A new furry lobster (Crustacea, Decapoda, Synaxidae) from the Oxfordian (Upper Jurassic) of northeastern France

Abstract

A new genus and species of achelatan lobster, Palaeopalinurellus culocervus, from the "Calcaire crayeux de Maxey" limestones (middle Oxfordian, Transversarium Zone) at "Le Cul du Cerf", near Orquevaux (Haute-Marne, northeastern France), are described. The new taxon constitutes the earliest record to date of a furry lobster worldwide and extends the stratigraphical range of this group of palinurids significantly. Another Late Jurassic (Tithonian) palinurid, Palinurus strambergensis Bachmayer, 1959, from tramberk (Moravia, Czech Republic), reveals the diagnostic features of the new genus and is here transferred to it.

A reconsideration of the palinuroid family Synaxidae (Crustacea, Decapoda), with a new member from the Upper Jurassic of southern Poland

“…Previously, synaxids were interpreted either as sister group to all other achelatans or as an ingroup of the Palinuridae (e.g., Davie, 1990;George, 2006;Palero et al, 2009). In recent years, an increasing number of extinct (Late Jurassic to Late Eocene; Figure 3D-E, G) synaxids have been published (De Angeli and Garassino, 2014;Fraaije et al, 2020;Garassino and Pasini, 2020), demonstrating that furry lobsters were more diverse in late Mesozoic and Paleogene marine ecosystems than they are at the present day.…”

“…The first extinct species of Palinurellus, from the Upper Eocene (Priabonian) of north-east Italy, was recorded by De Angeli and Garassino (2014) as P. bericus (Figure 3D). The Late Jurassic genus Palaeopalinurellus (Fraaije et al, 2020) differs from Palinurellus in the scabrous nature of the ornament of its posterior carapace, the irregular tuberculation of its anterior carapace, and the more angular course of its cervical groove.…”

“…However, synaxids differ from spiny and slipper lobsters in lacking pronounced supraorbital horns and in having broad-based, pronounced triangular rostra, while their body is covered in short hairs (hence the name 'furry lobster'), and their antennae are not as enlarged as in scyllarids and palinurids. In modern-day seas, representatives of the family Synaxidae are rare constituents of benthic communities (e.g., Holthuis, 1991), but from the fossil record they were more common in the past, being known in particular from reefal settings of Late Jurassic age across Europe (Bachmayer, 1959 ;Förster, 1973;Fraaije et al, 2020). We herein revise the three taxa recorded to date from such levels, as well as younger forms from the mid-Cretaceous (Garassino and Pasini, 2020) and Upper Eocene (De Angeli and Garassino, 2014), and erect a new genus and species for a form from the Upper Jurassic of southern Poland.…”

Palaeontological implications of the precedence of the lobster genus Phyllamphion Reinhardt, 1849 over Palinurellus Von Martens, 1878 (Decapoda, Achelata, Palinuridae)

“…An additional fossil, Yunnanopalinura schrami Feldman, Schweitzer, Hu, Zhang, Zhou, Xie, Huang & Wen, 2012 from the Middle Triassic (Middle-Late Anisian) of China, possibly the oldest-known palinurid, was also suggested by Feldman et al (2012) and Fraaije et al (2020) to have affinities with Palinurellus and Palaeopalinurellus. Specifically, Y. schrami has robust first pereiopods, tubercles, and similar uropod features to one or both of these taxa, but due to its poor carapace preservation this remains unconfirmed, although the rest of the body is actually preserved in this case.…”

“…Synaxidae was formally synonymized with Palinuridae by Chan (2010) and is no longer considered a valid taxon (Chan, 2019). This is noted here because the name Synaxidae has been used and treated as a legitimate taxon up to very recently in the published paleontological literature, describing and uniting into a 'group' many of the species noted above (Fraaije et al, 2020;Garassino & Pasini, 2020;but not De Angeli & Garassino, 2014), despite it being invalided more than a decade ago (Chan, 2010). Admittedly, the 'synaxid' form is quite distinct, morphologically, from that of other achelate lobsters and decapods, so it is perhaps reasonable to use this term as a descriptive one, i.e., as a 'morphotype', but this needs to be explicitly declared.…”