A group of living things
Crustaceans and insects
Pancrustacea
A bee is a land-going shrimp
Its members' last common ancestor lived about 510 million years ago.
You and crustaceans and insects last shared an ancestor about 580 million years ago (on 11 November, if life's history were one year).
A bee is, in family terms, a land-going shrimp. DNA shows that insects grew from inside the crustacean branch, rather than being a separate equal group. Until about 2010 many groupings based on shape placed insects with millipedes and centipedes, but DNA showed insects belong with crustaceans instead.
They all share a hard jointed shell, a body in sections and jointed legs, and they grow by shedding the old shell for a larger one. Crustaceans dominate the sea, from crabs and shrimp to tiny drifters, and usually have two pairs of feelers. Insects took the same plan onto land and fresh water, with one pair of feelers, six legs, and in most adults one or two pairs of wings.
Those wings began as a small flap on the upper leg of a crustacean-like ancestor. Ancestors of today's dragonflies and mayflies used them to become the first animals ever to fly, about 400 million years ago, long before birds or bats.
Most known animal species are insects
More than one million insect species have been described, about three-quarters of all known animal species.
Barnacles glue their heads to rocks
A barnacle drifts as a shrimp-like youngster, then glues itself head-first to rock and grows a shell. It feeds by combing the water with six pairs of feathery jointed legs.
Tiny krill feed huge whales
Antarctic krill grow to only about 6 cm long, yet they carry food from tiny algae to seals, penguins, fish and great baleen whales.