Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:42:51.618Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Crayfish bio-gastroliths from eastern Australia and the middle Cretaceous distribution of Parastacidae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2019

Phil R. Bell*
Affiliation:
Palaeoscience Research Centre, University of New England, Armidale 2351, New South Wales, Australia
Russell D. C. Bicknell
Affiliation:
Palaeoscience Research Centre, University of New England, Armidale 2351, New South Wales, Australia
Elizabeth T. Smith
Affiliation:
Australian Opal Centre, Lightning Ridge 2834, New South Wales, Australia
*
Author for correspondence: Phil R. Bell, Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Fossil crayfish are typically rare, worldwide. In Australia, the strictly Southern Hemisphere clade Parastacidae, while ubiquitous in modern freshwater systems, is known only from sparse fossil occurrences from the Aptian–Albian of Victoria. We expand this record to the Cenomanian of northern New South Wales, where opalized bio-gastroliths (temporary calcium storage bodies found in the foregut of pre-moult crayfish) form a significant proportion of the fauna of the Griman Creek Formation. Crayfish bio-gastroliths are exceedingly rare in the fossil record but here form a remarkable supplementary record for crayfish, whose body and trace fossils are otherwise unknown from the Griman Creek Formation. The new specimens indicate that parastacid crayfish were widespread in eastern Australia by middle Cretaceous time, occupying a variety of freshwater ecosystems from the Australian–Antarctic rift valley in the south, to the near-coastal floodplains surrounding the epeiric Eromanga Sea further to the north.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahyong, ST and O’Meally, D (2004) Phylogeny of the Decapoda Reptantia: resolution using three molecular loci and morphology. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 52, 673–93.Google Scholar
Babcock, LE, Miller, MF, Isbell, JL, Collinson, JW and Hasiotis, ST (1998) Paleozoic–Mesozoic crayfish from Antarctica: earliest evidence of freshwater decapod crustaceans. Geology 26, 539–42.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bedatou, E, Melchor, RN, Bellosi, E and Genise, JF (2008) Crayfish burrows from Late Jurassic–Late Cretaceous continental deposits of Patagonia: Argentina. Their palaeoecological, palaeoclimatic and palaeobiogeographical significance. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 257, 169–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bedatou, E, Melchor, RN and Genise, JF (2009) Complex palaeosol ichnofabrics from Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous volcaniclastic successions of Central Patagonia, Argentina. Sedimentary Geology 218, 74102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, PR, Fanti, F, Hart, LJ, Milan, LA, Craven, SJ, Brougham, T and Smith, E (2019) Revised geology, age, and vertebrate diversity of the dinosaur-bearing Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 514, 655–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bracken-Grissom, HD, Ahyong, ST, Wilkinson, RD, Feldmann, RM, Schweitzer, CE, Breinholt, JW, Bendall, M, Palero, F, Chan, T-Y, Felder, DL, Robles, R, Chu, K-H, Tsang, L-M, Kim, D, Martin, JW and Crasndall, KA (2014) The emergence of lobsters: phylogenetic relationships, morphological evolution and divergence time comparisons of an ancient group (Decapoda: Achelata, Astacidea, Glypheidea, Polychelida). Systematic Biology 63, 457–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandt, DS (2002) Ecydsial efficiency and evolutionary efficacy among marine arthropods: implications for trilobite survivorship. Alcheringa 26, 399421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bliss, DE (1968) Transition from water to land in decapod crustaceans. American Zoologist 8, 355–92.Google Scholar
Calman, WT (1904) XVIII. On the classification of the Crustacea MalacostracaJournal of Natural History 13, 144–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chow, S and Fujio, Y (1987) Comparison of intraspecific genetic diversity levels among local populations in decapod crustacean species; with some references of phenotypic diversity. Nippon Suisan Gakkaishi 53, 691–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E (1936) The freshwater and land crayfishes of Australia. Memoirs of the National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne 10, 558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Constantine, A, Chinsamy, A, Vickers-Rich, P and Rich, TH (1998) Periglacial environments and polar dinosaurs. South African Journal of Science 94, 137–41.Google Scholar
Crandall, KA, Porter, ML and Pérez-Losada, M (2009) Crabs, shrimps, and lobsters (Decapoda). In The Timetree of Life (eds Hedges, S Blair and Kumar, S), pp. 293–7. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dana, JD (1852) Crustacea, Part I. Volume 13 of United States Exploring Expedition, During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, under the Command of Charles Wilkes, U.S.N. Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 685 pp.Google Scholar
Erichson, WF (1846) Uebersicht der Arten der Gattung Astacus. Archiv für Naturgeschichte XII, 86–103, 375–7.Google Scholar
Exon, NF and Senior, BR (1976) The Cretaceous of the Eromanga and Surat Basins. BMR Journal of Australian Geology and Geophysics 1, 3350.Google Scholar
Feldmann, RM (2009) A new cirolanid isopod (Crustacea) from the Cretaceous of Lebanon: dermoliths document the pre-molt condition. Journal of Crustacean Biology 29, 373–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldmann, RM and Charbonnier, S (2011) Ibacus cottreaui Roger, 1946, reassigned to the isopod genus Cirolana (Cymothoida: Cirolanidae). Journal of Crustacean Biology 31, 317–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldmann, RM and Pole, M (1994) A new species of Paranephrops White, 1842: a fossil freshwater crayfish (Decapoda: Parastacidae) from the Manuherikia group (Miocene), central Otago, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics 37, 163–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldmann, RM and Schweitzer, CE (2010) The oldest shrimp (Devonian: Famennian) and remarkable preservation of soft tissue. Journal of Crustacean Biology 30, 629–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldmann, RM, Schweitzer, CE and Leahy, J (2011) New Eocene crayfish from the Mcabee beds in British Columbia: first record of Parastacoidea in the northern hemisphere. Journal of Crustacean Biology 31, 320–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frizzell, DL and Exline, H (1958) Crustacean gastroliths from the Claiborne Eocene of Texas. Micropaleontology 4, 273–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garassino, A (1997) The macruran decapod crustaceans of the Lower Cretaceous (Lower Barremian) of Las Hoyas (Cuenca, Spain). Atti Società italiana Scienze naturali Museo civico Storia naturali Milano 137, 12.Google Scholar
Garassino, A and Krobicki, M (2002) Galicia marianae n. gen., n. sp. (Crustacea, Decapoda, Astacidea) from the Oxfordian (Upper Jurassic) of the southern Polish uplands. Bulletin of the Mizunami Fossil Museum 29, 51–9.Google Scholar
Genise, JF, Bedatou, E, Bellosi, ES, Sarzetti, LC, Sánchez, MV and Krause, JM (2016) The Phanerozoic four revolutions and evolution of paleosol ichnofacies. In The Trace-Fossil Record of Major Evolutionary Events (eds Mángano, MG and Buatois, L), pp. 301–70. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glazer, L, Tom, M, Weil, S, Roth, Z, Khalaila, I, Mittelman, B and Sagi, A (2013) Hemocyanin with phenoloxidase activity in the chitin matrix of the crayfish gastrolith. Journal of Experimental Biology 216, 1898–904.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenaway, P (1985) Calcium balance and moulting in the Crustacea. Biological Reviews 60, 425–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gueriau, P, Charbonnier, S and Clément, G (2014) First decapod crustaceans in a Late Devonian continental ecosystem. Palaeontology 57, 1203–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habraken, WJEM, Masic, A, Bertinetti, L, Al-Sawalmih, A, Glazer, L, Bentov, S, Fratzl, P, Sagi, A, Aichmayer, B and Berman, A (2015) Layered growth of crayfish gastrolith: about the stability of amorphous calcium carbonate and role of additives. Journal of Structural Biology 189, 2836.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamilton-Bruce, RJ and Kear, BP (2010) A possible succineid land snail from the Lower Cretaceous non-marine deposits of the Griman Creek Formation at Lightning Ridge, New South Wales. Alcheringa 34, 325–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton-Bruce, RJ, Kear, BP and Smith, BJ (2004) A new non-marine Early Cretaceous gastropod species from Lightning Ridge, New South Wales. Alcheringa 28, 485–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton-Bruce, RJ, Smith, BJ and Gowlett-Holmes, KL (2002) Descriptions of a new genus and two new species of viviparid snails (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Viviparidae) from the Early Cretaceous (middle-late Albian) Griman Creek Formation of Lightning Ridge, northern New South Wales. Records of the South Australian Museum 35, 193203.Google Scholar
Hasiotis, ST (2002) Where is the fossil evidence for Gondwanan crayfish? Gondwana Research 5, 872–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasiotis, ST and Mitchell, CE (1993) A comparison of crayfish burrow morphologies: Triassic and Holocene fossil, paleo‐and neo‐ichnological evidence, and the identification of their burrowing signatures. Ichnos 2, 291314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasiotis, ST, Kirkland, JI and Callison, G (1998) Crayfish fossils and burrows, upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, Western Colorado: evolutionary and paleohydrologic implications: the Morrison formation—an interdisciplinary study, part 1. Modern Geology 22, 481–91.Google Scholar
Herne, MC, Tait, AM, Weisbecker, V, Hall, M, Nair, JP, Cleeland, M and Salisbury, SW (2018) A new small-bodied ornithopod (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) from a deep, high-energy Early Cretaceous river of the Australian–Antarctic rift system. PeerJ 5, e4113. doi: 10.7717/peerj.4113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Herrick, FH (1911) Natural History of the American Lobster (No. 747). Washington: US Government Printing Office.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobbs, HH Jr. (1942) A generic revision of the crayfishes of the subfamily Cambaridae (Decapoda, Astacidae) with the description of a new genus and species. American Midland Naturalist 28, 334–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hocknull, SA (1997) Cretaceous freshwater bivalves from Queensland. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 42, 223–6.Google Scholar
Hocknull, SA (2000) Mesozoic freshwater and estuarine bivalves from Australia. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 45, 405–26.Google Scholar
Huxley, TH (1879) On the classification and the distribution of the crayfishes. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 52752–88.Google Scholar
Kear, BP and Godthelp, H (2008) Inferred vertebrate bite marks on an Early Cretaceous unionoid bivalve from Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia. Alcheringa 32, 6571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latreille, PA (1802) Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière des Crustacés et Insectes. Familles Naturelles des Genres. Tome Troisième. Paris: F. Dufart, 467 pp.Google Scholar
Luquet, G (2012) Biomineralizations: insights and prospects from crustaceans. Zookeys 176, 103–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markwick, PJ (1998) Fossil crocodilians as indicators of Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic climates: implications for using palaeontological data in reconstructing palaeoclimate. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 137, 205–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, AJ, Rich, TH, Poore, GC, Schultz, MB, Austin, CM, Kool, L and Vickers-Rich, P (2008) Fossil evidence in Australia for oldest known freshwater crayfish of Gondwana. Gondwana Research 14, 287–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthews, KJ, Maloney, KT, Zahirovic, S, Williams, SE, Seton, M and Müller, RD (2016) Global plate boundary evolution and kinematics since the late Paleozoic. Global and Planetary Change 146, 226–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMichael, DF (1956) A review of the fossil freshwater mussels (Mollusca, Pelecypoda) of Australasia. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 81, 222–44.Google Scholar
McWhinnie, MA (1962) Gastrolith growth and calcium shifts in the freshwater crayfish, Orconectes virilis. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology 7, 114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Molnar, RE (1980) Procoelous crocodile from Lower Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, NSW. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 20, 6575.Google Scholar
Molnar, RE (1999) Avian tibiotarsi from the Early Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, New South Wales. In Proceedings of the Second Gondwanan Dinosaur Symposium (eds Tomida, Y, Rich, T and Vickers-Rich, P), pp. 197209. National Science Museum Monographs 15.Google Scholar
Molnar, RE and Willis, PMA (2001) New crocodyliform material from the Early Cretaceous Griman Creek Formation, at Lightning Ridge, New South Wales. In Crocodilian Biology and Evolution (eds Grigg, GC, Seebacher, F and Franklin, CE), pp. 7582. Chipping Norton NSW, Australia: Surrey Beatty & Sons.Google Scholar
Moore, M (2002) Geophysical Ground Surveys Over Lightning Ridge Opal Prospects. Geological Survey Report No. GS2002/442. Geological Survey of New South Wales, Department of Mineral Resources, 43 pp.Google Scholar
Nagasawa, H (2012) The crustacean cuticle: structure, composition and mineralization. Frontiers in Bioscience 4, 711–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nascimento, DL, Batezelli, A and Ladeira, FSB (2017) Freshwater Decapoda trace fossils in floodplain paleosols of Marília Formation in Minas Gerais state (SE Brazil). Revista Brasileira de Paleontologia 20, 287–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newton, RB (1915) On some molluscan remains from the opal deposits (Upper Cretaceous) of New South Wales. Proceedings of the Malacological Society of London 11, 217–35.Google Scholar
Ortmann, AE (1905) Procambarus, a new subgenus of the genus Cambarus. Annals of the Carnegie Museum 3, 435–42.Google Scholar
Pagani, MA, Damborenea, SE, Mancenido, MO and Ferrrari, SM (2011) New early Jurassic decapod crustacean from Patagonia (Chubut province), Argentina. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 85, 143–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pasini, G and Garassino, A (2011) Unusual scaled preservation samples on freshwater decapods (Crustacea, Decapoda) from the Pleistocene (Late Cenozoic) of Turkey and Kazakistan. Natural History Sciences 152, 1318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pewkliang, B, Pring, A and Brugger, J (2004) Opalisation of fossil bone and wood: clues to the formation of precious opal. In Regolith 2004 (ed. Roach, IC), pp. 264–8. Australia: CRC LEME.Google Scholar
Poropat, SF, Martin, SK, Tosolini, A-MP, Wagstaff, BE, Bean, LB, Kear, BP, Vickers-Rich, P and Rich, TH (2018) Early Cretaceous polar biotas of Victoria, southeastern Australia—an overview of research to date. Alcheringa 42, 157229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rey, PF (2013) Opalisation of the Great Artesian Basin (central Australia): an Australian story with a Martian twist. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 60, 291314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheibner, E and Basden, H (1998) Geology of New South Wales – synthesis: geological evolution. Geological Survey of New South Wales Memoir (Geology) 13, 1666.Google Scholar
Shen, Y, Schram, FR and Taylor, RS (2001) Morphological variation in fossil crayfish of the Jehol biota, Liaoning Province, China and its taxonomic discrimination. Chinese Science Bulletin 46, 2633.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, ET (1999) Black Opal Fossils of Lightning Ridge. Sydney: Kangaroo Press, 111 pp.Google Scholar
Smith, ET (2010) Early Cretaceous chelids from Lightning Ridge, New South Wales. Alcheringa 34, 375–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, ET and Kear, BP (2013) Spoochelys ormondea gen. et sp. nov., an archaic meiolaniid-like turtle from the Early Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, Australia. In Morphology and Evolution of Turtles, Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology (eds Brinkman, DB, Holroyd, PA and Gardner, JD), pp. 121–46. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media.Google Scholar
Taylor, RS, Schram, FR and Shen, Y-B (1999) A new crayfish family (Decapoda: Astacida) from the Upper Jurassic of China, with a reinterpretation of other Chinese crayfish taxa. Paleontological Research 3, 121–36.Google Scholar
Tosolini, AMP, Korasidis, VA, Wagstaff, BE, Cantrill, DJ, Gallagher, SJ and Norvick, MS (2018) Palaeoenvironments and palaeocommunities from Lower Cretaceous high-latitude sites, Otway Basin, Southeastern Australia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 496, 6284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Travis, DF (1960) The deposition of skeletal structures in the Crustacea. I. The histology of the gastrolith skeletal tissue complex and the gastrolith in the crayfish, Orconectes (Cambarus) virilis Hagen—Decapoda. The Biological Bulletin 118, 137–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Travis, DF (1963) Structural features of mineralization from tissue to macromolecular levels of organization in the decapod Crustacea. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 109, 177245.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tucker, EA and Tucker, ME (2019) Crayfish gastroliths. Geology Today 35, 26–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ueno, M (1980) Calcium transport in crayfish gastrolith disc: morphology of gastrolith disc and ultrahistochemical demonstration of calcium. Journal of Experimental Zoology 213, 161–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vickers-Rich, P, Rich, TH, Wagstaff, BE, Mason, JM, Douthitt, CB, Gregory, RT and Felton, EA (1988) Evidence for low temperatures and biologic diversity in Cretaceous high latitudes of Australia. Science 242, 1403–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Siebold, CT (1848) Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie der Wirbellosen Thiere. Erster Theil. In Lehrbuch der Vergleichenden Anatomie (eds von Siebold, CT and Stannius, H). Berlin: Verlag von Veit & Comp., 679 pp.Google Scholar
Watkins, JJ, Behr, HJ and Behr, K (2011) Fossil microbes in opal from Lightning Ridge: implications for the formation of opal. Quarterly Notes, Geological Survey of New South Wales 136, 120.Google Scholar
Wings, O (2007) A review of gastrolith function with implications for fossil vertebrates and a revised classification. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 52, 116.Google Scholar
Zrzavý, J and Štys, P (1997) The basic body plan of arthropods: insights from evolutionary morphology and developmental biologyJournal of Evolutionary Biology 10, 353–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar