Published December 31, 2010 | Version v1
Taxonomic treatment Open

Elminiinae Foster 1982

Description

Subfamily Elminiinae Foster, 1982 (nom correctum, Buckeridge, 1983a).

Diagnosis: Austrobalanids lacking both internal chitinous stringers and arborescent interlaminate figures.

Distribution and age: Littoral, low energy environments. Oligocene to Recent: southeastern Australia, New Zealand, southern Chile around Tierra del Fuegio to southern Argentina and out to the Falkland Islands; introduced into Europe during the 1940s, temporarily to South Africa in the 1950s and questionably introduced to the Azores in the early 1900s (Figure 1).

Remarks: Newman and Ross (1971, copyright 1970), cited by Ross (1970) as “in press”, had discovered chitinous structures in the wall of Elminius simplex similar to those seen in some tetraclitids, and they briefly discussed how this, as well as some previously known characters, suggested tetraclitid rather than balanine affinities. In the discussion of Epopella, the new genus Ross (1970) erected to accommodate Tetraclita (Tetraclita) purpurascens forma breviscutum Broch, 1922, both Elminius plicatus Darwin, 1854 and E. simplex were transferred to Epopella and thus assigned to the tesseroporan tetraclitids.

As noted in the introduction, Foster (1979) was not aware that Epopella plicata, E. simplex and Epopella breviscutum, had been transferred to the tetraclitid subfamily Austrobalaninae by Newman and Ross (1976). Likely, therefore, he did not feel the need to formalize his new family, the Elminiinae, other than to say, “This species (of Hexaminius) and of Elminius, seem to constitute a southern hemisphere subfamily as well defined as the northern hemisphere Semibalaninae. I propose the name Elmininae (sic) for this subfamily” (Foster, 1982a: 22). Foster’s original spelling for the subfamily was “Elmininae” which was derived from the genus Elminius Leach, 1825, and thus, according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, should have been Elminiinae (Buckeridge, 1983a; Foster, 1987).

The phylogeny of the elminiines (Figure 2) draws upon the conclusions reached by Pérez-Losada et al. (2008) plus interpretation of a relatively sparse but nonetheless informative fossil record (Buckeridge, 1983b, 1984). The main issue with molecular-based reconstructions of phyletic divergence is an assumption that significant changes must occur over considerable time. In Pérez-Losada et al. (2008: 337), it is proposed that the Verrucomorpha-Balanomorpha divergence occurred shortly after the close of the Jurassic c.145 MYBP. However, if the absence of any late Mesozoic balanomorph barnacles is a true reflection of Cretaceous biodiversity (as opposed to an artifact of preservation), and we believe it is, then Protelminius would have arisen from an eight-plated pachylasmatid such as Eolasma only c.50 MYBP.

The absence of Mesozoic balanomorphs is the basis for the broader assessment of balanomorph cirripede divergences as shown in Figure 3. As the Tetraclitoidea appear first in the late Palaeocene (Thanetian) of the Chatham Islands (Buckeridge, 1983a), the divergence of the earliest tetraclitoids (e.g. Bathylasma), from the pachylasmatids, must have occurred in less than 10 million years.

Other

Published as part of Buckeridge, John S. & Newman, William A., 2010, A review of the subfamily Eliminiinae (Cirripedia: Thoracica: Austrobalanidae), including a new genus, Protelminius nov., from the Oligocene of New Zealand, pp. 39-54 in Zootaxa 2349 on page 42, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.275597

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Linked records

Additional details

Biodiversity

Family
Archaeobalanidae
Kingdom
Animalia
Order
Sessilia
Phylum
Arthropoda
Scientific name authorship
Foster
Taxon rank
subFamily
Taxonomic concept label
Elminiinae Foster, 1982 sec. Buckeridge & Newman, 2010

References

  • Buckeridge, J. S. (1983 a) The barnacle subfamily Elminiinae - Two new subgenera and a new Miocene species from Victoria. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 12, 353 - 357.
  • Newman, W. A. and Ross, A. (1971) Antarctic Cirripedia. Antarctic Research Series, 14, 1 - 257. American Geophysical Union, Washington DC.
  • Ross, A. (1970) Studies on the Tetraclitidae (Cirripedia: Thoracica): a proposed new genus for the austral species Tetraclita purpurascens breviscutum. Transactions of the San Diego Society of Natural History, 16, 1 - 12.
  • Darwin, C. (1854) A Monograph on the Sub-Class Cirripedia. The Balanidae and Verrucidae. Ray Society, London. 684 pp.
  • Foster, B. A. (1979) The Marine Fauna of New Zealand: Barnacles (Cirripedia: Thoracica). New Zealand Oceanographic Institute Memoir, 69, 160 pp. (1978).
  • Newman, W. A. and Ross, A. (1976) Revision of the balanomorph barnacles; including a catalog of the species. San Diego Society of Natural History Memoir, 9, 1 - 108.
  • Foster, B. A. (1982 a) Two new intertidal balanoid Barnacles from eastern Australia. Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of New South Wales, 106, 21 - 32.
  • Leach, W. E. (1825) A tabular view of the genera comprising the class Cirripedes with descriptions of the species of Otion, Cineras, and Clyptra. Zoological Journal London, 2, 208 - 215.
  • Newman, W. A. and Foster, B. A. (1987) The highly endemic barnacle fauna of the southern hemisphere (Crustacea; Cirripedia): Explained in part by extinction of northern hemisphere members of previously amphitropical taxa? Bulletin of Marine Science, 41, 361 - 377.
  • Perez-Losada, M. J., Harp, M., Hoeg, J. T., Jones, D., Watanabe, H., and Crandall, K. A. (2008) The tempo and mode of barnacle evolution. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 46, 328 - 346.
  • Buckeridge, J. S. (1983 b) Fossil barnacles (Cirripedia: Thoracica) of New Zealand and Australia. New Zealand Geological Survey Paleontological Bulletin, 50, 1 - 151 + pls 1 - 13.
  • Buckeridge, J. S. (1984) A new species of Elminius from Pomahaka River, Southland, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, 27, 217 - 219.