Petalidium, Spence Bate, 1881

Vereshchaka, Alexander L. & Lunina, Anastasia A., 2015, Phylogeny and taxonomy of the enigmatic genus Petalidium (Decapoda, Sergestidae), with biological remarks, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 174 (3), pp. 459-472 : 466

TAXONOMY OF PETALIDIUM

The character dataset indicates the need of an emended diagnosis of the genus. For a deeper insight into the taxonomy of Petalidium , we analyzed the data in the available literature, which included a total of 10 variable characters (see Supporting informartion, Appendix S4). Having summarized these data, we concluded that only four of these 10 characters are of taxonomic value: character 3 (hepatic spines), character 5 (arthrobranchs on somite XIII), character 7 (LA of petasma compared to Lac of petasma), and character 8 (LA of petasma; number of hooks). These four characters, along with others that we have defined, are used by us as diagnostic characters for species of Petalidium , and for phylogenetic reconstructions.