Entomostraca

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Entomostraca is a historical subclass of Crustacea, no longer in technical use, which includes the Phyllopoda, Branchiopoda, Ostracoda, Copepoda, and Pectostraca. The Ostracoda have the body enclosed in a bivalve shell-covering, and normally unsegmented. The Branchiopoda have a very variable number of body-segments, with or without a shield, simple or bivalved, and some of the post-oral appendages normally branchial. The Copepoda normally have a segmented body, not enclosed in a bivalved shell-covering, fewer than twelve segments, the limbs not branchial. Under the heading Crustacea, the Entomostraca have already been distinguished not only from the barnacles, but also from the Malacostraca.

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• WordNet Dictionary

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.