Crustacea

Research conducted in our laboratory focuses on biodiversity and phylogenetic relationships within and among the various crustacean lineages. Crustaceans are members of the phylum Arthropoda. They are primarily marine, but many also inhabit freshwater and terrestrial habitats from the deep-sea to the highest mountain lakes. More than 52,000 species of crabs, shrimps, lobsters and their close relatives have been described; that figure is twice the number of all amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals combined! Although the insects still rule in terms of numbers, the crustaceans are the most diverse in terms of form. The largest of the crustaceans include the the giant Japanese spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi) with its four-meter legspan, the Alaskan king crab (Paralithodes camtschatica), which can weigh more than 10 kilograms, and the giant Tasmanian crab (Pseudocarcinus gigas), which has been recorded at an impressive 14 kilograms. On the other end of the spectrum, some crustaceans never grow larger than 0.25 millimeters, even as adults. Crabs, shrimps, and lobsters are well-known crustaceans. However, barnacles, pillbugs, amphipods, copepods, krill, crayfishes, sea fleas, clam shrimps, fairy shrimps, and many others also belong to the Crustacea, an ancient group that arose in the early Cambrian nearly 600 million years ago.

Joel W. Martin, Curator	jmartin@nhm.org	1.213.763.3440
George E. Davis, Collections Manager	gdavis@nhm.org	1.213.763.3450
Regina Wetzer, Research Scientist	rwetzer@nhm.org	1.213.763.3217
Todd A. Haney, Graduate Student-in-Residence	haney@ucla.edu
Sandra E. Trautwein, Graduate Student-in-Residence	strautwein@lbaop.org

Lab Alumni

Sarah Lyn Boyce, Curatorial Asst., Museum of Comparative Zoology	sboyce@oeb.harvard.edu
Todd L. Zimmerman, Asst. Prof., Long Island University	todd.zimmerman@liu.edu

Assembling the Tree of Life: Decapoda
Crustacea Glossary
Biodiversity of Caribbean Invertebrates, Guana Island
Deep Arthropod Phylogeny Project
Monographic Research of Leptostracans, Conchostracans, and Brachyuran Crabs
Isopod Systematics
NSF Biodiversity Workshop

Support

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Crustacea Laboratory is supported by the National Science Foundation (grants DEB-9972100, DEB-PEET-9978193, DEB-0074423, DEB-BE:0120635, DEB-0129317, and DBI-0138674) and benefits from research funds from the Australian Museum (Centre for Evolutionary Research and Division of Invertebrate Zoology), Falconwood Corporation, and an anonymous private donor.

Collections

Our collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County are the second largest Crustacea collections in the United States and the fifth largest in the world. We house 130,000 specimen lots (each lot may contain 1 to several hundred individuals). We estimate that our Crustacea Collections currently contain 4-5 million individual specimens. Our historical collections' strength is the Eastern Pacific Crustacea, however our present collections are worldwide in scope with broad representation from the Indian, Pacific, and Antarctic oceans.