Crustáceos trogloditas ciegos en el yacimiento conquense de Las Hoyas

No todo son dinosaurios en la provincia de Cuenca... Aquí está Spinogriphus ibericus un pequeño crustáceo peracárido perteneciente a un grupo cuyas formas actuales son ciegas y viven en aguas subterráneas (Spelaeogriphacea). Spinogriphus se ha descrito en un trabajo firmado por Damià Jaume, Eva Pinardo-Moya y Geoff A. Boxshall cuyo abstract es el siguiente:

A third fossil attributable to the crustacean peracarid order Spelaeogriphacea is described from an Upper Barremian (125 Ma) lacustrine environment in Central Spain. Neither the new taxon, Spinogriphus ibericus gen. et sp. nov., nor the two already described fossil forms can be identified with certainty as crown-group spelaeogriphaceans. We consider that Schram’s 1974 family Acadiocarididae represents stem-lineage spelaeogriphaceans and should accommodate these fossil taxa that display very generalised peracaridan features and lack any conspicuous autapomorphies, except for a short carapace, undifferentiated pereiopods, foliaceous pleopods and a tail fan-like (uropods + telson) caudal structure where the unsegmented uropodal endopod lacks annulation. The zoogeography of the Acadiocarididae is Laurasian in contrast to the modern, crown-group spelaeogriphaceans (Spelaeogriphidae), which are limited to Gondwanan territories.