Checklist of fossil decapod crustaceans from tropical America. Part I: Anomura and Brachyura

Abstract

Our knowledge of fossil crustaceans from the tropics has increased considerably during recent decades, thanks to novel findings and the reexamination of museum specimens. However, several previous records have Original Article This article is part of the tribute offered by the Brazilian Crustacean Society in memoriam of Michael Türkay for his outstanding contribution to Carcinology CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Javier Luque luque@ualberta.ca SUBMITTED 16 February 2017 ACCEPTED 26 June 2017 PUBLISHED 19 October 2017 Guest Editor Célio Magalhães DOI 10.1590/2358-2936e2017025 Luque et al. 2 Fossil decapods from tropical America Diagramação e XML SciELO Publishing Schema: www.editoraletra1.com Nauplius, 25: e2017025 been misidentified, numerous museum specimens have never been reported, and many new discoveries are yet to be published. Here, we present a detailed, up-to-date, and revised checklist for every marine, terrestrial, or freshwater fossil decapod crustacean occurrence from tropical America known to us, including their age, geographic occurrences, and related literature. We recognize the occurrence of at least 32 superfamilies, 69 families, 190 genera, and 415 species of brachyurans (‘true’ crabs), and anomurans (‘false’ crabs, hermit crabs, squat lobsters, and allies), several of them previously unknown. The checklist comprises records from three main geographic regions: 1) northern South America (Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela); 2) Central America and southern North America (Belize, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Mexico, southern and central Florida); and 3) the Caribbean Islands + Bermuda (Anguilla, Antigua, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, The Grenadines, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Saint Bartélemy, Saint Martin, Trinidad). Previous findings, new occurrences, and the revised systematic placement for several problematic/misidentified records, indicate that the fossil record of anomurans and brachyurans in tropical America is more diverse than previously envisioned, with a considerable degree of endemism at the genus- and species-levels.