King Crabs - Classification and Evolution Part 1

This video is about the taxonomy and evolution of king crabs, family Lithodidae. These crustaceans are fascinating, as they are actually not related to the true crabs (like Dungeness crab, blue crab, snow crab, etc) but are highly modified hermit crabs. In the north Pacific we have 19 species of king crab. It is thought that this family evolved in the north Pacific.

With the exception of two (which are credited) all of the photos and video clips used are mine.

In part one I discuss the classification:

Phylum Arthropoda
Subphylum Crustacea
Class Malacostraca
Order Decapoda
Suborder Pleocyemata
Infraorder Anomura
Superfamily Paguroidea
Family Lithodidae

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Crustaceans
• evolution
• crabs
• decapod
• decapoda
• King
• Crab
• anomura
• hermit
• transitionals
• descent

[cssflames1691]

im doing a report on king crabs, this helped alot thx!

[LithodidMan]

If you need any additional resources (photos, etc) let me know.

[KengLouHung]

Super cool, dude! Rock on :D

[codemonkeyslikeme]

Hey thx! Crabs just recently became my fav animal since i kept it's claw after eating it. They look awsum!!!

[cssflames1691]

im actually looking for any video footage of the live king crab in its environment, like a documentary or something. So far ive had no luck.

[Terrencje]

You should come to the Netherlands and be my professor :))

cool video, I personally love hearing about taxonomy because it shows the diverging pattern of evolution.

[wolfwing1]

cool thanks for the neat stuff :> I'm more a cat person, but still love learning about stuff, we really never realize or think about just how diverse things that look simular are.

[StevoDog21]

Great video!

Most of us are grossly underinformed on Crustacean taxonomy, and that was an excellent point about the existence of living transitional species.

[LithodidMan]

Thanks, I know taxonomy can be tedious. Personally I love it and can talk about it all day.