Arthropods

All arthropods apart from most insects have wings.

The lobster fits the description quite nicely of five leg pairs (order Decapoda), two antenna pairs (the biramous characteristic of crustaceans) and two body sections (cephalothorax, and abdomen or tail).

Nope, it's a mollusc, just like slugs and snails. It's in another phylum. Arthropods are insects, arachnids, crustaceans etc, with a hard exoskeleton covering their entire body and no squishy bits at all.

A sampling of ten arthropods might yield some the decapods (ten-legged crustaceans) such as the lobster, crab, shrimp, krill, crayfish, prawns; one could also appeal for examples to the relatives of the insect that stung poor Dudley Moore's character George in the movie "10" when he was trying to spy on Jenny (Bo Derek); viz, the bee, and its distant kin the Asian giant hornet or "yak killer hornet". Interestingly enough, on insect abdomens there are usually ten segments, sometimes eleven (though it may seem less because segmentation may be internal). Then there's the Japanese spider crab, one example of which was measured with a claw-span of over ten feet across; and the eurypterid, a now extinct arthropod, possibly a fossil of which was found in Cambrian strata dating back five hundred and ten million years and thought to be among the first evidence of animals on land.

Yes, all arthropods are creatures.

Any of numerous invertebrate animals of the phylum Arthropoda, including the insects, crustaceans, arachnids, and myriapods, that are characterized by a chitinous exoskeleton and a segmented body to which jointed appendages are articulated in pairs.

Yes, arthropods have to moult in order to increase in size, because their exoskeleton is rigid and inhibits growth. The process is called ecdysis and is not limited only to arthropods; it is a characteristic of their clade, ecdysozoa, which includes nematodes and other phyla.

The external covering on arthropods is called the exoskeleton (or cuticle). It is made of a tough protein called chitin, a long chain polymer comparable to cellulose. Because it's inflexible, arthropods need to shed it (moult) in order to grow.

If you mean by number of species and/or total actual organisms, yes. By the way, if you didn't know, arthropod means "jointed foot", and it is the group of animals with exoskeletons; i.e. insects; arachnids--ticks, spiders, mites, scorpions, whipscorpions, harvestmen; crustaceans--crabs, lobsters, shrimp, isopods (roly-polies, sow bugs, pill bugs, wood lice); and the 'pedes--millipedes and centipedes.

Arthropods and sponges are two major divisions in taxonomy called Phyla (singular, phylum). Phylum Arthropoda ("joint appendages"), or the arthropods, includes such creatures as insects, spiders, millipedes, crustaceans, etc. Phylum Porifera ("pore-bearing") are the sponges.

No they are not, they just speed up the decomposers work of ridding the world of dead plants and animals they should slow down decomposition

The primary decomposers are Bacteria and Fungi

exoskeleton
Arthropods have a skeleton on the outside, called an exoskeleton. (By contrast, vertebrates will have an internal skeleton or endoskeleton). The exoskeleton of arthropoda is made of a tough protein called chitin, a long chain polymer comparable to cellulose. It fills the same role as the protein keratin in other animals where it would be found in hair, nails, hooves, claws, beaks, etc. Some arthropods, like crustaceans, further harden their chitin exoskeleton by biomineralization with calcium carbonate. Because it is inflexible, the organism has to periodically shed it (moult) in order to grow, a process called ecdysis.

head, thorax, and abdomen

The Arachnid class of arthropods under subphylum Chelicerata have only two major body sections (tagmata) called the cephalothorax and abdomen; they also usually have eight legs as adults, and no wings nor antennae.

The five major classes of arthropods are as follows with one example each: 1. Arachnida; Ex. spiders 2. Crustacea; Ex. crabs 3. Diplopoda; Ex. millipedes 4. Chilopoda; Ex. centapedes 5. Insecta or Hexopoda (insects)

Insects, arachnids, crustaceans and centi/millipedes.

it kills cave spiders faster

Since arachnids are simply a subgroup of arthropods, all characteristics of arachnids are also an example of arthropod characteristics by definition (notwithstanding, all arthropods won't share specific arachnid characteristics).

Arthropoda itself is a phylum. It does have subphyla, namely, Chelicerata, Myriapoda, Crustacea, and Hexapoda. There is also an extinct class Marrellomorpha and an extinct Trilobite subphylum.

Millipedes actually do NOT have over 1000 legs (milli = thousand). The word comes from Latin roots mille ("thousand") and pes ("foot"). Millipedes just appear to have a 'thousand' legs. Common millipedes only have 36 to 400 legs. A rare variety has up to 700 legs.

That'd be an arachnid, most likely a spider. Spiders have a cephalothorax ('head chest', exactly what it sounds like) and an abdomen (butt, containing vital organs), and four pairs of walking legs.

At least 75%. In species, in number of individuals, but also in pure weight they cover a massive part of all animals. Just the ants in the Amazon alone weigh more than all humans put together.

Basically we live in a world of arthropods, and mainly insects at that.

Unlike us humans with an internal or endoskeleton, the lobster relies upon its outer skin or exoskeleton both for support and for its armor. The internal organs are protected by this hard outer shell, made from chitin, a very tough protein used by other crustaceans and by insects. It is similar to the hard protein keratin in your fingernails and hair. You might also argue that the lobster is mostly protected by its own behavior - avoiding predators by hiding in crags. This is especially important when the lobster moults periodically, since the shell can't grow it has to shed it, then wait for the new shell to harden.

Because they are cold blooded little buggers with exoskeletons, they can readily adapt to any environment and they produce faster than rabbits. To add to this, they are very diverse and spread evenly around the globe in all environments