Designation of a new name and type for the Mazon Creek (Pennsylvanian, Francis Creek Shale) tanaidacean

Abstract

When i described the Mazon Creek tanaidacean crustacean and named it Cryptocaris hootchi Schram, 1974, two problems presented themselves. First, all specimens but one were in private collections, and none of their owners then seemed inclined to donate them to an established natural history museum. Second, the collections of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago at that time contained only a single specimen, P32053, of what appeared to be the Mazon Creek tanaidacean. This specimen is peculiarly preserved and of only mediocre quality. Consequently, I based the description of the Mazon Creek tanaidacean almost entirely on the privately held specimens, noting their numbers and private repositories, but designated the Field Museum specimen, P32053, as the holotype. A subsequent review of all fossil tanaidaceans (Schram et al., 1986) focused exclusively on the privately held specimens collected from Mazon Creek sites.