Definition of Malacostraca

1. Noun. Largest subclass of Crustacea including most of the well-known marine, freshwater, and terrestrial crustaceans: crabs; lobsters; shrimps; sow bugs; beach flies.


Definition of Malacostraca

1. n. pl. A subclass of Crustacea, including Arthrostraca and Thoracostraca, or all those higher than the Entomostraca.

Medical Definition of Malacostraca

1. A subclass of Crustacea, including Arthrostraca and Thoracostraca, or all those higher than the Entomostraca. Origin: NL, from Gr. Soft + shell of a testacean. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Malacostraca

malacologies
malacologist
malacologists
malacology
malaconotid
malaconotids
malacopoda
malacopterygian
malacopterygians
malacopterygii
malacopterygious
malacosis
malacosteon
malacostomous
malacostraca (current term)
malacostracan
malacostracan crustacean
malacostracans
malacostracology
malacostracous
malacotic
malacotomy
malacotoon
malacozoa
malacozoic
malactic
maladaptation
maladaptations
maladapted

Literary usage of Malacostraca

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. Fresh-water Biology by Henry Baldwin Ward, George Chandler Whipple (1918)
"To the higher Crustaceans (subclass malacostraca) belong such forms as the ... The great majority of the malacostraca belong to the sea, occurring in all ..."

2. A Manual of Zoology by Richard Hertwig (1912)
"Sub Class V. malacostraca. The malacostraca are sharply marked off from the other Crustacea by having a body which consists of twenty segments, ..."

3. A Treatise on Comparative Embryology by Francis Maitland Balfour (1880)
"This however is far from the case in existing malacostraca, and Fritz Miiller commences ... This he regards as an ancestral character of the malacostraca, ..."

4. Text-book of the Embryology of Invertebrates by Eugen Korschelt, Karl Heider, Edward Laurens Mark, William McMichael Woodworth, Matilda Bernard, Martin Fountain Woodward (1899)
"... from the primitive malacostraca. While the form of the heart, and perhaps also the arrangement of the hepatic tubes, indicate a primitive condition, ..."

5. Economic Zoology: An Introductory Text-book in Zoology, with Special by Herbert Osborn (1908)
"SUBCLASS malacostraca These are larger and more specialized forms, the body segments being quite constant in number, five of which may be referred to ..."

6. The Microscope and Its Revelations by William Benjamin Carpenter (1883)
"malacostraca.—The chief points of interest to the Micro- scopist in the more highly organized forms of Crustacea, are furnished by the structure of the ..."

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