The Thompsoniidae are a
family of
parasitic barnacle
A barnacle is a type of arthropod constituting the subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in eros ...
s belonging to the bizarre and highly
apomorphic
In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to have ...
superorder
Order ( la, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and ...
Rhizocephala, and therein to the more diverse of the two
orders
Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to:
* Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood
* Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...
, the
Akentrogonida
Akentrogonida was formerly a suborder of barnacles belonging to the group Rhizocephala, now an infraclass. In research published by Chan et al. in 2021, the suborders Akentrogonida and Kentrogonida
Kentrogonida was formerly a suborder of barnacles ...
.
The Thompsoniidae are one of the smallish families of Rhizocephala, as typical for the Akentrogonida. They only contain four
genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...
, of which two are not universally accepted:
* ''
Diplothylacus''
Høeg & Lützen, 1993 (disputed)
* ''
Pottsia''
Høeg & Lützen, 1993 (disputed)
* ''
Thompsonia''
Häfele, 1911
* ''
Thylacoplectus''
Coutière, 1902
References
External links
*
Barnacles
Parasitic crustaceans
Crustacean families
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