Definition: A taxon is Data Deficient when there is inadequate information to make a direct, or indirect, assessment of its risk of extinction based on its distribution and/or population status. A taxon in this category may be well studied, and its biology well known, but appropriate data on abundance and/or distribution are lacking. Data Deficient is therefore \r\nnot a category of threat. Listing of taxa in this category indicates that more information is \r\nrequired and acknowledges the possibility that future research will show that threatened \r\nclassification is appropriate. It is important to make positive use of whatever data are available. In many cases great care should be exercised in choosing between DD and a threatened status. If the range of a taxon is suspected to be relatively circumscribed, and a considerable period of time has elapsed since the last record of the taxon, threatened status may well be justified.
Definition: The marine benthic biome (benthic meaning 'bottom') encompasses the seafloor and includes such areas as shores, littoral or intertidal areas, marine coral reefs, and the deep seabed.
Definition: A habitat that is in or on a body of water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids (<0.5 grams dissolved salts per litre).
Definition: Drag swimmers use a cyclic motion where they push water back in a power stroke, and return their limb forward in the return or recovery stroke. When they push water directly backwards, this moves their body forward, but as they return their limbs to the starting position, they push water forward, which will thus pull them back to some degree, and so opposes the direction that the body is heading. This opposing force is called drag. The return-stroke drag causes drag swimmers to employ different strategies than lift swimmers. Reducing drag on the return stroke is essential for optimizing efficiency.
Definition: "Caridoid escape reaction": innate escape mechanism in marine and freshwater crustaceans; rapid abdominal flexions that produce powerful swimming strokes, thrusting the crustacean backwards through the water and away from danger.
Definition: A structural quality inhering in a bearer by virtue of the bearer's being thicker or more closely packed together; pressed tightly together.
Definition: Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Paris, France. URL for main institutional website: http://www.mnhn.fr/museum/foffice/science/science/sommaire.xsp
Definition: Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Paris, France. URL for main institutional website: http://www.mnhn.fr/museum/foffice/science/science/sommaire.xsp
Definition: A compound eye with no separation between the crystalline-cone layer and the retinula, each rhabdom receiving light only from its own corneal lens.
Definition: superposition compound eyes where each ommatidium is equipped with a set of plane mirrors, aligned at right angles, forming a square. Rays entering the eye at an oblique angle encounter two surfaces of each mirror box rather than one surface. In this case, the pair of mirrors at right angles acts as a corner reflector. Corner reflectors reflect an incoming ray through 180 degrees, irrespective of the ray’s original direction. This ensures that all parallel rays reach the same focal point and means that the eye as a whole has no single axis, which allows the eye to operate over a wide angle.
Definition: superposition compound eyes where each ommatidium is equipped with a set of plane mirrors, aligned at right angles, forming a square. Rays entering the eye at an oblique angle encounter two surfaces of each mirror box rather than one surface. In this case, the pair of mirrors at right angles acts as a corner reflector. Corner reflectors reflect an incoming ray through 180 degrees, irrespective of the ray’s original direction. This ensures that all parallel rays reach the same focal point and means that the eye as a whole has no single axis, which allows the eye to operate over a wide angle.
