Order SPELAEOGRIPHACEA Gordon, 1957

Mangkurtu mityula

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Order SPELAEOGRIPHACEA Gordon, 1957

Compiler and date details

30 April 2005 - Gary C.B. Poore

Introduction

The peracarid crustacean order Spelaeogriphacea was erected on the basis of a single species, Spelaeogriphus lepidops Gordon, 1957, from a freshwater stream in a cave on Table Mountain, South Africa (Gordon 1957). The diagnosis is modified from Brusca & Brusca (1990).

Three monotypic extant genera have been been described in one family, Spelaeogriphidae, one each from South Africa, Brazil (Pires 1987), and Australia. All were diagnosed and their systematic and biogeographic relationships discussed by Poore & Humphreys (1998). Another undescribed species is known from aquifers in Western Australia. Two fossil species, one from the Jurassic of China and the other from the Carboniferous of Canada, are known (Shen et al. 1998)

Gutu (1998) placed the Spelaeogriphacea with one of the families of Mictacea in a new peracarid order, Cosinzeneacea, but this proposal has not been adopted by other authors. Shen et al. (1998) considered the possibility that the order may be paraphyletic on the basis of a cladistic analysis.

Database Notes

Updated by Gary C.B. Poore, 30 April 2005.

Diagnosis

Carapace short, fused with thoracomere 1; one pair of maxillipeds; pereopods 1–7 simple, biramous; exopods on pereopods 1–3 setose, on pereopods 4–7 gill-like; tailfan well developed; eyestalk present, but eyes nonfunctional or absent.