Mictacea

Mictacea
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Crustacea
Class:	Malacostraca
Superorder:	Peracarida
Order:	Mictacea Bowman, Garner, Hessler, Iliffe & Sanders, 1985 [1]
Families
Hirsutiidae Mictocarididae

Mictacea is the most recently established order of crustaceans, erected for five species of small shrimp-like animals of the deep sea and anchialine caves.^[2]

Description

Mictaceans have a brood pouch (marsupium) and biramous thoracic limbs, but lack a carapace.^[3] They have eyestalks but "no functioning visual elements".^[4]

History

The existence of animals resembling the Mictacea had been predicted by Frederick Schram in the early 1980s. Two groups of scientists independently discovered the animals in 1985, and, once they learnt of each others work, agreed to work together on the paper describing the new order.^[5]

Species

A total of five species are recognised, split between two families:^[6]

Hirsutiidae Sanders, Hessler & Garner, 1985

• Hirsutia bathyalis Saunders, Hessler & Garner, 1985
• Hirsutia saundersetalia Just & Poore, 1988
• Thetispelecaris remex Gutu & Iliffe, 1998
• Thetispelecaris yurigako Ohtsuka, Hanamura & Kase, 2002

Mictocarididae Bowman & Iliffe, 1985

• Mictocaris haplope Bowman & Iliffe, 1985

References

1. ^ J. W. Martin & G. E. Davis (2001) (PDF). An Updated Classification of the Recent Crustacea. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. pp. 1–132. http://atiniui.nhm.org/pdfs/3839/3839.pdf. 
2. ^ J. K. Lowry & M. Yerman. "Mictacea". crustacea.net. Australian Museum. http://www.crustacea.net/crustace/mictacea/index.htm. Retrieved September 3, 2007. 
3. ^ Matthew A. Wills (2001). "Morphological disparity: a primer". In Jonathan M. Adrain, Gregory D. Edgecombe, Bruce S. Lieberman. Fossils, Phylogeny, and Form: an Analytical Approach. Topics in geobiology. Springer. pp. 55–144. ISBN 9780306467219. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fpnV7NTcnuAC&pg=PA85. 
4. ^ Olav Giere (2009). "Meiofauna taxa: a systematic account". Meiobenthology: the Microscopic Motile Fauna of Aquatic Sediments (2nd ed.). Springer. pp. 103–234. doi:10.1007/b106489. ISBN 9783540686576. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=an9ncYOxkUoC&pg=PA194. 
5. ^ Thomas E. Bowman, Susan P. Garner, Robert R. Hessler, Thomas M. Iliffe & Howard L. Sanders (1985). "Mictacea, a new order of Crustacea Peracarida". Journal of Crustacean Biology 5 (1): 74–78. doi:10.2307/1548221. JSTOR 1548221. 
6. ^ J. K. Lowry & M. Yerman. "Mictacea: checklist". crustacea.net. Australian Museum. http://www.crustacea.net/crustace/mictacea/chcklst.htm. Retrieved September 3, 2007.