Portal:Crustaceans

Hemigrapsus estellinensis is an extinct species of crab, formerly endemic to the Texas Panhandle. It was closely related to species from the Pacific Ocean such as Hemigrapsus oregonensis, but lived 500 mi (800 km) inland in a hypersaline spring. Its occurrence so far from the ocean has been described as "curious", and it was "probably a Pleistocene relic". It differed from its relatives by the pattern of spots on its back, and by the relative sizes of its limbs. H. estellinensis was discovered by Gordon C. Creel in 1962 and was probably already extinct before his description was published in 1964, after the Estelline Salt Springs where it lived were contained by the United States Army to reduce the salt load on the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River.

• ... that until the discovery in 1975 of the "living fossil" Neoglyphea inopinata (pictured), glypheoid crustaceans were thought to have been extinct since the Eocene?
• ... that the goose barnacle Lepas anserifera is found attached to driftwood, flotsam and even whales?
• ... that the spiny lobster Jasus caveorum lives only on one of the Foundation Seamounts in the southern Pacific Ocean?
• ... that the Cape Verdean spiny lobster Palinurus charlestoni is named after a French fishing boat?

Chilton was born on September 27, 1860 at Little Marstone, Pencombe (near Leominster, Herefordshire, England) but emigrated with his family to New Zealand in 1862. They settled on a farm at East Eyreton, North Canterbury. He was troubled by his hips from an early age, and had his left leg amputated, using an artificial leg and a crutch thereafter. In 1881, he gained an M.A. with first class honours from Canterbury College, having been taught by Frederick Wollaston Hutton, who inspired him to take up biology, especially the study of crustaceans, which had been little studied in New Zealand up to that time.

Chilton's first scientific publication followed that same year, when he described three new species of crustacean (two crabs and one isopod) from Lyttelton Harbour and Lake Pupuke. He surprised the scientific world later that year by describing four species of amphipod and isopod from groundwaters at the family farm in Eyreton. He went on to discover the isopod Phreatoicus typicus in the same location, the first example ever described of the suborder Phreatoicidea, the "earliest derived isopod[s]".

Charles Chilton became rector of Christchurch University College in 1921, the first time such a post had been granted in Australia or New Zealand. Chilton died on October 25, 1929 of a sudden attack of pneumonia, before he could collect his life's work into a single monograph. He had published 130 papers on crustaceans, mostly amphipods, isopods and decapods, from all around the world, but especially from New Zealand, subterranean and sub-Antarctic waters.