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The tantulocaridan life cycle: the circle closed?
Huys, R.; Boxshall, G.A.; Lincoln, R.J. (1993). The tantulocaridan life cycle: the circle closed? J. Crust. Biol. 13(3): 432-442. https://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1548786

www.jstor.org/stable/1548786
In: Journal of Crustacean Biology. Crustacean Society: Washington. ISSN 0278-0372; e-ISSN 1937-240X
Peer reviewed article  

Available in  Authors 
    Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee: Open Marine Archive 266575 [ download pdf ]

Keyword
    Marine/Coastal

Authors  Top 
  • Huys, R.
  • Boxshall, G.A.
  • Lincoln, R.J.

Abstract
    The discovery of a new stage in the life cycle of the Tantulocarida is reported. A sexual female, collected from a deep-sea harpacticoid copepod host, was removed from the trunk sac of the preceding tantulus larva. This female is a free-living and nonfeeding stage which presumably mates with the free-swimming adult male previously described. The female comprises a cephalothorax, probably incorporating 2 limbless thoracic somites, 2 free pedigerous trunk somites, and 3 limbless trunk somites. It also possesses paired antennules, the only well-defined cephalic appendages present at any stage in tantulocaridan life history. There is a median genital aperture, the copulatory pore, located ventrally on the cephalothorax at about the level of the incorporated first thoracic somite. This is interpreted as further evidence of a sister-group relationship between the Tantulocarida and the Thecostraca. The known life-cycle stages of the Tantulocarida are now interpreted as forming two cycles, one sexual, the other parthenogenetic.

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