Friendly Crustaceans Under the Sea Quiz

Answer: carcinology

From thefreedictionary.com: "the department of Zoology which treats of the Crustacea (lobsters, crabs, etc.)"

Other names for the same study include crustalogy, crustaceology, and malacostracology.

Answer: No

The majority of crustaceans are either marine (sea-dwelling) or freshwater creatures, but a few of them have adapted to living partly on land. Terrestrial crabs and hermit crabs are just a couple of examples.

Answer: They grow a new shell

There are different groups of crustaceans that are officially classed as lobsters, but people usually mean the family of clawed lobsters when they say simply 'lobster'. Lobsters continue to grow in size for as long they live, which many experts believe could be indefinitely, if they are not captured, attacked in the wild or become diseased.

As lobsters grow, they molt; they discard their old shell, eat it, and grow a new one.

Answer: omnivore

Crabs primarily eat algae, a plant-like sea organism, but will also eat other small creatures such as worms, bacteria, or mollusks. The mixed diet is believed to be the key to the fastest growing and most fit crabs. Shrimp and crayfish are also omnivores, but most species of lobsters are carnivores.

Answer: False

There are a few species of hermaphroditic crustaceans, such as Thoracican barnacles and remipedes, but most species have either males or females. The difference between the sexes can be distinguished by the pleopods - appendages on the abdomen. In males, the pleopods are specialized for sperm transfer.

In some species of crustaceans, the females are 'born pregnant'; they carry with them their eggs, attached to their swimmerets (swimming legs) until they hatch into larvae which can swim on their own.

This makes males unnecessary in some species.

Answer: 10

Clawed lobsters belong to the order of decapods, meaning ten feet. When just looking at a lobster, you might think you count only eight feet. This is because their front legs have evolved into the claws, but they are still considered feet and not hands.

Answer: False

Crabs can often be aggressive. Males are known to fight for females, for food, and for the best hiding spots.

Answer: Both of these

Shrimp have lamellar gills (meaning thin and plate-like), whereas prawns have branching gills. The simplest way to visually distinguish a shrimp from a prawn, though, is by looking at the second abdominal segment. In shrimps, the second segment overlaps both the first and third segments. The second abdominal segment of a prawn overlaps only the third segment.

Answer: lobster

Arthropoda (meaning "jointed feet") is the phylum under which crustaceans fall. Insects and arachnids are also arthropods. The Guinness World Record for the largest lobster ever caught was 44.4 lbs, in Nova Scotia, Canada. Some species of crab can sometimes be called the largest crustaceans, in terms of leg span (up to 4 metres!) rather than weight.

Answer: crayfish

Crayfish are also called crawfish or crawdads, especially in the Southern US (though in Australia and New Zealand the term 'crayfish' describes sea-water spiny lobsters). Crayfish are closely related to lobsters and crabs. They have feather-like gills and are typically found in freshwater bodies, like brooks and streams. Having fresh water running is important because many species of crayfish cannot survive in polluted water.