What is an Isopod?

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About Isopod

Isopods are an order of invertebrates (animals without backbones) that belong to the greater crustacean group of animals, which includes crabs and shrimp.
Scientists estimate that there are around 10,000 species of isopods (all belonging to the order “Isopoda”).
They also live in many different types of habitats, from mountains and deserts to the deep sea, and they are distributed worldwide.
Features:
- They are one of the most morphologically diverse of all the crustacean groups, coming in many different shapes and sizes and ranging from micrometers to a half-meter in length.
- Isopods often do not look alike, but they do have common features. For example, all isopods have two pairs of antennae, compound eyes, and four sets of jaws.
- The body of all isopods consists of seven segments, each with its own pair of walking legs.
- Isopods have a short abdominal section composed of six segments, called “pleons,” and one or more of these segments is fused into a tail section.
- Each pleon has a set of biramous (branching in two) limbs called “pleopods” that are used for swimming and respiration.
- About half of the known species of isopods live in the ocean. Others live in coastal and shelf waters, moving around on the seafloor or living in plants.
- Most are free-living, but a number of marine species are parasitic on other animals.

Q1) What are crustaceans?

Crustaceans (make up a very large group of the Arthropods which include the crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill, barnacles, brine shrimp, copepods, ostracods and mantis shrimp. They are invertebrates with a hard exoskeleton (carapace), a segmented body that is bilaterally symmetrical, more than four pairs of jointed appendages. Crustaceans are found in a wide range of habitats – most are free-living freshwater or marine animals, but some are terrestrial (e.g. woodlice), some are parasitic (e.g. fish lice) and some do not move (e.g. barnacles)

Source: New deep-sea crustacean discovered in Bahamas