Arthropodan.
/ˌɑːθrəˈpəʊdə/, /ɑːˈθrɒpədə/, U.S. /ˌɑrθrəˈpoʊdə/, /ɑrˈθrɑpədə/ Zoology.
With plural (or occasionally singular) agreement: a very large and diverse invertebrate phylum (or superphylum) that comprises insects and myriapods, arachnids and other chelicerates, crustaceans, and smaller related groups characterized by a segmented, bilaterally symmetrical body with a rigid chitinous exoskeleton and paired, jointed limbs. Also with plural agreement (also in form arthropoda): animals of this phylum (collectively or individually); arthropods.It has been estimated that Arthropoda may include 80 per cent of all living animal species. Until the mid 19th cent. the arthropod groups were classed with the segmented worms in a phylum called Annulosa or Articulata, but they were then distinguished as a separate phylum. There is some debate as to whether the major arthropod groups are directly related to each other, but many systems continue to classify the groups together, often ranking them as phyla and regarding Arthropoda as a superphylum.
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the world > animals > invertebrates > phylum Arthropoda > [noun]
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Arthropoda1854
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1854 W. I. Burnett tr. C. T. E. von Siebold in tr. C. T. E. von Siebold & H. Stannius Compar. Anat. I. 151 The Annelides..resemble the Arthropoda, but at the same time differ from them in having a completely closed vascular system.
1870 G. Rolleston Forms Animal Life Introd. 105 Accordingly, as the respiration is aquatic or aerial, the Arthropoda are divisible into two great groups.
1922 Encycl. Brit. XXXI. 896/1 Such arthropoda..being specific ‘nurses’ or intermediary hosts of the parasite actually causing the disease, are known as ‘carriers’ or ‘vectors’.
1949 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) B. 233 486 The two functions..are completely dissociated in many Arthropoda.
1961 J. Stubblefield Davies's Introd. Palaeontol. (ed. 3) v. 126 Shell-growth in the Arthropoda is totally unlike that of Brachiopoda and Mollusca. The exoskeleton is not secreted by a mantle but by the whole surface of a complex jointed body.
1971 J. E. Smith et al. Invertebr. Panorama iii. 25 Of the twenty-three phyla, one, the Arthropoda (crustaceans, insects, spiders etc.), is of colossal proportions..with almost a million (8 × 105) species of animals with segmented, skeleton-encased bodies.
2004 B. Morris Insects & Human Life 3 Insects belong to that great group of invertebrate animals known as Arthropoda (those with jointed legs).
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2008; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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