Image: Orconectes pellucidus (cave crayfish) (Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, USA)
Description: (public domain photo provided by the American National Park Service) Orconectes pellucidus (Tellkampf, 1844) - cave crayfish in Kentucky, USA. The crustaceans are a large group of arthropods that inhabit marine, marginal marine, freshwater, and terrestrial habitats. The crustaceans include crabs, lobsters, shrimp, crayfish, barnacles, ostracods, and other organisms. The oldest fossil crustaceans are in the Cambrian. The group experienced a significant radiation in the oceans during the Mesozoic Marine Revolution. Cave crayfish lack the dark-colored exoskeleton present in surface species. Instead, the exoskeleton is light-colored and translucent. Classification: Animalia, Arthropoda, Crustacea, Malacostraca, Decapoda, Cambaridae
Locality: undisclosed underground river/stream in Mammoth Cave, west-central Kentucky, USA
Author: James St. John
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License: CC-BY-SA-3.0
License Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Attribution Required?: Yes
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