Furry lobster | |
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Palinurellus gundlachi | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Arthropoda |
Class: | Malacostraca |
Order: | Decapoda |
Suborder: | Pleocyemata |
Infraorder: | Achelata |
Family: | Palinuridae |
Groups included | |
Furry lobsters (sometimes called coral lobsters) are small decapod crustaceans, closely related to the slipper lobsters and spiny lobsters.[1] The antennae are not as enlarged as in spiny and slipper lobsters, and the body is covered in short hairs, hence the name furry lobster. Although previously considered a family in their own right (Synaxidae Spence Bate, 1881), the furry lobsters were subsumed into the family Palinuridae in 1990.[2] Subsequent molecular phylogenetics studies have confirmed that the furry lobsters genera don't form a natural group and were both nested among the spiny lobster genera in family Palinuridae.[1] The family now includes the two furry lobster genera and ten spiny lobster genera.[3]