Galene de Haan, 1833

Khosravi, Erfan, Sari, Alireza, Mirziee-Ataabadi, Majid, Gholamalian, Hossein & Hyžný, Matúš, 2022, A new species of Galene de Haan, 1833 (Galenidae: Brachyura) from the middle Miocene of Zagros Mountains, Iran, Zootaxa 5124 (2), pp. 139-154 : 145

Genus Galene de Haan, 1833

Type species: Cancer bispinosus Herbst, 1783 by monotypy.

Remarks. Števčić (2005) and Davie et al. (2015b) provided morphological features that could be used to diagnose Galene , among which the following characteristics are important for assignment of fossil specimens consisting of isolated carapaces (as exemplified by current study): carapace subhexagonal to subquadrilateral, slightly wider than long, longitudinally convex, with dorsal surface regions moderately defined and branchiocardiac groove distinct; front bilobed to quadrilobed, moderately deflexed; anterolateral margins distinguishable from posterolateral ones, adorned with small blunt denticles.

Fossil Galene have been previously described from the Holocene of Australia ( Etheridge & McCulloch 1916), the Pleistocene of Java ( Böhm 1922), the Pliocene of Taiwan ( Hu & Tao 1996), the Philippines (Karasawa & Kato in Karasawa et al. 2008), Brunei ( Morris & Collins 1991), and the Late Miocene of Taiwan ( Lin 1947; Hu & Tao 1979 1996). A new species, Galene proavita Glaessner, 1960 , was described from the Miocene (Clifdenian stage of the New Zealand geological time scale) of New Zealand. The Clifdenian stage is approximately 15.9 to 15.1 Ma, approximately equals to the Early Langhian ( Hollis et al. 2010).

Karasawa & Kato (2003) re-assigned Galene proavita to the genus Carcinoplax H. Milne Edwards, 1852 based on following traits: a smooth carapace without a defined mesogastric region and a straight front and wide thoracic sternum and male pleon. As such, prior to the present discovery, fossils of Galene were known from the West Pacific, and only as far back as the Late Miocene (of Taiwan).

There are two more specimens referred to Galene with dubious geological settings: Gecarcinus trispinosus Desmarest, 1822 , and Podopilumnus fittoni McCoy, 1849 , both of which have been recognized to be junior synonyms of Galene bispinosa (Herbst, 1783) ( Ng et al. 2008) . There is no information about the locality of origin and stratigraphic horizon of the G. trispinosus specimen (MNHN.F.B41500). The situation for Podopilumnus fittoni is still more complicated, since the specimen was attributed to the Greensand Formation of Lyme Regis, dating back to the Cretaceous; however, there is no more information about its exact location of discovery and geological setting ( McCoy 1849). Hence, further detailed investigation on these two potential Galene specimens is needed in order to elucidate taxonomic and geochronological position of the species.