Paleogene Decapoda (Caridea, Anomura, Axiidea, Brachyura) from Alabama and Mississippi, USA

Preliminary note: alpheid shrimp (Decapoda, Caridea, Alpheidae) snapping claw fingertips from the early Pliocene of Tuscany (central Italy)

“…As pointed out by feldMann et al (2019: 283), Oligorostra (fixed finger tips) and Oligosella (movable finger tips), both coming from the same locality, could represent the same species. The shape of the finger tip and the presence of only one or two setal pores on the lateral surfaces exclude the belonging of the studied spec imens to the abovementioned genera having a row of setal pores on the distal margin, alternate in size between small and large in Alpheus and regular in size in Oligosella and with just one large setal pore near the distal end in Oligo rostra (CiaMpaglio & Weaver 2008;Hyžný et al 2017Hyžný et al , 2018feldMann et al 2019). We cannot exclude, however, the possible belonging of the studied strongly calcified claw fingertips to the fossil and extant genus Alpheus, based upon the results reported by Hyžný et al (2017: table 1) that all samples from the Cenozoic (late Oligocene, Mio cene, and Pleistocene) of United States (Alabama), Europe (France, The Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, and Czech Republic), Africa (Egypt), and Asia (Japan) have been assigned to Alpheus sensu stricto.…”

New hermit crab species (Anomura, Paguroidea) from the upper Miocene St. Marys Formation of Maryland (USA), preserved in their host shells

“…As with specimens preserved in situ, paguroid carapaces are rare as well, but this can, at least in part, be ascribed to collection bias in view of their generally small size (e.g., Garassino et al 2009b;Fraaije et al 2019;Wallaard et al 2020). More common are isolated major chelipeds, but these are often fragmentary (lacking moveable fingers) and may prove difficult to identify at the generic and/or specific level (e.g., Hyžný et al 2016;Feldmann et al 2018;Jakobsen et al 2020;Fraaije et al 2020;Hyžný & Dulai 2021, and references therein), despite being also described and illustrated in papers on extant paguroid genera and species (e.g., McLaughlin 2003).…”