Lepidurus apus

Lepidurus apus, commonly known as tadpole shrimp and belongs to the family triopsidae, which are a lineage of shrimps that have been around in a similar form since the Triassic period and are considered living fossils, and are found in several countries spread throughout the world. They have a long segmented abdomen with a carapace and large numbers of paddle like legs for movement. The species reproduces by a mixture of sexual reproduction and self-fertilisation of females.

Description

Lepidurus apus are known to grow from 42mm-60mm in length and have a long multi segmented abdomen divided up into around 30 ring like sections, with two caudal filaments attached behind the last ring. They have a single pair of compound eyes, a flat carapace with an average length of 19mm that covers up to two thirds of the abdomen that is a mottled dark yellow/brown colour that transitions to a lighter edge. It wraps around most of its body attached only at the front, with its abdomen being multi-segmented with two long protruding tails. At the front of the abdomen are one or more (up to three) sets of feelers. On the bottom of the body are between 41-46 sets of paddle like limbs they use to swim with an average of 44 leg pairs. Males are readily identifiable by the lack of ovisacs found as well as subtle differences in it carapace. Females and hermaphrodites are virtually the same in appearance however the presence of testicular lobes in amongst the ovarian lobes in the hermaphrodites allows them to reproduce in isolation.

Apus

Apus is a faint constellation in the southern sky, first defined in the late 16th century. Its name means "no feet" in Greek, and it represents a bird-of-paradise (which were once believed to lack feet). Its genitive is "Apodis".

History

Apus was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It first appeared on a 35 cm diameter celestial globe published in 1597 or 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. Plancius called the constellation Paradysvogel Apis Indica; the first word is Dutch for "bird of paradise", of genus Pteridophora, but the others are Latin for "Indian Bee". Apis (Latin for "bee") is presumably an error for avis ("bird").

The name Apus is derived from the Greek apous, meaning "without feet". This referred to the Western misconception that the bird-of-paradise had no feet, which arose because the only specimens available in the West had their feet and wings removed. Such specimens began to arrive in Europe in 1522, when the survivors of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition brought them home.

Apus (Chinese astronomy)

The modern constellation Apus is not included in the Three Enclosures and Twenty-Eight Mansions system of traditional Chinese uranography because its stars are too far south for observers in China to know about them prior to the introduction of Western star charts. Based on the work of Xu Guangqi and the German Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell in the late Ming Dynasty, this constellation has been classified as one of the 23 Southern Asterisms (近南極星區, Jìnnánjíxīngōu) under the name Exotic Bird (異雀, Yìquè).

The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is 天燕座 (tiān yàn zuò), meaning "the heaven swallow constellation".

Stars

The map of Chinese constellation in constellation Apus area consists of :

See also

References

External links

Apus (disambiguation)

Apus is a constellation.

Apus or APUS may also refer to:

See also