Lepidurus
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Lepidurus glacialis , illustration |
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| Lepidurus | ||||||||||||
| Leach , 1819 | ||||||||||||
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The genus Lepidurus belongs within the class of the gill pods or leaf pods (Branchiopoda) to the back shellers or turtle crabs (Notostraca).
Lepidurus differs from the morphologically very similar sister genus Triops by the presence of a supra-anal plate between the branches of the furca on the abdomen . The "permanent eggs" of Lepidurus (actually encysted , i.e. encapsulated embryos in the diapause ) remain hatchable for many years like those of other back shells and can survive long periods of dryness.
The genus Lepidurus is distributed worldwide, one species - the scaled tail ( Lepidurus apus ) - occurs in Central and Southern Europe. This crab appears in early spring and lives at water temperatures of up to 15 ° C in short-term (so-called astatic) still waters, especially in meltwater, flood and smoke pools within floodplains . As a distinct cold-water and spring form ("spring shield cancer") it becomes active much earlier than the heat- loving Triops cancriformis ("summer shield cancer ") and disappears as soon as the temperatures are favorable for the other species. Such a time-structured form of biotope use minimizes competition between species . The habitats of Lepidurus apus - often very inconspicuous ponds and puddles in meadows - are increasingly threatened by biotope destruction such as surface drainage or backfilling.
The classification of the species as well as the subspecies is not uniformly regulated in the literature, the validity of some species is in question.
literature
- DC Rogers: Revision of the neartic Lepidurus (Notostraca). Journal of Crustacean Biology 21 (4), 2001: 991-1006
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