Thoracotremata
Thoracotremata is a clade of crabs, comprising those crabs in which the genital openings in both sexes are on the sternum, rather than on the legs. It comprises 17 families in four superfamilies .[1]
| Thoracotremata | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leptograpsus variegatus, Grapsidae | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Malacostraca |
| Order: | Decapoda |
| Suborder: | Pleocyemata |
| Infraorder: | Brachyura |
| Section: | Eubrachyura |
| Subsection: | Thoracotremata Guinot, 1977 |
| Families | |
|
See text | |
Evolution
Thoracotremata is the sister group to Heterotremata within the clade Eubrachyura, having diverged during the Cretaceous period. Eubrachyura itself is a subset of the larger clade Brachyura, which consists of all "true crabs". A summary of the high-level internal relationships within Brachyura can be shown in the cladogram below: [2][3]
| Brachyura |
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The internal relationships within Thoracotremata are less certain, with many of the superfamilies found to be invalid. The proposed cladogram below is from analysis by Tsang et al, 2014:[2]
| Thoracotremata |
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Superfamilies and families
However, recent studies have found the superfamilies Grapsoidea and Ocypodoidea to be polyphyletic and invalid.[2][3]
References
- Sammy De Grave; N. Dean Pentcheff; Shane T. Ahyong; et al. (2009). "A classification of living and fossil genera of decapod crustaceans" (PDF). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. Suppl. 21: 1–109.
- Ling Ming Tsang; Christoph D. Schubart; Shane T. Ahyong; Joelle C.Y. Lai; Eugene Y.C. Au; Tin-Yam Chan; Peter K.L. Ng; Ka Hou Chu (2014). "Evolutionary History of True Crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura) and the Origin of Freshwater Crabs". Molecular Biology and Evolution. Oxford University Press . 31 (5): 1173–1187. doi:10.1093/molbev/msu068.
- Wolfe, Joanna M.; Breinholt, Jesse W.; Crandall, Keith A.; Lemmon, Alan R.; Lemmon, Emily Moriarty; Timm, Laura E.; Siddall, Mark E.; Bracken-Grissom, Heather D. (24 April 2019). "A phylogenomic framework, evolutionary timeline and genomic resources for comparative studies of decapod crustaceans". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 286 (1901). doi:10.1098/rspb.2019.0079. PMC 6501934. PMID 31014217.
