Menucoestheria Gallego and Covacevich, 1998

Olempska, Ewa, 2004, Late Triassic spinicaudatan crustaceans from southwestern Poland, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 49 (3), pp. 429-442 : 438

Genus Menucoestheria Gallego and Covacevich, 1998

Type species: Menucoestheria terneraensis Gallego, 1998 .

Discussion.— Menucoestheria shows important similarities to Howellisaura Bock, 1953 . They seem to belong to the same developmental trend of gradual change in ornamentation pattern during ontogeny, from reticulate in the dorsal growth bands to radial striae in the ventral growth bands. The Howellisaura – Menucoestheria —like forms probably represent the ancestral stock which gave rise to Bairdestheria , or Eosestheria Chen, 1976 (see Raymond 1946; Zhang et al. 1976; Chen and Shen 1985; Chen 1999).

As defined originally ( Bock 1953a: 71), Howellisaura included species with growth bands ornamented by radial striae; radial anastomozing striae, or reticulate ornament. The Late Triassic (Keuper) species belonging to Howellisaura are also known from North America ( Bock 1953a) and China ( Zhang et al. 1976). Kobayashi (1954) and Tasch (1969) regarded Howellisaura and Bairdestheria Raymond, 1946 , as junior subjective synonyms of Euestheria Depéret and Mazeran, 1912 . According to Kozur (1982), Howellisaura is a junior synonym of Bairdestheria .