Mictacea
{{Short description|Order of crustaceans}}
{{automatic taxobox
| image = Mictocaris halope.jpg
| image_caption = Mictocaris halope
| taxon = Mictacea
| authority = Bowman, Garner, Hessler, Iliffe & Sanders, 1985 {{cite book |url=http://atiniui.nhm.org/pdfs/3839/3839.pdf |title=An Updated Classification of the Recent Crustacea |author1=J. W. Martin |author2=G. E. Davis |name-list-style=amp |year=2001 |pages=1–132 |publisher=Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County }}
| subdivision_ranks = Families
| subdivision =
}}
Mictacea is a monotypic order of crustaceans. It was originally erected for three species of small shrimp-like animals of the deep sea and anchialine caves.{{cite web |url=http://www.crustacea.net/crustace/mictacea/index.htm |title=Mictacea |author1=J. K. Lowry |author2=M. Yerman |name-list-style=amp |work=crustacea.net |publisher=Australian Museum |access-date=September 3, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120508030458/http://crustacea.net/crustace/mictacea/index.htm |archive-date=May 8, 2012 |url-status=dead }} They were placed in two families, the Mictocarididae and Hirsutiidae, but Hirsutiidae is now placed in order Bochusacea,{{BioRef|WoRMS|title=Hirsutiidae |id=391551 |access-date=26 December 2022}} leaving Mictacea with a single species, Mictocaris halope.{{BioRef|WoRMS|title=Mictocaris halope Bowman & Iliffe, 1985 |id=448280 |access-date=26 December 2022}}
Description
Mictaceans have a brood pouch (marsupium) and biramous thoracic limbs, but lack a carapace.{{cite book |editor1=Jonathan M. Adrain |editor2=Gregory D. Edgecombe |editor3=Bruce S. Lieberman |year=2001 |title=Fossils, Phylogeny, and Form: an Analytical Approach |series=Topics in geobiology |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-306-46721-9 |chapter=Morphological disparity: a primer |author=Matthew A. Wills |pages=55–144 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fpnV7NTcnuAC&pg=PA85}} They have eyestalks but "no functioning visual elements".{{cite book |author=Olav Giere |year=2009 |edition=2nd |title=Meiobenthology: the Microscopic Motile Fauna of Aquatic Sediments |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-540-68657-6 |chapter=Meiofauna taxa: a systematic account |pages=103–234 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=an9ncYOxkUoC&pg=PA194 |doi=10.1007/b106489|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 }}
History
The existence of animals resembling the Mictacea had been predicted by Frederick Schram in the early 1980s.
Two groups of scientists independently discovered the animals in 1985, and, once they learnt of each other's work, agreed to work together on the paper describing the new order.{{cite journal |title=Mictacea, a new order of Crustacea Peracarida |author1=Thomas E. Bowman |author2=Susan P. Garner |author3=Robert R. Hessler |author4=Thomas M. Iliffe |author5=Howard L. Sanders |journal=Journal of Crustacean Biology |volume=5 |issue=1 |year=1985 |pages=74–78 |doi=10.2307/1548221 |jstor=1548221}}
Species
A single species is recognised:
;Mictocarididae Bowman & Iliffe, 1985
- Mictocaris halope Bowman & Iliffe, 1985
References
{{Reflist|32em}}
{{Malacostraca}}
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