Ostracod Research at the Lake Biwa Museum, Japan

Robin James Smith

OSTRACODA

Ostracoda: Related to crabs, shrimps and lobsters, the Ostracoda (seed shrimps) are a group of tiny aquatic crustaceans, typically 0.3 to 5 mm in length. One of their defining characters is a mineralized, bivalved shell that completely covers the non-mineralized parts of the body. This shell can become a fossil in the right conditions, so that ostracods are the most abundantly preserved arthropods in the fossil record.

From their fossils, we know that they have been around for at least 450 million years, and since then have survived all of the earth's mass extinctions. They continue to be a very diverse group today, with thousands of species described, but still many more not yet discovered. They can be found from the deep seas through to the earth's highest plateaus.