Tantulocaridans: Tantulocarida - Physical Characteristics, Behavior And Reproduction, No Common Name (itoitantulus Misophricola): Species Account - GEOGRAPHIC RANGE, HABITAT, DIET, TANTULOCARIDANS AND PEOPLE, CONSERVATION STATUS
south hosts ocean north
Very little is know about the distribution of these animals because of their small size. They are currently known to live in the North and South Pacific, North and South Atlantic, Arctic, and Antarctic oceans.
Tantulocaridans spend most of their lives attached to other marine crustaceans living on the ocean floor. Their hosts include cumaceans, tanaids, isopods, amphipods, copepods, and ostracods. Some larval stages are also found in mud or sand on the ocean bottom.
Tantulocaridans are external parasites and feed on the body fluids of their hosts.
Tantulocaridans do not impact people or their activities.
No tantulocaridans are considered threatened or endangered.
Additional Topics
Tantulocaridans (tan-too-loh-KAR-ee-dans) are very strange-looking animals that are external parasites on other deep-sea crustaceans. External parasites spend most of their lives attached to the bodies of their hosts. The larvae (LAR-vee), or young animal form, are very, very small, measuring from 0.00335 to 0.00709 inches (0.0085 to 0.0018 millimeters) in length. The head does not have any append…
Very little is known about the behavior of tantulocaridans, especially about how they find and attach themselves to their hosts. After leaving their mothers, larvae spend some time burrowing on the sea bottom before attaching themselves to a crustacean living on or near the ocean bottom. Tantulocaridans have a very strange double life cycle. Part of the life cycle involves sac-shaped females that …
Physical characteristics: The larvae have long appendages on the tips of their abdomens. The thoracic limbs are used for swimming; the last pair has a long, curved spine on each tip. The sac where adult males or females develop is formed behind the sixth thoracic segment. Males have an unsegmented abdomen with distinct appendages on the tip. Geographic range: Itoitantulus misophricola (abbreviated…
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