Decapod crustaceans of the Lower Miocene Montpelier Formation, White Limestone Group of Jamaica

Hitherto, only Callianassa sp. has been documented from the White Limestone Group of Jamaica. To this meagre record we here add a well-preserved, coral-associated crab fauna of sixteen new species in fourteen genera. The fauna was discovered in the Lower Miocene of the Montpelier Formation, in exposures near the north-central coast of Jamaica. This assemblage is a Miocene decapod fauna unique to the Caribbean. Three genera, belonging to the families Leucosiidae, Portunidae and Xanthidae, are new. Of the remainder, Lophopanopeus is known from both older and younger North American deposits, Kromtitis is known only as fossil, and Dynomene, Teleophrys, Daira, Trapezia and Chlorodiella are extant genera. All are recorded for the first time as fossils in the Caribbean. With the exception of Teleophrys, all are represented in the Upper Miocene coral-associated deposits of Europe and similar deposits of Middle Miocene age from Japan, from whence Leptodius, also present in the new collection, has been described. Three extant genera, Mithrax, Micropanope and Panopeus, have previously been recorded in younger deposits from Jamaica. The only other coral-associated assemblage described from the Caribbean, from the Pleistocene terraces of Barbados, consists of twelve species in seven genera, all but one of which are extant forms.