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Suborder of small freshwater animals From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Onychopoda are a specialised order of branchiopod crustaceans, belonging to the superorder Cladocera.
| Onychopoda | |
|---|---|
| |
| Evadne spinifera | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Branchiopoda |
| Superorder: | Diplostraca |
| Order: | Onychopoda Sars, 1865 [1] |
| Families | |
|
Cercopagididae Mordukhai-Boltovskoi, 1968 | |
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]
There are three families, containing 10 genera and around 33 described species, most of which are endemic to the Ponto-Caspian basin:[2]
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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