Phylum: Arthropoda

Subphylum: Chelicerata

Order: Xiphosura

Related to: spiders and scorpions

Lives in: Atlantic shore from Maine to Mexico

Eats: small invertebrates by crushing them between their legs,

Defence: Hard shell

Unique structure: 10 eyes

Interesting thing: Remained nearly unchanged for hundreds of millions of years

Group: Jasper Zack, Roderick Aldridge, Caden Wolf.

Classification: phylum, class, order, infraorder

Relatives: Ghost Crabs

Habitat: Coastal Salt Marshes, Mud-flats, Sandy + Muddy beaches

Lifestyle: They eat algae, bacteria, decaying plants, and animal matter. Their claws pick up and sift through sand, separating food and mud. Fiddler crabs are Scavengers that pick through the beach.

Defense/Offence: The male fiddler crab uses it’s enlarged claw to fend off predators. They also tend to form herds, or hide in burrows when faced with conflict.

Unique Structures: It's singular extremely large claw in comparison to the rest of it's body

Interesting Info: The Fiddler Crab was given it's name from their mating ritual that consists of moving their enlarged claw back and forth (mimicking a violin or fiddle)

Euphausia Superba

Classification

• Kingdom: Animalia

• Phylum: Arthropoda

• Subphylum: Crustacea

• Class: Malacostraca

• Order: Euphausiacea

• Family: Euphausiidae

• Genus: Euphausia

• Species: E. superba

What they are related to:

Artistic Krill are closely related to shrimp, lobsters, and other crustaceans.

Habitat: 

Arctic Krill live in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. 

• They live in cold nutrient dense waters. 

• Live in large swarms of up to 30,000 individuals per square meter. 

Lifestyle: 

• Diet: filter feeders primarily consuming phytoplankton 

• How they eat: Specialized thoracic legs to form a feeding basket to filter feed. 

Defensive or Offensive measures: 

• Defense: The massive swarms may confuse predators saving individual krill.

• Defense: These krill can produce light using photophores, which can be used to communicate and distract predators. 

Unique Structures: 

• Photophores, that light up. 

• Feeding basket, basket formed by legs to filter feed. 

• Exposed Gills, unusual for crustaceans, but it aids in respiration. 

Unique Information:

• Vital food source for many of the animals that live in the arctic. 

• Survive periods of food insecurity by shrinking and reabsorbing body tissue. 

• Undergo daily vertical migrations, spend the day in the deep and the night at the surface feeding. 

• Estimated biomass of krill is 400-500 million metric tons, making them one of the most abundant species on earth by biomass.

Phylum: Arthropod

Class: Malacostraca

Subclass: Hoplocarida

Related to: Crabs, Lobster

Habitat: Tropics

Diet: Fish, Crab, Worms, Shrimp

Defense Mechanisms: Spear and Hammer-like appendage

Unique Structures: 12-16 rods in their eyes that can see UV

Other info: The hammer strike is so fast that it causes bubbles to form and collapse in the water. This energy release creates an impressive force thousands of times the shrimp’s bodyweight that combines with the initial strike to smash open the shell of a mantis shrimp’s prey, killing the animal inside.

Phylum- Arthropod

Class- Malacostracans

Order- Decapods

Related to- Crab, shrimp, barnacles, and other species of lobster

Habitat- Warm tropical and subtropical waters worldwide. Primarily in coral reefs

Lifestyle- They are nocturnal hunters that feed primarily on crabs, clams, and snails

Defense mechanisms- Hiding in crevices, clinging to rocks, sharp spines, and rasping sounds as an alert.

Unique structures- They lack claws like most other marine lobsters, they have long spiny antennas as well as forward facing spines on their whole body

Classification: Arthropods, Malacostracans, Decapods, Brachyura

What kind of animals they are related to: they’re related to ghost crabs of the genus Ocypode.

Habitat where they live: soft sands and mud near the edges of salt marshes. 

Lifestyle, including what they eat, how they eat, how they hunt, or how they scavenge: he burrows in the mud during high tide, and during low tide he comes out to feed on little bits of food left in the sand from the retreating water. 

Any particular defensive or offensive mechanisms they possess: 

Defensive: may become immobile to confuse predators, can break off their major claw to escape predators, camouflage with algae and other materials, burrow to retreat.

Offensive: bluff their fighting ability with their giant claw, use their claw to protect their burrows and fight with other males.

Any structures unique to that particular animal: they have one giant claw

Any other unique or interesting information about the animal: only the males have one giant claw.

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Malacostraca

Order: Decapoda

Infraorder: Anomura

They're related to Squat Lobsters and Porcelain Crabs

Habitat: Coastal regions, particularly rocky shores and in tide pools. They also can be found in Andy beaches and seagrass beds.

Lifestyle: As omnivorous scavengers they crawl around on the sea floor looking for food. Since they live in borrowed shells, they look for new larger homes as they grow bigger.

Hermit crabs only possess a soft abdomen which is unique characteristic of their specimen, they're heavily reliant on finding another creatures shell to protect them.

Contrary to their name, Hermit crabs are especially social and travel in colonies.

Eric Kaegan Ananya

Classification: Phylum - Arthropod, Class - Malacostraca, Order - Euphausiacea

Relatives: Related to crustaceans like crab and lobster with a closer relationship to shrimp

Habitat: Found throughout the Southern Ocean, and as far north as the Antarctic Convergence. Antarctic krill inhabit areas that can exceed 4.0°C, yet they preferentially inhabit regions with temperatures of −1.5 to ≤1.5°C

Lifestyle: Travel in swarms, mainly as a defense against predators and spend daytime among the lower depths, rising to the surface at night to feed. Krill are mostly omnivorous, although they feed primarily on phytoplankton; a few species are carnivorous, preying on small zooplankton and fish larvae.

Protection: Krill are normally found in large swarms in which they are able to attack or defend themselves against predators. Krill also have an escape response to evade predators via flipping their tail. The motion can be triggered in 55 milliseconds

Unique Characteristics: 

• Antarctic krill grow up to 6 cm in length and can weigh 1 gram.

• Antarctic krill (and other krill species) are bioluminescent, meaning they produce light. Possible reasons for this production of light from specially adapted organs include communication and camouflage.

Other Information: 

• Krill swarms can be massive, reaching densities of 30,000 individuals in a cubic meter

• The total area of the ocean inhabited by Antarctic krill is estimated to cover up to 32 million square kilometers. This is larger than the size of Africa, or 11% of Earth’s total ocean area.

• Antarctic krill are a key species, supporting populations of penguins, seals, whales and other marine life.

Phylum: Arthropod

Class: Malacostracans

Order: Decapods

Related to: Shrimp, crabs, lobster, crayfish

Habitat: Rock pools/ Shallow waters

What they eat: Seaweed, algae, small invertebrates

How they eat: Using claws and mouthparts

How they hunt/scavenge: Claws and legs to grasp food

Defensive/Offensive mechanisms: Claws

Interesting information: Omnivorous, mainly microorganisms