The genus Eryma Meyer, 1840 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Erymidae): new synonyms, systematic and stratigraphic implications

Among Erymidae Van Straelen, 1925 (Van Straelen V. 1925. Contribution à l'étude des crustacés décapodes de la période jurassique. Mémoires de la Classe des Sciences de l'Académie royale de Belgique 7: 1–462), typical Mesozoic crustaceans, the genus Eryma Meyer, 1840 (Meyer H. von. 1840a. Briefliche Mittheilungen. Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geognosie, Geologie und Petrefactenkunde 576–587) includes the largest number of species, mainly from Jurassic deposits. However, the lack of clear diagnoses for erymid genera has led to mistakes in generic assignments and to the establishment of redundant genera. The review of the concept of Eryma herein presents an attempt to clarify its diagnosis, mainly supported by the carapace groove pattern and the morphology of chelae of the first pair of pereiopods, and to emphasize its systematic implications. Thus, we maintain the synonymy of Klytia Meyer, 1840, Bolina Münster, 1839 (Münster G. 1839. Decapoda Macrura. Abbildung und Beschreibung der Fossilen Langschwänzigen Krebse in den Kalkschiefern von Bayern. Beiträge zur Petrefaktenkunde 2: 1–88) (sensu Étallon [Étallon A. 1859. Description des crustacés fossiles de la Haute-Saône et du Haut-Jura. Bulletin de la Société géologique de France 16: 169–205]), and Erymastacus Beurlen, 1928 (Beurlen K. 1928. Die Decapoden des Schwäbischen Jura mit Ausnahme der aus den oberjurassischen Plattenkalken stammenden. Palaeontographica 70: 115–278) with Eryma. Moreover, a review of the genera Protoclytiopsis Birshtein, 1958 (Birshtein JA. 1958. Ein Vertreter der ältesten Ordo der Crustacea Decapoda Protoclitiopsis antiqua gen. nov. sp. nov. aus dem Permo West-Sibiriens. Doklady Akademii Nauk, SSSR 122: 477–480), and Galicia Garassino and Krobicki, 2002 (Garassino A, Krobicki M. 2002. Galicia marianae n. gen., n. sp. (Crustacea, Decapoda, Astacidea) from the Oxfordian (Upper Jurassic) of the Southern Polish Uplands. Bulletin of the Mizunami Fossil Museum 29: 51–59), reveals the presence of a junction between the postcervical and branchiocardiac grooves. This feature is diagnostic of Eryma and supports the integration of these genera into the synonymy of Eryma. The addition of Protoclytiopsis to the synonymy of Eryma makes Eryma antiquum (Birshtein, 1958) nov. comb. the oldest representative of the genus and of the family, extending its stratigraphic range to the Late Permian (Changhsingian). Thus, this work also emphasizes that Erymidae crossed the Permian-Triassic boundary.

Yury Borisovich Rumer and his ‘biological papers’ on the genetic code

Yury Borisovich Rumer was one of the most important theoretical physicists of the former Soviet Union in the early 1930s. However, he also wrote a few ‘biological papers’ on the standard genetic code after he read Crick's and Nirenberg's pioneering papers on the topic. Rumer's articles on the ‘Systematization of Codons in the Genetic Code’ (Rumer 1966 Doklady Akademii nauk SSSR 167, 1393–1394); Rumer 1968 Doklady Akademii nauk SSSR 183, 225–226; Rumer 1969 Doklady Akademii nauk SSSR 187, 937–938, where he suggested the idea of partitioning codons depending on their redundancy—the first mention of symmetry in the genetic code—were published in Russian only. Due to their importance and their frequent citation, we here present translations of these articles into English in order to make them accessible to a broader community.