Thamnocephalidae is a family of

anostraca Anostraca is one of the four orders of crustaceans in the class Branchiopoda; its members are referred to as fairy shrimp. They live in vernal pools and hypersaline lakes across the world, and they have even been found in deserts, ice-covered m ...

branchiopod Branchiopoda, from Ancient Greek βράγχια (''bránkhia''), meaning "gill", and πούς (''poús''), meaning "foot", is a class of crustaceans. It comprises fairy shrimp, clam shrimp, Diplostraca (or Cladocera), Notostraca, the Devonian ...

crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

s with wide distribution including

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. It was originally described as a subfamily of

Branchipodidae Branchipodidae is a family of fairy shrimp, one of eight in the order Anostraca. It contains 35 extant species in five extant genera: *'' Branchipodopsis'' G. O. Sars, 1898 *'' Branchipus'' Schaeffer, 1766 *'' Metabranchipus'' Masi, 1925 *'' Pumi ...

Alpheus Spring Packard Alpheus Spring Packard Jr. LL.D. (February 19, 1839 – February 14, 1905) was an American entomologist and palaeontologist. He described over 500 new animal species – especially butterflies and moths – and was one of the founders of '' The ...

in 1883, and elevated to the rank of

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

by Simon in 1886. Six genera are recognised, in two subfamilies: ;Branchinellinae *'' Branchinella'' Sayce, 1903 *'' Dendrocephalus'' Daday, 1908 *'' Phallocryptus'' Birabén, 1951 *'' Spiralifrons'' Dixon, 2010 ;Thamnocephalinae *'' Carinophallus'' Rogers, 2006 *'' Thamnocephalus'' Packard, 1879

References

Anostraca Crustacean families Taxa named by Alpheus Spring Packard {{branchiopoda-stub