Diversity of the Crinocheta (Crustacea, Isopoda, Oniscidea) from Early Miocene Chiapas amber, Mexico

Currently, the Oniscidea (terrestrial isopods) is a massive Crustacea suborder of more than 3700 species, but our knowledge of their paleodiversity is poor. In this paper, we present ten fossils of Crinocheta, the largest Glade within the Onisicdea, discovered in Early Miocene (23 Ma) amber of Chiapas. We describe three new genera and six new species including Palaeolibrinus spinicornis gen. nov. sp. nov., Armadilloniscus miocaenicus sp. nov., Archeostenoniscus robustus gen. nov. sp. nov., Archeostenoniscus mexicanus sp. nov., Palaeospherarmadillo mazanticus gen. nov. sp. nov., and Palaeospherarmadillo rotundus sp. nov. This study represents the first fossil record of the family Detonidae, Olibrinidae, and "Stenoniscidae". From a paleoenvironmental reconstruction perspective, the oniscidean fauna presented here supports a particularly wet paleoenvironment, under brackish water influence, similar to an estuary.