New finding of Mesozoic ephippia of the Anomopoda (Crustacea: Cladocera)

Abstract

Fossil Mesozoic anomopods (Crustacea: Cladocera) have only been found twice previously, although this group apparently differentiated in the Palaeozoic. This paper describes the finding of anomopod ephippia of three different types in the locality Khutel‐Khara, Mongolia (Lower Cretaceous, 129±9 Mya). This discovery demonstrates once more that the idea of rarity of cladocerans in Mesozoic fossils was motivated by insufficient attention of carcinologists to such fossils.

Keywords:

• Cladocera
• Crustacea
• Anomopoda
• Mesozoic
• fossil

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Prof N.N. Smirnov, Dr A.G. Ponomarenko and Dr D.E. Shcherbakov for material and consultations, two anonymous reviewers for valuable criticism and Mr V.N. Antropov for technical assistance with SEM. The study is supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant 06‐04‐48624) and a scholarship from the Russian Science Support Foundation.