Thaumastochelidae

Thaumastochelidae
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Euarthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Superfamily: Nephropoidea
Family: Thaumastochelidae
Bate, 1888
Genera

Thaumastocheles Wood-Mason, 1874
Thaumastochelopsis Bruce, 1988

The family Thaumastochelidae contains five known species of deep-sea lobsters, three in the genus Thaumastocheles, and two in the genus Thaumastochelopsis. The fifth species was discovered in the ten–year Census of Marine Life.[1][2] These creatures are distinguished from other clawed lobsters by their blindness (an adaptation to deep-sea life), and by their single elongated, spiny chela.[3]

The family Thaumastochelidae is now more usually subsumed into the lobster family Nephropidae.[4]

The five species are as follows:

References

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