Mystacocarida

Drawing of Derocheilocaris typica, from Michigan Science Art.

Belongs within: Pancrustacea.

The Mystacocarida are a group of minute (~0.45 to 1.01 mm), elongate, cylindrical crustaceans with morphologically relatively unspecialised limbs (Zinn 1986). All known mystacocarids are meiobenthonic, living in the interstitial spaces between sand grains in marine intertidal and subtidal areas. The relationships of mystacocarids to other crustaceans are contentious; they possess a number of apparently primitive features that may be truly so, or may represent neotenic features retained from the naupliar larval stage (Zinn 1986).

<==Mystacocarida
    |--Ctenocheilocaris Renaud-Mornant 1976 Z86
    |    |--C. claudiae Renaud-Mornant 1976 Z86
    |    `--C. galvarini (Dahl 1952) [=Derocheilocaris galvarini] Z86
    `--Derocheilocaris Pennak & Zinn 1943 [Derocheilocarididae] Z86
         |--D. algoensis McLachlan & Grindley 1974 Z86
         |--D. angolensis Hessler 1972 Z86
         |--D. delamarei Hessler 1972 Z86
         |--D. ingens Hessler 1969 Z86
         |--D. remanei Delamare Deboutteville & Chappuis 1951 Z86
         |    |--D. r. remanei Z86
         |    |--D. r. akhzivi Masry & Por 1970 Z86
         |    |--D. r. biscayensis Delamare Deboutteville 1953 Z86
         |    `--D. r. katesi Noodt 1954 Z86
         |--D. tehiyae Masry & Por 1970 Z86
         `--D. typica Pennak & Zinn 1943 Z86

REFERENCES

[Z86] Zinn, D. J. 1986. Mystacocarida. In Stygofauna Mundi: A Faunistic, Distributional, and Ecological Synthesis of the World Fauna inhabiting Subterranean Waters (including the Marine Interstitial) (L. Botosaneanu, ed.) pp. 385-388. E. J. Brill / Dr. W. Backhuys: Leiden.