Image Key > Copepoda > Calanoida

Select from one of the following Families:

Acartiidae	Calanidae	Centropagidae	Clausocalanidae
Paracalanidae	Pontellidae	Sulcanidae	Temoridae

• Includes 43 families and approximately 2000 species (marine and freshwater).

• Long, usually slender body.
• Long antennules.
• Geniculate antennae in males.
• Gymnoplean tagmosis (boundary between fifth pedigerous somite and genital somite).
• Fifth leg biramous .

• Worldwide.
• Animals in this group usually outnumber all other taxa in the marine zooplankton.

• Drift in water column often hanging motionless.
• Locomotion by slowly sinking or by swimming smoothly in circles or spirals by rapidly vibrating the second antennae.
• Can respond to danger quickly by upward darting jumps carried out by the thoracopods.
• Many species have been observed to undergo diel vertical migration; feeding at the surface layers at night and migrating deeper during the day.
• Mostly herbivores.
• Suspension feeders; continuous feeding current created by head appendages.
• Larval development metamorphic. Embryos carried in single or paired sacs. Eggs can also be deposited externally. Long, usually slender body.