Portal:Arthropods

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Arthropods make up the largest phylum of animals (Phylum Arthropoda) and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans and others. More than 80% of described living animal species are arthropods, with over a million modern species described and a fossil record reaching back to the late Proterozoic era. Arthropods are common throughout marine, freshwater, terrestrial, and even aerial environments, and includes various symbiotic and parasitic forms. They range in size from microscopic plankton (~¼ mm) up to forms several metres across. Arthropods are characterised by the possession of a segmented body with appendages on each segment. They have a dorsal heart and a ventral nervous system. All arthropods are covered by a hard exoskeleton made of chitin, a polysaccharide which protects against trauma and desiccation. They shed this covering periodically when moulting.

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A blue-grey slipper-lobster with rust cloured stippling on a seabed of similar blue-grey. It has black eyes and orange appendages and antennules. The lobster is seen facing towards the right and front and has a prominent shadow below it.
Scyllarides latus, the Mediterranean slipper lobster, is a species of slipper lobster found in the Mediterranean Sea and in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. It is edible and highly regarded as food, but is now rare over much of its range due to overfishing. S. latus can grow to a total body length about 45 centimetres (18 in), although rarely more than 30 cm (12 in). An individual may weigh as much as 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb). As in all slipper lobsters, the second pair of antennae are enlarged and flattened into "shovels" or "flippers". They have no claws, and rely on camouflaged and their tough exoskeleton for protection. They are nocturnal, emerging from caves and other shelters during the night to feed on molluscs.

As well as being eaten by humans, S. latus is also preyed upon by a variety of bony fish. Its closest relative is S. herklotsii, which occurs off the Atlantic coast of West Africa; other species of Scyllarides occur in the western Atlantic Ocean and the Indo-Pacific. The larvae and young animals are largely unknown.

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The head of a large ant, seen from above, emphasising the large mandibles.
Cscr-featured.svg Credit: Fir0002

Myrmecia (bulldog ants, bull ants, inch ants, sergeant ants, jumper ants or Jack jumper ants) is a genus of ants. They can grow to over 40 mm (1.6 in) long, and almost all of the approximately 90 species are endemic to Australia.

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indicates an extinct taxon.

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Template:/box-header Here are some tasks you can do:

  • Start a new article. Arthropods cover an huge range of taxa and other topics, so there will always be plenty of missing articles. Some which have been explicitly requested are listed here.
  • Clean up existing articles. Lists of articles needing cleanup are available either grouped by the work needed or ungrouped.
  • Expand an existing article. Existing articles are often incomplete and missing information on key aspects of the topic. It is particularly important that the most widely read articles be broad in their scope. Wikipedia:WikiProject Arthropods/Popular pages (updated monthly) shows the number of views each article gets, along with assessments of its quality and importance. Articles with higher importance ratings and greater numbers of views are the priority for article improvements, but almost all our articles would benefit from expansion. Stubs can be found in Category:Arthropod stubs and its subcategories.

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