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Onychopoda
Suborder of small freshwater animals From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Onychopoda, from Ancient Greek ὄνυχος (ónukhos), meaning "claw", and πούς poús, meaning "foot", are a specialised order of branchiopod crustaceans, belonging to the superorder Cladocera.
The order Onychopoda is "one of the most morphologically distinctive groups of cladocerans".[2] They have only four pairs of legs, compared to five or six pairs in Ctenopoda and Anomopoda.[3] Unusually among branchiopod crustaceans, Onychopoda share with Haplopoda the presence of segmented appendages, which are used for grasping prey.[4]
Most species of Onychopoda live in the waters of the Ponto-Caspian basin (Caspian Sea, Aral Sea, Black Sea including Sea of Azov), in remnants of the ancient Paratethys ocean.[5] Some other species live in fresh water or in the oceans, where they can be widespread.[5] The Onychopoda have accidentally been introduced to areas outside of their native range.[6]
There are three families, containing 10 genera and around 33 described species, most of which are endemic to the Ponto-Caspian basin:[2]
- Cercopagididae Mordukhai-Boltovskoi, 1968 – 2 genera (Cercopagis and Bythotrephes), 14 species; Black Sea & Caspian Sea
- Podonidae Mordukhai-Boltovskoi, 1968 – 7 genera, 17 species; Pont-Caspian (Caspievadne, Cornigerius and Podonevadne) and marine (Evadne, Pleopis, Podon and Pseudevadne)
- Polyphemidae Baird, 1845 – 1 genus (Polyphemus), 2 species; fresh water
The embryos are protected by a brood pouch, which also secretes nutrients to aid their development. This may be related to the colonisation of the oceans, since the only other marine cladoceran, Penilia avirostris, has a similar pouch as a result of convergent evolution.[2]
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