Potamonautes

Potamonautes
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous–Recent
Potamonautes sidneyi
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Infraorder: Brachyura
Family: Potamonautidae
Genus: Potamonautes
Macleay, 1838 [1]
Type species
Thelphusa perlata
H. Milne-Edwards, 1837

Potamonautes is a genus of freshwater crabs in the family Potamonautidae. It contains the following species:[1]

One extant species is also known from the fossil record;[2] P. niloticus is abundant in Miocene sediments (6 million years ago) of Lake Albert. Extinct species assigned to Potamonautes are also known from the Late Cretaceous of Niger.[3]

Distribution

Some of the species within this genus have rather restricted ranges of occurrence. For example, P. dubious is found only in limited parts of the Kunene River and upper Zambezi River in Southern Africa.[4]

References


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