An Early Devonian clam shrimp community from Hunan Province, China

The Devonian saw the emergence and subsequent diversification of the clam shrimp. To date, there are no credible records of any clam shrimp prior to the Devonian. Therefore, discoveries and taxonomic studies of early forms, especially the Early Devonian species, are essential to broaden our knowledge of the origin and early evolution of clam shrimp. An Early Devonian clam shrimp community that consists of four species, Cornia cheni n. sp., Pseudestheria cf. P. diensti, Palaeolimnadiopsis zhangi n. sp., and ?Palaeolimnadia sp. is described and discussed in detail in this study. These species are the oldest clam shrimp in China and among the oldest worldwide. This discovery indicates that clam shrimp communities with high diversity existed since the late Early Devonian and that their early forms may have had a profound effect on the origin and evolutionary trends of the following forms. UUID: http://zoobank.org/ae9d0ab8-0b0e-4103-ad71-601d11a024fc.

First record of the Clam Shrimp Leptestheria venezuelica Daday, 1923 (Crustacea: Brachiopoda: Spinicaudata) from the North of Colombia

Large branchiopods has been distributed in temporary waters around the world, but the knowledge about these organisms in Colombia is poorly known, especially leptesteriids, we report a new record of the Clam Shrimp Leptestheria venezuelica Daday, 1923 from the north of Colombia.

Review of the southern African Leptestheriidae (Branchiopoda: Spinicaudata) I: redescription of Leptestheria brevirostris Barnard, 1924 with comments on diagnostic characters

We present the first records of Leptestheria brevirostris since its discovery in Namibia by Barnard in 1924. Our records come from Botswana and South Africa, and present significant range extensions. We redescribe L. brevirostris according to modern standards and present the first description of the male. We also discovered that L. brevirostris is likely a rock pool specialist, specific to sandstone and gneiss outcrops; this is the first record of a rock pool specialist clam shrimp from Africa and the second rock pool specialist described for Leptestheriidae. Finally, we depict and discuss the validity and usefulness of diagnostic characters for Leptestheria species in southern Africa, especially the usefulness of carapace interval ornamentation.

Taxonomy of the clam shrimp Halysestheriidae (Diplostraca: Spinicaudata) from the Upper Cretaceous Nenjiang Formation in central Dayangshu Basin of eastern Inner Mongolia, northeastern China

A re-examination of the holotype of the type species Halysestheria biformis Zhang & Chen in Zhang et al., 1976 has revealed new characters that were overlooked in the original description. And a taxonomic research was carried out on the clam shrimp collected from the Upper Cretaceous Nenjiang Formation in the central Dayangshu Basin in Ganhe, Oroqen Autonomous Banner, eastern Inner Mongolia. The discovery of Halysestheria biformis indicates the fossil bearing horizon belongs to the upper Santonian First Member of the Nenjiang Formation.

Triassic clam shrimps (“Conchostraca”; Branchiopoda: Diplostraca) from Mallorca: Taxonomic description and interregional comparisons

We describe four upper Lower Triassic to lower Middle Triassic clam shrimp-bearing intervals from Mallorca, which include the clam shrimp species Hornestheria sp. aff. Hornestheria sollingensis and several other forms of carapace valve morphology: Hornestheria? Morphotype 1, Hornestheria? Morphotype 2, and other undetermined carapace valves. All of this material was obtained from red-bed units cropping out in the Serra de Tramuntana mountains of Mallorca (western Mediterranean). Except for a few morphologically similar carapace valves of Middle Triassic age from China, Hornestheria is known only from the type locality of its type species, Hornestheria sollingensis Kozur et Lepper, in the Solling Formation (Middle Buntsandstein Subgroup) in the German part of the Central European Basin. According to its original definition, the larval carapace valve of Hornestheria Kozur et Lepper is characterized by a radial sculpture, but this characteristic apparently is only variably developed. Due to both a limited number of previously known occurrences of Hornestheria and its poorly known carapace valve morphology, open nomenclature is applied to the taxonomy herein. The studied specimens were freshly collected from outcrop sections composed of greyish-green to greyish-red laminated claystones and siltstones that accumulated in a fluvial facies. The clam shrimp specimens are accompanied by remains of insects and fishes, invertebrate and tetrapod ichnofossils, and micro-/macroplant remains, all of which either have been described by previous workers or are currently part of a separate study.