What are the names of the different outside body parts of yabbies; how do you tell male from female?
Yabbies and other arthropods evolved from marine worm-like animals with a simpler, more uniform body of 20 similar, articulated segments, each with a pair of double- branched “legs” (biramous appendages). (Inside these worms had a gut and nerve cord running from the mouth to the tail end. At the mouth end the nerve cord was barely enlarged, the primitive head-brain.) In yabbies these segments and appendages can still be identified, but many segments are highly modified and fused and different pairs of appendages are also highly modified for particular purposes. Some of the scientific names for body parts and their purposes or functions, which you may care to know to understand this animal, are mentioned in the following brief description. The front half of a Yabby is called the cephalothorax (head-chest) with 14 segments (6 head, 8 thorax). The first pairs of appendages are the sensory feelers for smell and touch called antennae and antennules, followed by various, small mouthparts use
