First record of a homolid crab (Crustacea: Decapoda: Homoloidea) from the early Eocene of the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

We describe a new species of homolid crab from the Ypresian (early Eocene) Roda Formation of Huesca province (Aragon, Spain). In spite of the fragmentary condition of the sole specimen, some preserved frontal elements, and in particular the complete left cheliped, allow inclusion it within the genus Paromola Wood-Mason in Wood-Mason and Alcock, 1891, based on morphological similarities with the extant species of this genus. Direct comparison with specimens of the extant Paromola cuvieri (Risso, 1815) confirms this systematic assignment. Paromola bretoni n. sp. is the first homolid reported in the Cenozoic of the Iberian Peninsula, and expands the rich decapod fossil record of the Eocene basins of southern Pyrenees.