Arthropoda, and in the traditional sense do not include insects (Hexapoda). According to the current classification, crustaceans are grouped together with insects in the monophyletic group Pancrustacea. In Slovakia, we have crustaceans representing five classes; in four of them, we have identified endangered species: branchiopods (Branchiopoda), characteristic especially for stagnant, drying and permanent waters, where they form a significant component of plankton; crustaceans (Malacostraca) inhabiting mainly the bottom of surface and underground waters, but also terrestrial environments; copepods (Copepoda), which form part of the plankton mainly in stagnant waters and flooded sediments (interstitial); and ostracods (Ostracoda), which often inhabit extreme biotopes. Translated with DeepL.com (free version) |