Galathea
Galathea is a genus of squat lobsters in the family Galatheidae. It is one of the largest genera of squat lobsters that in 2008 contained 73 species. Most species of Galathea live in shallow waters.

Matthias Buschmann (M.Buschmann) · CC BY-SA 2.5 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- GalatheidaePBDB
- Diet
- detritivorePBDB, for Galatheidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Decapoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca
Time the record covers
At least 96 million years on record.
The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 106.3 Mya to 2.58 Mya.
32 occurrences of Galathea on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
32 occurrencesThese are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
9 formations
- Upper Coralline Limestone Formation2
- Calcareniti di Castelgomberto Formation2
- Akrabou Formation1
- Pawpaw Formation · Washita Group1
- Megami Formation1
- Castelgomberto Formation1
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The named rock units Galathea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 21 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Galathea and its relatives
MioceneWhere Galathea and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
703 taxa- Xantho moldavicus7 sites
- Daira speciosa6 sites
- Palaeomunida defecta5 sites
- Pilumnus mediterraneus5 sites
- Porites5 sites
- Petrolisthes magnus4 sites
- Tarbellastraea4 sites
- Actaeites lobatus3 sites
- Calappa heberti3 sites
- Callianassa3 sites
- Callianassa munieri3 sites
- Carpilius3 sites
- Charybdis mathiasi3 sites
- Chlorodiella mediterranea3 sites
- Daragrapsus trispinosus3 sites
- Dromia neogenica3 sites
- Ebalia hungarica3 sites
- Galenopsis similis3 sites
- Haydnella steiningeri3 sites
- Lithophaga lithophaga3 sites
- Pachygrapsus hungaricus3 sites
- Parthenope szaboi3 sites
- Petrolisthes haydni3 sites
- Pisa oroszyi3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Galathea, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
22 references- Decapod crustacea of the Badenian4
- Galatheid, chirostylid and porcellanid decapods (Crustacea, Decapoda, Anomura) from the Eocene and Oligocene of Vicenza (N Italy)3
- New report of the coral-associated decapods from the “Formazione di Castelgomberto” (early Oligocene) (Vicenza, NE Italy)2
- A new coral-associated decapod assemblage from the Upper Miocene (Messinian) Upper Coralline Limestone of Malta (central Mediterranean)2
- Crostacei decapodi dell'Oligocene di Soghe e Valmarana (Monti Berici, Vicenza - Italia Settentrionale)2
- Decapoda (Crustacea) fauna a budapesti miocénből (2)2
- On some Crustacea collected by Miss Caroline Birley and MMiss L. Copland from the Upper Cretaceous of Faxe, Denmark2
- La fauna di crostacei associati a coralli dell'Eocene Superiore di Campolongo di Val Liona (Monti Berici, Vicenz, Italia nordorientale)1
- Contributo ai crostacei decapodi dell’Eocene inferiore dei Monti Lessini orientali (Italia nordorientale)1
- Crostacei decapodi del "Tufo A Lophoranina" (Luteziano inferiore) dalla valle del Chiampo (Vincenza-Italia Nordorientale)1
- Galathea mainensis n. sp., (Crustacea, Decapoda, Anomura, Galatheidae) Middle Eocene of Cava "Main" Arzignano (Vicenza, northern Italy)1
- New decapod assemblage from the Upper Creaceous (Cenomanian-Turonian) of Gara Sbaa, southeastern Morocco1
Each of the 32 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 10 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Galathea
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Matthias Buschmann (M.Buschmann)
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Galathea was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Galathea”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itGalatheidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fabricius 1793