Title
Terrestrial isopods from Spanish amber (Crustacea: Oniscidea) : insights into the Cretaceous soil biota
Title Variants
Alternative:
Cretaceous isopoda from Spain
Related Titles
Series:
American Museum novitates, number 3974
By
Sánchez-García, Alba
, author
Peñalver, Enrique
, author
Martínez-Delclós, Xavier
, author
Engel, Michael S.
, author
Type
Book
Material
Published material
Publication info
New York, NY, American Museum of Natural History, [2021]
Notes
Caption title.
"August 6, 2021."
Terrestrial isopods (Crustacea: Oniscidea) are a model group for studying the colonization of land. However, their fossil record is remarkably scarce and restricted to amber inclusions, and therefore amber deposits represent valuable windows to their past diversity and morphology. Here we present a new collection of 11 terrestrial isopod specimens preserved in Albian-aged amber from the Peñacerrada I outcrop, northern Spain, which collectively represent the most thoroughly documented fauna of Mesozoic Oniscidea. The three new genera and species identified belong to three of five major groups of the Oniscidea: Eoligiiscus tarraconensis, new genus and species (Ligiidae), Autrigoniscus resinicola, new genus and species (Synocheta: Trichoniscidae), and Heraclitus helenae, new genus and species (Crinocheta: Detonidae?). These taxa significantly expand the known fossil record of Oniscidea and demonstrate that considerable cladogenesis had already transpired by the Albian. The assemblage represents the earliest-known diversification of Oniscidea, extending direct evidence of terrestrialization in the group back to the late Early Cretaceous. These new taxa exhibit some characteristics that may inform hypotheses relating to general patterns of terrestrial isopod evolution. A discussion is provided about different aspects of the paleoecology and biology of the fossils compared to the Recent fauna. The new species indicate that Cretaceous isopods were a group of considerable adaptive diversity, exhibiting innovations analogous to what Recent isopods would exhibit 105 million years later.
Subjects
Cretaceous
,
Isopoda
,
Oniscidae
,
Paleoecology
,
Spain
Call Number
QL1 .A436 no. 3974 2021
Language
English
Identifiers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1206/3974.1
OCLC:
1262990672
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