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The telson is the last division of the body of a crustacean
Crustacean

Crustaceans are a large group of arthropods, comprising almost 52,000 described species , and are usually treated as a subphylum . They include various familiar animals, such as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles....
. It is not considered a true segment because it does not arise in the embryo from teloblast areas as do real segments. It never carries any appendage
Appendage

An appendage in the broadest sense is an additional or subsidiary part existing on, or added to, something which can generally still function if the appendage has never existed or is later provided or grown, or will still perform a primary function if the appendage is removed....
s, but a forked "tail" called the caudal furca is often present.






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Penaeus Diagram Telson
The telson is the last division of the body of a crustacean
Crustacean

Crustaceans are a large group of arthropods, comprising almost 52,000 described species , and are usually treated as a subphylum . They include various familiar animals, such as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles....
. It is not considered a true segment because it does not arise in the embryo from teloblast areas as do real segments. It never carries any appendage
Appendage

An appendage in the broadest sense is an additional or subsidiary part existing on, or added to, something which can generally still function if the appendage has never existed or is later provided or grown, or will still perform a primary function if the appendage is removed....
s, but a forked "tail" called the caudal furca is often present. Together with the uropods, the telson forms the tail fan of lobster
Lobster

Clawed lobsters compose a family of large marine crustaceans. Lobsters are economically important as seafood, forming the basis of a global industry that nets United States dollar1.8 billion in trade annually....
s, shrimp
Shrimp

Shrimp are swimming, Decapoda crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh water and seawater. Adult shrimp are Filter feeder benthic animals living close to the bottom....
 and other decapods
Decapoda

The decapods or Decapoda are an order of crustaceans within the class Malacostraca, including many familiar groups, such as crayfish, crabs, lobsters, prawns and shrimp....
. These are used as a paddle in the caridoid escape reaction
Caridoid escape reaction

The Caridoid Escape Reaction, also known as lobstering or tail-flipping, refers to an innate escape mechanism in marine and freshwater crustaceans such as lobsters, krill, shrimp and crayfish....
 ("lobstering"), whereby an alarmed animal rapidly flexes its tail, causing it to dart backwards. Krill
Krill

Krill are a type of shrimp-like marine invertebrate animal. These small crustaceans are important organisms of the zooplankton, particularly as food for baleen whales, manta rays, whale sharks, crabeater seals, and other pinniped, and a few seabird species that feed almost exclusively on them....
 can reach speeds of over 60 cm per second by this means. The trigger
Induction (biology)

Induction, in biology, refers to the initiation or cause of a change or process, such as the production of a specific morphogenetic effect in the developing embryo....
 time to optical stimulus
Stimulus (physiology)

In physiology, a stimulus is a detectable change in the internal or external environment. When a stimulus is applied to a sensory receptor, it elicits or influences a Reflex action via Transduction ....
 is, in spite of the low temperatures, only 55 ms.

The same term telson is widely used (e. g. invertebrate textbooks such as Ruppert & Barnes, 1994 and Brusca & Brusca, 2003) for the caudal spine of Chelicerata
Chelicerata

The subphylum Chelicerata constitutes one of the major subdivisions of the phylum Arthropoda, and includes horseshoe crabs, scorpions, spiders and mites....
, clearly seen in a number of fossil species and for example in the horseshoe crabs and the scorpion
Scorpion

Scorpions are any arachnid of the order Scorpionida. They are members of the order Scorpiones within the class Arachnida. There are about 2,000 species of scorpions, found widely distributed south of about Latitude, except New Zealand and Antarctica....
 sting. Usage of this word in this context is discouraged. Lauterbach (1980) provided a fine discussion on this, with many illustrations.