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Crustaceans Categories The crustaceans (Crustacea) are a large group of arthropods, comprising almost 52,000 described species , and are usually treated as a subphylum .They include various familiar animals, such as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp and barnacles. The majority of them are aquatic, living in either marine or fresh water environments, but a few groups have adapted to life on land, such as terrestrial crabs, terrestrial hermit crabs and woodlice. Crustaceans are among the most successful animals, and are as abundant in the oceans as insects are on land. Over half of the animals in the world are marine copepod crustaceans. The majority of crustaceans are also motile, moving about independently, although a few taxonomic units 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 headfirst to the substrate and cannot move independently. Although most crustaceans are small, their morphology varies greatly and they include such large animals as lobsters 70 cm long and spider crabs with a leg span of nearly 4 m.
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