A new species of Typhlatya (Crustacea: Decapoda: Atyidae) from anchialine caves on the French Mediterranean coast
In: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Academic Press: London. ISSN 0024-4082; e-ISSN 1096-3642, more |   |
| Keywords | Geography > Biogeography
System analysis
Tethys
Typhlatya Creaser, 1936 [WoRMS]
MED, France [Marine Regions]
Marine/Coastal |
| Authors | | Top | - Jaume, D., more
- Bréhier, F.
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| Abstract | A new species of the thermophylic Tethyan relict prawn Typhlatya is described from two anchialine caves near Perpignan (southern France). The new species is closely related to a congener known only from a freshwater cave at Castellón (eastern Spain), about 400 km to the south-west, differing apparently only in the size and shape of the rostrum and the armature of the dactylus of the fifth pereiopod. Based on palaeogeographical evidence and assuming a sister-group relationship between both species, we suggest that their common ancestor could not be older than early Pliocene in age, and that it was already a stygobiont taxon adapted to live in shallow-water marine crevicular habitats. This ancestor would have vanished from the western Mediterranean after the cooling associated with the onset of northern Hemisphere glaciation, about 3 Mya, as documented for other Mediterranean marine taxa. Indeed, the genus is completely stygobiont and does not occur in fluvial environments. The Pyrenees represent a watershed boundary that eliminates the possibility of the derivation of one species from the other by active dispersal after establishment in continental waters. |
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