Abstract

Abstract Crayfishes comprise a large and diverse group of freshwater lobster-like crustaceans. Despite being abundant in the recent, they are extremely rare in the fossil record. We revise a putative occurrence of Astacus multicavatusBell, 1863 from the marine Hauterivian of Speeton Clay (Speeton, United Kingdom), which was used a few years ago as a calibration fossil representing AstacusFabricius, 1775 for divergence time analyses. This species is actually a senior synonym to Eryma sulcatumHarbort, 1905. It so appears that Eryma multicavatum (Bell, 1863) comb. nov. is not a freshwater crayfish but a marine representative of Erymidae. Two co-occurring isolated chelae, also from the Speeton Clay, may correspond to larger, older specimens of E. multicavatum comb. nov.

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