Probathylepadidae, a new family of Scalpelliformes -- progress in diversity of crustacean from deep sea

The cirripede order Scalpelliformes Buckeridge & Newman 2006 includes five families: Calanticidae Zevina, 1978, Eolepadidae Buckeridge, 1983, Lithotryidae Gruvel, 1905, Pollicipedidae Leach, 1817and Scalpellidae Pilsbry, 1907. In 2014, the research vessel “Kexue” executed investigations of the hydrothermal vent site in the Okinawa Trough. Many macro-fauna samples were collected from hydrothermal areas by the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) “Faxian”. During working on the crustacean specimens, a new genus and species of stalked barnacle, Probathylepas faxian, was found. The new species does not fit into any existing scalpelliform family, therefore the new family Probathylepadidae is proposed to accommodate the new genus and species. Probathylepadidae differs from all other five families of the order Scalpelliformes by the capitulum bearing eight primal plates and two whorls of imbricating supplementary plates, and the peduncle being without scales.

Species diversity deep-sea is a hot international research. Due to difficulty in specimen collection, it is relatively slow in progress of species diversity in deep-sea. Since 2014, Sha Zhongli’s research group at the Institute of oceanology of Chinese Academy of Sciences has published 8 articles of crustacean diversity in deep-sea and has reported 1 new family, 2 new genera and 8 new species.

The paper entitled “Probathylepadidae, a new family of Scalpelliformes (Thoracica: Cirripedia: Crustacea), for Probathylepas faxian gen. nov., sp. nov., from hydrothermal vent in Okinawa Trough” was published online by Zootaxa on Oct 20, 2015. This work was supported by grants from "Strategic Priority Research Program" of CAS and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

      Link: http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2015/f/z04033p150f.pdf