Fossil crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda) from the Late Cretaceous cárdenas Formation, east-central Mexico

Twenty-four nearly complete carapace samples were collected at three different localities of the Maastrichtian (Late Cretaceous) Cárdenas Formation in San Luis Potosí, east-central Mexico. The material has been assigned to five families: the Callianassidae, Dakoticancridae, Carcineretidae, ?Majidae, and Retroplumidae. Two genera of callianassid shrimp are described,Cheramusfor the first time in the fossil record.Dakoticancer australisRathbun is reported as the most abundant crustacean element; one new genus and species of carcineretid crab,Branchiocarcinus cornatus, is erected, and a single, fragmentary specimen is questionably referred to the Majidae. The three localities reflect paleoenvironmental differences, exhibited by different lithologies, within marginal marine, lagoon environments. The record of dakoticancrid crabs in the Cardenas Formation extends the paleobiogeographic range of the family and the genusDakoticancer.Carcineretid crabs, although not abundant, seem to have been a persistent element of crustacean assemblages in clastic environments during the Late Cretaceous of the ancestral Gulf Coast of Mexico.