Sylvain Charbonnier

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle · Département Origines & Evolution

Known from at least the Silurian to the Cretaceous, Thylacocephala is an enigmatic fossil euarthropod ingroup, often allied with Pancrustacea. Previous studies show that thylacocephalans are characterized by a folded protective shield, hypertrophied compound eyes, three pairs of raptorial appendages, a posterior trunk comprised of eight to 22 segme...

The relocation of the paleontology collections of the National Museum of Natural History, Paris (MNHN) responded to several fundamental challenges. The first was the direct threat of a hundredyear flood of the Seine River, which would flood 75% of the collection. The second was to gather all the paleontology collections in the same place by 2022. T...

This presentation describes several aspects of the typotheque of the invertebrates paleontology at the MNHN.

We describe here the early Spathian (Early Triassic) Paris Biota decapod fauna from the western USA basin. This fauna contains two taxa of Aegeridae (Dendobranchiata), namely Anisaeger longirostrus n. sp. and Aeger sp. that are the oldest known representatives of their family, thus extending its temporal range by 5 Myr back into the Early Triassic....

Unknown until recently in the fossil record of Slovenia, many specimens of thylacocephalans were collected from the Middle Triassic (Anisian) beds of the Velika Planina Member and Strelovec Formation in Kamnik-Savinja Alps, as well as in the Late Triassic beds (Carnian) of the Martuljek Formation in the Julian Alps.

Strategies used by marine vertebrates to regulate their body temperature can result in local variations, and the knowledge of these regional heterothermies is crucial for better understanding the thermophysiologies of extant and extinct organisms. In order to investigate regional heterothermies in vertebrates, we analysed the oxygen isotope composi...

En 2022, nous célébrons le bicentenaire de l’invention du mot « paléontologie ». La paléontologie est une science naturelle à la croisée des chemins entre géologie et biologie. Grâce aux fossiles, elle nous permet de comprendre l’évolution de notre planète. Le paléontologue est ainsi un détective qui collecte patiemment des données lors de mission...

L’écosystème énigmatique des temps édiacariens : entre –580 et –540 millions d’années, un monde étrange prolifère dans tous les milieux marins de la Terre. Beaucoup de questions se posent sur les organismes de cette époque et leur mode de vie.

La paléontologie est une discipline qui s’appuie sur des objets que l’on trouve dans la nature. Il importe d’en conserver un certain nombre, car ils sont les éléments vérifiables sur lesquels s’appuie cette science.

A synthesis of our current knowledge of erymoid lobsters is presented. The superfamily Erymoidea includes two families, Erymidae Van Straelen, 1925 and Enoploclytiidae Devillez, Charbonnier & Barriel, 2019, together encompassing 81 species within six genera. Our examination of the palaeobiodiversity of this group and its evolution has revealed some...

Strategies used by marine vertebrates to regulate their body temperature can result in local variations, and the knowledge of these regional heterothermies is crucial for better understanding the thermophysiologies of extant and extinct organisms. In order to investigate regional heterothermy in vertebrates, we analysed the oxygen isotope compositi...

Since the 1980s, the Upper Jurassic lithographic limestone of the Causse Méjean (southern France) has been known by local naturalists to yield fossils. However, until the beginning of the 21st century, this plattenkalk remained largely undersampled and scientifically underestimated. Here, we present the results of two decades of prospection and sam...

In our ongoing studies of both extinct and extant hermit crabs (Paguroidea Latreille, 1802), we have observed and recorded a number of morphological changes that have taken place between Early Jurassic times (c. 185 million years ago) and the present day. Species compositions of paguroid assemblages from marine Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous r...

The French National Museum of Natural History (Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN) also commonly referred to simply as the Muséum) is one of the pillars of research on fossil crustaceans, with a collection of more than 20,000 samples. The MNHN micropaleontology reserves contain rocks, thin sections and microfossils collected in Afghanistan....

The mass extinction characterizing the Permian/Triassic boundary (PTB; ~ 252 Ma) corresponds to a major faunal shift between the Palaeozoic and the Modern evolutionary fauna. The temporal, spatial, environmental, and ecological dynamics of the associated biotic recovery remain highly debated, partly due to the scarce, or poorly-known, Early Triassi...

Polychelidan lobsters are unique decapod crustaceans characterized by having four or five pairs of claws. We still do not have a clear overview of the 69 described species of fossil polychelidans and, until now, little was known of their phylogenetic relationships. Our phylogenetic analysis includes 35 fossil polychelidans and offers the first high...

Known from at least the Silurian (c. 435 Ma) up to the Late Cretaceous (c. 85 Ma), thylacocephalans are among the most intriguing fossil euarthropods. They are characterized by a prominent shield enveloping most of the body, hypertrophied compound eyes, three pairs of large, raptorial appendages and a trunk with 8–22 stout segments bearing appendag...

Thylacocephala (euarthropoda: eucrustacea?) is a group of enigmatic fossil euarthropods, known from at least the silurian to the Cretaceous. The Triassic is considered to be the period during which thylacocephalans were the most diversified with 17 species reported from 19 localities in nine countries. However, Thylacocephala were assumed to be rar...

Erymoid lobsters (Crustacea, Decapoda, Erymoidea) are an important component of Mesozoic crustacean faunas in Europe, especially during the Jurassic. With 36 species reported, these lobsters reach their highest diversity during the Late Jurassic. After the review presented here, 23 species belonging to Eryma Meyer, 1840 (11 species), Palaeastacus B...

A large sample of mecochirid lobsters (Crustacea, Decapoda, Mecochiridae) has been recently collected from the early Barremian (Early Cretaceous) of Lebanon. The studied specimens are described as Meyeria libanotica sp. nov. The genus Meyeria M’Coy, 1849 is also revised and new combinations are proposed for two species: Meyeria bartholomaii (Jell,...

The genus Adelocoenia ORBIGNY, 1849, is revised and a neotype is designated for its type species Astrea castellum MICHELIN, 1844. For various reasons that lie in the taxonomic history of scleractinian corals, it has become a difficult task to reliably assign Mesozoic corals having the combined features of plocoid corallite integration and the absen...

With over 15,000 extant species, Decapoda-or ten-legged crustaceans such as crabs, shrimp, lobsters, and relatives-are among the most speciose and economically important group of crustaceans. Despite of their diversity, anatomical disparity, and remarkable fossil record extending back to the Late Paleozoic, the origins of Decapoda and their phyloge...

Le MNHN est l’un des piliers de la recherche sur les crustacés fossiles qui s’appuie sur une collection de plus de 20 000 échantillons. Cette collection a été constituée par les pionniers de la paléontologie des invertébrés marins et de la micropaléontologie. Elle a servi de base à l’établissement de la systématique des crustacés et de leur histoir...

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) has recently circulated a letter, dated 21st April, 2020, to more than 300 palaeontological journals, signed by the President, Vice President and a former President of the society (Rayfield et al. 2020). In this letter, significant changes to the common practices in palaeontology are requested. In our pr...

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) has recently circulated a letter, dated 21st April, 2020, to more than 300 palaeontological journals, signed by the President, Vice President and a former President of the society (Rayfield et al. 2020). In this letter, significant changes to the common practices in palaeontology are requested. In our pr...

Fossils, including those that occasionally preserve decay-prone soft tissues, are mostly made of minerals. Accessing their chemical composition provides unique insight into their past biology and/or the mechanisms by which they preserve, leading to a series of developments in chemical and elemental imaging. However, the mineral composition of fossi...

Exceptional preservation through phosphatization is primarily controlled by a reduction in pH, favoring the precipitation of apatite over that of calcite. Laboratory experiments have suggested that phosphatization results from anoxic decay. Here we report results of the fine-scale mineralogical characterization of Cretaceous phosphatized fossils of...

Homo erectus paleoenvironments in the early Pleistocene Denizli Basin: an integrated paleontological, sedimentological and geochemical approach

Paleontologists have always tested, used and developed cutting edge imaging techniques to produce the most complete and accurate descriptions of their fossils. Nowadays, efforts are largely driven by taphonomic studies, especially those investigating the exceptional preservation of organic molecules or soft tissues, leading to a series of developme...

Crustacean eggs are rare in the fossil record. Here we report the exquisite preservation of a fossil polychelidan embedded within an unbroken nodule from the Middle Jurassic La Voulte-sur-Rhône Lagerstätte (France) and found with hundreds of eggs attached to the pleon. This specimen belongs to a new species, Palaeopolycheles nantosueltae sp. nov. a...

Many Cretaceous asymmetrical rhynchonellid brachiopods (Brachiopoda, Rhynchonellida) have long been considered as Rhynchonella difformis (Valenciennes in Lamarck, 1819). After a revision, Owen (1962) included the Cenomanian specimens from Europe in Cyclothyris M’Coy, 1844. Later, Manceñido et al. (2002) confirmed this decision and critically mentio...

With approximately 1,500 extant species, freshwater crabs (Decapoda: Brachyura) are among the most diverse decapod crustaceans. Nevertheless, their fossil record is extremely limited: only Potamidae, Potamonautidae and Trichodactylidae are reported up to the Eocene of the Neotropics so far. This work documents unusually large decapod claws from the...

A morphological-based phylogenetic analysis of a total of 33 species: 27 fossil species from eight families recognized prior to this work (Chimaerastacidae, Clytiopsidae, Erymidae, Glypheidae, Litogastridae, Nephropidae, Pemphicidae, Uncinidae), and 6 extant species from four families recognized prior to this work (Astacidae, Enoplometopidae, Nephr...

Konservat‐Lagerstätten are seen as snapshots of past biodiversity for a given location and time. However, processes leading to the exceptional morphological preservation of fossils in these deposits remain incompletely understood. This results in a deficient assessment of taphonomic biases and limits the robustness/relevance of palaeobiological rec...

Polychelidan lobsters are decapod crustaceans characterized by their four to five pairs of claws. The first description of a polychelidan lobster dates back to 1817, and since then, numerous species have been described with varying level of details. This situation sometimes led to the description of synonymous species, and more generally, led to a...

With approximately 1,500 extant species, freshwater crabs (Decapoda: Brachyura) are among the most diverse decapod crustaceans. Nevertheless, their fossil record is extremely limited: only Potamidae, Potamonautidae and Trichodactylidae are reported up to the Eocene of the Neotropics so far. This work documents unusually large decapod claws from the...

1. Introduction Glypheoid lobsters form a specialized group of decapod crustaceans that is highly diversified in the fossil record. They appeared in the Triassic, prospered in the Jurassic, declining between the Cretaceous and the Eocene. This group was considered extinct in the Eocene until the discovery of two extant species from the Pacific area...

Xiphosurida—crown group horseshoe crabs—are a group of morphologically conservative marine chelicerates (at least since the Jurassic). They represent an idealised example of evolutionary stasis. Unfortunately, body fossils of horseshoe crabs seldom preserve appendages and their associated features; thus, an important aspect of their morphology is a...

Erymid lobsters (Crustacea, Decapoda, Erymidae) are an important component of Mesozoic crustacean faunas in Europe, especially during the Jurassic. The 29 species reported from the Early and Middle Jurassic are the oldest found in Western Europe and North America, and constitute an important part of the evolutionary history of these lobsters. After...

Two galatheoid anomurans, Gastrosacus raboeufi n. sp. and G. sp., the earliest members of the genus Gastrosacus von Meyer, 1851 known to date, are recorded from upper Bathonian strata in Calvados (Normandy, France). In this respect, we consider the enigmatic Palaeomunidopsis moutieri Van Straelen, 1925 from the middle Bathonian of Giberville (Norma...

Exceptionally preserved specimens yield critical information about the soft-part anatomy and the evolution of organisms through time. We compiled the first global dataset of exceptionally preserved muscles in malacostracans consisting of 47 occurrences, including 18 new records, predominantly preserved in Mesozoic Konservat-Lagerstätten (>70% of oc...

Two new genera and species of thylacocephalans (Arthropoda, Thylacocephala), Parisicaris triassica Charbonnier and Ligulacaris parisiana Charbonnier, are described from the early Spathian Paris Biota. These new occurrences are the first reports of thylacocephalans from Triassic rocks in North America. They considerably enlarge the spatiotemporal di...