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Young Brunette Girl Wearing A Seashell Necklace
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Shells of other marine invertebrates
• Arthropods
Many arthropods have sclerites, or hardened body parts, which form a stiff exoskeleton made up mostly of chitin. In crustaceans, especially those of the class Malacostraca (crabs, shrimps and lobsters, for instance), the plates of the exoskeleton may be fused to form a more or less rigid carapace. Moulted carapaces of a variety of marine malacostraceans often wash up on beaches. The horseshoe crab is an arthropod of the family Limulidae. The shells or exuviae of these arachnids are common in beach drift in certain areas of the world.
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