A puzzling frog crab \(Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura\) from the Early Cretaceous Santana Group of Brazil: frog first or crab first?

The evolutionary origin of frog crabs (Raninoida) remains puzzling partly due to their astonishing morphological disparity, ranging from broad and heavily ornamented ‘crab-like’ extinct families (necrocarcinids and allies), to elongate and smoother ‘frog-like’ extant ones (raninids and allies). However, an ancient Cretaceous clade (Palaeocorystidae) displays a combination of plesiomorphic and apomorphic traits that might advocate for either evolutionary scenario: from ‘crab-like’ to ‘frog-like’, or vice versa. This lack of agreement is partly fuelled by the scarcity of Early Cretaceous fossils, a time from which the first raninoidans are known. A close re-examination of an Early Cretaceous fossil from the Santana Group of Brazil, Araripecarcinus ferreirai Martins-Neto, 1987, combined with phylogenetic analysis including all main clades of podotreme crabs, reinforces its raninoidan condition, and rejects the initial hypothesis of a Portunoidea affinity. Furthermore, comparisons with other raninoidans support the hypothesis that a more ‘crab-like’ body plan is the plesiomorphic condition for raninoidans, and that the ‘frog-like’ architecture of Palaeocorystidae, and perhaps the Raninoidea as a whole, reflects a derived condition related to a specialized burrowing lifestyle. Phylogenetic analyses are fundamental to evaluate the position of Palaeocorystidae with respect to raninoidean and necrocarcinid-like families, helping to better resolve the Raninoida evolutionary tree of life, and to gain a broader understanding on their relatedness by common ancestry throughout geological time.