Macrobrachium

Macrobrachium is a genus of freshwater prawns or shrimps characterised by the extreme enlargement of the second pair of pereiopods, at least in the male. The genus is cosmopolitan, found throughout the tropical, freshwater and estuarine ecosystems of both the Old and New Worlds. The genus has a difficult taxonomic history due to morphological conservation between its species (plesiomorphy), and conversely, variations within a single species (polymorphism), leading to the discovery of cryptic species which were only revealed through genetic analysis and morphometry.

Macrobrachium

Alberto Alcalá · CC BY 4.0 · 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
PalaemoninaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Decapoda
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Decapoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca

Time the record covers

At least 20 million years on record.

The record covers at least 20.45 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Oligocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesPleistocene24–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences785 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence20.45 Mya129 ka23.5 Mya0 Mya

2 occurrences of Macrobrachium on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

2 occurrences

These 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

1 formation

Culebra — 9.08°N, 79.68°W

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The named rock units Macrobrachium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Macrobrachium and its relatives

Miocene

Where Macrobrachium and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

49 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Macrobrachium, 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

1 reference

Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Macrobrachium

Credit
Alberto Alcalá
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
BlueMesh
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

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 itPalaemoninae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bate 1868