Numbakullidae Gutu & Heard, 2002

Stepien, Anna, 2013, A new species of Numbakullidae Gutu & Heard, 2002 (Tanaidacea, Peracarida, Crustacea) from the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, ZooKeys 337, pp. 35-47 : 36-37

Family Numbakullidae Gutu & Heard, 2002

Remarks.

Guţu and Heard (2002) mentioned some morphological similarities between Numbakullidae and two other families: Kalliapseudidae Lang, 1956 and Metapseudidae Lang, 1970. The presence of filtering setae suggests a relationship to Kalliapseudidae . Guţu and Heard (2002) also listed number of characters between the two families, which imply that present of setae is a parallelism.

Numbakullidae resembles the Metapseudidae in the appearance of pereopods 2-5 (elongated propodus and well-developed dactylus). Guţu (2006) later suggested that Numbakulla is most closely similar to three genera from subfamily Chondropodinae Guţu, 2008 ( Metapseudidae ): Calozodion Gardiner, 1973, Zaraza Guţu, 2006c and Chondropodus Guţu, 2006a based on configuration of terminal lobe of labium.

Despite this similarities there are many characters which distinguish the Chondropodinae from the Numbakullidae : short pleotelson, usually with lateral incision, spines on antennule, labium with lateral spines, pereopod 1 digging type, with row of spines and plumose setae on basis, and propodus longer than carpus. At this point, therefore the relationships of the Numbakullidae remained unclear.

Undoubtedly Numbakulla represents a separate family. According to a phylogenetic analysis based on morphological characters, the Numbakullidae is not closely related to either the Kalliapseudidae nor the Metapseudidae (personal observations, study in progress).